70 years ago, the Allied Expeditionary Force was ready to land in the Russian North. If the Western powers had been able to fulfill their plans, the Second World War would have developed differently.
The Anglo-French invasion of the Soviet Arctic was prevented only by the fact that Finland, under the pretext of helping this action, had already been defeated by Soviet troops by that time. Fortunately for us, either the Red Army defeated the Finnish troops too quickly, or the Western "democracies" were swinging too slowly with their military preparations. Most likely, both together. And also the fact that at the conclusion of the peace treaty with Finland on March 12, 1940, the Soviet Union was very moderate in its demands. Finland escaped with the loss of only a small area. And the Soviet leadership had more than weighty reasons for this moderation - the threat of a full-scale war with Britain and France. And in the future, perhaps, with the entire bloc of participants in the Munich Agreement, that is, with the Western powers, which acted in an alliance with Hitlerite Germany.
Kill two birds with one stone
Back in September 1939, Churchill recommended that the Cabinet of Ministers mine the territorial waters of Norway, through which the routes of German transports passed. Now he directly raised the issue of the occupation: “We can certainly occupy and hold any islands or any points we like on the Norwegian coast … We can, for example, occupy Narvik and Bergen, use them for our trade and at the same time completely close them for Germany … Establishing British control over the coast of Norway is a strategic task of paramount importance. True, these measures were proposed only as retaliatory measures in the event of an inevitable, in Churchill's opinion, German attack on Norway and, possibly, Sweden. But the last quoted phrase makes it clear that this reservation was made purely for rhetorical purposes.
“No formal violation of international law,” Churchill openly developed his proposal, “if we do not commit inhuman acts, can deprive us of the sympathy of neutral countries. On behalf of the League of Nations, we have the right, and it is even our duty, to temporarily invalidate precisely those laws to which we want to emphasize and which we want to enforce. Small nations should not tie our hands if we are fighting for their rights and freedom. " Commenting on this passage, the German historian of the Second World War, General K. Tippelskirch, wrote: "This is not the first time England, on behalf of humanity, violated the sacred principles of international law that prevented her from waging a war."
Of course, such a reproach from the former Hitlerite general inevitably brings to mind the Russian proverb: "Whose cow would moan …". But in fact, one imperialist predator - Great Britain - was not much different from another predator - Germany. England proved this several times during the war. And the preparation of a preventive occupation of Norway, and an attack (without a declaration of war) on the French fleet and French colonies after France signed an armistice with Germany. And, of course, the repeated plans for an attack on the USSR.
In the same document, Churchill raised the question of the possibility of opening hostilities against the USSR: "The transportation of iron ore from Luleå (in the Baltic Sea) has already stopped because of the ice, and we must not allow it to be broken by a Soviet icebreaker if he tries to do it." …
Already on December 19, 1939, the Allied Supreme Military Council ordered the beginning of the development of operational plans for military action against the USSR. For comparison: Hitler gave a similar order only on July 31, 1940 - more than seven months later.
The formal reason for the aggressive preparations of the Western powers was that after the foreign policy turn in August-September 1939, the Soviet Union became the main supplier of important types of strategic raw materials, primarily oil, to Germany. But these preparations also had another, more weighty geostrategic reason, which we will talk about at the end of the article.
The plans for the preventive occupation of Norway (and, possibly, the north of Sweden) became organically linked with the military assistance of Finland against the Soviet Union. On January 27, 1940, the Allied Supreme Military Council approved a plan to send an expeditionary force to the north of Europe, consisting of two British divisions and a French formation, the number of which was to be determined later. The corps was supposed to land in the Kirkenes (Norway) - Petsamo (Finland; now Pechenga, Murmansk region of the Russian Federation) region and expand its area of operations both into the Soviet Arctic, and to the north of Norway and Sweden. Churchill applied the well-known comparison to this case - "kill two birds with one stone." On March 2, 1940, French Prime Minister Daladier determined the number of troops sent to Finland at 50 thousand troops. Together with two British divisions, this would be a notable force in such a theater of operations. In addition, the Western powers hoped to persuade the armed forces of Norway and Sweden to actively participate in the anti-Soviet intervention.
