D-Day happened not because of some altruistic desire to liberate France but because the remaining capitalist states saw that Germany was neither salvageable nor willing to work with them, and something need to be done to stop the Soviets from liberating all of continental Europe and building a socialist bloc with abundant year round naval ports in the open Atlantic.
Prior to the war Nazi Germany was chomping at the bit to destroy the Soviet Union, and the Soviets wanted to take a wrecking ball to Germany, both for the sake of destroying the political epicenter of European fascism, and so they could keep pushing the revolution westward and take the entirety of the continent.
The Western alliance with Poland was an attempt at managing this rivalry, so that they could try to force this nearly inevitable conflict to happen on their terms, not Germany nor Russia’s. The West must have seen that if Germany won this fight and had their pick of whatever they wanted in Eastern Europe, France would end up with a monstrous neighbor that occupied the entire rest of the European mainland, and although Communism would have been uprooted from Russia, Germany could easily use its newly acquired land/resources/industrial capacity to double back and take on France. The goal of destroying the Soviets is achieved, but the Fascist bloc becomes the dominant faction of the imperial core and the anglo-Liberal forces are forced to either submit or try to hold out as just the UK and US against the rest of the world.
Now, if Russia were to win this impending Russo-German war, there was no way in hell Stalin slows his roll after beating Germany and stops at the French border— France and possibly Franco’s Spain would be next, and where does this leave the West? Unlike a German victory, the anglo-Liberal faction of the imperial core is all that’s left and they are stuck with the entire European mainland controlled by communists, an outcome they’ll do anything to avoid. With the shipyard of Germany and France and access to the open Atlantic, they can threaten anglo naval superiority and even plan an invasion of the British isles— and unlike Hitler, who represents just another faction of capitalism, Stalin and the communists are far less likely to give the remaining Western countries the option to accept subservience if they lay down their arms.
So the West find themselves in a position where if they do nothing in this coming Russo-German war, they are screwed either way, and although a Nazi victory is preferable, they figure that through geopolitical fuckery they can get involved and alter the tides. If they side with the communists, which god knows the Western governments broadly speaking do not want to do, they can at least manage the fall of Germany, and hopefully negotiate a post-war European order where the Soviets do not have access to the open Atlantic (i.e., ports that aren’t in an inland sea or the hard to navigate Arctic). D-Day was of course an attempt at taking back territory in France but more importantly it was the first step toward securing a foothold in Germany and making sure that there was a mobilised, battle-hardened force waiting to meet the Soviets so that a hard limit could be put on their Western advance. I don’t mean to say that no one wanted France back under a French government, or that there weren’t people in the anglo military commands and governments who were genuinely disgusted by the Nazis and the crimes committed continent-wide during their occupations, but to the cold, realistic, realpolitiking minds of the people at the top like Eisenhower, the primary goal was setting up the board for the next fight— the Anglosphere versus the Soviet Union.
US General George Patton was adamant that if he was allowed to, he could have taken American troops to Prague and secured Czechia for the West in the post-war order well in advance of the Red Army’s arrival. He was promptly informed by Eisenhower that he would doing no such thing. The post-war order had already been negotiated behind the scenes, and through strategically supporting their mortal enemies against a foe that really wasn’t much different than themselves politically or economically, the intact West had made sure that they also held at least part of Central Europe, instead of either Germany or the Soviet Union controlling the entire continent. So D-Day wasn't purely an anti-communist action, but was also crucial to the Western grand strategy of making sure the Soviets didn’t just keep steaming onward, and setting the stage for the Cold War in terms more favorable to the West.
While there are aspects of that narrative I agree with, I think there's some pretty questionable claims as well.
Now, if Russia were to win this impending Russo-German war, there was no way in hell Stalin slows his roll after beating Germany and stops at the French border
What?? Even with support from the rest of the Allies, WWII was devastating for the Soviets, it required an extraordinary loss of life and resources to defeat the fascists. I'm not inclined to believe that Stalin would simply attack France out of nowhere in this timeline, and I certainly don't agree that "there was no way in hell" they wouldn't. What's your reasoning or evidence for this idea?
