[WarInEur] Bulgaria and Romania

[sgminfo]

Buckley, John D (Dr) wrote:
> Two Points on Soviet Balkan intriguing by the Soviet player prior to 
> war with Germany: 
> 1. If the USSR invades Romania prior to any significant German 
> presence in the Balkans what happens to Romania? I presume they become 
> an active Axis power, even though they are not usually accessible to 
> the German player until 10/40. It doesn't help much though as the 
> German player can't get to Romania to help (Hungary and Yugoslavia 
> still neutral).
>  
> 2. More importantly however, if the USSR (now at Limited War) enters 
> Bucharest and forces Romanian surrender, presumably Bulgaria also 
> throws in the towel (rather oddly). But does this constitute the 
> addition of a further 5 Political Points as a violation of Bulgarian 
> neutrality by the Soviet player?
> I suppose you can rationalise this by arguing that Bulgaria suffers a 
> pro-Soviet coup as the Red Army advances into Bucharest - but what 
> about the Political Point issue?
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> **
>
That is a very good point.

The balkan position is very much complicated by some serious unknowns, 
in the real world.

1.Can the soviet army make a fight of it? Can Stavka trust the 
efficiency of its own forces.

2.Are the Rumanians really a pushover?

3.Will Bulgaria react?

4.How will the rest of theBalkans react to a now obviously agressive and 
expansionist communist slavic regime apparently hell bent on spreading 
world wide revolution???


Most military attaches would have reckoned on direct German military 
intervention being a serious military unknown, despite the hindsight 
that means we all know that the Germans may be hamstrung by the rules 
into a different reaction, and still be unable to directly intervene.

A serious defence of other slavic states against mother russia, could 
well destabilise the Baltic buffer zone, as the Soviets might like to 
look upon hthem

Some of these issues were so difficult to gauge, it probably applied the 
brake of caution to what Stavka had envisioned for action in the area.
The really massive fear haunting the Soviets would have been the allies 
making common cause  with the Germans to renew their war of intervention 
of 1919, truly a nightmare of all wars for the red Army...

Wars are remarkably easy to get into...hellishly difficult to extract 
yourself from...as we all know only too well in modern times.

In game terms ploesti virtually garrantees a German collapse in the long 
term, so tempting that it is difficult to refuse the chalice, apparently 
loaded with hemlok destined for the German palate...

-|steve|-













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