Southern plan
In parallel with the plan to invade Russia from the north, the British and French headquarters were actively developing a plan for an attack on our country from the south, using Turkey, the Black Sea and the Balkan countries for this. In the French General Staff, he received the name of the "Southern Plan". The French commander-in-chief, General Gamelin, reporting to the government on the advantages of the Southern Plan, pointed out: “The general theater of military operations will expand enormously. Yugoslavia, Romania, Greece and Turkey will give us 100 divisions of reinforcements. Sweden and Norway can provide no more than 10 divisions."
Thus, the plans of the Western powers included the creation of a representative anti-Soviet coalition of small and medium-sized countries, which was to become the main supplier of "cannon fodder" for the proposed intervention. The composition of the coalition testifies that the invasion of the USSR in the south had to take place from two directions: 1) in the Transcaucasus, from the territory of Turkey, 2) to Ukraine, from the territory of Romania. Accordingly, the Anglo-French fleet, with the assistance of Turkey, was supposed to enter the Black Sea, as in the Crimean War. By the way, the Soviet Black Sea Fleet was preparing for just such a war during the 1930s. Themselves England and France intended to take part in the implementation of the "Southern Plan", mainly by air forces, carrying out from bases in Syria and Turkey the bombing of the oil region of Baku, oil refineries and the port of Batumi, as well as the port of Poti.
The upcoming operation was conceived not only as a purely military one, but also as a military-political one. General Gamelin pointed out in his report to the French government the importance of causing unrest among the peoples of the Soviet Caucasus.
To this end, the French army special services began training among the emigrants of Caucasian nationalities, mainly Georgians, sabotage groups to be thrown into the Soviet rear. Subsequently, all these groups, already ready-made "by inheritance", passed from capitulating France to the Nazis, who created from them various Caucasian units of the Brandenburg-800 regiment, famous for its provocative and terrorist acts.
Preparations for the attack were close to completion
Meanwhile, events in northern Europe were nearing their denouement. The preparation of the landing by the Western powers proceeded "in a democratic way" slowly. And Hitler decided to get ahead of his opponents. He worried that the Western powers would fulfill their intention to establish themselves as a military force in Norway. Curiously, Churchill does not deny the main motive for the German invasion of Norway: British preparations. He cites the testimony of the German General Falkenhorst, commander of Operation Weser Jubung for the occupation of Denmark and Norway, at the Nuremberg Trials. According to him, Hitler told him on February 20, 1940: “I have been informed that the British intend to land there [in Norway], I want to get ahead of them … The occupation of Norway by the British would be a strategic roundabout movement that would bring the British into the Baltic Sea … Our successes in the East, as well as the successes that we are going to achieve in the West, would be eliminated."
In the midst of the preparation of both sides, the reason for the landing of the Anglo-French landing to help the Finns disappeared. On March 12, 1940, Finland signed a peace treaty with the USSR. But the purpose of the occupation of Norway remained unchanged. The question was who will be in time earlier - the Germans or the British. On April 5, 1940, Allied troops were to begin loading onto ships. On the same day, the British planned to start mining Norwegian territorial waters. However, it was not possible to deliver the required number of transports by the scheduled date. As a result, the beginning of both operations was postponed to April 8th. On this day, ships with an Anglo-French landing left the harbors, and on the same day, British minefields began to be laid off the coast of Norway. However, ships with a German landing, accompanied by ships of the German Navy, were already approaching the shores of Norway at this time!
If the Soviet-Finnish war had continued, and the Western powers had been quicker, then in April 1940, exactly 70 years ago, the Anglo-French operation near Murmansk could have begun.
The end of the Soviet-Finnish war and the defeat of the Anglo-French troops from the Germans in Norway did not stop the Western powers from preparing an attack on the USSR. On the contrary, after this, the British and French military leaders turned even more attention to the southern direction. True, it was not possible to put together a coalition directed against the USSR from the states of the "second order". But Turkey made it clear that it would not prevent Britain and France from using their airspace for raids on the territory of the Soviet Union. The preparations for the operation had gone far enough that, according to General Weygand, the commander of the French army in the "mandated" Syria and Lebanon, it was possible to calculate the time of its start. The French High Command, which was clearly more interested in this matter than Britain, despite the danger already impending from the Rhine, set the end of June 1940 as a preliminary date for the start of air strikes on the USSR.
What actually happened by this time is known. Instead of triumphant raids on Baku and other cities of the Soviet Transcaucasia, General Weygand had to "save France." True, Weygand did not really bother himself, immediately after being appointed commander-in-chief instead of Gamelin (May 23, 1940), he declared himself a supporter of an early armistice with Nazi Germany. Perhaps he still did not give up hope of leading a victorious campaign against the Soviet Union. And, perhaps, even together with the German troops.
