Oftentimes when Im debating I anticipate my opponents arguments by thinking of what arguments I would use against myself if I were them. Fortunately they dont usually think of using these arguments, but I dont suppose it would matter if they did because I build counters to them anyway while awaiting their reponses. I was thinking for some time about the contention that Italys attack on Greece drew the Germans into the Balkans which caused the rift between Germany and Russia. The counter to this was problematic, but simple enough. The Russo-German split happened in late November of 1940, and by mid-December Hitler was deciding upon an attack upon Russia. Since the war between Italy and Greece began at the end of October, chronology supports the fact that Greece was the cause of the split. But if one examines the question in more detail they find that this is untrue. In the discussions between Molotov and Ribbentrop in November Greece was not mentioned. What caused alarm for the Soviets was Germanys pre-existing relations in the Balkans which preceded Mussolinis attack on Greece. In particular the two Vienna Dictates which awarded territory to Hungary which brought that nation into the German orbit. Shortly after that the Romanian government was overthrown by Antonescu, and only one day after that Germany won Bulgaria to its side by offering her the Southern Dobrudja at the Treaty of Craiova in the first week of September, 1940. At the same time Germany was fostering closer ties with Finland. It was Bulgaria and Finland in particular that Molotov addressed in the talks with Ribbentrop. Even after the Italians had attacked Greece and had been fighting for nearly a month, the Soviets did not demand that Greece be spared German wrath, the Soviets intimidated that they didnt give a damn about Greece. They instead demanded paramount influence in Bulgaria and Finland, which Hitler rejected. And it was for this reason that the Soviets broke off diplomatic relations with Germany and the two drifted into war. Now Germany had been active in the Balkans to secure its own economic interests since the 1930s, and it indeed wished to draw Greece into its economic orbit, which its Italian partner ruined. Even so this was nothing so much as a nuisance to Germany. But before the Greco-Italian War broke out Churchill had been attempting to forge an ill-fated Balkan coalition meant to oppose Germany as he details in his Second World War volumes. Throughout the spring and summer of 1940 British and German diplomacy were contesting the Balkans and by the end of August German diplomacy had clearly succeeded. Though Bulgaria and Romania were not to join the Axis formally until early in 1941, and Finland was never to, they were de facto aligned with Germany by the beginning of September, 1940. Which is almost two months before the attack on Greece. And it was the German presence in Bulgaria especially that caused the rift with Russia. So if my opponent decided to use the chronological argument demonstrating that Italy attacked Greece at the end of October 1940, and less than a month later the Russians broke off diplomatic relations with Germany, that would have done them little good in the end. As I could rather quickly demonstrate that the dates of prior events are more important, and that Molotovs demands did not include Greece. Already by August of 1940 the Germans and Soviets were dealing with growing tensions. The Soviet Union temporarily ceased resource exports to Germany as a result of growing German interference in Romania following the first Vienna Dictate and the domination of Romanian oil by Germany, which the Soviet Union objected to upon the basis of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact which specified that the Soviet Government had to be consulted on such an action. But above all this passage indicates Soviet intentions; The Kremlins reply to the Ribbentrop draft began with the following words; The Soviet government is prepared to accept the draft of the Pact of Four Powers on political cooperation and economic mutual assistance. Stalin proposed five, not two, secret protocols. The first pertained to Finland. It required German troops to depart immediately from Finland, but assured that the Soviet Union would guarantee peaceful relations with Finland as well as the delivery of Finnish timber and nickel. The second protocol stipulated that within the next few months, a mutual-assistance pact be signed between the USSR and Bulgaria, including the construction of bases for Soviet land and naval forces in the Bosphorus and Dardanelles (with long-term leases). In the event Turkey agreed to support the four-power pact, its independence and territorial integrity would be guaranteed by Italy, Germany, and the USSR. The third secret protocol recognised the centre of Soviet territorial dominance to be south of Baku and Batumi, in the direction of the Persian Gulf. The fourth protocol required Japan to renounce its rights to coal and oil concessions in northern Sakhalin, in exchange for an appropriate compensation. Finally, the fifth protocol (involving Germany, Italy, and the USSR) confirmed that, insofar as Bulgaria lay within the security zone of the Soviet Union, a Soviet-Bulgarian mutual-assistance treaty was a political necessity. - Aleksandr Nekrich, Pariahs, Partners, Predators: German-Soviet Relations, 1922-1941, page 202-203 This clearly indicates that Russias major concern remained the Turkish Straits which it could only secure through Bulgaria. Greece was a non-factor and Russia cared so little about Greece that it didnt even bother mentioning it. So were my opponent to say the Greco-Italian War drew Germany into the Balkans and caused the rift between the Soviet Union and Germany I would say no, it did not. I would say that Germanys economic, military, and political penetration of the Balkans and the consequent break between Moscow and Berlin had begun far earlier and for different reasons, and ultimately split on the question of Bulgaria, not Greece. And therefore that argument too would fail. But it would have been a fairly solid argument to make against anybody besides me.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Oct 2013 23:41:41 +0000
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