Soviet Domination - A Red Dawn story

[archangel]

The Allies and EDA should push for a soviet withdrawal from Eastern Europe.
But in any case, there should be severe economic sanctions to speed the collapse of the USSR.

[James G]

Dec 29, 2018 20:38:13 GMT lordroel said:

Dec 29, 2018 20:23:59 GMT James G said:

(329)

Mid-April 1985:

The ceasefire brought about celebrations around the world, in the main through the countries of the West.

It was over!

No one else had to die and there would be no nuclear apocalypse. Who wouldn’t want to celebrate such a thing? Across the frontlines, men in uniform understood what was coming as the slowdown in the fighting occurred. They were then informed that there was a ceasefire and the war was officially still ongoing… but they heard what they wanted to hear and saw what they did with their own eyes.

It was over!

Away from the frontlines, word got out everywhere else. Some governments tried to keep a lid on things but others did no such thing. The war was over! There was drinking, dancing and horizontal romance aplenty.

It was over!

Yet it really wasn’t. A ceasefire meant just that: there was a cessation in fighting. Nothing beyond that had been agreed, nothing at all.

The outpouring of relief when the ceasefire occurred and as word spread as fast and as far as it did was something that many people afterwards would regret. Politicians and military officers alike hadn’t wanted to see the scenes which occurred, especially with some of the more outrageous things which took place. Discipline in some military units went right out of the window where men at once wanted to go home: this was almost exclusively among wartime conscripts though where it was among others, pre-war serving soldiers, that was rather troubling. The civilian scenes were something else too. The celebrations got a bit out of hand in places. There was an immediate feeling afterwards that everything had been sacrificed for the war effort on the home front had to come to an end too: i.e. right now. Official positions were that at any moment the ceasefire could breakdown or that pending armistice talks could fail to achieve the necessary results leading to a return to fighting. That wasn’t going to be easy to do – not impossible; just hard to redo – with the general mood of so many once they heard about the ceasefire.

None of this had been foreseen in terms of major occurrence and the scale of that.


It was more than a day late before the ceasefire came into effect in Yugoslavia and it didn’t affect neither the fighting on the Korean Peninsula nor that in China at all. The Yugoslavian issue was resolved by Paris making concessions to Belgrade as to how involved Yugoslavia would be in the joint EDA negotiations to reach a final settlement to the war which they had taken part in. This displeased other Western European nations – the Low Countries and West Germany in particular –, yet Yugoslavia got away with it. As to North Korea, Kim Jong-il paid no attention to what Gromyko said. North Korea kept on shelling Allied forces inside & beyond the DMZ and so they returned fire: the situation on the ground there was already a stalemate in terms of movement of the frontlines and overall this didn’t necessarily effect the general Allied position on how it would deal with the Soviets post-ceasefire considering it was only the North Koreans, not anyone else, involved in that. As to the China War… that was an entirely separate matter considering the government of the People’s Republic of China was no more.

Other fighting took place post-ceasefire though. In South Texas, US Army forces there clashed with troops no longer representing to the fallen regime of Revolutionary Mexico and not listening to the Soviets either. Messages over the Hot-Line from Moscow said that the Soviet Union was ‘struggling’ with the issue of Revolutionary Mexico. That ambiguity was something that the United States responded to by telling the Soviets that they would act to ‘correct’ matters there. Stormin’ Norman and his US V Corps, joined by elements of the US Sixteenth Air Force, received specific orders to make that correction. In a smaller action to the north of San Antonio in the high ground there and then in a far larger series of engagements west and especially south of that recently-liberated city, they undertook an offensive. From Del Rio all the way downstream to Brownsville, the Rio Grande was reached and everything in between taken. Cuban and Soviet forces stepped aside and ended up surrounded though not disarmed; Mexican forces in the way faced the full might of the United States here and were whipped out. This put everyone involved in a difficult situation but it was resolved in under twenty-four hours. Not many prisoners were taken in this and post-war accusations would be made at the level of American brutality shown when on the attack against such a weak opponent. Questions would be asked as to whether what was done was justified from a military point of view from others who cared not for the Mexican lives lost but in what was done here. All such comments were ignored in the rush to liberate that region and smash apart such an opponent. Schwarzkopf got his wish as his men reached the Rio Grande and he would firmly secure his place in history as ‘liberator of Texas’.

Over the Rio Grande, where the Americans were fighting in north-western Mexico, the US Marines there also engaged Revolutionary Mexico troops when the 1st Marine Division declared it had come under attack. This did happen: there was no central command for their opponents to listen to so they fought on. The retaliation for ‘breaking the ceasefire’ was quite something and allowed for the Americans to take over an extremely large portion of territory there too. Up in the far north of Norway, several instances of ceasefire violations took place where Norwegian irregulars took the opportunity to attack isolated Soviet garrisons and there came retaliations to these. News of the ceasefire had been broadcast but there were standing orders for Norwegians long-trained to fight a guerrilla war to ignore such things, especially if they considered such things to be enemy lies. Their country was occupied, the armed invaders were in front of them and this was a fight which they would continue to keep having. There was no easy solution to this issue. Oslo reacted strongly to what they saw as hesitancy from London and New York in how they responded where they were more focused on arrangements underway to start armistice talks. Norwegian innocents were caught up in the exchanges of gunfire where Oslo considered that the Soviets were breaking the ceasefire. More broadcasts were made into occupied territory from Allied sources – the Soviets lifted electronic jamming and also allowed unarmed aircraft to make leaflet drops too – but it carried on. Such messages and news were all treated, as it was supposed to be, as lies from the occupier. This put pressure on the whole Allied negotiating approach to hurry up. Moreover, waves of defections and desertions occurred across the world among Soviet-aligned forces in the field yet too behind the lines. Instances of shooting took place which oftentimes occurred right near the frozen frontlines. None of this was an act of breaking the ceasefire yet it occurred right within the faces of the Allies and the EDA and they had to hold back from doing anything about it.

Other occurrences saw close instances of near-shooting following the ceasefire coming into effect. There were Soviet transport aircraft flying from out of occupied parts of the United States – quite the shrunken area – and also from Mexico, central America and Cuba. It was the same in Austria with aircraft while elsewhere on parts of EDA soil under their control they made helicopter flights or ran convoys of trucks back eastwards. There were many people in Western governments and in uniform who wanted to shoot those aircraft down and bomb those trucks. The ceasefire was only about stopping fighting though: it didn’t demand that no one was allowed to do anything in their rear areas. The Allies and the EDA were busy doing the same thing where they shunted military forces around without the immediate danger of air & missile strikes. In addition to all of this, there came surrenders made from cut-off forces caught behind the lines and on the verge of collapse when the ceasefire had come into effect. Many Guatemalans caught in Arizona, Soviet naval crews on damaged ships within the eastern Med. and East Germans surrounded while inside Thüringen gave themselves up. These were groups of military personnel in desperate states who had heard the ceasefire orders sent and were told to stay in-place. They found this impossible to do for a variety of reasons (the Guatemalans were being killed by guerrillas, the seamen were on sinking ships and the East German Grenztruppen were being chased by a raging series of wildfires) and so they surrendered. Allied and EDA forces on the ground accepted those surrenders though not in an official capacity in response to higher instructions that meant that legally, while in the state of a ceasefire, that couldn’t be accepted. This mess was a further distraction for those involved in the preparations for armistice talks.


Before the ceasefire came into effect, Mitterrand sent to Glenn a message on behalf of the EDA and to all members of the Allies an assurance that there would be no betrayal. Western Europe wouldn’t sell the Allies down the river and seek a settlement with the Soviets behind their backs. London forced a pause in a return message where the British Government – recalling what had happened back in September during misunderstandings made in haste – intervened to have what the Americans tell the French in response. Input was given to the reply from the British but also the Canadians and the Spanish too. This put noses out of joint in New York but there remained the unofficial position that Britain had that Glenn had really f***ed-up last year when talking to the French. When the reply was made, it was a response from the Allies. The same assurance was given: there would be no sell-out of the EDA from the Allies. Each had their own interests, the message continued, and those would be respected. It was anticipated that the Soviets would try to divide them and thus this was sought to be pre-emptied by such assurances given both ways.

