Patton leads German troops against USSR?

[Big J]

Hello,

I'd like to ask a quick hypothetical question for all you history buffs.

I saw G. C. Scot as Patton making a statement about rearming the surrendered German army and taking on the Soviets straight away.
What do people think would have happened if this had become policy?
I notice that in many areas of Asia, the fear of communism led to many Imperial Japanese Army units being kept in the field under Allied command for up to 2 years after the surrender to fight communist insurgencies, and I read in A. E. Duggans 'How to make war' that the cost of the cold war is estimated to be up to 20 the cost of WW2, making the idea of avoiding it by taking on the Soviets upon directly defeating Germany attractive, in retrospect.

How do you think that would have worked out?

 

[robrinay]

I understand that Politics are banned here and this discussion is likely to stray into that area - if it hasn't already. Churchill ordered that strategy to be investigated too,including the word 'unthinkable' into the planning and as history shows it was rejected as unwinnable. However fwiw my 'two pennorth' (UK slang for opinion) is that the only way to have beaten the Soviets would have been to use Nuclear weapons and as we know from the immediate and ongoing fallout etc from the Chernobyl disaster the fallout would have killed Europe and probably Asia Alaska and Canada too depending upon the wind direction over the targets. Somewhere out there will exist a Science Fiction story where the author has researched the issue.

 

[Big J]

I understand that Politics are banned here and this discussion is likely to stray into that area - if it hasn't already. Churchill ordered that strategy to be investigated too,including the word 'unthinkable' into the planning and as history shows it was rejected as unwinnable. However fwiw my 'two pennorth' (UK slang for opinion) is that the only way to have beaten the Soviets would have been to use Nuclear weapons and as we know from the immediate and ongoing fallout etc from the Chernobyl disaster the fallout would have killed Europe and probably Asia Alaska and Canada too depending upon the wind direction over the targets. Somewhere out there will exist a Science Fiction story where the author has researched the issue.

I hear you. But remember that the USSR didn't have the bomb in 1945.
Could the US/UK have used two or three atom bombs and broken Soviet will to fight?
I'd be inclined to dismiss the fears of fallout from Hiroshima type bombs since there were literally hundreds of atmospheric bomb tests of much larger nuclear weapons, and nobody seems that bothered by that.

 

[Two Types]

Could the US/UK have used two or three atom bombs and broken Soviet will to fight?

Nuke the Russians? That would only make them angrier: 'Sod the fallout, have another vokda ... now where's my rifle?'

But seriously. I suspect Patton overestimated his own abilities and underestimated the Russians. I think he also imagined the average German soldier was as keen on war as he was. He might not have been sick and tired of war in May 1945 but the rest of Europe certainly was: I think the German Army just wanted to go home and get on with their lives, not be led into another war by another meglamaniac.

The British Army had been scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of manpower (transferring RAF, Royal Marines and Royal Artillery personnel into the infantry) so hardly wanted to carry on. Maybe it was those two extra years of fighting from 1939 to 1941 that had worn them out ....

 

[Big J]

Nuke the Russians? That would only make them angrier: 'Sod the fallout, have another vokda ... now where's my rifle?'

But seriously. I suspect Patton overestimated his own abilities and underestimated the Russians. I think he also imagined the average German soldier was as keen on war as he was. He might not have been sick and tired of war in May 1945 but the rest of Europe certainly was: I think the German Army just wanted to go home and get on with their lives, not be led into another war by another meglamaniac.

The British Army had been scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of manpower (transferring RAF, Royal Marines and Royal Artillery personnel into the infantry) so hardly wanted to carry on. Maybe it was those two extra years of fighting from 1939 to 1941 that had worn them out ....

All good points!
As for the last part, I've always been a firm believer that the Churchill was in no way exaggerating in his speech. The RAF saved the UK from invasion when britain stood alone. In doing so, they changed the course of history, and made the rest of the war, and an Allied (as opposed to simply a Soviet) victory possible, directly saving the world from Nazi domination. The sheer magnitude of the effect on the whole world of the RAF's victory deserves greater recognition around the globe, IMHO.

