Yalta Conference and Poland

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Edited by: Exiled Jan 22, 10, 14:08 #61

Harry:

for what price was Poland sold?

For 1 million dead soviets in eastern european theatre,Austria,Finland and half of Berlin.In fact Poland was sold in a package with Hungary but Poland was a special case since it was an allied state while Hungary had actively participated in Wehrmacht operations so its fate was sealed.
For Poland Stalin threatened to freeze the eastern front and cause hundreds of thousands of western soldiers to die,so really UK and USA had no alternative.

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Jan 22, 10, 14:23 #62

Exiled:

For 1 million dead soviets in eastern european theatre,Austria,Finland and half of Berlin.In fact Poland was sold in a package with Hungary but Poland was a special case since it was an allied state while Hungary had actively participated in Wehrmacht operations so its fate was sealed.
For Poland Stalin threatened to freeze the eastern front and cause hundreds of thousands of western soldiers to die,so really UK and USA had no alternative.

What absolute rubbish! Why would hundreds of thousands of western soldiers die if Stalin froze the Russian front in 1943? And why would he do something so stupid from a military viewpoint? In 1943 the war was far from won.

You comment about half of Berlin is also complete bollocks.

I wasn't aware that at the end of the war Britain and the USA owned Austria and Finland. Do you perhaps have some sources about that?

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Jan 22, 10, 14:46 #63

It is simple.There were some options.For example they could say:''Every teritorry which our troops enter first will develop the according system that is if soviet troops enter first,the country will become communist,if westerners enter first,the country will become capitalistic.''
But we see soviet troops entering Austria in 1945 and conquering Vienna and Austria entering the western block while US troops enter CR and CR becomes free to become communistic while soviet troops conquer Berlin and give half of it to Westerners and they do not invade Finland to finish Scandinavia.

HWPielThreads: 1 Posts: 83 Joined: Oct 10, 08 ♂	Feb 15, 10, 02:51 #64
Exiled: Poland was already sold in 1943 as part of the agreement with soviets for post-war control.The issues which were decided in Teheran were the fate of Yugoslavia and Greece and the fate of Germany was decided in Yalta. Yup... it all came down to the Big Three Conferences, of which there were 21 in all. Tehran and Yalta being the most significant... for its bad outcome for Poland.

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Feb 18, 10, 07:09 #65

pirate:

"Poland wants war with Germany and Germany will not be able to avoid it even if she wants to." -- Marshall Rydz-Smigly

Hm.., : ) After grabbing Teschen from Czechoslovakia and Vilnus from Lithuanians in 1938, I wouldn't be supprised to hear these words from Marshal Smeagol. Lots of mania of grandeur and pretense on the Middle Ages.
There seems to be an atmosphere that Poland was sold, cheated on,...
Poland received a huge chunk of German lands in the west. Ukraine, Belorus' and Lithuania received their ethnic territories. The last 3 countries lost over 3 million soldiers defending these lands, their homes and families. And now there is a pathetic cry of some selling?!
Give me a break.

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Edited by: hague1cameron Feb 18, 10, 08:07 #66

BubbaWoo:

well thats not entirely accurate Seanus, is it

if you p!ss your neighbours off enough, eventually they will turn around and slap you

a lesson some still have to learn

It seems you are in need of some of that treatment.

quote=delphiandomine]Ah, it's always fun to ask them what they expected Churchill and Britain to actually do.

Truman, for some bizzare reason, doesn't get mentioned at all - and Roosevelt is excused on grounds of being sick. Yet if anyone could "save" Poland at the time - it would've been America![/quote]
100% accurate they had the BOMB, so all they had to do was insist and the soviets were in position to refuse.

ExiledThreads: 5 Posts: 729 Joined: Jan 17, 10 ♂	Feb 18, 10, 12:20 #67
Poland could not be saved because there were Autobahnen perfect for tank move,flat fields and railway network built by Germans which could carry huge quantities of ammunition.Soviets knew that without Poland their positions in Europe were in danger,the West could grab them in no time.

joepilsudskiThreads: 44 Posts: 2,529 Joined: Apr 27, 07 ♂	Feb 20, 10, 23:45 #68
How about General Patton's plan, which was to keeping pushing with the Allied armies and drive the Reds out of Europe altogether? This plan was not too popular with the Allies, who had Patton killed not too long after the war.

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Feb 21, 10, 00:01 #69

joepilsudski:

How about General Patton's plan, which was to keeping pushing with the Allied armies and drive the Reds out of Europe altogether?

There was absolutely no appetite on the part of the UK or France to carry on, Germany was broken and many other players had plenty of issues internally - look at how close the Communists came to taking control of several countries! Sure, the Red Army was exhausted and was there for the taking - but America would have had to do it alone. Given that at the same time, they were facing the prospect of a potential land invasion of Japan, it seems unlikely that anyone wanted to bother with the Soviet Union.

