And in 1944, the second front truly happens, but now Stalin needs it like a cat needs a fifth leg. Stalin no longer doubts his ability to liberate Europe on his own and manage the victory as he sees fit. But the Allies also understand perfectly well that while they are banging against the closed door of the Apennines, the T-34s could roll to the Atlantic. And then try to push them back. After the landing in Normandy, the war turns into a race with the goal of getting as large a piece as possible before the inevitable post-war division. The rush results in significant bloodshed, completely unnecessary when victory is already absolutely inevitable, but now it is driven by geopolitics36, the desire not only to win the war but also to benefit from it. The apotheosis is the twofold surrender of Germany: first on May 7th in Reims without the participation of the USSR, and then on May 8th in full composition. As a result, the West celebrates victory on the eighth, and Russia on the ninth, depending on which surrender they prefer.
It was precisely this long-awaited landing in Normandy that led to the Soviet Union practically gaining nothing from the war. However, very soon it was able to retaliate slightly by initiating a race in the east: the defeat of the Kwantung Army was for the Americans just as much a disservice, formally fulfilling allied obligations, but in fact, a struggle for a piece of the post-war pie37. In August 1945, the USA would have easily defeated the Mikado38 without outside help, but then today we would not have a capitalist China under the rule of the Kuomintang39.
With the largest battle-hardened army in the world, the best battlefield equipment, and the readiness to fight to the last soldier, Stalin could have claimed even more. But the timely dropping of “Little Boy” and “Fat Man”40 and the presence of U.S. strategic bombers capable of delivering an atomic bomb to Moscow if necessary, convinced the Generalissimo to agree to a rather modest division. After this, the Soviet army began to gradually demobilize and disband, sending soldiers home. But the bitterness of resentment Stalin did not forgive either his own or others. From then on, the Americans were undermined wherever possible, and the Shakhurin case41 marked the resumption of repressions against anyone who could be blamed in any way for failure.
Could Hitler Have Won?
They say that history does not like the subjunctive mood.
Nevertheless, to understand the reasons behind certain decisions and the logic of their adoption, it is often necessary to consider alternative scenarios of event development. After all, contemporaries did not know how things would end, and therefore relied on assumptions, including those that did not materialize.
Moreover, the whole point of studying the past is to draw conclusions for the future, both from what actually happened and from what could have occurred.
History is not recommended to be considered in the subjunctive mood. “What if…” And yet, discussions about “what could have happened” arise constantly, and they make sense: since we are talking about the patterns of the historical process, about predicting the future, about causes and effects, it is necessary not only to understand what happened but also to speculate on what could have happened.
Politically, Germany could hardly have won: this assertion has a concrete explanation. The Nazi regime was based on the superiority of the German, more precisely, the Aryan race. Germany could not abandon this thesis; it was precisely for this superiority that the ordinary German soldier fought, and for the majority, it was the meaning of the war. Naturally, such an inherently arrogant position excludes many forms of cooperation with the population of conquered countries, effectively any except unconditional and strict submission. Managing hundreds of millions of people by brute force is impossible; neither Rome nor Britain managed this task. Apparently, the Reich would not have been able to either.
From a military point of view, however, an Axis victory was quite possible. At least in the middle of 1942, the Allies’ situation was hanging by a thread.
On the Eastern Front, the Kharkov disaster42 and the disaster in Crimea43 led to the entire southern flank of the Red Army effectively ceasing to exist. The advance of the Wehrmacht was held back only by the length of the supply lines and the lack of personnel to occupy the ever-expanding territory, which was already too large to manage without issues. To recover from the blow, the Soviet Union needed resources, but most of them had been lost in the defeats of ’41 and the current ones of ’42, and replenishing them with the efforts of factories evacuated to open fields required time. Moreover, the army was leaving the most fertile regions of the country, hinting at famine. And without food, neither a worker can build a tank, nor can a soldier fight in it, even if there is steel, diesel, machinery, and blast furnaces.
The shortage could have been covered by American Lend-Lease44. But at that very moment, the Germans plugged the Arctic gap through which it was seeping into the Soviet north. The fate of the PQ-17 convoy is tragic not only due to the loss of sailors but also because it closed the main logistical window between Russia and its allies.
The British are faring only slightly better. After the success of the German landing on Crete, Rommel is pushing them eastward, and soon the evacuation of Egypt could become a reality. This, by the way, is not a trivial matter but a direct route for Germany to Arab oil, not to mention shaking hands with Japanese allies through the Suez Canal. By closing the path around Eurasia, the Germans and Japanese are encircling the USSR with a ring while simultaneously cutting off Britain from its remaining eastern colonies. For now, the Gibraltar-Malta-Alexandria line allows the British fleet to hold on, but the losses of Mediterranean convoys are even more dreadful than those of the Arctic ones. In a few more weeks, Malta will be left without planes and fuel, and with the fall of the island, the Mediterranean Sea will become German and Italian45.
In the Atlantic, a fierce battle is taking place between German submarines and British destroyers. Things are also bad there – they can’t manage to reduce the sunk tonnage, and the weapons and food coming from America are being sent to the bottom in increasingly threatening quantities. Meanwhile, in Asia, the Japanese are occupying island after island with impunity, and their landing in Australia is almost a foregone conclusion, but there are no guarantees that the war won’t come directly to U.S. territory. If that happens, America will throw all its resources into defending itself, and then the chances for the Russians and British to hold out will become quite slim.
If you look at the map through the eyes of the allies in the anti-Hitler coalition, the war is already lost for them, and only a miracle can save the situation46. However, even a single miracle won’t suffice; a whole streak of luck is needed. And it appears.
The first stroke of luck falls to the Americans, on whom the victorious Japanese army and the invincible Japanese fleet are relentlessly advancing from the west. In the path of these armadas, right in the middle of the ocean, lies the tiny Midway Atoll, where there is nothing but a military airfield. However, this airfield is very much needed by both the Americans who occupy it and the Japanese who covet it – having a stationary “unsinkable” aircraft carrier halfway to the enemy is very useful.
In the battle for tiny Midway, the Yankees had one advantage: they had long been able to read Japanese codes, and