So the West find themselves in a position where if they do nothing in this coming Russo-German war, they are screwed either way, and although a Nazi victory is preferable, they figure that through geopolitical fuckery they can get involved and alter the tides.
It's quite a big brained move to try to alter the tides by siding with the larger threat lol.
I don't think there's reason or evidence to suggest that the West found German dominanation all that preferable to Soviet domination. Losing is losing, and while the fascists would preserve and extend the systems of capitalist exploitation, it likely wouldn't be the same exploiters at the top. Germany posed a very real threat of dethroning and replacing the exploiters, which to the exploiters is just as bad as the system of exploitation being dismantled.
This narrative also neglects the Soviet perspectives of the time. The Soviets were more than happy to accept help from the Allies and if anything were critical of them not taking more territory faster. It was only once victory was a forgone conclusion that the rush to sieze land really kicked off. It's also worth noting that the UK and France got involved before any fighting between Germany and the USSR broke out.
So D-Day wasn't purely an anti-communist action
Wasn't purely anti-communist?! It's pretty absurd to imply that it was primarily anti-communist, the Soviets wanted D-Day to happen.
I find this whole narrative is very oversimplified, speculative, and not aligned with the actual history.
Actually the overwhelming majority of French resistance saw the Red Army as liberators in 1945.
That's a totally different scenario to what's being discussed. We're not talking about the USSR moving into France in the historical timeline. We're talking about a timeline where France and the UK sit back and let Germany duke it out with the USSR, and then, after a long, bloody war, the USSR emerges victorious, and then decides to invade France for some reason. In this scenario, there is no French resistance because there is no Nazi occupation of France.
The USSR never invaded West Germany post-WWII, so with the benefit of hindsight, probably never.
However, if France and the UK were so concerned about that, then instead of going to war with the USSR's #1 enemy, they could have sat back and built up their strength while letting the two fight. Then, once in this timeline the USSR finally defeats the Nazis singlehandedly, they could attack the USSR themselves, since it would've been considerably weakened while they were at full strength.
The reality of British and French motivations were more complex than a singular focus on defeating the USSR through the 5th dimensional chess move of forming an alliance with them. What they wanted was stability. They wanted to maintain their "rules based international order" (with themselves on top). The idea was to keep Germany on a leash as a guard dog against the Soviets, and they cut him an incredible amount of slack, just straight up handing him Czechoslovakia in spite of being in a formal alliance with them. But Hitler figured he could just get away with whatever and it turned out that there was, in fact, a line.
In this scenario there is no west Germany because the ussr extends out fast past the border the americnas wouldn't have been there to create. The USSR would have been the only industrial power left in Europe which as a region would have been even further destroyed. So just pushing into the territory of the old empire to fix everything would have looked like a pretty good idea especially since it wouldn't be risking a nuke from the US to do so.
In this scenario there is no west Germany because the ussr extends out fast past the border the americnas wouldn't have been there to create.
I know, I'm saying that historically, the USSR did not expand westward into West Germany so it's unlikely to think that they would expand westerward into France in the hypothetical. Certainly not inevitable.
The USSR would have been the only industrial power left in Europe which as a region would have been even further destroyed.
Are you considering France and the UK to not be industrial powers? The areas that would be destroyed in this scenario are limited to territories occupied by the USSR, since we're talking about the UK and France staying out of the conflict.
So just pushing into the territory of the old empire to fix everything would have looked like a pretty good idea especially since it wouldn't be risking a nuke from the US to do so.
Not sure why you're assuming the US doesn't get nukes here. Am I to believe that Germany would fall more quickly if it was just focused on fighting the Soviets?
Honestly this whole premise is completely ridiculous. It's not like Germany was easy pickings for snatching up territory at the start of the war. What you're doing is looking at the very end of the war, when Germany was defeated and everyone was rushing to seize more territory, and trying to extrapolate those conditions back to the start where they don't apply. Going to war with Germany just to make sure the Soviets don't get the territory means a prolonged war with a very real threat of losing for literally no reason when they could've just stayed out of it and mopped up the pieces later if that was their only goal. It's nonsense.