 

[Big J]

I understand that Politics are banned here and this discussion is likely to stray into that area - if it hasn't already. Churchill ordered that strategy to be investigated too,including the word 'unthinkable' into the planning and as history shows it was rejected as unwinnable. However fwiw my 'two pennorth' (UK slang for opinion) is that the only way to have beaten the Soviets would have been to use Nuclear weapons and as we know from the immediate and ongoing fallout etc from the Chernobyl disaster the fallout would have killed Europe and probably Asia Alaska and Canada too depending upon the wind direction over the targets. Somewhere out there will exist a Science Fiction story where the author has researched the issue.

Do you know what, I read a book, The Day We Almost Bombed Moscow, about how the British Expeditionary Force almost sent Fleet Air Arm bombers out to bomb Moscow in 1917 during the international intervention into the Russian revolution, and that got me looking at another book about the decision to (not) bomb Moscow at the very start of the Cold War, but I'll be damned if I can remember the name of that book now. I should have bought it.

 

[Two Types]

The RAF saved the UK from invasion when britain stood alone.

That's a good point but I've never really accepted the 'Britain stood alone' argument. Could the British have fought on without its Merchant Fleet, which was crewed by men from all over the world? Could the Royal Navy have rescued the army from Dunkirk without the assistance of the navies of many other countries and the Dutch and Belgian barges which assisted the evacuation? What about the Greek oil tankers which braved the U-Boats to bring oil to Britain? Then there's the Commonwealth and the volunteers from around the world (including plenty of Argentinians with only an historic connection to the UK). Where would Britain have been without India? Or without the Canadian factory workers who churned out weapons for the British Army? Or the assistance of a forward thinking American president? Or the Free French? Or the Polish and Czech fighter pilots? Or the thousands of Irishmen who thought the cause of democracy was more important than the historic animosity between the English and the Irish?

Yes, the UK was a beacon for democracy, but it never really stood alone. Much as the patriot within me likes the 'Britain stood alone' argument, the realistic supporter of democracy recognises that even in 1940 it was a worldwide effort.

 

[alsendk]

Thoughtful, and well written Two types. My family lost two brothers,both fishermen from Esbjerg Jutland, who joined the merchant fleet, and got lost in convoys, bound for Murmansk. In letters they wrote about the variety of crew, from all parts of the world, that manned their ships.

 

[LizzieMaine]

How do you think that would have worked out?

Harry Truman, whatever the hard-line Cold Warrior he would become by 1947, absolutely would not have gone along with any such policy in 1945, nor would the 79th Congress have ever issued or even have considered issuing a new declaration of war at that time -- both the Senate and the House were solidly in line with FDR's vision for the United Nations, and Truman was expected to carry on this policy. The only support for a new war on Russia on the home front would have come from the Hearst/McCormick fringe elements -- and that wouldn't have been enough support to push such a policy forward over the overwhelming public opposition it would have faced.

 

[ChiTownScion]

How do you think that would have worked out?

It would have been an unmitigated catastrophe for all. Any offensive military attack against Russia/ the Soviet Union would have been a strategic, tactical, and logistical nightmare.

Patton was a short sighted blowhard who never won a battle unless he had superior force advantage. The movie was great entertainment, but as Miss Lizzie notes, the United States would have never been willing to embrace such a reckless venture.

 

[Two Types]

Thoughtful, and well written Two types. My family lost two brothers,both fishermen from Esbjerg Jutland, who joined the merchant fleet, and got lost in convoys, bound for Murmansk. In letters they wrote about the variety of crew, from all parts of the world, that manned their ships.

I knew a man who served in the Merchant Navy. He spoke of one of his friends, a Dane who served with him. He was at sea on a British ship when war was declared and didn't see his wife and family again for six years. No one should ever forget the contribution of men like that. By May 1945 he'd earned the right to live in peace, not be thrown into another war.

In that list I could also have mentioned the Svenner, a Norwegian Navy ship that was the only major maritime casualty of D-Day. The 32 Norwegian sailors who died on that ship certainly didn't think Britain 'stood alone' in 1940. One list that i checked includes three Polish, three French, four Norwegian and three Dutch Naval vessels among the Allied ships on D-Day. All from navies who stood alongside the British in 1940.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It would have been an unmitigated catastrophe for all. Any offensive military attack against Russia/ the Soviet Union would have been a strategic, tactical, and logistical nightmare.

Patton was a short sighted blowhard who never won a battle unless he had superior force advantage. The movie was great entertainment, but as Miss Lizzie notes, the United States would have never been willing to embrace such a reckless venture.