Each alliance had previously agreed within on that war aims and what they would have liked to see once the conflict came to an end. Drawing those up was a matter of politics and diplomacy. It was done during times when they were engaged in warfare and with no idea of how or when the wars which they were fighting would come to an end. This meant the Allies and the EDA had changing positions due to ongoing events. A major element of complication came with regard to the direct British-EDA military cooperation on the battlefields of northern West Germany following the arrival of the British-Spanish-Irish force there which had arrived late but made quite the impact when doing so. When the Soviets suddenly called for a ceasefire, the French at once sent to them their standing position on how they saw an end to the war coming with what the EDA had at that point as its post-war aims. The Allies took their time in this, seeking to have theirs more up to date. The Soviets had replied to each with calls for armistice talks to take place and refused to discuss these ahead of any ceasefire.

Both the Allies and the EDA were each waiting for the Soviets to make demands of their own and they were going to shoot those down. They had won this war and the winners of a war decide how it will all end, not the losers. While it was considered that the Soviets might not see themselves as losers by some of those within each Western alliance, the general feeling was that the Soviets had lost and thus would receive victor’s justice. The Soviets weren’t on their knees and they retained their nuclear arsenals, so there was a limit on how far they could be pushed, but they had lost this war and admitted that by requesting that ceasefire and armistice talks. They would be pushed as far as possible. To the armistice talks, the Allies and the EDA would bring their full list of demands for the post-war world. They had opening positions which they were willing to step back from but red lines too…

…just as the Soviets did.


Arrangements for armistice talks took place while messages were exchanged due to ceasefire violations. The Soviets made it clear during those that they would speak for all members of their alliance apart from Revolutionary Mexico and North Korea. Gromyko told the two alliances he was engaged in distant communication with that neither of them were ‘under control’ yet everyone else was. His representatives would speak for their country and twenty-two more too. As to face-to-face talks between his representatives and those of the West, Gromyko requested that just one set of armistice talks occur where both the Allies and the EDA were present.

This was something shot down. Neither would go for that. They refused to do so and from New York and Paris there also came replies to the Soviets that it was they, not Moscow, who would decide when and where armistice talks would occur.

Agreeing between themselves first before presenting this to Moscow, the two alliances informed Gromyko of the specifics of those talks. There would be simultaneous meetings in both New York (for the Allies) and Luxembourg (for the EDA) starting April 16th to take place with those whom Gromyko wished to send to each. There would be no talks on neutral territory – Geneva, Helsinki, Jamaica or San Jose (the capital of neutral Costa Rica) – as the Soviets had made requests to see done. Instead, the Soviets would come to the territory of the victorious West to talk.

Gromyko – for so long known as Mister Nyet – said ‘da’ instead.

First great update James G , second, the war has ended, now the talking about peace begins.

Thank you.
Oh, that is the hard part (to write as well!)

Dec 29, 2018 21:27:41 GMT dunois said:

Good updates James!

I am surprised that the Soviets were able to advance so far and so deep into China. The logistics of supplying their forces 1,000s of km away from their borders and of occupying a territory populated by hundred of millions of people are simply too horrendous to contemplate.
I honestly doubt that the Soviet firmly control large portions of the countryside outside of major supply routes and logistics hubs. Are local collaborating authorities in place to ease the strain of occupation? I can't imagine that the Soviet occupation is any gentle to be fair and I bet that millions of Chinese will be conscripted for labour and reconstruction duties in the Soviet Union. 

I think that the Soviet Union actually has a chance of surviving post-war, though it will need to withdraw from wider world affairs to focus on itself instead for some time. This might very well mean letting Eastern Europe go its own way, which would release ressources that could instead be refocused for internal development. I honestly don't know what the long-term plan with regards to China is. The wisest move would be to create puppet people's republics in Manchuria, Inner Mongolia and in Xinjiang. This could be very successful in the later case as the Soviet Union can portray itself as a "liberator" of the Uyghurs against the Chinese. 

The challenge for the Soviet leadership is to somehow spin the war as a victory or at least to strongly condemn the "folly" and "imperialism" of Vorotnikov and his precedessors. Large-scale purges reminiscent of Stalin are a given and a virage into hardline Stalinism is far from impossible. 

The Soviet Union survived WW2 despite taking tremendous losses, it might be able to do the same here while undergoing some form of reforms. Hardliners were not necessarily anti-reform, they just had different ideas of what and hwo to reform.

The possible hunger problems can be solved by a combination of measures. Strict rationing is the first and most obvious one. The second one is to pillage China. Another one that's likely to be controversial could be to reform Soviet agriculture by increasing the size of private land plots and increase incentives for producing.
The availability of Chinese "volunteer" labour coupled with perhaps available Ukrainian farm labour if Ukraine is truly condemned, also offers another possibility. A second Virgin Lands Campaign, this time focusing on southern and eastern Siberia. This could be tied in pretty nicely to the rebuilding of Vladivostok and Khabarovsk and even be spinned as a new "Eastern orientation" of the Soviet Union as opposed to a Western one as the Warsaw pact satellites are released. Agriculture is possible in Siberia if planned very carefully and if it focuses on cattle and livestock rather than growing large fields of crops. Southern Siberia is also fertile for growing grains and vegetables.

Money and ressources will be a problem though if oil sales to the west are now impossible. Might focusing on internal consumption be part of the answer? Soviet citizens had money but nowhere to spend it apparently.

Thank you.
It is six months or so of going forward but you are correct: the challenge has been massive. The Soviet Army cheated when they used nukes and gas aplenty of the PLA. Brutal policies have been followed in occupation. Yet their body count is massive and their logisitics will be a nightmare indeed. This is a war where about half of the Soviet Army is involved in - most behind the lines - and those troops weren't in Europe or North America. That commitment means more supplies which means more security duties which means more supplies for them and so on.
There was no real forced local cooperation until the end of March / beginning of April. Moscow was waiting on China to make a deal. They started to change that, then got rid of the PRC Gov only at the end.
Oh, the Soviets can survive and with Eastern Europe, Iran/Afghanistan and China too. They should let them all go but they won't.
Breaking up China would work for certain: they might even give Tibet 'independence' too.
Internally, the Soviets can always claim they won. It has been done by other regimes. They have only lost abroad too and it can be spun that way!
Some interesting ideas for the future there. My notes for my epilogue are rather thin so I'm thinking I will have to use some of these ideas.

Dec 29, 2018 21:27:59 GMT arrowiv said:

Winning the peace would be the hard part. Of course, you will probably see hotheads in the US Congress and media screaming for a second Treaty of Versailles compete with stern conditions and reparations (no nukes, no bombers, no missiles, no nothing!), independence for the East European and Soviet republics, and even "Nuremburg Trials Mk.2"

That is the worst bit.
Those demands, and worse, have already been made in Congress - much of that elected in November 1984 so full of the angry. Getting all that is impossible. Even if the hotheads understand the issue completely as to why not, and they will, they won't accept what comes because that isn't how the world works. They'll be banging on about how 'unfair' things are until the end of time.

Dec 29, 2018 23:02:06 GMT lukedalton said:

The problem is that unlike WWI Germany, the Soviet Union had still enough nuclear weapon to transform the planet in an hellscape...so whatever they want, the leaders of the Allies and EDA will know that they can push too much, sure they will try but they will also know that will be more for internal consumption than a real move.

Frankly there is the strong possibility that both side develop a 'stabbed in the back' and/or 'mutilated victory' myth as with all the sufference bring by the war, the peace treaty will never give the satisfaction deserved due to the nuclear weapon factor...and the fact that in any case and for the good that will bring, China is on Soviet hand.

The EDA main objective will be German reunification, as taking away East Germany from the Eastern Block improve immensely the strategic situation and eliminate the Fulda Gap,  sure there will be people not really thrilled by that, but honestly WWIII as just being fought and the Soviet are still there, so they at least pretend to bury the past and accept a unfied Germany.

Second, they will try to take away the east european nation from the soviet sphere, this will be more difficult as this will be a big no no for Moscow, even if later will be forced to do that due to the cost of keeping troops there and the postwar economic situation. The best that they can probably obtain is to transform Poland in a neutral/non affiliated state between EDA and URSS, but even this will be very hard; maybe some rettification of the borders like the passage of Stettin to Germany,

Sopron to Austria and so on; nothing of epic, just to make the border more safe and give the impression to have obtained something...naturally this will bring a lot of forced relocation of people aka ethinic cleasing.