At the end of 1939 - the first half of 1940, however, and not only at this time, Great Britain and France considered as the main enemy not Germany, with which they were at war, but the Soviet Union.
"The Strange War": Before and After May 1940
The "Strange War" is traditionally called the period of World War II on the Western Front from September 1939 until the start of the German offensive in May 1940. But this well-established scheme, taking into account many data, should have been revised long ago. Indeed, on the part of the Western powers, the "strange war" did not end at all in May 1940! If Germany at that time set itself the decisive goal of defeating France and forcing England to peace on German terms, then the Allies did not at all think of abandoning the strategy (if it can be called a strategy) of "appeasing Hitler"! This is proved by the entire course of the short-lived campaign on the Western Front in May-June 1940.
With an equal balance of forces with the German troops, the British and French preferred to retreat without getting involved in battles with the Wehrmacht.
The British command made a fundamental decision to evacuate through Dunkirk on May 17. The French troops quickly dispersed under the attacks of the Germans, opening the way for them to the sea, and then to Paris, which was declared an "open city". Summoned from Syria to replace Gamelin, the new commander-in-chief Weygand already at the end of May raised the question of the need to surrender to Germany. In the days leading up to the surrender, such strange arguments in its favor were heard in the French government: "Better to become a Nazi province than a British dominion!"
Even earlier, during the "calm before the storm", the Anglo-French troops, having an overwhelming superiority in forces over Germany, refrained from active actions. At the same time, allowing the Wehrmacht to crush Poland with ease, the Allies did not give up hope of convincing Hitler that his true goals lay in the East. Instead of bombs, the Anglo-French aviation dropped leaflets on the cities of Germany, in which Hitler was portrayed as "a cowardly crusader knight who refused a crusade", a man who "surrendered to the demands of Moscow." Speaking in the House of Commons on October 4, 1939, British Foreign Secretary Halifax openly complained that Hitler, by concluding a non-aggression pact with Stalin, had gone against all of his previous policies.
This war was "strange" not only on the part of the Western powers. Hitler, having issued a "stop-order" on May 23, 1940, prohibiting the rout of the British Expeditionary Force forces pressed to the sea, hoped thereby to demonstrate that he had no intention of ending Britain. These calculations, as we know, did not come true. But not because of Churchill's supposedly principled line on the destruction of Nazism. And not because the British mistook Hitler's demonstrative peacefulness for weakness. Simply because Britain and Germany failed to agree on the terms of peace.
British intelligence, unlike ours, is in no hurry to reveal its secrets, even 70 years ago.
Therefore, what secret negotiations were conducted between the second man in the Reich, Rudolf Hess, who flew to Great Britain, and representatives of the English elite, we present only on the basis of indirect information. Hess took this secret to his grave, dying in prison, where he was serving a life sentence. According to the official version, he committed suicide - at the age of 93! The most interesting thing is that Hess's "suicide" followed shortly after information appeared that the Soviet leadership intended to petition for a pardon for Hess and his release.
So, apparently, the British fox, pretending to be a lion, was simply not satisfied with the format of the peace proposals brought by Hess. Apparently, guaranteeing the preservation of all of England's colonies and dependent territories, Hess insisted on the preservation of Germany, one way or another, an unequivocally dominant position on the European continent. On this England, following the traditions of its centuries-old doctrine of "balance of power", could not agree. But it is clear that the negotiations did not immediately come to a standstill.
A sign of this can be the fact that shortly after Hess's arrival in May 1941 in foggy Albion, the British leadership again returned to a year ago plans to attack the USSR from the south. Now without the help of France. At this time Britain was face to face with Germany. It would seem that she should have thought exclusively about her own defense! But no. Despite the regular Luftwaffe raids on English cities, it was planned to increase the British Air Force stationed in the Middle East, even to the detriment of the defense of Crete (the British surrendered Greece before that almost without a fight, as usual, deftly evacuating by sea).
Obviously, an operation of this kind could have been planned only with the expectation of an armistice, and most likely even a military-political alliance with Germany. Moreover, Hitler's intention to start a war against Russia in May-June 1941 was not a secret for the British leaders.
