Thread 64127830

>if Churchill and the British had their way, D-Day might not have happened. They did everything they could to head off the American plan to attack across the English Channel. They pressed instead for a strategy focused on the Mediterranean, pushing through the “soft underbelly” of southern Europe, over the Alps and through the Balkans. The Americans prevailed because they provided an increasingly larger share of the forces and funding. The British opposition to Overlord has dimmed in memory and today is largely forgotten. Churchill played it down as best he could in his memoirs, but there was already too much on record to leave any doubt about the effort to delay, divert, or avoid the D-Day invasion.

https://www.airandspaceforces.com/PDF/MagazineArchive/Documents/2013/January%202013/0113churchill.pdf

Here's my question, if Churchill and Roosevelt had been on the same page about the need to contain the Soviet Union in addition to stopping Nazi Germany and agreed on an invasion of Yugoslavia in 1943/44 in lieu of Italy or Normandy, would it have been feasible? What challenges and opportunities did it present that invading through France didn't? How differently would WWII have played out had it been done?

What a stupid idea. I'm glad Eisenhower wasn't a retard.

If they landed in the Balkans instead of Italy, they would face a series of difficult challenges, similar to Monte Cassino, where the rugged and narrow terrain was effectively fortified.

Considering the geography and topography of the balkans, which is basically mountains filled with caves, i think it would've been a meatgrinder.

>>64127873
Not just that but resupplying them would probably be harder too.

The "Balkans" is a very broad term. The 'Ljubljana gap' strategy was theorised, planned to happen in the northwest (modern day Italy, Slovenia and Croatia).

Specifically the port of Trieste and Istria being the main objective. Other ports in the balkans to the south are badly connected with the interior. Meanwhile you have a direct rail line that goes Trieste-Vienna and Trieste-Budapest also connecting major towns along the way (Ljubljana, Graz, Zagreb, etc). Most of it was double tracked too. The only other alternative route the Germans would have to the Balkans and South-eastern Europe would be trough Hungary.

Potentially this would cut-off the Germans in the Balkans and Italy while it would open the way towards Hungary, eastern and southeastern Europe and perhaps as north as Vienna. Reminder that countries in southeastern Europe were looking a way out of the war. Romania and Bulgaria both swtiched sides and Hungary attempted to do so as well. If they were willing to switch sides to the Soviets you bet they would switched to the allied side given the chance.

The problem was always that advancing into Germany proper was not feasable as immediately to the North are the Alps and the alpine foothills so you need to go around into Hungary and then eastern Austria to actually hit Germany proper. Going into italy will likewise be a dead end. This works both ways though. The flank of the allied advance would be protected by those same mountains.

Pic related, the railway network of Yugoslavia. Taking Trieste opens the way both into the norther Italian plain and into Slovenia which terminates a direct connection between Germany, the Balkans, the rest of Italy and opens the way towards Budapest, Vienna, Belgrade, etc.

Theoretically, anyway. You can see why it was appealing at first glance imo.

>>64127864
>>64127866
>>64127873
>>64127879

Also worth pointing out that Yugoslavia was essentially in a state of racial civil war by 1942 (I mean, when it is not, but this time around it was REALLY FUCKING BAD) and the Allies would invariably have to take sides in it.

It would have fundamentally altered the nature of the war if the Western Allies had found places like Jasenovac and started to truly grasp the depravity of the ideologies they were at war with in 1943 instead of 1945 (I mean yes, they had been getting reports of the massacres and the camps as early as 1940, but even the most ardent anti-Nazis were only taking those accounts half-seriously at the time).

>“soft underbelly”
>over the Alps and through the Balkans
I'm sure pushing through mountain ranges will be a blast

It is difficult to predict how Tito would act if he made early contact with the Allied (non-Soviet) front and how he would govern after the war.

>>64127972
The Yugoslav Partisans were already recognized as the legitimate Yugoslav fighting force by the allies in 1943. I agree it would open a can of worms and the Partisans leadership were not eager about any allied landings either as that would threaten their seizure of power post-war.

However as I outlined >>64127945 here the landings were to take place in the north-west where the Partisan movement was 1. more plural and 2. there were no real racial 'divides' unless you consider Slovene and Croat resentment of Italians and vice-versa.

>>64127981
This is true but at the same time the Allies equipped and trained Yugoslav partisan units, including a tank brigade and air force. The so-called 'Prekomorske brigade' which were eventually landed in the Balkans and formed the backbone of the Yugoslav standing army in their transition from guerilla warfare to conventional warfare.

>>64127972
I don't really see how that would have changed anything.

>>64127975
Yeah, but it was guarded by Italy.

>>64128007
The allies never managed to break out of Italy

>>64127830 (OP)
>From the same producer who brought you Gallipoli and the slow, grinding advance up the Italian peninsula...
>Soft Underbelly of Europe 3: This Time it Will Work
>Coming soon to a theater of operations near you (but not anywhere near your logistical centers)

Beyond denying the land to the Soviets, I think his main hardon for this idea came from WW1 where the Allies did invade up through the Balkans and it turned out to the decisive front once they finally broke through.

Wouldn't have worked without a concurrent front in France but maybe he thought they could turn Normandy into what Anvil/Dragoon had been if their main thrust was elsewhere.

>>64128442
>WW1 where the Allies did invade up through the Balkans and it turned out to the decisive front once they finally broke through
>decisive
What

First of all, the capture of Crete would be necessary.
Also, neglecting the Italian front would mean Mussolini's government would have to recover from the shock of losing Africa.

>>64128463
Not him but once Bulgaria capitulated the entire southern flank of the central powers collapsed and entente troops were pushing into Hungary by November 1918.

They were just trying to stop England being occupied by the Americans

>>64128355
Not thanks to the Italians though

>>64128442
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vardar_offensive

"Disgraceful! 62,000 Serbs decided the war!" Emperor Willhelm II

>>64128538
Italians troops weren’t that bad when controlled by German officers with German troops mixed in them

>the brits wanted to push through the "soft underbelly of europe"
>oh yeah and the fucking alps
I cannot believe those fucking dingleberries once had an empire spanning the globe
Either that or it was a deliberate ploy to send americans into a pointless meatgrinder

>>64127975
There are very rare and unique lichens that might have been stepped on and the delicate envirionment would have been damaged. The beaches were muchless prone to habitat destruction and this was Eisenhower's primary concern.

>>64128761
yeah soft underbelly my ass. reminder that italy turned into such a meatgrinder that the US said "fuck this shit, we're gonna use the atomic bomb for the japs"

>>64128794
>arrival to Berlin in 1952
>maybe
lol
lmao

>>64128538
especially thanks to the italians retard. were not for the italian partisans this >>64128794 would've been an all too real scenario.