Finland will be probably also an important objective for EDA, they will try to bring her officially in the organization as the war demonstrated that at the moment the Soviet can simply pass through her unopposed, menacing the rest of Scandinavia; it's also probable that an abrogation of the Finnish-Soviet Treaty of 1948 and making Helsinky a true neutral will be more or less enough.

Greece will try to talk with the various allied/eda goverment try to get back on their good grace as her economy at the moment is on the verge of collapse and had bet on the wrong horse; more probably she will become some sort of associate of the EDA and Athen will receive the condition for such position...that will be not negotiable; while harsh nobody in western europe will like Papandreu and co. after their support of the URSS. Frankly a repeat of 1897 when an european commission took direct control of the greek economy to make her repay the big debt contracted is very possible.

Jugoslavia will be like Italy in WWI, will want a lot, probably too much and while Paris will be sympathetic, there is limit at what can agree, expecially if jeopardize the general settlement; plus for all his talk Belgrade will need the rest of Europe badly, even before the war her economy was in bad shape and the war really not helped.

They will demand border rettification with everyone, DMZ...and maybe even put their eyes on Albania as a new member of the federation.

That is the issue: Soviet nukes. The West can push only so far and will expect their publics to understand that.
I agree that a 'stab in the back' issue and a betrayal thing will crop up too no matter what is given up.
Going after East Germany and Eastern Europe will be what the Europeans want but they will play the long game there: they are in no position to take it and the Soviets will not want to lose what they see as theirs. Neutral zones will be impossible but in their agreement with the Soviets, I have the EDA getting something on that issue in terms of troop numbers instead. Which will never be enough for everyone though... and is overall not very effective as was seen.
For the EDA to 'capture' Finland might be a bit hard to do. Not impossible, but not at this time in the position they are in. As to Greece, Western Europe will turn on them at their leisure once they get the Soviets to leave and Greece will regret what its leaders did.
And Yugoslavia, yes, they will demand a lot but not get that much. in OTL, there was a stopping of their economic collapse in the 80s by the Friends of Yugoslavia in the US under Reagan. That hasn't happened here at all so they were already in a bad way. Showmanship aside, they will be in Brussels begging for cash.

[James G]

They should be that will be too much. The Soviets will fold elsewhere and then say 'you cannot have that too'.
Economic measures will be the trademark of both alliances to really win this war long-term.

[James G]

This story will have three more updates. The one below, one tomorrow and the epilogue on Tuesday.
The EDA-Soviet armistice is below then the Allies-Soviet one will be covered.
There are things I have / will write with how that plays out which not everyone will agree with. It is just how I read the situation. I am open to changes but... well... this is how I see things.

[lordroel]

Dec 30, 2018 20:25:06 GMT James G said:

There are things I have / will write with how that plays out which not everyone will agree with. It is just how I read the situation. I am open to changes but... well... this is how I see things.

Well it is your timeline and thus its your ending and aftermath, keep up the work, going to miss the timeline as it is the first mega timeline of this forum.

[James G]

(330)

Mid- & Late April 1985:

The Soviet Union sent representatives to both New York and Luxembourg to talk to the Allies and the EDA respectively. While doing so, those diplomatic teams spoke not just for their country but all the other countries through which there was that Soviet domination of them in terms of foreign and military affairs. The twenty-two further nations ranged from Central America & the Caribbean to Eastern Europe to various parts of Asia. There were countries which had strongman dictators as their leaders and there were others with weak frontmen for dubious committees. Some nations had taken a near-independent course of action throughout the war while others were nothing but puppets for the Soviet Union. Back in Moscow, the interests of all of those countries and, if it came to it, the survival of every single one of them, came secondary to their own. The Politburo had agreed to this. The act of throwing to the wolves their allies in this war was something they, naturally, kept secret. There was a strong wish to retain Eastern Europe – plus Afghanistan, Iran and Mongolia; neither of these were likely to be lost anyway – though and it wasn’t thought likely to that to reach a settlement with the two Western alliances would see those forced to be detached from Soviet control. That was especially true with Eastern Europe. Gromyko and the Politburo weren’t about to throw away what they had there unless they really had to.

Being able to use the fates of these many countries as bargaining chips when dealing with the West meant keeping them under control before they were disposed of. This wasn’t an easy process though, conversely, not as difficult as it might have seemed either.

Cuba had tried to break with the Soviet Union before the ceasefire and, once made aware by Kryuchkov, Vorotnikov had ordered the death of Raúl Castro. As was the case with many things that the former general secretary had ordered done before he was deposed, this was only something that could have been carried out by the KGB. Kryuchkov had been double-dealing as he had been close to Vorotnikov but also to the growing Gromyko tendency. When the time had come to make a choice, he had been at the forefront of supporting Gromyko rather than following a lead set by anyone else. The KGB’s chairman was a survivor and intended to remain where he was with all of his power and privilege. Now, as to the younger Castro, his death kept Fidel in-check for the time being. In the long-run, the elder Castro would seek vengeance but that was a long time away as far as Moscow was concerned. Cuba was cowed for the time being. In eliminating Raúl, the Soviets put a wave of concern into the various personalities across the regimes which were tied to them throughout the Western Hemisphere. The Ortega Brothers in Nicaragua, Daniel and Humberto, had long been close to Fidel and Raúl but they were left worrying for themselves after the death of the younger Castro and wouldn’t move against the Soviets for fear of a repeat of such a killing. Guatemala’s ruling committee, Noriega down in Panama and the blood-thirsty madmen over in Grenada were fearful of angering Moscow yet also convinced that the Soviet Union wouldn’t throw them under the bus. Noriega was the weakest link in that chain of self-delusion but he remained the most-frightened: he thus took centre-stage in calling for unity among the fellow nations of the alliance which stretched through Central America and the Caribbean in supporting the Soviets… anything to avoid a KGB hit squad. Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno, the Fool.

East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria were all on the frontlines of the war in Europe. These regimes were all displeased at how the war had turned out with the EDA and were not upset at the ceasefire coming into effect. None had pushed for an invasion to take place into Western Europe and Yugoslavia, all with the concern that it would come down to nuclear weapons being used in the end. As they were at the forefront of the war in conventional terms, they believed that they would be first in the firing line for nuclear attacks made too. Protests in Czechoslovakia and East Germany had been put down by those regimes ahead of a feared Soviet intervention too, one along the lines of what had occurred last year and ahead of the war against Poland. In Warsaw, there was a puppet regime installed by Moscow and none wanted that in theirs. However, against this backdrop of doing what the Kremlin said because it was all in their best interests, East Germany’s leader Erich Honecker sought to use the period following the ceasefire to shore-up his position. He enacted a cull amongst the lower ranks of his ruling regime due to how terribly the war which East Germany had fought had turned out. There were dismissals made of military officers – mostly political generals – and he urged the Soviets to allow for East German military forces inside Poland to return home. Should the ceasefire break down, or the armistice talks fail, East Germany would face a full-on invasion he believed where Allied and EDA forces operating side-by-side would march on West Berlin to liberate that city. Moscow said no to the troop movements and at home, Honecker’s comrades were unhappy at what was done with the dismissals and arrests made. The general secretary ‘lost the confidence’ of his Politburo. The KGB was well aware of what was going on and when the Soviet Politburo was briefed on developments, they feared that this situation could get out of hand. Both the Allies and the EDA had broadcast much propaganda into East Germany during the war (more than anywhere else in Eastern Europe) and their read on the situation there with the stalled protest movement was different than that in East Berlin. The fear was that the country could collapse into civil war… which would put everything they were seeking to retain in danger. Honecker’s comrades were supported, not him, and they were aided in forcing his retirement. Erich Mielke, the head of the Stasi, aimed to play the role in East Berlin that Kryuchkov had done in Moscow. Alas, that wasn’t to be. He was detained and spirited out of the country to be held by the KGB over on Polish soil for the time being: the thinking being that his fate might either be an unmarked grave somewhere or handed over to the West if need be. This whole murky series of events in East Germany saw the regime now lead by a four-man steering committee. A leader among them would eventually emerge, the Soviets knew that, but before then, they were mightily useful while they focused internally and jockeyed for that position rather than concerning themselves with outside events. Moscow now had re-established its needed control over East Germany while maintaining what it had elsewhere throughout Eastern Europe. None of those regimes were going to turn on them.

