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Was Churchill right about Balkans and Turkey

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Enravota said:
The Chetniks were nationalists, not monarchists. They would support the monarchy if it supports a nationalist politics, not for it's own sake. They had limited support outside of Serbia proper and ties to the occupation forces, so not exactly an easy choice.
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It would be a very, very easy choice unless you can find someone else with guns other than the communists. Because in a British liberation scenario a communist republic (really any republic for Yugoslavia) is about as likely as the continuation of the regency in Hungary under Communist rule.
 
With "hindsight", becoming part of Western Europe would have ruined us more than becoming part of the Warsaw Pact, and it's exactly what's happening today: The USSR collapsed and it's effects can be easily fixed in time, but the EUSSR already brought unrepairable damage to Europe via state atheism/multiculturalism/mass immigration -> genocide: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide "Genocide is the systematic destruction of all or a significant part of a racial, ethnic, religious or national group. "
 
jamhaw said:
It would be a very, very easy choice unless you can find someone else with guns other than the communists. Because in a British liberation scenario a communist republic (really any republic for Yugoslavia) is about as likely as the continuation of the regency in Hungary under Communist rule.
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People with guns were not exactly rare in the Balkans back then. Splitting the thing along ethnic lines was also on the table and IIRC had it's proponents amongst western Allies.
 
MihaiROU said:
With "hindsight", becoming part of Western Europe would have ruined us more than becoming part of the Warsaw Pact, and it's exactly what's happening today: The USSR collapsed and it's effects can be easily fixed in time, but the EUSSR already brought unrepairable damage to Europe via state atheism/multiculturalism/mass immigration -> genocide: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide "Genocide is the systematic destruction of all or a significant part of a racial, ethnic, religious or national group. "
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Wut? :blink:
 
Enravota said:
People with guns were not exactly rare in the Balkans back then. Splitting the thing along ethnic lines was also on the table and IIRC had it's proponents amongst western Allies.
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Which I noted earlier in the thread, but nonetheless the Kingdom of Yugoslavia is the legitimate government and a united Yugoslavia may be far better at resisting communist expansion than a number of weak states.

MihaiROU said:
With "hindsight", becoming part of Western Europe would have ruined us more than becoming part of the Warsaw Pact, and it's exactly what's happening today: The USSR collapsed and it's effects can be easily fixed in time, but the EUSSR already brought unrepairable damage to Europe via state atheism/multiculturalism/mass immigration -> genocide: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide "Genocide is the systematic destruction of all or a significant part of a racial, ethnic, religious or national group. "
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That makes no sense, the former Yugoslavia is largely trending towards EU membership or some sort of Europrotectorate status.
 
pithorr said:
Wut? :blink:
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Translation for those who are not from Yugoslavia:

If you let in any immigrants or allow people to move around then the racial, ethnic, religious and national character of the various regions of Yugoslavia will become more open and accepting of one another and it will no longer be the unique place that people there love and cherish. For people willing to kill each other off because 1,000 years ago their ancestors pronounced their last names with a different accent such a change of values would amount to a genocide.
 
gagenater said:
Translation for those who are not from Yugoslavia:

If you let in any immigrants or allow people to move around then the racial, ethnic, religious and national character of the various regions of Yugoslavia will become more open and accepting of one another and it will no longer be the unique place that people there love and cherish. For people willing to kill each other off because 1,000 years ago their ancestors pronounced their last names with a different accent such a change of values would amount to a genocide.
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Sounds legit.
 
MihaiROU said:
With "hindsight", becoming part of Western Europe would have ruined us more than becoming part of the Warsaw Pact, and it's exactly what's happening today: The USSR collapsed and it's effects can be easily fixed in time, but the EUSSR already brought unrepairable damage to Europe via state atheism/multiculturalism/mass immigration -> genocide: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide "Genocide is the systematic destruction of all or a significant part of a racial, ethnic, religious or national group. "
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Oh goddess not this bullshite, honestly Paradox Forums is the last place I expected to see this sort of rubbish.
 
Furion Matsuya said:
Oh goddess not this bullshite, honestly Paradox Forums is the last place I expected to see this sort of rubbish.
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You haven't spent much time here, have you? This is crazy nationalist crank central.
 
