Was Overlord co-ordinated with the Russians for maximum effect?

perseus

perseus

Active member
There's a lot of programmes about the D-Day landings at the moment, so I thought about asking an related question.

I recall the Russians didn't attack in the East (Bagration or the Belorussian Offensive) for several weeks after the Normandy landings allowing German divisions to be drawn West away from the Eastern front. Ignoring politics was this the optimum solution for the Allies?

Consider that the Allies attacked simultaneously and the experienced German Eastern divisions weren't available for Normandy in June 1944. Would the Western allies have broken out of the bocage earlier, and made it over the Rhine by August before the weather closed in, perhaps ending the war before 1944 was out?

If so did the Western allies have to pay a debt of prolonging the war for Stalin's benefit?
 
There is a good documentary about the expectations of the main three "allies" during WWII. It is called When Lions Roared. Russia (Stalin) felt the US and Britain were holding back on opening a second front.

The documentary is long but very good.
 
I don't think so Perseus.

One of the main reasons for the timing of Bagration, the most decisive Soviet victory in the East, was symbolic, i.e. Bagration was launched on 22 June 1944, exactly 3 years after the Germans had launched Barbarossa. Stalin was quick to recognise the significance of dates and how it could aid morale and assist in propoganda. By launching Bagration on that date he was more or less saying; this is where the invasion of Germany begins.

IIRC, the Western Allies had logistical problems when they ploughed through France and the Low Countries. Considering also that the Soviets were generally in a rush to get to Berlin (for several reasons) I don't think there was any orchestrated delays by Stalin nor could the Western Allies have reached Berlin in 1944 in any case.
 
Strange, I've always assumed Stalin waited to take advantage of the situation. It seems a poor show that the Eastern and Western allies couldn't cooperate in principle.

With regard to logistics, if the breakout was a month earlier, wouldn't the ports have been captured a month earlier, bringing everything forward a month? Hence the Rhine could have been crossed before the Autumn clouds closed in negating the air power advantage, and once the Ruhr was surrounded presumably Germany couldn't have continued for more than a few more months.
 
perseus said:
Strange, I've always assumed Stalin waited to take advantage of the situation. It seems a poor show that the Eastern and Western allies couldn't cooperate in principle.
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The allies did cooperate with each other. By D-Day the allies new it was a matter of time before Victory was achieved. Cooperation of the allies was not just about victory over Germany, they were also positioning themselves for after the victory was achieved. Each had their own political agenda.

The western allies new that at the end of the war Stalin was not just going to withdraw his armies to Russia.
 
I mean agree on a workable strategy for launching a successful two front assault on Germany. Effectively it seems that all they did was to agree a piecemeal two front assault sometime in 1944 without any coordination whatsoever. It seems to me the way things worked out was that Normandy effectively diverted forces away from the East and the Russians were the main beneficiaries.

Without a successful breakout of the beachheads, all of mainland Europe may have been enveloped by an Iron Curtain of Communism. Perhaps a stalemate in Normandy is what Stalin really hoped for.
 
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There had been the Yalta Conference where Stalin had been briefed on what was going to happen, and I would expect that his Generals would have taken an advantage of the Germans being attacked on three fronts. Now there Germans were involved in a bloody conflict in Italy, and Russia and then had Normandy thrust upon them. The Germans did move troops out of the Russian front and sent them to France so the Russian did attack an drove down towards Rummania to get at the oilfields.
 
Perhaps a simultaneous assault was difficult to organise logistically since the date for Overlord was variable. However, this must have been restricted within a few days due to the tides.
 
perseus said:
Without a successful breakout of the beachheads, all of mainland Europe may have been enveloped by an Iron Curtain of Communism. Perhaps a stalemate in Normandy is what Stalin really hoped for.
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Bingo Perseus, this would have been a near dream scenario for Stalin.
 
Doppleganger said:
Bingo Perseus, this would have been a near dream scenario for Stalin.
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I don't agree as I think you are overlooking the Italian and Southern France campaigns.
Either one of these campaigns would have been stepped up to draw more Germans from Normandy had the D-Day landings become a stalemate.
 
MontyB said:
I don't agree as I think you are overlooking the Italian and Southern France campaigns.
Either one of these campaigns would have been stepped up to draw more Germans from Normandy had the D-Day landings become a stalemate.
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It's debatable Monty. Both those campaigns were limited in scope with Italy in particular a great theatre for the defender. In any case the situation Stalin most wanted was for the Western Allies to be held up or canceled out so that the Red Army could spread westwards as far as possible.

The further west Stalin pushed the more confident he was of victory over Germany. One of the reasons why the Red Army appeared to rush westwards was to try and secure as much post-war territory as possible. This is obvious and any delay to the Western Allies armies was good news as far as Stalin was concerned.
 
perseus said:
There's a lot of programmes about the D-Day landings at the moment, so I thought about asking an related question.