South Yemen hadn’t followed the lead of the other Arab countries which had been with the Soviet Union earlier in the war – Iraq, Libya and Syria – in walking away before the end came. The leadership there would later regret not doing so. The fate of such a country mattered nought to Moscow and any betrayal of them wouldn’t be thought of as anything of significance. However, that wasn’t something realised in Aden at all. Vietnam was another which the Soviets no longer really had any future concern for. Since the Chinese nuclear attack late last year against Hanoi, and then American-led action from Allied countries in South East Asia, the usefulness of the country in any real form was long gone. Sticking one thumb in the eye of Beijing and another in the eye of Washington had long been the unsaid reason for the Soviet presence there beyond any military benefits. Vietnam was a drain on the Soviet Union in the past and would only be more so in the future. There was a government down in Haiphong who weren’t as gullible as those in Aden were in fully believing everything that the Soviets told them yet still took their word for it that Vietnam was important to Moscow. The previous leadership, the dead men who’d been in Hanoi, wouldn’t had let anyone else speak on behalf of their nation yet these fools in Haiphong did. They were immersed in the internal matters of a country which had had its heart ripped out like it had with that nuclear attack in October and that was what mattered to them. North Korea cut all ties with the Soviet Union following the ceasefires it sought with the West. The Soviet leadership had at first considered strong action in response but, after considering things here, decided to let that slight go. It would be Pyongyang which suffered in the end from such an action. It helped too that North Korea wanted to paint itself a bad guy just as the Soviets had already done with the remains of Revolutionary Mexico.


The city of Luxembourg had been chosen by the EDA as where they would meet the Soviets for armistice talks in. The capital of the small country which shared the same name was chosen over others such as Paris, Bonn, Rome, The Hague, Brussels, Strasbourg and Maastricht after all of those had been considered. The capitals of those five other core & founding nations of the EDA as well as Strasbourg (scene of a failed earlier summit) and Maastricht (where the treaty establishing the European Defence Alliance had been signed) had been rejected over Luxembourg. Meeting here was down to security concerns – Luxembourg was relatively isolated – and the centralised location for EDA delegations to base themselves in while not that far from governments back home. There was no need to project any form of strength as might be the case by demanding that the Soviets come to somewhere like Paris either. The EDA considered that they had won the war which the Soviet Union had brought to them and Moscow knew that. A different place would be considered for a future peace treaty – Vienna, maybe Stockholm, even Brussels or Strasbourg were all possibilities – but for now it was Luxembourg. The Americans, and thus the Allies who followed their lead, chose New York to demand that the Soviets come to but that was up to them. Western Europe wanted to do things differently.

The founding six countries of the EDA had been joined in wartime by two more ahead of the Soviet invasion and then two more in direct response: Denmark and Sweden followed by Austria and Yugoslavia. African countries allied to France (and Italy in relation to Tunisia) had declared war in support of the EDA and then there had been Malta which had come onside once liberated. This large collection of countries – twenty in total – agreed to speak as one voice in talking with the Soviets. France graciously accepted the offer to do so when backroom deals were struck to give them that leading role in the talks. The founding EDA nations plus Yugoslavia all would have major input in this too but the French were out ahead. It was thus the French foreign minister who met with the Soviets when they arrived and he faced Moscow’s lead negotiator ‘across the table’.

Five days of talks commenced in Luxembourg.

These were at times tense though still maintained quite the expected diplomatic flavour. Outside the meetings, there would be many who would have been hopping mad to see the treatment that the Soviets received. Public rage and diplomacy were two different matters though. There were serious matters to discuss. Sticking points came up and there were rejections made of positions put forward. The EDA wouldn’t listen to any Soviet demand on anything because they were here as the victors. Soviet concessions came yet the Western Europeans didn’t see them as concessions but rather as what rightly should be done in such circumstances where the Soviet Union had launched a war of aggression against them. This wasn’t a deal which they were trashing out but rather a one-sided arrangement to formalise what occurred with the ceasefire and thus a permanent end to the fighting. There was a firmness in the EDA position where they didn’t back down on anything which they came to Luxembourg with. It was the Soviets who backed down in the end, giving away things which the EDA were convinced that they hadn’t come to Luxembourg to agree to fold on.

An agreement was reached but there was a wait on afterwards because there was that understanding made with the Allies on not moving forward without them. The Soviets pushed hard to get this all over with but the EDA held out until the talks in New York were over with two days later. Only once they were finished there across the ocean did there come a signing of documents here in Luxembourg.

What was called the ‘Luxembourg Agreement’ came into effect starting the very beginning of April 23rd.


All Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces on EDA soil would surrender. Those on the island of Bornholm, inside West Germany, within Austria and on Yugoslavian soil would all enter into EDA custody. Western Europe would release POWs taken at a later date and in stages though retained the right to hold & punish war criminals; anything with them from tanks to rifles to documents would all remain with the EDA too. Occupying forces would depart from West Berlin and passage opened up to a joint French and West German military force to reach the city unhindered with no limits on numbers or activities inside. Soviet forces in Finland – which they had first denied were there but later back peddled on that and said they were civilians there at the behest of Helsinki – would leave that country fully. It was the same with Soviet forces on Crete (which the Soviets hadn’t denied they were there but again argued that the Greeks had invited them to be present) as well where they would have to depart from there and do so with utmost haste. Moreover, outside of Europe, and where the EDA acted in conjunction with the Allies on this matter, the Soviets – well… the Cubans to be specific – would surrender all military forces on those island nations (apart from Grenada and Barbados which the Allies were dealing with) there as well: the Dutch and the French would both move into each to take prisoners and establish control within them. Soviet naval forces in the Baltic would move into Soviet a-joining waters and stray no further twelve miles out; this included air and naval air forces over the Baltic too. Down in the Mediterranean, the evacuation of Soviet forces from Crete would commence via unarmed aircraft and ships while that sea, plus the Aegean Sea too, would be off-limits to Soviet warships as well. Naval issues with the North Atlantic and Caribbean were part of the armistice talks with the Allies but there would be no Soviet military presence in them either. As to military forces on the soil of the Warsaw Pact nations, Yugoslavian forces would withdraw from Hungary following the surrender of those inside Yugoslavia; the French would pull out of the small area of East Germany they were in and so would the British too (the latter covered by those talks over in New York). These withdrawals would only be done once surrenders were made of those on the western side of those borders down through the middle of Europe.

This was the immediate military-related part of the Luxembourg Agreement. The agreement covered other things as well though. A complete and thorough return of EDA prisoners of war taken was to be made with no exceptions: this included the bodies of the dead too. There were civilians in Soviet and Warsaw Pact custody ranging from diplomats to intelligence personnel to tourists & students to civilians caught behind the frontlines to those caught in acts of guerrilla warfare. Again, all of those alive and the bodies of those who weren’t were to be delivered to EDA representatives without exception: this included anyone who the Soviets claimed had volunteered to enter their custody. Furthermore, this also included details on the whereabouts of the alive and dead that the Soviets knew of inside EDA nations and neutral nations. Of particular note when this was agreed was where the body was of the missing illegitimate daughter of the French president when the Soviets revealed that she had accidently been killed post-kidnap. Exchanges of people would be reciprocated only in the form of the staged POW release by the EDA and wouldn’t include any return back east of those who charged with war crimes nor those who wished to stay in Western Europe for whatever reason that they wanted: limited civilian consular access would be provided at a later date to confirm their wishes but that would be supervised and tied to other matters. Military forces levels in on the ground in Eastern Europe – outside of Soviet borders but, crucially, not inside them – were to not exceed what they were as of December 31st 1983. This date, not pre-war with either the Allies (Sept. 17th 1984) or the EDA (Feb. 27th 1985), was the one set for that and this included Poland too… which meant that those numbers would be those present before the Polish Revolt. Full diplomatic relations were yet to resume until a full peace treaty. Those below ambassadorial level would come into place but no exchange of ambassadors would be made nor would there be any exchanges of diplomats outside of bilateral relations either in the case of international organisations which required such. All spoils of war were to be returned by both sides. This meant that everything ranging from aircraft and ships be those civilian or military to looted civilian goods to anything else taken and retained must be handed back over. In the main, this covered loot taken from west of the Iron Curtain though the EDA would be on paper returning monies and goods seized in an official capacity as well from what they deemed official and unofficial sources during the war.

