Western Allies declare war on USSR in 1939

Assuming that France and the UK declare war on the USSR following the soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, what are the later implications on Hitlers plan to eventually invade Russia?

My thoughts are that iwere the USSR and Germany to be come co-belligerents in this way, it would be unlikely for Hitler to want a significant Soviet contribution for the Western campaigns, and also unlikely for Stalin to send such aid if it was asked for.
At most I could see a token force of a division being sent to the invasion of France, and perhaps a few fighter squadrons during the battle of Britain. I believe the main Soviet contribution would a large invasion of Iran and Iraq in late '39 or early '40.

If this did occur and come mid '41 a large soviet army group was fighting the British in the middle east and western India, would Hitler still backstab Stalin and launch Barbarossa?
What would happen if he did?
How far could the soviets have gotten in the region by that point?
 
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FBKampfer

Banned
Well if the Allies jump the Soviets, all of Germany's supply problems disappear over night, and Hitler dances a little jig in his office.
 
Stalin does not send any manpower to fight alongside Germans, or if he does, it's a token force for propaganda and intelligence purposes. He will provide enough supplies calibrated to let the Germans keep barely winning, and begin work on some Manhattan Project level five year plan of industry. Combat between the USSR and the Allies will take place in Iran, the Middle East, and maybe the Balkans, but I don't think the Soviets try to press them. Depending on the Japan situation, combat occurs in East Asia as well.

They both want the alliance of convenience to last as long as possible, while intending to betray it all along, like in real life. Nazi Germany wants it to last until they destroy Britain and can invade Russia, and the USSR until they can find an incident that gives them an excuse to switch sides and invade Germany.

It is certain that the Allies devote more resources to the Russian side of things, but this will not be enough to threaten Russia. The best place they have to stage from is possibly Japan, and I think they are more bold in their moves if they believe they have a partly friendly Russia at their back. On the other hand the Axis might not come together, and then Vladivostok is the focus of Allied and Japanese attack. This makes it harder to switch sides, they'd have to make better offers, but Stalin might be the sort to offer the whole region to the Chinese Communists while also agreeing to cede it to Japan in public. If they're all in the axis, switching sides means fighting Japan right away.

It's way out there to say they'd never backstab each other. They definitely would. Five years? Maybe Germany has depleted Britain in the way America depleted Japan, and so they feel comfortable launching their attack into Russia without securing a surrender or invading England. Maybe Russia attacks on the eve of this situation, in anticipation?

No ideas about the US response. They do go Allied eventually. But there might not be a Pacific War, if there is it will be much worse for the US, the USSR is will help Japan in some way.
 
Well if the Allies jump the Soviets, all of Germany's supply problems disappear over night, and Hitler dances a little jig in his office.

Well, in the medium term. In the short term, he'd see a temporary dip in supply as the goods imported from the USSR will be cut off to the Soviet war effort, but you're right about the jig.

The only issue is you already have a state of war between the WAllies and Germany. Can Berlin finesse it's way to peace (through Italian intermediaries?) without ticking off the Soviets too much? Japan and Italy make off like bandits though; the British are going to have their spare resources sucked up, especially force-projection stuff, meaning they're in no position to supply the Chinese or Balkan states in any resistance efforts, nor are the Soviets. This gives the other powers a stronger position from which to enforce their wills regionally
 
Assuming that France and the UK declare war on the USSR following the soviet invasion of Poland in 1939

As I have pointed out before, it would be a bit incongruous for France and the UK to declare war on the USSR for Poland's sake when *Poland itself* did not declare war on the USSR! And legally, there was no commitment to defend Poland against any country other than Germany, at least unless Poland asked for such a declaration (which she didn't). I'll quote an old soc.history.what-if post of mine:

***

Chamberlain's statement in March was

"... in the event of any action which clearly threatened Polish independence, *and which the Polish Government accordingly considered it vital to resist with their national forces* [my emphasis--DT], His Majesty's Government would feel themselves bound at once to lend the Polish Government all support in their power. They have given the Polish Government an assurance to this effect.

