It came on August 20th. Again the Japanese had underestimated the Red Army and its strength. It was a sort of dress-rehearsal for that masterly type of mass-attack that later would shatter the German Wehrmacht: heavily supported by both artillery and aircraft, numerically superior Soviet forces - spearheaded by mechanized units - penetrated the Japanese front on the Halha. Despite the Japanese reinforcements that were being rushed to the border, it was over in 10 days. The war in Europe came (the German invasion of Poland) before the Russians could exploit their victory, and the middle of September both sides finally agreed to a ceasefire. The Japanese had been soundly thrashed. In hindsight, it is hard to see how the Japanese thought they could win.
Stalin’s great fear, in fact, was that the Japanese would resume the offensive during 1941 and stab the Russians in the back. The Japanese, still stung, did nothing of the sort and instead headed south, towards Pearl Harbour. Stalin kept a large force on the border anyway and only reluctantly drew it down to send some of the toughest and most experienced units west to face the Germans at Moscow. What might have happened if the Japanese had attacked Russia instead?
This became the core idea of The Invasion of 1950. The Japanese avoided their thrashing at Nomonhan by not engaging the Soviet Union. The conflict wasn’t one that was inevitable in any sense of the word; they could have avoided it quite easily. Without that lesson, they decided to settle scores with Stalin at the USSR’s most dangerous moment and advanced northwards against Russia. This didn’t get very far — the balance of power didn’t change much — but it cost the Russians the Battle of Moscow. Hitler’s forces, instead of poking down towards Stalingrad, spent the first few months of 1942 rounding up the remainder of the Red Army in the area and then opening up links with Iran. More importantly, neither Japan nor Germany are at war with America… and slowly, ever so slowly, America slips back into isolation. The war has bankrupted Britain and without American help, it’s impossible to win, so, in the end, the British accept an armistice before German power builds up to a level where it can crush the British Empire. Seven-odd years onward, Germany decides to reopen the war…
Or maybe not. Alternate History is full of time-lines that are no more or less plausible than anything we have in the original time-line It serves as the setting for a story and I hope that you enjoyed reading it.
Christopher Nuttall, 2008
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The Invasion of 1950 Page 51