Due to the Luxembourg Agreement being only a matter of an armistice, there were important matters missing that others might have expected to see agreed had this been a peace treaty. Such a thing was set for a later date – yet to be determined – and the EDA linked much of what was agreed upon within the armistice to that later peace. Soviet promises were made in Luxembourg and there were things that Western Europe agreed to as well. The thinking behind that was to make sure that a peace treaty came so as to resolve them all. The EDA wanted a settlement on the status of the divided Germanies to come at a later date where the Soviet Union wouldn’t interfere if there was a ‘democratic will’ within the two for a reunion. This was signed off on in Luxembourg though that would of course hinge on future events when it came to East Germany. This took the future of the post-WWII settlement on Germany – plus West Berlin too – right out of the hands of the Soviet Union and delivered it into the shared hands of the EDA as well as the Allies whose input was in with this. However, the facts on the ground of an outwardly stable East Germany and a Soviet military presence there weren’t changed by this. That would be become an issue for West Germany soon enough. Financial compensation was sought for losses incurred during the war. None of this was agreed in Luxembourg in terms of details – which was why the EDA held onto what they had seized as an insurance – but the EDA had made it clear that they wanted the Soviet Union to pay for all that it had done in terms of repairs and replacement of civilian structures, materials and goods. Such payments would be government-to-government, not direct to individual people and organisations. The Luxembourg Agreement tied the Soviet Union to committing to doing that now and thus not making it a negotiable part of a later peace treaty. To hurry along that future peace, the EDA refused Soviet attempts to see trade recommence in any form unless there was a peace treaty. This was regarded by Western Europe as the shrewdest move they could make on this matter of forcing a final settlement in the form of a peace treaty. They could make the Soviets pay in terms of trade costs and force them to do sign a peace to allow that trade to occur. A delay from Moscow would cost them even more and once a deal was done, it would incur using trade to open up Eastern Europe leading to an eventual non-violent collapse of Soviet domination there. On this matter, the thinking here was confined to diplomats and government rather than to the general public though.


As the Luxembourg Agreement came into place, the EDA started moving its armies forward to retake their own soil and only would withdraw from the bits of East Germany and Hungary which they held starting the beginning of May. Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces laid down their arms and they were taken into custody. Arrangements were made to point to stocks of damaged & unexploded ammunition as well as minefields and weakened buildings & bridges. Transfers of POWs heading westwards began with medical care delivered and debriefings to take place; there was also the shipment of bodies too. War crimes teams moved forward with most of those acting on pre-ceasefire intelligence firmed up in the week between that ceasefire and the armistice. Nonetheless, they weren’t prepared for all that they found when they arrived. In the liberated areas, there were civilians which the EAD armies met and those Danes, West Germans, Austrians and Yugoslavians had all remained behind the lines during the week-long ceasefire. While relieved to be freed, there was a lot of anger which came too where people had starved or died of medical complications while the EDA armies had ‘sat about waiting!’ following the ceasefire. This would be seen elsewhere in the world too when the Allies were on the move. That went on while at the same time collaborators and traitors were sought among them, often aided by those same outraged locals who now wanted to take matters into their own hands rather than let the authorities do so. As could be expected, not all of those accused of such things were guilty of those things they were said to have done.

The armistice was greeted with less of a public reaction than the ceasefire had been. Governments across Western Europe wanted to make a big show of things on this. The French and West Germans did that with West Berlin and the Austrians too when they (and the Italians alongside them) went to Vienna. The Yugoslavians were fast to get their military presence back on their borders, hold a parade in Belgrade and show their public images of captured POWs; there was international agreements on such things which they grossly violated on this matter… although it was nothing compared to what had been done by the Soviets and their allies with prisoners throughout the wars which they had fought. What came more than the public outpouring of patriotism or unruly celebrations was that continued relief that the war in Western Europe hadn’t brought the use of nuclear weapons. This was more celebrated than victory being won. Then there was what followed.

There came the questions and the allegations over how the war had been allowed to happen and how the Soviets had ‘gotten away with it’. Why wasn’t Eastern Europe being freed? Why weren’t the Soviets being made to pay for all that they had done? This weren’t the vocalised concerns of everyone but those of the loudest: some had valid reasons to do so, others not so much. There was a coming peace treaty, the response ran; the retort came in the form of when will that occur then?

Winning the peace was going to be something else entirely than winning the war.

[lukedalton]

yep, very few will be happy for this treaty; while intellectually there will be an understanding that's more was almost unpossible...feeling will be very different and RL demonstrated how this can shape the political life of a nation.
A lot of politicians will try to ride the dragon of the popular rage and perception of 'mutilated victory', talking about not being soft with the big bear and finish the job...probably there will be some rise of the violence from extremist group against politicians and people perceived as too nice with the commie, the good thing is that we are hardly at the level of destruction of WWI or II, so the situation can be contained.

EDA will remaim, with the soviet block still a menace there will be no incentive to go solo; it's very probable that in the near future the EDA and EEC will become a single organization, even if the UK (and possibly Ireland, but it's not a given, while relations with the UK will be somewhat better there is the North Ireland question and frankly being in OTL EEC/EU had made the nation something more than an economic colony of Great Britain).

East Germany can have a big problem here due to the presence of foreign held 'enclave' and the damage done at the border guards organization, basically we can see a lot of the population deciding to take the chance and run for it while it last and this can cause an economic damage even worse than the war and cause the collapse of the nation
There will probably be some attempt to recruit the other european nation (Spain, Portugal, Norway)...the more probable is Spain, there were a strong pro-european sentiment in OTL during this period, all parties supported memberships and ITTL the general humanitarian and logistical support will have helped (plus there are hardly bad feeling about the NATO thing due to Spain not being a member)

ITTL there will be no 'dividend of peace' and Europe will remain pretty militarizated...but budget problem will remain so there will a strong incentive to get a common procurament system so to lower the cost.

[arrowiv]

I do see a closer US/UK alliance along with Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and relations would be more cooler with the EDA. The "Anglosphere" will take precedence over Europe in American foreign policy.

[lukedalton]

Dec 30, 2018 23:03:40 GMT arrowiv said:

I do see a closer US/UK alliance along with Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and relations would be more cooler with the EDA. The "Anglosphere" will take precedence over Europe in American foreign policy.

Probable, as the 'Eurozone' will go on her own way in term of security (and economy); as said in earlier post, there will be probably a rush to create regional organization to pull together resources and create trade zone as the old order has gone the way of the dodo but the Soviet menace remain a strong possibility

[eurowatch]

Dec 31, 2018 11:26:57 GMT lukedalton said:

Dec 30, 2018 23:03:40 GMT arrowiv said:

I do see a closer US/UK alliance along with Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and relations would be more cooler with the EDA. The "Anglosphere" will take precedence over Europe in American foreign policy.

Probable, as the 'Eurozone' will go on her own way in term of security (and economy); as said in earlier post, there will be probably a rush to create regional organization to pull together resources and create trade zone as the old order has gone the way of the dodo but the Soviet menace remain a strong possibility

I personally think that while the UK Will seek closer relations With the US, it Will fall into the EU's sphere of influence sooner or later due to being much more closely Connected to them both geographicly and economical.

[crackpot]

Dec 31, 2018 12:06:43 GMT eurowatch said:

Dec 31, 2018 11:26:57 GMT lukedalton said:

Probable, as the 'Eurozone' will go on her own way in term of security (and economy); as said in earlier post, there will be probably a rush to create regional organization to pull together resources and create trade zone as the old order has gone the way of the dodo but the Soviet menace remain a strong possibility

I personally think that while the UK Will seek closer relations With the US, it Will fall into the EU's sphere of influence sooner or later due to being much more closely Connected to them both geographicly and economical.

Hard feelings go a long way. Yes the EDA eventually joined the fight, but the perception will be that more British boys died that didn’t have to because the intransigent fools on the continent sat on their thumbs.

[eurowatch]

Dec 31, 2018 16:54:11 GMT crackpot said:

Dec 31, 2018 12:06:43 GMT eurowatch said:

I personally think that while the UK Will seek closer relations With the US, it Will fall into the EU's sphere of influence sooner or later due to being much more closely Connected to them both geographicly and economical.

Hard feelings go a long way. Yes the EDA eventually joined the fight, but the perception will be that more British boys died that didn’t have to because the intransigent fools on the continent sat on their thumbs.