The *only* thing open to the Allies was the bomb - a clear message to the Soviet Union that they either withdraw or face immediate nuclear bombing would have worked.

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Feb 21, 10, 00:10 #70

joepilsudski:

How about General Patton's plan, which was to keeping pushing with the Allied armies and drive the Reds out of Europe altogether?

And how were the Allies supposed to do this? The Italian Campaign and D Day were just bit parts in WW2. The West just kept the Nazi's busy while Stalin smashed them. There was no way we would have beaten the Red Army.

Even in the 80's NATO would have been smashed.

Hindsight is great.

The Brits and Americans should have trusted Stalin and made a pact before Stalin made the pact with Hitler. In Hindsight, when we hesitated we sealed Poland's fate. It was not foreseen at the time.

By Yalta the Red Army was too powerful and able to dictate what would happen. The UK were Americas Lap Dogs by 1945 and nothing has changed since.

BarneyThreads: 16 Posts: 1,630 Joined: May 26, 08 ♂	Feb 21, 10, 00:20 #71
delphiandomine: the Red Army was exhausted and was there for the taking Operation Unthinkable

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Edited by: Bratwurst Boy Feb 21, 10, 01:42 #72

delphiandomine:

Germany was broken

delphiandomine:

but America would have had to do it alone.

There were millions of german soldiers actually hoping and waiting for the Patton's on the US side.
Talk was big that they would soon close ranks and go against the red army. For many that was also the reason to surrender so easily to the american troops. Patton left whole divisions as POW's but still armed...no joke here!

The US army together with the Wehrmacht and all eastern armies like the Poles who now fought against the Russians...the Red Army would had been toast (or at least shoved back where they belonged)!

But Patton and his thinking didn't fit in Eisenhowers and Roosevelts plans...Maybe it would had been harder to sell at home why the "mean Germans" now became allies of a sudden...but then they did this propaganda trick again before, from the "mean commies" to "Uncle Joe" (and back again)...*shrugs*

SteveramsfanThreads: 2 Posts: 401 Joined: Nov 22, 09 ♂	Feb 21, 10, 11:10 #73
The Red Army was on a role and at the height of their powers, I don't think the west had a chance and it was good the Red Army stopped on the Elbe river.

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Feb 21, 10, 19:06 #74

Bratwurst Boy:

There were millions of german soldiers actually hoping and waiting for the Patton's on the US side.
Talk was big that they would soon close ranks and go against the red army. For many that was also the reason to surrender so easily to the american troops. Patton left whole divisions as POW's but still armed...no joke here!

The US army together with the Wehrmacht and all eastern armies like the Poles who now fought against the Russians...the Red Army would had been toast (or at least shoved back where they belonged)!

But Patton and his thinking didn't fit in Eisenhowers and Roosevelts plans...Maybe it would had been harder to sell at home why the "mean Germans" now became allies of a sudden...but then they did this propaganda trick again before, from the "mean commies" to "Uncle Joe" (and back again)...*shrugs*

Without going to far afield, all your points are right on...And yes, for sure, the Red Army would have been shoved right back where they belonged with American and German boots up their ass...But, you see, there was a serious Communist penetration in the US Government, and the UK, although less so...Or maybe, should I say, a penetration by the folks who invented Communism.

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Feb 21, 10, 19:21 #75

Bratwurst Boy:

The US army together with the Wehrmacht and all eastern armies like the Poles who now fought against the Russians...the Red Army would had been toast (or at least shoved back where they belonged)!

From how I understand it, Russian supply lines were ridiculously overstretched in the race to Berlin - compare this to the Western Allied lines which were much more stable, combine that with quite a few countries internally hostile to the Soviets (Poland and Finland immediately come to mind, but the Baltic countries could also be relied on) and a Germany humiliated (and being threatened with partition) and there may just have been an opportunity to finish off the Soviet Union. It would've almost certainly required swift, decisive action - and crucially, they would've had to nuke the Soviet Union to end communism there. Anything less would've just been suicidal.

I'm just not convinced most countries in the 'free' world had an appetite for more warfare - and as I said, quite a few countries were more than content with Germany divided and the Iron Curtain going up.

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Feb 21, 10, 19:31 #76

delphiandomine:

It would've almost certainly required swift, decisive action - and crucially, they would've had to nuke the Soviet Union to end communism there. Anything less would've just been suicidal.

First point, correct; Second, debatable.

The 'bankers' and the Jews high up in both the US and the UK both vetoed any such plan....Their plan was for the destruction/neutralization of Germany as a European power, and the continuation/expansion of the Communist gangster system in both Russia and Eastern Europe...Plus, the establishment of the Zionist state in Palestine.

The use of the atomic bomb was a 'scare tactic', purpose being to establish a 'World Organization' that would control all nuclear weapons...Who better to test this on than the defenseless Japanese, who were ready to surrender.

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