I may add that the French Government have authorised me to make it plain that they stand in the same position in this matter as do His Majesty's Government." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Polish_military_alliance

The Polish government did not *officially* "resist with their national forces" the Soviet invasion: "His [Smigly-Rydz's] plan was further crippled when Soviet forces attacked Poland from the east on 17 September. Realizing that defence against both neighbours was impossible, Smigly-Rydz issued orders for Polish forces to retreat towards Romania and avoid fighting the Soviet aggressors."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Rydz-Smigly

Despite this, some Polish forces did fight the Russians, while others surrendered. (And the ones who surrendered were not treated any better by the Russians than those who had put up a fight.) But there was certainly no official Polish declaration of war--which would make such a declaration by France and the UK look a bit odd, to say the least.

Also, a secret protocol to the Polish-British Common Defence Pact of August 25, 1939 clearly distinguished between German and non-German aggression against Poland:

"In a secret protocol of the pact, the United Kingdom offered assistance in the case of an attack on Poland specifically by Germany,[3] while in the case of attack by other countries the parties were required to 'consult together on measures to be taken in common.'"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Polish_military_alliance

AFAIK the Polish government never urged the British government to declare war on the USSR as a "measure to be taken in common" with Poland--which as I noted, itself failed to declare war on the USSR.

My point is that *even from a strictly legalistic viewpoint* an Anglo-French declaration of war against the USSR would be an oddity. From a practical point of view it would do nothing to help Poland and would simply drive Hitler and Stalin even closer together. (This is apart from the problems it would create with domestic Communists in both the UK and France, as you note.)
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/DYDSJDRtI-E/XiuNa2zIbFEJ

***
Whether there was a chance that the Western Allies would later go to war with the Soviet Union after its invasion of Finland is another matter. (The French proposed the bombing of Baku; the British were to say the least skeptical.) This is still very unlikely IMO. But declaring war in September 1939 over Poland is not just unlikely but *extremely* unlikely.
 
Well, in the medium term. In the short term, he'd see a temporary dip in supply as the goods imported from the USSR will be cut off to the Soviet war effort, but you're right about the jig.

He'd see no dip in supply. What the Soviets were doing was sending the Germans their excess of raw materials and food.

at least unless Poland asked for such a declaration (which she didn't).

She did, actually. The Poles approached the British following the Soviet invasion and asked them to invoke the terms of Britain's guarantee to Poland against the USSR. The British Foreign Office's reply was to weasel their way out by stating that the "guarantee of their independence" was not the same as a guarantee of their frontiers.
 
I get why Britain and France didn't want another enemy in addition to Nazi Germany but they should have also declared war on the USSR after Soviet troops invaded Poland. What next? Not much I expect. France is soon out of the picture and the gravely weakened Red Army is on no shape for offensive operations(they were sorely tested by the Finns for goodness sake). How much blood is shed between the British and Russians could have a significant impact on their relationship after Barbarossa. It's hard to imagine Arctic convoys to aid someone you've been at war with.
 

Ak-84

Banned
If it happens, its a whole new war. Its not WW2 any longer, it the Great Eurasian Conflict. The Japanese are in OTL getting their asses kicked by Zhukov. If the Soviets and Germans fight on the same side, then the German declare war on Japan, the Japanese ask the British and the Americans for help and we have a situations that bears little resemblance to the OTL war.
 
If it happens, its a whole new war. Its not WW2 any longer, it the Great Eurasian Conflict. The Japanese are in OTL getting their asses kicked by Zhukov. If the Soviets and Germans fight on the same side, then the German declare war on Japan, the Japanese ask the British and the Americans for help and we have a situations that bears little resemblance to the OTL war.

This is I think this the start of a really interesting scenario.

Russian preoccupation with an offensive into Western Asia might very well lead to the Northern Faction coming out on top in the Japanese political power struggle. If so they could seek to hit the Russians in the Far East and get revenge for Kalkhin Gol, and get aid from the British. (The difficulty here would be that the Allies would very much look like the losing side and the Japanese might not want to tie themselves to a seemingly sinking ship)

A renewed Anglo-Japnese alliance would have major difficulties in the shape of Japanese ambitions in China, but the British by this point might be so hard pressed by the Soviets in Afganistan and Iran that they could overlook it, especially if these Chinese nationalist and communists form a united front at the behest of thier German and Soviet benefactors, more firmly fixing themselves as part of the opposition.

realistically lying for much of the war the Axis and USSR are going to be winning hard in pretty much every theatre due to British overstretch. However I think the back stab in inevitable. Once British forces retreat across the channel and the Luftwaffe starts the Battle of Britain, I think Hitler will begin considering the British as a contained threat and will move his ficus onto preparing for Barbarossa.