And now Europe Will finance the restoration of Britian. Plus, the Soviet Union Will still be a threat so the UK can't afford to ignore the EDA.

[James G]

Dec 30, 2018 22:50:43 GMT lukedalton said:

yep, very few will be happy for this treaty; while intellectually there will be an understanding that's more was almost unpossible...feeling will be very different and RL demonstrated how this can shape the political life of a nation.
A lot of politicians will try to ride the dragon of the popular rage and perception of 'mutilated victory', talking about not being soft with the big bear and finish the job...probably there will be some rise of the violence from extremist group against politicians and people perceived as too nice with the commie, the good thing is that we are hardly at the level of destruction of WWI or II, so the situation can be contained.

EDA will remaim, with the soviet block still a menace there will be no incentive to go solo; it's very probable that in the near future the EDA and EEC will become a single organization, even if the UK (and possibly Ireland, but it's not a given, while relations with the UK will be somewhat better there is the North Ireland question and frankly being in OTL EEC/EU had made the nation something more than an economic colony of Great Britain).

East Germany can have a big problem here due to the presence of foreign held 'enclave' and the damage done at the border guards organization, basically we can see a lot of the population deciding to take the chance and run for it while it last and this can cause an economic damage even worse than the war and cause the collapse of the nation
There will probably be some attempt to recruit the other european nation (Spain, Portugal, Norway)...the more probable is Spain, there were a strong pro-european sentiment in OTL during this period, all parties supported memberships and ITTL the general humanitarian and logistical support will have helped (plus there are hardly bad feeling about the NATO thing due to Spain not being a member)

ITTL there will be no 'dividend of peace' and Europe will remain pretty militarizated...but budget problem will remain so there will a strong incentive to get a common procurament system so to lower the cost.

That was what I was going for. An unhappy settlement where the specifics are beyond most people - not individually but in mob mentality terms - and there will be those who take advantage. The EDA is going for the long game in 'winning' but they'd be chasing the wind.
I think the EDA and EEC will merge. Greece will be high on their list of things to do on their terms. As to pulling the UK and ROI in, that will be more difficult. Norway and Iberia maybe easier but not certain.
I hadn't thought of that issue with the East German border guards but that works very well. East German internal tinkers will do nothing to stop the eventual rot. Spain is possible and I am thinking on it. They weren't in NATO, were on a path to EEC membership and were attacked by the Soviets. They joined the Allies because they had to and were annoyed at France and the others. In the Allies, they have given a lot to the fight: punching beyond their weight. They'll want something in the end and won't get it.
Certainly there will be no peace dividend!

Dec 30, 2018 23:03:40 GMT arrowiv said:

I do see a closer US/UK alliance along with Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and relations would be more cooler with the EDA. The "Anglosphere" will take precedence over Europe in American foreign policy.

While I strongly agree, the events mentioned at the end of the update below will take even more of a precedence in American foreign policy. They will alienate some wartime allies, probably not the UK but others.

Dec 31, 2018 11:26:57 GMT lukedalton said:

Probable, as the 'Eurozone' will go on her own way in term of security (and economy); as said in earlier post, there will be probably a rush to create regional organization to pull together resources and create trade zone as the old order has gone the way of the dodo but the Soviet menace remain a strong possibility

This will certainly happen. There will remain Allied-EDA links aplenty as at the end they fought together in many places but post-war events will pull things back apart again.

Dec 31, 2018 12:06:43 GMT eurowatch said:

I personally think that while the UK Will seek closer relations With the US, it Will fall into the EU's sphere of influence sooner or later due to being much more closely Connected to them both geographicly and economical.

I think both. Britain had many pre-war trade links and will be seeking European help though, us being us, we'll want our conditions!

Dec 31, 2018 16:54:11 GMT crackpot said:

Hard feelings go a long way. Yes the EDA eventually joined the fight, but the perception will be that more British boys died that didn’t have to because the intransigent fools on the continent sat on their thumbs.

Oh, that will happen for certain. Many people will build a political career out of that too.

Dec 31, 2018 17:17:01 GMT eurowatch said:

And now Europe Will finance the restoration of Britian. Plus, the Soviet Union Will still be a threat so the UK can't afford to ignore the EDA.

Ah, them damn commies won't be around for ever though!

[James G]

(331)

Mid- & Late April 1985:

The Americans made things difficult for the Soviets in terms of them getting to the armistice talks. They feigned indifference to complaints from Moscow while wearing beaming smiles. Other members of the Allies were uncomfortable with what went on here and let New York know. Security concerns, the Americans said; being childish, came the retort though phased a little more diplomatic than that. Only one Soviet aircraft was allowed to bring their diplomatic party to New York and everything about that aircraft and its passage westwards was under the Americans control. They recalled what happened last September when Gromyko himself had been due in Washington and instead the D.C. area had been the target of half a dozen nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. The circumstances here weren’t the same but the United States wouldn’t be duped like it had been before. They watched on radar displays as the Ilyushin-86 airliner in Aeroflot colours approached Keflavik on Iceland and stopped there for a refuelling. After leaving, and coming further west, the US Navy put F-14s into the sky to give the aircraft an escort. There were two carriers up in the North Atlantic, with five squadrons of Tomcats between them. At all times, at least four of those interceptors flew with the Il-86: one off each wing and two tailing behind. Visual confirmation of everything about the aircraft was maintained at all times. Air-to-air tanking was done all the way too and into Canadian airspace where the US Navy Tomcats followed that aircraft until it made another refuelling stop of its own, this time at Gander on Newfoundland. Refuelling stops like this – in Iceland though not in Canada – had been a staple of the Soviet airlift flights across the North Atlantic during the war. They had taken Iceland, the Azores and many islands in the Caribbean for this reason. Their air transport fleet of airliners and air-freighters didn’t have the range to make such long-haul flights. This was especially apparent when they were carrying large cargos of men or equipment & stores. There had been loses to the aircraft used in such flights from enemy action, accidents and sometimes just bad luck.

Gander was a major wartime military base for the Allies and somewhere they used for refuelling too for far-shorter trans-Atlantic flights than the Soviets had been making. Before the war, Aeroflot airliners including the very one which came here in mid-April, used Gander frequently along with other places like Shannon in the Irish Republic. When it touched down, everyone stayed aboard while it was refuelled: Canada would be billing the Soviet Union for this fuel. The pilot then informed the Canadians that there was a problem. The Canadians sent a small team to the Il-86 including a man who went aboard. It was an issue of power supply and this wasn’t going to be easily resolved. Discussion were had about using another aircraft to fly down to New York. The Soviets didn’t have one on-hand but maybe there could be other arrangements made? When the Americans found out, they were hopping mad. It was decided that this was a matter of the Soviets now playing their own games. The Canadians confirmed it though. The problem was serious and even if it was somehow given a fix, the power issue would flare up again while in mid-air. Seeing the demise of the people aboard might not cause the shedding of any tears though it would delay the armistice talks greatly. There was an Air Canada Boeing-767 at Gander and this was one which had been in Canadian military service with wartime stops made in Britain, Norway and Spain. The Soviet diplomatic party was transferred to the 767 and onwards they went. Canadian and then US Air Force fighters escorted the aircraft southwards (despite it being flown by Canadian military officers) all the way down over the border and above New York state into the Hudson Valley. Stewart AFB outside of New York was where the next stop was made. This was a re-established facility for the US Air Force which too had seen much wartime use for transport aircraft. It had been closed in 1970 and unused until late last year when reopened. Nearby was the FEMA facility at Orangetown – they had been there at an US Army Reserve post since the war’s second day following the loss of their peacetime headquarters in Washington – and where the armistice talks were to be made. This would mean that such meetings would take place outside rather than inside New York City: the official story presented to the media and thus the public didn’t directly lie though the impression was given the Soviets had come to New York itself rather than being forty miles away. Orangetown was regarded as more secure than anywhere inside America’s acting capital. It was a place ready for the Soviets too where the whole place was bugged – there were some of the most advanced pieces of surveillance technology in-place there – and surrounded by soldiers from out of the nearby West Point garrison. The Americans put the Soviets up in comfortable though certainly not luxurious conditions (they’d bill them for this too) before meeting with them for those armistice talks at the same time as those in Luxembourg occurred.