Yes, it is a counterfactual that didn't happen it is nonsense.
You have to consider that at the start of the war the USSR and Germamy have done the fewest number of genocides. So we have to project or knowledge backwards here.
D-Day happened not because of some altruistic desire to liberate France but because the remaining capitalist states saw that Germany was neither salvageable nor willing to work with them, and something need to be done to stop the Soviets from liberating all of continental Europe and building a socialist bloc with abundant year round naval ports in the open Atlantic.
Prior to the war Nazi Germany was chomping at the bit to destroy the Soviet Union, and the Soviets wanted to take a wrecking ball to Germany, both for the sake of destroying the political epicenter of European fascism, and so they could keep pushing the revolution westward and take the entirety of the continent.
The Western alliance with Poland was an attempt at managing this rivalry, so that they could try to force this nearly inevitable conflict to happen on their terms, not Germany nor Russia’s. The West must have seen that if Germany won this fight and had their pick of whatever they wanted in Eastern Europe, France would end up with a monstrous neighbor that occupied the entire rest of the European mainland, and although Communism would have been uprooted from Russia, Germany could easily use its newly acquired land/resources/industrial capacity to double back and take on France. The goal of destroying the Soviets is achieved, but the Fascist bloc becomes the dominant faction of the imperial core and the anglo-Liberal forces are forced to either submit or try to hold out as just the UK and US against the rest of the world.
Now, if Russia were to win this impending Russo-German war, there was no way in hell Stalin slows his roll after beating Germany and stops at the French border— France and possibly Franco’s Spain would be next, and where does this leave the West? Unlike a German victory, the anglo-Liberal faction of the imperial core is all that’s left and they are stuck with the entire European mainland controlled by communists, an outcome they’ll do anything to avoid. With the shipyard of Germany and France and access to the open Atlantic, they can threaten anglo naval superiority and even plan an invasion of the British isles— and unlike Hitler, who represents just another faction of capitalism, Stalin and the communists are far less likely to give the remaining Western countries the option to accept subservience if they lay down their arms.
So the West find themselves in a position where if they do nothing in this coming Russo-German war, they are screwed either way, and although a Nazi victory is preferable, they figure that through geopolitical fuckery they can get involved and alter the tides. If they side with the communists, which god knows the Western governments broadly speaking do not want to do, they can at least manage the fall of Germany, and hopefully negotiate a post-war European order where the Soviets do not have access to the open Atlantic (i.e., ports that aren’t in an inland sea or the hard to navigate Arctic). D-Day was of course an attempt at taking back territory in France but more importantly it was the first step toward securing a foothold in Germany and making sure that there was a mobilised, battle-hardened force waiting to meet the Soviets so that a hard limit could be put on their Western advance. I don’t mean to say that no one wanted France back under a French government, or that there weren’t people in the anglo military commands and governments who were genuinely disgusted by the Nazis and the crimes committed continent-wide during their occupations, but to the cold, realistic, realpolitiking minds of the people at the top like Eisenhower, the primary goal was setting up the board for the next fight— the Anglosphere versus the Soviet Union.
US General George Patton was adamant that if he was allowed to, he could have taken American troops to Prague and secured Czechia for the West in the post-war order well in advance of the Red Army’s arrival. He was promptly informed by Eisenhower that he would doing no such thing. The post-war order had already been negotiated behind the scenes, and through strategically supporting their mortal enemies against a foe that really wasn’t much different than themselves politically or economically, the intact West had made sure that they also held at least part of Central Europe, instead of either Germany or the Soviet Union controlling the entire continent. So D-Day wasn't purely an anti-communist action, but was also crucial to the Western grand strategy of making sure the Soviets didn’t just keep steaming onward, and setting the stage for the Cold War in terms more favorable to the West.
based on comments by @FLAMING_AUBURN_LOCKS@hexbear.net
While there are aspects of that narrative I agree with, I think there's some pretty questionable claims as well.
