WWII What If? US Invades Yugoslavia?

[Silas Sparkhammer]

I'm not sure if this is the correct forum for historical "what if?" wargaming...

I've just had the joy of reading all three volumes of JFC Fuller's "Military History of the Western World." Fuller covers the great epochs of history and the major battles, from the earliest recorded times to WWII; the book was written over many years -- re-written, indeed, as a draft was lost in the Battle of Britain.

This is -- up to a point -- the finest military history I have ever read. He covers the great commanders, empires, armies, and battles in depth and with insight. The reader is best advised to know some military terminology, as he doesn't spend time defining terms. You have to know a battalion from a regiment, and a meeting engagement from a siege.

His views, alas, are a bit harsh in his later analyses. He was a Cold Warrior, and to him it was self-evident that Communism was bad. Very Bad. Worst thing conceivable in human history. Death-in-Life. If asked, he would have scoffed at the idea that it could have collapsed under its own weight as it did in 1989; he held a much harsher view, more comparable to that of Ronald Reagan and the John Birch Society.

(He was also a Crowleyan mystic who believes in spirits and magic and the like.)

However: what I was interested in, specifically, was his advice in hindsight for the U.S. and Great Britain: to launch the D-Day invasion in the Adriatic, into the Balkans, and advance on Vienna.

Do any of our amateur (or professional!) military historians and theorists find this strategy to be attractive? Fuller's primary goal in this strategy was to have cut off the Red Army from occupying eastern Europe. Is this realistic?

My own view is that it loses too much in the way of terrain. It sacrifices the ideal tank-maneuvering landscapes of France and western Germany, and forces the allies to grind through some of the roughest mountains in Europe.

It also allows the Germans a "parallel defense," virtually a one-front war, which is much simpler to maintain than a proper two-front war with troops and battles separated widely.

Even if largely successful, I think it might have merely ended up with Europe divided north and south, rather than east and west. "North Germany," under Soviet domination, might have extended to the French/Dutch/Belgian border, while the U.S. would have the very mixed joys of administrating occupied Yugoslavia, something that was indigestible even by Stalin!

I have great admiration for Fuller's history -- up to the point of (for him as he was writing) living memory, but at that point, I fear that he succumbed to the ideologies of his day and lost his ability to analyze the world objectively.

May we all let that be a lesson to us.

Silas

[I'mNotDedalus]

Interesting idea. I think it's at the First Quebec Conference of 1943 that Churchill, Roosevelt, and King decided that military aid would only extend to the guerrillas fighting in the Balkans for the time being. I'm not exactly sure why the Allies reached this decision.

However, the first major disadvantage of invading from the Adriatic I can think of is geographical: By invading Normandy, the Allies could keep a relatively short distance from a UK base of operations...but then, this obviously didn't stop the Allies from invading North Africa and Italy, first.

This aside, there's also the issue of German defenses. By 1944, the Germans had 157 divisions stationed in the Soviet Union, 21 in the Balkans, and 59 in France. I don't know anything about German military logistics, but couldn't they hypothetically move more of their Soviet divisions to block a Balkan invasion than they could move those same divisions to block a French invasion?

ETA: Then, there's the political reasons to consider, naturally. Would a major power such as France allow an invasion of the Balkans (an area not only occupied by the Nazis but also plagued with civil war) to take precedent over their own liberation even after they've waited out the African and Italian theatre?

[Silas Sparkhammer]

Originally Posted by I'mNotDedalus

. . . ETA: Then, there's the political reasons to consider, naturally. Would a major power such as France allow an invasion of the Balkans (an area not only occupied by the Nazis but also plagued with civil war) to take precedent over their own liberation even after they've waited out the African and Italian theatre?

Good point. If the U.S. and Britain overruled France, it would likely engender resentment; it would make it painfully obvious who is the "junior partner" in the alliance. In the postwar/Cold War years, France insisted on demonstrating its independence -- leaving NATO, etc. -- and in this scenario, that might have been even more pronounced.

Silas

[A Turtle Named Mack]

After the difficulties of the Italian campaign, I doubt the allies wanted to slog through the mountains again. The only good reason to go that way would be to slow down victory, so as to let the National Socialists and the World Socialists to kill more of each other. The supply line problems are also enormous. If the Germans could find a way to block Gibraltar, provisioning would have been horrible (but then they would have done it during the Italian campaign if they could have). A more sensible alternative might have been an invasion of Germany itself east of Denmark, but that would have had the Germans on homeland and with very short supply lines.

[Silas Sparkhammer]

Originally Posted by A Turtle Named Mack

After the difficulties of the Italian campaign, I doubt the allies wanted to slog through the mountains again. The only good reason to go that way would be to slow down victory, so as to let the National Socialists and the World Socialists to kill more of each other. The supply line problems are also enormous. If the Germans could find a way to block Gibraltar, provisioning would have been horrible (but then they would have done it during the Italian campaign if they could have). A more sensible alternative might have been an invasion of Germany itself east of Denmark, but that would have had the Germans on homeland and with very short supply lines.

If I read Fuller's time-line correctly, he would have had us invade Yugoslavia instead of the Italian mainland. Thus, all the nasty lessons we had to learn about mountain fighting would still be ahead of us...

But, superb point about Gibraltar. That could very likely have prompted Hitler to ignore Franco and cut across Spain to close the straits. And that would've made the whole affair dependent on a VERY long 'round-Africa supply line! (Or upon the re-taking of Gibraltar, which, I suppose, would have been within reach of an Anglo-U.S. effort...but I'm not sure. How defensible was the place, back then?)

Silas

[crocoduck_hunter]

Personally, what I'd like to see for a WW2 What If is if Rommel's attempted assassination of Hitler had actually worked. I'd kind of like to see how the war would have progressed if that had happened. Would German have been thrown into chaos at the loss of their leader? Would, instead, a strong, but more rational man have taken control? Would the Nazis have been able to maneuver themselves into a possession where they wouldn't have been forced to unconditional surrender (since there wasn't a realistic chance of actually winning the war at that point)?