One of the questions asked by the Gallup Poll during the immediate postwar years was "Do you think the United States should go to war against the Soviet Union?" The first year this question was asked, in 1946, 87 percent of the respondents said "No." Even when the Cold War was at its frostiest, in 1954 -- seven years after the Truman Doctrine was proclaimed, a year after the end of the Korean War, and four years into the McCarthy Era -- 74 percent of Americans had no desire to go to war against the Soviets. The hard-line Better Dead Than Red "Lob one into the Men's Room at the Kremlin" crowd was never as powerful or as influential as it thought it was in the US, even when anti-Communist fear was at its peak.

 

[Edward]

Stalin had already proven himself able and willing to keep thowing men at the front untl they wore down the enemy by sheer weight of numbers. Some of the German troops would remember all too well how difficult that was. Was there even enough of a German army left by that point to do anything serious on their own? Berlin was being defended by pensioners and children by the end. Completely aside from whether they'd be willing to fight alongside the American invader, as they'd have seen them. I very much doubt, remembering the strength of isolationism in the US prior to Pearl Harbour, that there would have been much support in the country - and therefore many votes for Congress - for another war which could well be perceived as "more of our boys dying for some other countries".


Elsewhere, I don't think they could have sold it on any level. The British people weren't crazy about another war in 1939, especially - certainly not if they were old enough to remember the Great War - by 1945, they, and most across Europe had more than definitely had enough. Politically, it would have been difficult in the UK and elsewhere too to sell more war to the population, given they'd had enough of war by now, they'd been told for long enough that nice Uncle Joe was on our side, and not least that they would have been utterly dependent on the morale and biddibility of a conscript army, a very sizeable chunk of whom -unfashionable as it is to acknowledge today - fought not because they believed in any sort of a cause, but because the conscription papers came through the door.

 

[Two Types]

Politically, it would have been difficult in the UK and elsewhere too to sell more war to the population, given they'd had enough of war by now, they'd been told for long enough that nice Uncle Joe was on our side, and not least that they would have been utterly dependent on the morale and biddibility of a conscript army, a very sizeable chunk of whom -unfashionable as it is to acknowledge today - fought not because they believed in any sort of a cause, but because the conscription papers came through the door.

that's a really good point. These days there seems to be a sort of rose-tinted Daily Mail reader view of why troops fought in WW2. I can't say I've met that many out and out patriots when I've interviewed veterans. I once asked a bloke if he'd fought for 'King and Country' - he said 'no, I was fighting for Yorkshire'.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Another point worthy of note is that in 1945 most Americans strongly supported the Teheran Declaration, which was widely interpreted as indicating that the US, the UK, and the USSR would cooperate toward peace during the postwar era. All three of the Big Three had their own agendas at work despite this declaration, but there was a very strong sense among the public that whatever differences the three nations had among themselves about the shape of postwar Europe could be solved by negotiation and not by further conflict. As for Stalin, he'd just lost nine million soldiers, and over eleven million civilians -- that's more than ten percent of the entire 1940 population of the Soviet Union -- and much of his country was in smoking ruins. Whatever territorial adventures he had in mind, and no matter how paranoid he was, he wasn't interested in a full-scale war with the US.

That's not to say that there wasn't discussion of a "first strike" against the USSR at the highest levels of the US Government once the Cold War was underway. Documents declassified in 1975 revealed that the National Security Council had included a "preventive war" among the options in a lengthy report to President Truman in early 1950 -- but the NSC also strongly advised against such a plan as being impossible to justify to the public or the rest of the world.

 

[Stand By]

I read once that, had D-Day failed in June 1944, then the US and British/Commonwealth forces would have remained in Britain regrouping and couldn't have launched another attempt on invading the continent until mid-1946 - but by then, the Soviet steamroller would have marched past Berlin, taken all of Germany and France who-knows-where else … with nobody but a beaten and exhausted Wehrmacht to try and stop them …
Similarly, had the Allies joined forces with the remnants of the Wehrmacht in 1945, it's my opinion that the Soviets would have creamed us all. Reading "The Fall of Berlin" by Anthony Beevor amply demonstrated to me just how colossal the Soviet forces were - the sheer numbers of artillery per-mile was staggering, and the Red Air force was formidable in numbers and quality and they'd ironed out all the problems with their tanks and plenty of gasoline for the lot - and overwhelming manpower wasn't an issue.
Meanwhile, the US and Commonwealth forces were tired and ready for peace in Europe - but the Soviets were hungry to crush whatever they felt was the enemy, wherever it was.