I recall the Russians didn't attack in the East (Bagration or the Belorussian Offensive) for several weeks after the Normandy landings allowing German divisions to be drawn West away from the Eastern front. Ignoring politics was this the optimum solution for the Allies?

Consider that the Allies attacked simultaneously and the experienced German Eastern divisions weren't available for Normandy in June 1944. Would the Western allies have broken out of the bocage earlier, and made it over the Rhine by August before the weather closed in, perhaps ending the war before 1944 was out?

If so did the Western allies have to pay a debt of prolonging the war for Stalin's benefit?
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No,Overlord was planned for june 5,bad weather meaned a delay for a day . Overlord earlier ? Impossible for logistical reasons . Overlord on june 22 ? The Western Allies did not know the date of Bagration and it would mean 16 summerdays less . And the tides and the moon on that day .If Overlord had been possible earlier,it had happened earlier.
 
Doppleganger said:
The further west Stalin pushed the more confident he was of victory over Germany. One of the reasons why the Red Army appeared to rush westwards was to try and secure as much post-war territory as possible. This is obvious and any delay to the Western Allies armies was good news as far as Stalin was concerned.
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The "Big 3" had signed an agreement in '42(?) @ one of the big Confrences dividing up post-war Germany. Some of the "what ifs" like to think what if we could have gone east more than we did. I'm sure Stalin would have insisted the territory guaranteed in the agreement if we ended up in "his" area, & we probably would have No doubt he would have reneged if the Red Army had taken all of continental Europe
 
Wrong Question

perseus said:
There's a lot of programmes about the D-Day landings at the moment, so I thought about asking an related question.

I recall the Russians didn't attack in the East (Bagration or the Belorussian Offensive) for several weeks after the Normandy landings allowing German divisions to be drawn West away from the Eastern front. Ignoring politics was this the optimum solution for the Allies?

Consider that the Allies attacked simultaneously and the experienced German Eastern divisions weren't available for Normandy in June 1944. Would the Western allies have broken out of the bocage earlier, and made it over the Rhine by August before the weather closed in, perhaps ending the war before 1944 was out?

If so did the Western allies have to pay a debt of prolonging the war for Stalin's benefit?
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The question should be: To what extebd was it coordinated. I really doubt any of the big 3 had tried to start something like the Invasion without informing their partners atleast in general terms.
 
cisco said:
The question should be: To what extebd was it coordinated. I really doubt any of the big 3 had tried to start something like the Invasion without informing their partners atleast in general terms.
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I agree, I find it hard to believe they would carry out an operation of that size without Churchill at least sending Stalin an email saying "Yo dude, can't make it to tea tomorrow night am invading France, meet you on the Elbe for a beer next year.... Laterz Winny and Roo.
PS. Don't tell Hitler.

I would imagine that Stalin knew all about Overlord and as such was planning operations for a few days after Overlord to allow time for German forces on the Eastern front to be redeployed westwards.
 
lljadw said:
No,Overlord was planned for june 5,bad weather meaned a delay for a day . Overlord earlier ? Impossible for logistical reasons . Overlord on june 22 ? The Western Allies did not know the date of Bagration and it would mean 16 summerdays less . And the tides and the moon on that day .If Overlord had been possible earlier,it had happened earlier.
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Of course Bagration would have to be moved to coincide with Overlord not the other way around! Since the operations were seperated by more than 2 weeks this suggests to me that either there was no strategic plan in detail, or Stalin was pulling a fast one, since he was making Overlord work for him.
 
From my reading (mainly Ericksons books on the Eastern front) I understand that there was quite some communications between Stalin and Churchill on the matter of the invasion beforehand. Stalin had demanded a "second front" very loudly for several years and wanted to be kept in the loop about it. His own signals about the plans for "Bagration" was as usual pretty secretive, indicating no specific date or place for the offensive more than "soon".

Having a precise timing by the day for such large operations would had been difficult and not really necessary. Also Bagration was designed to seem as a feint at first sight, luring the OKH that the real attack would come against Army Group South (while it was in fact Army Group Center that got steamrolled).

On an immediate, operational scale I dont really think both allied operations would had benefited very much from being perfectly coordinated given the huge distances between them. On the strategic scale they came close enough, making it much harder for the german HQ to shift "fire brigade" units to the most threatened sector while fighting a two-front war.
 
The Russian knew what was happening, now if they had any sense they would wait and let the Germans be drawn down to Normandy making just that bit easier for them when they launched an attack
 
"Allied" coordination

First of all, I believe the US and Britain didn't trust Russia any further than Roosevelt could have thrown Churchill. My impression is that the western allies were content to let Stalin continue to burn up his own troops to burn up German troops. If I remember correctly (and correct me if I'm wrong), half of all the dead in WWII were Russians. The Eastern Front was one giant meat grinder, and I would imagine the US and Britain were content with that. I think Stalin launched his drive against Germany so he could grab as much land as he could before the other Allies made it to Berlin. I doubt that he believed the Normandy landing would have been a stalemate, but rather the opposite.
 
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