Throughout the war, the Allies had maintained a formal position where they were all equal. Naturally though, there was the first among equals, that being the United States. They were the biggest, the strongest and were more involved in the fighting against the Soviet-led forces than anyone else in terms of theatres of global operations and that the biggest battles of the war which the Allies fought where on American soil. A core membership of the Allies was present too, again despite the position that everything was equal. Five other nations formed that core: Britain, Canada, Japan, South Korea and Spain. Those nations forced their influence forward ahead of others and jockeyed for second place among themselves too with Britain often winning out though not always. US Defence Secretary Chuck Robb would be the face of the negotiations with the Soviets. There were delegations in New York from every single Allied nation (Belize and Iceland included despite the complete loss of their home countries) and every single one of them wanted an input on the discussions talking place. Those core countries pushed the hardest though others such as Australia, Chile and Portugal all wanted a big role as well. Though Robb would remain out front, in the same position as the French foreign minister was in over in Luxembourg, he certainly wouldn’t have full responsibility for everything that occurred. While frustrating at the time and in the immediate afterwards, Robb would later be glad: the writers of the history books wouldn’t blame everything that happened subsequently solely upon him.


Once the armistice talks were underway, the opening positions by each side were put forward. The Allies repeated their demands which they had presented the Soviet Union with the moment that Gromyko had requested the ceasefire. From Moscow had come the response then that those were an issue to be discussed at armistice talks and thus they were. Soviet forces and those of their allies on American soil would surrender in-place along with those holding the Azores, Iceland, northern Norway and island possessions of Britain & the United States in the Caribbean. This would be a full surrender – men and equipment – with all aid requested during that surrender given from identifying minefields to not destroying documentation to helping with the immediate transfer of POWs out. Soviet forces elsewhere in the world in certain regions would leave and that meant every single member of their military personnel throughout the Western Hemisphere, those they had on Spitsbergen in the Arctic, others in South Yemen, more in Vietnam and any left inside North Korea. The world’s oceans were to be freed of Soviet military vessels too. As to Soviet-aligned countries which they said they spoke for, Cuba would withdraw from Guantanamo Bay plus the multiple islands in the Caribbean where there were occupations supporting illegitimate regimes, Guatemala would leave Belize, Panama would withdraw its forces from the Canal Zone, Vietnam would pull out of Cambodia and Iran would depart from those islands in the Persian Gulf which it contested with the UAE. All Allied POWs and civilians who were in custody in areas where there weren’t direct surrenders taking place following Allied occupation were to be handed over no matter what the circumstances of them ending up in detention. This covered the bodies of the dead too. There would be a return of any spoils of war in military and civilian form despite what condition all of these were in. Full cooperation would be given in the return of captives and what had been looted too with the onus being on the Soviets and its allies to see that done with haste. There was a short timeframe given for the surrenders and a little longer given for the pull-outs from other areas. This was the opening Allied position on the armistice.

The Soviets had many issues with what was presented to them and rejected several demands outright while offering what they deemed ‘solutions’ to others. Robb was told that the positions he put forward were those of an alliance which had just won a war and that hadn’t occurred. There would be no diktat imposed upon the Soviet Union. Its forces would withdraw from American soil and other places such as Caribbean islands which were colonial possessions of Allied nations, from the Azores, from Iceland and out of Norway as well as making an exchange of captives apart from those which wished not to leave. There would further discussions on naval activity on the world’s oceans, yes, but that would be two ways to with no further Allied penetrations of what the Soviets called their historic waters. As to the demands made about territory which their own allies held, those demands wouldn’t be met either. Cuba had taken what was rightfully it’s, the people’s republics in the eastern Caribbean were all legitimate, there had been a referendum in Belize for it to join with Guatemala after liberation, the Canal Zone belonged to Panama, Vietnam was establishing order following genocide in Cambodia and those Persian Gulf islands had been in Iranian hands since the early Seventies when the US-backed Shah of Iran had taken what was rightfully theirs. Furthermore, how could the Soviet Union force other countries to do such things when there were American forces on Mexican soil… to say nothing of the recent nuclear attacks there?

Consulting with the Allied delegations, though in the main getting his instructions from President Glenn – who was fighting Congress over their own demands to have real-time input into the armistice talks –, Robb doubled down and promised later increased Allied demands. There was a strategy being followed here in doing this: it wasn’t an act of striking out just for the hell of it. The Soviets could accept the terms of the armistice offered or the Allies would consider that the ceasefire had been agreed in bad faith and thus treat it now as null and void. In seeing the latter occur, the Allies would have the fight return to the battlefield rather than the negotiating table. When the Soviets returned to talk again, as Robb told them that they would end up doing so, the Allies would have those initial demands plus further ones too which would include the surrender of additional Soviet forces elsewhere rather than allowing them to depart. Moreover, there would be the matter of the Soviet presence in China to address in a second round of armistice talks too. A retort came where the Soviets stated that victory on the battlefield was something that the Allies couldn’t win and there was also the issue of the EDA agreeing to an armistice too.

Told of this latter remark, Glenn had Robb deliver a statement from him personally:

The United States, supported at every turn by the members of the Allies, has fought alone before and will do so once again if need be.
Notwithstanding that, the European Defence Alliance and the Allies are fully committed to supporting one another in war as has been shown before the ceasefire; thus no signed agreement will occur in Luxembourg without one in Orangetown, and vice versa.
The Soviet Union and its allies will face further defeat on the battlefield should they wish to see the matter returned to there, rather than carry on talking at Orangetown to find a non-violent solution to firmly ending the war.



A delay came. The Soviets at Orangetown said nothing significant among themselves (the whole bugging operation was turning out to be a washout) though opened communications with home. They had brought their own links in the form of satellite phones and man-portable antenna arrays to go with them: this had all come off the Il-86 at Gander and gone into the 767 with protests made while snooping done upon it all. This was no commercial set-up but a KGB system where there was a lone satellite up over the Arctic waiting for the use of such a method of communication. The Allies were waiting too. They’d suspected that – in the words of one Americans – ‘the Russkies will want to call home to mama’ and had that confirmed on the ground at Gander. Military communications sites across the world were all ready to intercept and decode what was said, doing what the Allies had always been good at.

Everything said was in the hands of Robb when the Soviets returned to the talks.

The Soviets threw many of their allies under the bus. They had come to New York expecting worse and everything was just one big game in terms of the refusals, counteroffers and whataboutism. Each and every Allied demand was acceded to in terms of those being the basis for an armistice. There were further matters to be discussed for a final peace and this would cover many matters such as financial affairs, full restoration of diplomatic ties, trade matters and international agreements on a variety of issues, but this here was supposed to be done. What Robb was told though was that things were going to be ‘difficult’ when it came to certain countries honouring the agreement made. Robb queried these. Cuba’s position on Guantanamo Bay, Guatemala’s hold over Belize and Panama with the Canal Zone would present a problem. The Soviets also asked for clarification over the future of Mexico.

This time it was the Americans who broke off the talks. Again, Robb told them, they weren’t conducting these talks in good faith. The Soviets were saying they agreed to what the Allies wanted and then they were saying they couldn’t deliver on key aspects of those. Moreover, throwing in questions over Mexico, which were none of the Soviet Union’s concerns, was a further element of not conducting these talks in the proper manner.

The Soviets were given twenty-four hours to ‘reconsider their behaviour’.

The two sides came back to the talks after that break. The future of Mexico wasn’t mentioned by the Soviets this time. However, there remained the issue of some of their allies. Robb was told that as was the case explained beforehand where the Soviet Union had no control over the actions of North Korea and Revolutionary Mexico ahead of the ceasefire, at this time they were unable to fully speak for several Latin American nations at these armistice talks. Guantanamo Bay and the Canal Zone were issues which needed more time to solve and it was extremely unlikely that Guatemala was going to fold on the matter of Belize. Their lead negotiator held up his hands in an apparent admission of impotency on those. The Allies had intelligence to suggest otherwise though on two of the three. Robb put it direct to them that Castro and Noriega would do as they were told by Moscow; Guatemala’s ruling council was something else and the Allies would ‘deal appropriately’ with the issue of Belize if need be. The response given was that on these issues, Cuba and Panama, like Guatemala, just weren’t going to give in. A solution was proposed by the Soviet Union. On the matter of Panama, like Guatemala, this would be left for the Allies to do with as they must. Cuba’s hold over Guantanamo Bay would be something left off the armistice document. If the Soviets walked away from Cuba entirely, they expressed concern for the fates of the return of so many POWs from that island – almost all of those being Americans – when such matters were important to securing an armistice. Robb wouldn’t stand for this at all: his instructions on Cuba came from the very top.