The British historian J. Butler in his book "Big Strategy" (L., 1957; Russian transl. M., 1959) testifies that at the end of May 1941 "in London there was an opinion that, having created a threat to the Caucasian oil, the best put pressure on Russia”. On June 12, just ten days before Hitler's Germany attacked our country, the British Chiefs of Staff "decided to take measures that would allow an immediate air strike from Mosul [northern Iraq] with medium bombers to the Baku oil refineries."
The new "Munich" at the expense of the USSR almost became a reality
If Great Britain (in alliance with or without France) in 1940-1941. opened military operations against the USSR, it would only play into the hands of Hitler. Its main strategic goal, as you know, was the conquest of living space in the East. And any operations in the West were subordinated to the goal of reliably securing themselves from the rear for the upcoming war with the USSR. Hitler did not intend to destroy the British Empire - there is ample evidence of this. He not without reason believed that Germany would not be able to take advantage of the "British inheritance" - the British colonial empire, in the event of its collapse, would be divided between the USA, Japan and the USSR. Therefore, all his actions before and during the war were aimed at reaching a peace agreement with Britain (naturally, on German terms). With Russia, however, it is a merciless life-and-death struggle. But for the sake of achieving a great goal, temporary tactical agreements with Russia were also possible.
The state of war between Great Britain and the USSR by June 22, 1941 would greatly complicate the creation of an anti-Hitler coalition of these two countries, if it simply did not make it impossible. The same circumstance would have prompted Britain to be more compliant with the German peace proposals. And then Hess's mission would have had a better chance of being crowned with success.
After Hitler attacked the USSR, tens of thousands of volunteers were found in defeated France, ready to go out of anti-Sovietism or Russophobia with the Nazis to the “barbaric East”. There is reason to believe that there would have been many such people in Great Britain if she had concluded peace with Hitler in 1941.
The "new Munich" alliance of the Western powers with Germany, aimed at partitioning the USSR, could well become a reality.
If Britain attacked Russia in 1940, Hitler could even conclude some kind of military-political alliance with Stalin. But this still would not have prevented him from attacking the USSR, whenever he considered that the conditions were favorable for this. Especially if there were prospects of reconciliation with Great Britain. No wonder Stalin said on November 18, 1940 at an enlarged meeting of the Politburo: "Hitler constantly repeats about his peacefulness, but the main principle of his policy is treachery." The leader of the USSR correctly grasped the essence of Hitler's line of conduct in foreign policy.
The calculations of Great Britain included that Germany and the USSR would mutually weaken each other as much as possible. In London's push for Berlin to expand to the East, provocative motives were clearly visible. England and France (before the defeat of the latter) wanted to be in the position of the "third rejoicing" during the Russian-German confrontation. This line cannot be said to have completely failed. After June 22, 1941, the Luftwaffe stopped raiding England, and she was able to breathe more freely. In the end, France, which surrendered in time, also did not go wrong - it was formally among the winners, having lost (like England) several times fewer people than in the First World War. But it was important for Hitler that the West did not have a land bridgehead to stab Germany in the back. The true motives of the Western powers were no secret to him. Therefore, he decided first of all to do away with France and force England to peace. He succeeded in the first, but not in the second.
At the same time, Stalin's plans would be in line with the protraction of the war in Western Europe. Stalin was fully aware of the inevitability of a war with Nazi Germany. According to A. M. Kollontai, back in November 1939, in a conversation in a narrow circle in the Kremlin, Stalin said: "We must practically prepare for a rebuff, for a war with Hitler." Last but not least, he did not begin to put forward difficult peace conditions for Finland in March 1940. In addition to striving to secure the USSR from the possible intervention of Britain and France in the conflict, he wanted the Western powers to concentrate as much as possible on their defense against Hitler. But, since this was included in the calculations of the Soviet leadership, it did not correspond to the intentions of anti-Soviet circles in the West. Hopes for long-term resistance by England and France to the Wehrmacht did not materialize; France chose to surrender quickly, and England chose to distance herself from the battle for France.
Summing up, we can say that the discovery by England (especially in alliance with France) in 1940-1941. military action against the USSR would not automatically lead to a long-term alliance of our country with Germany. It would not diminish, but rather even increase the likelihood of an anti-Soviet collusion between Hitler and the leaders of the Western powers. And, accordingly, it would seriously complicate the geostrategic position of the USSR in the inevitable war with Nazi Germany.