Similarly I think Stalin will be preparing to betray Hitler from an early stage. Perhaps the entire Soviet southern offensive will be directed at seizing the British controlled oil production, before Britain capitulates and it falls into German hands.

The betrayal probably happens a little later than in OTL but from then on I think enough hostility will have been fostered between the allies and both belligerents that no offer of cooperation is considered for either the Germans or the Soviets.
Instead a three way global war develops that gives the Allies the breathing room they need to begin making up ground.

When the Americans get involved will be significant, and probably later. With no direct attack like pearl harbour, I think it will be predicated on attack on US shipping. The combined Soviet and German raiding fleets in the North Atlantic will present a significant problem.
Regardless of when they enter the Americans are likely going to have significantly more issue with Japan than the British do and will likely refuse to get involved in the Far Eastern theatre or send direct aid to Japan.
American Expditionary Forces will probably make an appearance in Iran and Western India first and an invasion of Europe later on. American lend lease will probably be routed from Australia to Japan to at least give a modicum of separation. The British might try and stipulate that this material is to be used against the Soviets, but the Japanese will likely flout that.

Eventually as the Germans and Soviets hammer each other across Eastern Europe the allies will make an American lead invasion of Europe and begin advancing eastwards. The Germans now pressed on two fronts and ha,meted by strategic bombing will eventually fold. In this TL you might even see large parts of the Western German army surrender and defect to the Allies on the condition they be allowed to fight under Allied command to fight a Soviet invasion of Germany.

The end of the war will likely se Germany occupied solely by an allied military commissions and The USSR forced into surrender by a nuclear bombing campaign. No occupation of Russia is practical however, and so instead the soviets are disarmed and forced into large territorial concessions, likely including Ukraine, Karelia, Central Asia, the Caucaus, and the Baltics. The Russian Far East probably becomes a protectorate of Japan as part of the co-prosperity sphere. Likely with much of the Russian population removed by population transfers.

The post war world then features a shattered and exhausted Europe reliant on American economic aid, an expansive Japanese empire and system of client states in Asia, a slowly disintegrating British Empire, and a beaten but not broken Russian rump state that thirsts for revenge.
 

Toraach

Banned
First of all Poland need to declare war on the USSR. Sadly in the real life the polish goverment was just too stupid for this move.

For France and Britain the war against the USSR was totally unneccessary. They had already a big enemy, not need for another. So despite some half-heart attempts of planing how to help Finland or bomb the soviet oil industry in Baku, they didn't do nothing.

The only realistic case when they might have declared the war against the Soviet Empire would have been if the Poland had declared the war as a diplomatic response on the soviet invasion. And even there it depends, who would have won an internat struggle in French and British goverments and foreign offices, more cynical or more legalist faction. The first of course wouldn't have declared any war, the second faction (feeling that they needed to abide aliances) could have, but even that wasn't sure.
 
I think that if actual mutual bloodletting between the Soviets and WAllies is minimal, the Wallies will find a way to let the Soviets back in the fold after the Nazis turn on them.
 
I think that if actual mutual bloodletting between the Soviets and WAllies is minimal, the Wallies will find a way to let the Soviets back in the fold after the Nazis turn on them.
I have also always thought that in case of war between WAllies and Soviets in 1940, Iran and Turkey wouldn't be invaded.
 
Could a declaration of war by Britain and France against the Soviet Union in September 1939 see an intervention in the Winter War?

It'll probably be as (un)successful as the Norwegian campaign but more supplies from the West may make the Finns hold out longer.

I don't see France and Britain doing much to Russia otherwise.

That would only change if the Russians get aggressive towards Afghanistan or Persia.

That could see the West turn its back on Russia after Barbarossa is launched.
 
I have also always thought that in case of war between WAllies and Soviets in 1940, Iran and Turkey wouldn't be invaded.

Did you mean "would be invaded" or "would not be invaded"?

I suppose that wonder of wonders, the Soviets and British *could* respect the neutrality of those countries.
 
Did you mean "would be invaded" or "would not be invaded"?

I suppose that wonder of wonders, the Soviets and British *could* respect the neutrality of those countries.
I meant wouldn't because neither the Wallies nor the Soviets wanted to fight a massive war in the Middle East with a militarized and aggressive Germany on their doorstep.
 
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