For the third time, the talks broke down with each side stating that the other was being unreasonable.


How do you solve a problem like Cuba?

The Americans couldn’t allow for Guantanamo Bay to be retained by Cuba. The military value was not overall that important, the issue was a matter of politics more than anything else. It had to end up back in their hands. There were rumblings from other Allies on this matter yet none of this broke out into the open. If it meant a restart of the war, then problems would have cropped up among the alliance, yet while the Soviets were painted as being unreasonable and playing more of their games, the other countries stayed on-side.

The Soviets were forced to act in the face of this. A waiting game wasn’t something they were willing to do, not over an issue like this. Fidel’s brother already lay dead at their hands. Soviet stock in Havana was rather low with their withdrawal from the war – Fidel had yet to understand they were leaving the Western Hemisphere too – and Castro wouldn’t want to give in. They made him though. Gromyko spoke to Fidel himself. He promised him an American invasion if Cuba held out. Let them come, the response was made. Cuba would be all alone if that happened, Gromyko replied, with the Soviet Union washing its hands of the whole matter entirely. Where were Cuba’s armies to oppose that invasion? How could they stop it with no air nor naval cover? Where would the bullets come for Cuba’s remaining guns? Would Cuba be willing to keep a tiny patch of land if the American’s gave Cuba the ‘Mexico treatment’? The Soviet Union had intelligence to suggest that would occur, Castro was told, and Cuba would have to agree to hand back over Guantanamo Bay or face Havana and its other cities ending up like those atomised ruins of Mexico’s once thriving urban areas.

Coming back to Robb, the Soviets told him that they had forced Castro’s hand in the same manner which they aimed to deal with both Noriega and Guatemala’s council. Guantanamo Bay, like the Canal Zone and Belize, would be returned to Allied military control. The armistice agreement would have the insertion of clauses within concerning ‘all parties working post-war to finding peaceful solutions to territorial issues’. Robb discussed this with his president plus also the British foreign secretary who was down in NYC. They agreed those were meaningless words. What mattered was that such places would return to whom they belonged to. Cuba, Guatemala and Panama would all withdraw from each – not surrender in-place, so that would be a domestic issue for Britain and the United States – but they would be lost to those countries.

The New York Armistice Accords (not ‘Orangetown’) were subsequently signed.


The Allies had been preparing for the signing for some time with military forces held ready at the same time to return to combat operations if those failed. In some places, events pre-ceasefire, even post-ceasefire, put them in excellent positions to see either an uncontested or opposed advance to regain territory. Elsewhere, the challenges of moving forward if opposed were militarily impossible and where not opposed, there was the issue of available forces: the latter of particular concern to Britain who had a major troop commitment on the Continent where their forces there were held in-place waiting on armistice talks in Luxembourg to finish too.

Once the deal was struck in New York, the Americans moved to retake what was theirs. They took control of all occupied territory in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas and accepted the surrenders of opposing military forces there. General Lobov – he’d never get his marshal’s star now – surrendered a huge and beaten army from where he’d established his command post at San Angelo. Up in Alaska, the last bits of the Alaskan Panhandle were entered first before Kodiak Island off the mainland and then the Aleutian Islands were liberated. The Florida Keys were moved into, so too the last islands not recently liberated in the US Virgin Islands. American forces arrived in the Yucatán Peninsula by air to take forward staging bases for operations further south: their US-only mission into Panama as well as supporting the British with what occurred over Belize. Then there was Guantanamo Bay too where the US Marines returned to once the Cubans had left.

Portuguese forces, aided by Spain, landed in the Azores to take the surrender of the Soviets there. With movements through Swedish territory though also by air and sea, northern Norway was retaken by the British and Norwegians and so too was Jan Mayen Island when the Spanish sent their marines alongside the Norwegians to that lonely place. West Berlin was somewhere that the Allies agreed to leave to that French & West German force so no Americans nor British went there; meanwhile the British pulled out of their slice of East Germany that they were in. Canada took the Iceland mission due to British inability to field enough resources to do that amongst everything else they were committed to.

The British Armed Forces faced quite the challenge in response to what London told the Allies it would be responsible for when it came to enforcing the armistice agreement’s territorial matters. The Caribbean was full of British sovereign territory under occupation plus there was the matter of Belize too. Dutch marines and French light troops – under British command yet only on paper – landed on Antigua & Barbuda, St. Kitts, St. Lucia and St, Vincent (none of which were British) so that the UK could focus on Barbados and Grenada (again neither being a direct UK holding but with strong tied to Britain in the past). The regimes on all those islands but Grenada fell easily with no more Cuban or Soviet support to them: Grenada was a fight which the British called upon American assistance for when Bishop and Coard ignored what was agreed in New York and fought for their island regime. The Grenada War would last into May. Islands stretching from the UK Virgin Islands to Anguilla & Montserrat, over to the Turks & Caicos Islands and across to the Caymans all saw British forces arrive. Their numbers were small but, thankfully, they didn’t meet with any Cuban resistance. Belize was a big deal. Back in 1982, Britain had won the Belize War yet lost the country in a humiliating defeat in September 1984 despite the far-bigger garrison. Arriving there at the same time as the Guatemalans were leaving, and not taking their surrender, the British still faced combat. The mish-mash of British units faced apparent local armed separatists: these were Guatemalans who weren’t giving up. The Americans offered support, to match what they did in Grenada, but London refused direct US combat forces on the ground just transportation help and a lot of air power. That was given and in the midst of that, several US Air Force aircraft were shot down. Guatemala was thus attacked from the air and then there came an American ground incursion into Guatemala proper from out of Mexico. The Second Belize War grew in scale at a rapid pace, all occurring while the Americans found themselves meeting the opening stages of a guerrilla war inside Yucatán. Belize fell into British hands when they brought over Royal Marines from Europe but none of this was meant to happen. The Soviets refused to take the blame for what Guatemala did and this, while not accepted in both New York nor London, really was beyond their control. They were out of the Western Hemisphere for good leaving Guatemala and Mexico behind like they abandoned Cuba, Grenada, Nicaragua, Panama and everyone else to fend for themselves. They would be very glad to be gone because that fighting in Mexico was only going to expand.

POWs came back. There were those missing among them, neither returned alive nor in body-bags. ‘The missing’ became a big deal and held up the return of Soviet POWs which were eventually meant to go home too. Those whom the Allies didn’t get back were many and varied. There were many people who always went missing in war due to explosions and being buried beneath rubble or lost at sea, yet patterns emerged with ‘the missing’ in the form of Allied military and civilian captives. Those with certain military skills (in the fields of intelligence and such like), intelligence officers covered as diplomats and civilian political figures were not among the returnees. The Guatemalans had many natives of Belize who they never returned. From inside Mexico, US raids into ‘bandit country’ returned with bodies from there but there were others who’d been held there never to be seen again. North Korea was another place where POWs didn’t return from. The country took no part in the ceasefire nor the armistice: there would be a continuation of the Second Korean War there and that wouldn’t be fast over with nor see captives come back in the end too. All such missing returnees from distant POW camps were added to civilians who were absent from liberated areas where the surrenders took place. The United States had seen this already in retaken areas of their country but it was worse the closer to the Mexican border in areas under long-term occupation. So many people just weren’t there with no initial trace of them. Soon enough though they started to find the mass graves and there were prisoners they took who they stripped the rights from – using dubious claims which the other Allies didn’t want to know about – to interrogate them to locate more bodies or be told of what happened to such people.

The things which were uncovered when it came to ‘the missing’ would lead to the armistice which the Allies had with the Soviet Union never turning into a peace treaty. That was the official cause. Though more than that, there were what were deemed ‘America’s Wars’ down through Central America – in Mexico, through Guatemala down to Nicaragua and into Panama – to come. The Soviet domination once here was gone; the United States would have its revenge and some, possibly wild conspiracy theorists but maybe those who had their eyes fully open, would say such was the reason behind the Soviets left the region in the manner which they did.

America’s Wars would last far longer than the Soviet Union did though.


[End of Part VIII]

[lukedalton]

final count of KIA, MIA and WIA?