So I have always assumed that it would take a few atom bombs well behind Russian lines to usher in a quick peace if the US/Britain forces took on the Soviets … but then what? The Soviets were both highly motivated and politicized and, as the West is discovering with ISIS, it's hard to defeat an ideology - it takes ground forces - and as both Napoleon and Hitler found out, Russia is so massive, it's a logistical impossibility. I believe it would have just led to a big and unsettled radioactive mess. We'll never know - and perhaps that's a good thing.

 

[Two Types]

But the Russians do have an Achilles heel:

I recall hearing there was a proposal during the Cold War to place gigantic warehouses filled with alcohol just over the East/West Germany frontier. If the Russian tanks roll in, the crews reach the alcohol and advance no further! Don't know whether it's true, but it was a great story.

 

[Stand By]

But the Russians do have an Achilles heel:

I recall hearing there was a proposal during the Cold War to place gigantic warehouses filled with alcohol just over the East/West Germany frontier. If the Russian tanks roll in, the crews reach the alcohol and advance no further! Don't know whether it's true, but it was a great story.

The same could be said of the British (and I'm writing as one) - even the Romans knew never to give the Britons a monthly ration of booze in one go as they'd neck the lot and start fighting amongst themselves. There's something about it. Today it's called "binge-drinking" and 70% of intake in British Emergency departments are alcohol-related at the weekends.
Needing a good laugh? Try this:http://www.maciejdakowicz.com/cardiff-after-dark/
It's Cardiff in South Wales - a Polish photographer taking candid photos of the carrying's on at the weekends. He was awarded Photographer of the Year in Europe for this. Shocking and hilarious. And I was there one weekend a few years ago and it was a completely startling revelation to me - and it's just as it appears on the website, I'm very sad to say.
So just imagine everyone in Soviet uniforms … ! LOL

 

[MisterCairo]

http://www.warmuseum.ca/cwm/exhibitions/chrono/1931britains_side_e.shtml

That's a good point but I've never really accepted the 'Britain stood alone' argument. Could the British have fought on without its Merchant Fleet, which was crewed by men from all over the world? Could the Royal Navy have rescued the army from Dunkirk without the assistance of the navies of many other countries and the Dutch and Belgian barges which assisted the evacuation? What about the Greek oil tankers which braved the U-Boats to bring oil to Britain? Then there's the Commonwealth and the volunteers from around the world (including plenty of Argentinians with only an historic connection to the UK). Where would Britain have been without India? Or without the Canadian factory workers who churned out weapons for the British Army? Or the assistance of a forward thinking American president? Or the Free French? Or the Polish and Czech fighter pilots? Or the thousands of Irishmen who thought the cause of democracy was more important than the historic animosity between the English and the Irish?

Yes, the UK was a beacon for democracy, but it never really stood alone. Much as the patriot within me likes the 'Britain stood alone' argument, the realistic supporter of democracy recognises that even in 1940 it was a worldwide effort.

 

[jamespowers]

That's a good point but I've never really accepted the 'Britain stood alone' argument. Could the British have fought on without its Merchant Fleet, which was crewed by men from all over the world? Could the Royal Navy have rescued the army from Dunkirk without the assistance of the navies of many other countries and the Dutch and Belgian barges which assisted the evacuation? What about the Greek oil tankers which braved the U-Boats to bring oil to Britain? Then there's the Commonwealth and the volunteers from around the world (including plenty of Argentinians with only an historic connection to the UK). Where would Britain have been without India? Or without the Canadian factory workers who churned out weapons for the British Army? Or the assistance of a forward thinking American president? Or the Free French? Or the Polish and Czech fighter pilots? Or the thousands of Irishmen who thought the cause of democracy was more important than the historic animosity between the English and the Irish?

Yes, the UK was a beacon for democracy, but it never really stood alone. Much as the patriot within me likes the 'Britain stood alone' argument, the realistic supporter of democracy recognises that even in 1940 it was a worldwide effort.

All good points. Britain's empire and several other countries all threw in with them to save them from the brink of destruction. In fact, by D-Day, Frederick Morgan was stunned to find out just how few troops he had left to commit to the invasion force due to the fighting from 1939-1942. By 1944 British forces were pretty beaten down. Morgan was a great visionary putting together the plans and integrating the troops to land on the beaches from many countries.