What?? Even with support from the rest of the Allies, WWII was devastating for the Soviets, it required an extraordinary loss of life and resources to defeat the fascists. I'm not inclined to believe that Stalin would simply attack France out of nowhere in this timeline, and I certainly don't agree that "there was no way in hell" they wouldn't. What's your reasoning or evidence for this idea?
It's quite a big brained move to try to alter the tides by siding with the larger threat lol.
I don't think there's reason or evidence to suggest that the West found German dominanation all that preferable to Soviet domination. Losing is losing, and while the fascists would preserve and extend the systems of capitalist exploitation, it likely wouldn't be the same exploiters at the top. Germany posed a very real threat of dethroning and replacing the exploiters, which to the exploiters is just as bad as the system of exploitation being dismantled.
This narrative also neglects the Soviet perspectives of the time. The Soviets were more than happy to accept help from the Allies and if anything were critical of them not taking more territory faster. It was only once victory was a forgone conclusion that the rush to sieze land really kicked off. It's also worth noting that the UK and France got involved before any fighting between Germany and the USSR broke out.
Wasn't purely anti-communist?! It's pretty absurd to imply that it was primarily anti-communist, the Soviets wanted D-Day to happen.
I find this whole narrative is very oversimplified, speculative, and not aligned with the actual history.
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That's a totally different scenario to what's being discussed. We're not talking about the USSR moving into France in the historical timeline. We're talking about a timeline where France and the UK sit back and let Germany duke it out with the USSR, and then, after a long, bloody war, the USSR emerges victorious, and then decides to invade France for some reason. In this scenario, there is no French resistance because there is no Nazi occupation of France.
France was still France. How Long before the ussr answered the calls for aid from the French comunists?
The USSR never invaded West Germany post-WWII, so with the benefit of hindsight, probably never.
However, if France and the UK were so concerned about that, then instead of going to war with the USSR's #1 enemy, they could have sat back and built up their strength while letting the two fight. Then, once in this timeline the USSR finally defeats the Nazis singlehandedly, they could attack the USSR themselves, since it would've been considerably weakened while they were at full strength.
The reality of British and French motivations were more complex than a singular focus on defeating the USSR through the 5th dimensional chess move of forming an alliance with them. What they wanted was stability. They wanted to maintain their "rules based international order" (with themselves on top). The idea was to keep Germany on a leash as a guard dog against the Soviets, and they cut him an incredible amount of slack, just straight up handing him Czechoslovakia in spite of being in a formal alliance with them. But Hitler figured he could just get away with whatever and it turned out that there was, in fact, a line.
In this scenario there is no west Germany because the ussr extends out fast past the border the americnas wouldn't have been there to create. The USSR would have been the only industrial power left in Europe which as a region would have been even further destroyed. So just pushing into the territory of the old empire to fix everything would have looked like a pretty good idea especially since it wouldn't be risking a nuke from the US to do so.
I know, I'm saying that historically, the USSR did not expand westward into West Germany so it's unlikely to think that they would expand westerward into France in the hypothetical. Certainly not inevitable.
Are you considering France and the UK to not be industrial powers? The areas that would be destroyed in this scenario are limited to territories occupied by the USSR, since we're talking about the UK and France staying out of the conflict.
Not sure why you're assuming the US doesn't get nukes here. Am I to believe that Germany would fall more quickly if it was just focused on fighting the Soviets?
Honestly this whole premise is completely ridiculous. It's not like Germany was easy pickings for snatching up territory at the start of the war. What you're doing is looking at the very end of the war, when Germany was defeated and everyone was rushing to seize more territory, and trying to extrapolate those conditions back to the start where they don't apply. Going to war with Germany just to make sure the Soviets don't get the territory means a prolonged war with a very real threat of losing for literally no reason when they could've just stayed out of it and mopped up the pieces later if that was their only goal. It's nonsense.
Yes, it is a counterfactual that didn't happen it is nonsense.
You have to consider that at the start of the war the USSR and Germamy have done the fewest number of genocides. So we have to project or knowledge backwards here.
But even if it was self serving as well, was it good they joined the war?
We could be living in a reality where continental Europe was all part of the USSR, so no.