Operation "Unthinkable"

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#1

Guys our friend Egorca found very interesting article in Wikipedia about operation “Unthinkable” - Winston Chircill’s plan of possible beginning of Third World War in 1945.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable

Operation Unthinkable was a plan ordered by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and developed by the British Armed Forces at the end of World War II. The primary goal of the operation was declared as follows: “to impose upon Russia the will of the United States and the British Empire.” [1] The word “Russia” is used heavily throughout the document, although no country by that name existed at the time.

The majority of the operation would have consisted of American and British forces, but would also would have entailed the use of up to 100,000 surrendered German soldiers. The plan was rejected by the British Chiefs of Staff Committee as militarily unfeasible and was never carried out.

I think you understand that “to impose upon Russia the will of the United States and the British Empire” - could means just one thing - beginning of war in 1945.
Was it real?
Let’s consider some facts.
I think the figure of 100 000 of surrendered german soldier is wrong.
Today we know that in the hands of allies get is over 1 000 000 germans war prisoner plus about 500-600 000 of Nazi’s allies like for instance so called ROA of general Vlasov , former members of “police battalions” , voluntaries and othe bastard who mass run away from Red Army being in fear for the retribution for it “work” in East.
Those contingent would be very glad to fight against Red Army toghether with USA ans Britain.
I remember one memours of former soldier of ROA who was very shocked the decisions of Allies to deported the captured ROA to the USSR. He wrote they were sure that the new war against USSR has begin soon and all former members of ROA were sended to the front to fight with allies against Red Army.
Here is the fragments of operation.
http://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac/church.htm
and this is the original of document
http://www.history.neu.edu/PRO2/

As you might to see the this document called as 'Russia: Threat to Western Civilization"
Neither USSR, nor Bolsheviks and nor Communism. Just Russia. BTW even germans never called war against Russia - they called it agains jewish-bolshevism gov who occuped the Russia. But Churchill obviously declared it as openly.
This was a plan to begin the Third World war 1 jule 1945 by attacking the Red Army of join US-Britain-Germany coalition forces.
In this case i have no the illusions what was the primary aim of US a-bomb (Moscow and Leningrad i suppose)
So somebody know what was the reason why this plan was rejected in summer 1945

#2

Hey Chevan I had a skim read of the 1945 document you linked to.

My view is twofold:

1 - Firstly I doubt any one (except fanatics and those with a history to hide)in Europe had any apetite for a further war so soon after WW2. Britain was sick of war after six years of it.

2 - Secondly I woudl view this document like any other “threat assessment” type document produced by virtually all military staffs troughout the world even today. i.e. These staffs are merely doing their jobs looking at the threats to national security and assessing what actions should or could be taken to mitigate the threat. I bet that in the UK MOD there is a current paper detailing the threat of Russia to the UK and what the measures are that could be taken to deal with it. Similarly I am sure that Russia has similar assessments and plans about the USA and UK etc. The fact is that these are just paper assessments with little likelihood of them ever being implemented. I bet in 1945 the Russian military staffs were feverishly considering whether to continue their push through Europe or to stop when the Germans surrendered!

Still a very interesting historical document.

#3

The interesting thing is that general George S Patton openly expressed his desire to finish off the Soviet Union while they were at their weakest. How many other allied generals held similar views is purely speculative, but obviously Eisenhower was not a supporter of Patton on this issue.

Very interesting document. Whether it was the blueprint for an actual attack or a threat assessment is hard to say without deeper research.

Regards Digger:)

#4

Hello,

It is just a quick remark. But I think that you can see that it ia not a risk assesment from two things:

  1. The title of the document has no indication of it.
  2. The object of the document (page 2, point 2) has no indication of it.
  3. I have not seen any “IF” conditions. Except “Russia allies with Japan”. But it is kind ofr artificial one. At least for the European theather. All other (5 out of 6) conditions are purely of technical nature and have nothing to do with actions of USSR.

Best regards
Igor Korenev

#5

Churchill had the document produced for the simple reason he never really trusted the Soviet leadership, and he wanted the planning in place if the relationship broke down.
He didn’t want war with the Soviet Union, but he wanted to be ready if there was,
To quote Churchill when he ordered the planning to be done,
" ``By retaining the codeword `Unthinkable,’ the Staffs will realise this remains a precautionary study of what, I hope, is still a purely hypothetical contingency.’’ "