Culise said:
That may have been a consideration, but I've also heard it said that it and the Italian landings in the previous year were intended to forestall fears of Stalin concluding a peace with Hitler that left him with a swath of buffer land and the Western Allies holding the purse against Hitler all by their lonesome selves. Whether or not those fears were legitimate (for instance, it requires that Stalin be willing to actually conclude such a peace with someone who had already betrayed him once when the Red Army had finally decisively seized the advantage in 1944, and also that Hitler be willing to accept even the concept of peace, much less ceding enough to satisfy Stalin, just for two of the many obstacles), the Soviet Union had consistently pressed hard for a second front to be opened, and the Italian Campaign (the "second-rate second front") in 1943 did not ease German pressure on the Soviets sufficiently.
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Everything Churchill has written himself, or at least about happenings before spring of 1944 since I haven't read further yet, contains nothing whatsoever of either arguments. According to himself he did not bother yet with post-war spheres of influence and certainly did not fear Russia making peace.

His book even contains quite a bit of correspondence to him, including letters from Stalin. Main point in all those letters was urging Britain to do more against Germany faster. Whatever that would have sucked up most German troops to another front instead of Eastern front was good for Stalin. He pushed eagerly for an earlier French landing, but due to unwillingness of US and UK to engage in that before they considered themselves ready Stalin was OK with any other plan as well. In Teheran he even approved US and UK to head east down the Danube instead of going to Austria should they have advanced much faster in 1943 Italy and let UK handle getting Turkey in the war together with any activities in Balkans that would allow or require. Stalin seemed very motivated to properly crush Germany to the very end, but just didn't want to bleed his country white while at it.
 
Grosshaus said:
Everything Churchill has written himself, or at least about happenings before spring of 1944 since I haven't read further yet, contains nothing whatsoever of either arguments. According to himself he did not bother yet with post-war spheres of influence and certainly did not fear Russia making peace.

His book even contains quite a bit of correspondence to him, including letters from Stalin. Main point in all those letters was urging Britain to do more against Germany faster. Whatever that would have sucked up most German troops to another front instead of Eastern front was good for Stalin. He pushed eagerly for an earlier French landing, but due to unwillingness of US and UK to engage in that before they considered themselves ready Stalin was OK with any other plan as well. In Teheran he even approved US and UK to head east down the Danube instead of going to Austria should they have advanced much faster in 1943 Italy and let UK handle getting Turkey in the war together with any activities in Balkans that would allow or require. Stalin seemed very motivated to properly crush Germany to the very end, but just didn't want to bleed his country white while at it.
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Ah, thank you for the clarification. I didn't credit the fears as being plausible, but I did believe they existed on the Western side. It seems even that was overstated as well, given Churchill's own statements on the matter.
 
JodelDiplom said:
The scenario debated here was about what the British agenda would have been, if the British invaded the Balkans, and ended up controlling Yugoslavia. In that case of course they would have restored Peter II to wpoer, just like the Polish exile government would have been restored had there been British troops on the Vistula instead of Soviet troops. Reason: Both were friendly to Britain, both could be expected to continue having good relations to Britain, and both had compatible views capitalism and communism, and happened to be the legitimate governments of those countries.
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Towards end of 1943 UK saw that Tito had de facto control of the country. By the time any troops would have been spared from Africa and initial Italy operations Britain had already decided that Tito was essential in both winning the war in Yugoslavia and building of post-war Yugoslavia. They urged Peter II to directly contact Tito and likewise to allow purging Chetniks from power. Support for Peter II was more for UK domestic reasons, since the press and general public there and then liked monarchs in distress. Meanwhile support for Tito was realism and it he was acknowledged to be the future leader of Yugoslavia. Partially for that reason supplies and diplomacy were focused on him to try to get if not an ally then at least a neutral bystander from him. UK troops in Yugoslavia wouldn't really have changed the picture - unless those troops would have actually fought Tito which would have made them clear enemies.
 
gagenater said:
Yep. You will also note that the agreed upon occupation zones were supposed to split Austria between the US and USSR and give a small part of Bavaria to the USSR. Also Yugoslavia was supposed to be split. As it turned out due to 'facts on the ground' the Western allies got all of Austria and Bavaria and the USSR got all of Yugoslavia (although they sort of messed up on the long term). The USSR also seized Northern Korea and de facto ran it more or less the same way as happened in Europe although no detailed agreement was made for the Far East as it had been for Europe.
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Heh. Bavaria happened to be in the zone of third army, partly, and at one point Bradley had to order Patton to withdraw his recon elements from the outskirsk of Prague. Not much to do with Jalta or power politics, more to do with one crazy man.
 
