As you've probably gathered, I didn't find my first splurge into alternate history to be a waste of my time or a pointless gesture. I think I'm going to like this segment - there are so many possibilities for potential posts, so many different directions things can go in, and so on and so forth. Keeping with the spirit of World War II, I'm going to focus on the make-or-break decisions that eventually broke Nazi Germany: Hitler's interference in the invasion of the Soviet Union.
Here's some actual history: it's December in the bitter Russian winter, not far from the buildings and facades of Moscow. The Wehrmacht has arrived in all its terrible glory, having cut through eastern Poland and Belorussia (Belarus, then a part of the Soviet Union) to strike at the heart of great Soviet Empire. But they don't attack in force. After being repulsed before Moscow by the Russian defenders, the Wehrmacht holds back.
But what if they hadn't?
The Wehrmacht didn't strike the Soviet capital with all the force it could muster. In fact, after a few months of skirmishing before Moscow, it pulled back altogether. Why? Because Hitler wanted to focus on an industrial town hundreds of miles to the south, nestled along the banks of the Volga River: Stalingrad. Hitler's rationale for this move, as presented to German leaders, was that if the Wehrmacht took Stalingrad, it could march to the Caucasus Mountains virtually unopposed, and take advantage of the region's bountiful oilfields. The generals accepted Hitler's opinion for two reasons: they knew that the German Army's oil reserves were running low, and they also rather liked being alive. But this wasn't Hitler's motive for taking Stalingrad. By taking and destroying the city named for his arch-rival, he hoped to destroy Stalin's confidence and his psychological health. Hitler played Stalin like a fiddle for a bit, but he underestimated just how right he was about the Soviet Premier's instability. Stalin could not physically accept the possibility that the Nazis might take the city named for him. As such, he poured hundreds of thousands of Russians at the city, and the rest is history.
What if history had gone differently, though? What if, instead of letting his ego get the better of him and attempting to deal a psychological blow to his nemesis, Hitler did the logical thing and dealt a psychological blow to the Russian people by annihilating their ancient capital? Because it was entirely feasible for the Wehrmacht to take Moscow in the final months of 1941. If Hitler and his generals had sent the bulk of their forces at the Soviet Union's largest and most important city, it stands to reason that they would have taken it. They had the manpower, the firepower, and the machine power to finish the job at Moscow and destroy the city. This may not have fazed Stalin, but it certainly would have had an impact on the average Red Army soldier. It's important to remember that Russian borders stretched much farther before the German invasion of 1941 than they do today - the Soviets had annexed the eastern third of Poland, to say nothing of the lands we now know as the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) and Belarus. Ukraine - a large nation itself - was a Soviet puppet state. As such, Moscow was a great deal farther from the Russian border with the west than it is today. The Wehrmacht struck deep into Russia in the first few months of Barbarossa, and they struck hard. If Hitler hadn't reined in the armed forces and sent them packing for Stalingrad, it stands to reason that the Germans would have taken the Soviet capital. This would have crushed the morale of the average Soviet civilian. Stalin was crazy enough that he probably would have had a less extreme reaction to the notion of losing Moscow than to the notion of losing Stalingrad. The German center could have blasted away at Moscow while the southern army, which Hitler sent to Stalingrad first, kept Soviet counter-attacks at bay.
What would have happened to the world if the Russians lost Moscow? Well, the war in the east would hardly grind to a halt. Stalin would certainly keep up the fight. And there would be a great many Russians who would side with him. The fight would continue in Siberia, and it seems likely that the Russians would eventually halt the Wehrmacht's advance. But whether or not they would be able to strike back in time to keep the Germans from fine-tuning the game-changing technologies they were developing in 1945 - jet fighters, ballistic missiles, and even nuclear weapons - is unclear. Personally, I don't think that would happen. Since it was the Red Army that ultimately defeated the Germans, we can't say for certain whether the Americans and British would have been able to take on the Wehrmacht alone. Perhaps a campaign in the far-reaches of Siberia would spread the German army thin, and make it easier for the Western Allies to strike. Churchill might have been able to put his plan to march through Germany into the Soviet heartland into action in this scenario. Or perhaps the downfall of the Soviet Union would work against the western Allies, given that the Nazis would have had more time to develop technologies that were years ahead of anything the US and Britain had. We can't say for certain what would happen in this scenario. It would depend on other factors - what sort of a resistance would the Russian people mount? How long would the Red Army hold out? Would the Germans overextend their forces in the march through Siberia, leaving them vulnerable to destruction? We don't know what would have happened, because none of these things did happen. It's frustrating, to some extent. But on the other hand, not knowing is half of the fun.
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