Grosshaus said:
Towards end of 1943 UK saw that Tito had de facto control of the country. By the time any troops would have been spared from Africa and initial Italy operations Britain had already decided that Tito was essential in both winning the war in Yugoslavia and building of post-war Yugoslavia. They urged Peter II to directly contact Tito and likewise to allow purging Chetniks from power. Support for Peter II was more for UK domestic reasons, since the press and general public there and then liked monarchs in distress. Meanwhile support for Tito was realism and it he was acknowledged to be the future leader of Yugoslavia. Partially for that reason supplies and diplomacy were focused on him to try to get if not an ally then at least a neutral bystander from him. UK troops in Yugoslavia wouldn't really have changed the picture - unless those troops would have actually fought Tito which would have made them clear enemies.
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If the British Army was marching through Belgrade then Tito would have suffered the same fate as King Michael ultimately, sure he would have a role in government and given medals. Nonetheless if Britain has boots on the ground keeping a communist out of power is vitally important.
 
gagenater said:
You mean like they did in France, and Greece? Yes, Yes they would. Existing insurgencies are only supported if their overall big picture view of the world is compatable with the view of the country getting involved in it. Otherwise they get dropped fast.
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Having last night also completed reading Churchill's chapter on Greece, he would disagree. He had no trouble supporting Tito in Yugoslavia, since his troops were most effective in fighting Germans. Meanwhile he dropped support to Greek communists after they had both stopped using the support to effectively fight Germans and on top of that organised a mutiny within Greek troops, both army and navy, serving as part of UK army.
 
I think it´s a bit more complex than that as he knew greek communists were Stalin´s cronies, while Tito was much more independant - he probably had faith that Yugoslavia itself wouldn´t be too communist or even revert to something else fast.

Speaking of which, what´s the whole story on them becoming communist? Considering the massive help they got from the allies in WW2, why they didn´t align more closer to the US and UK?
 
Beagá said:
I think it´s a bit more complex than that as he knew greek communists were Stalin´s cronies, while Tito was much more independant - he probably had faith that Yugoslavia itself wouldn´t be too communist or even revert to something else fast.

Speaking of which, what´s the whole story on them becoming communist? Considering the massive help they got from the allies in WW2, why they didn´t align more closer to the US and UK?
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Tito seemed like quite the Stalinst early on. He was quite an aggressive troublemaker before the split with Moscow. Tito was not the preferred option, but the Americans did not really care and the British lacked the resources to force Tito to accept the monarchy long term (in the short term there was a period of ambiguity, Tito was placed in power by the British backed regency council etc. but ultimately he was a communist and unsurprisingly sided with Moscow. If Britain had boots on the ground that would not have happened.
 
Considering what the guerillas did to the germans I don´t think UK would have na easy time there :) Not to mention war exhaustion meant that people would have trouble backing Churchill in yet another intervention.

Besides, using force would be all or nothing - either they would get a very sympathetic regime (after further bloodshed), or lose and get one that was VERY anti-West. Splitting the country in Croatia and Serbia would also generate complications due to how aligned with the nazis the croats were... the serbs would certainly align VERY closely with Moscow.
 
Beagá said:
Considering what the guerillas did to the germans I don´t think UK would have na easy time there :) Not to mention war exhaustion meant that people would have trouble backing Churchill in yet another intervention.

Besides, using force would be all or nothing - either they would get a very sympathetic regime (after further bloodshed), or lose and get one that was VERY anti-West. Splitting the country in Croatia and Serbia would also generate complications due to how aligned with the nazis the croats were... the serbs would certainly align VERY closely with Moscow.
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Britain wouldn't do much intervening after the war. They would ask the Americans to help out ;)
 
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