"That Time Britain and France Almost Bombed the Soviet Union" Topic

"Today, NATO is forced to consider the possibility of war with a revanchist Russia over the Baltic states. And of course, during the Cold War the prospect of military action against the Soviet Union seemed all too real. Not many people recall, however, that in the early days of World War II Britain and France seriously contemplated bombing the Soviet Union in Operations PIKE and RASPBERRY. Declassified documents housed at the U.S. National Archives at College Park, Maryland and Kew, London allow us to remember this remarkable period, which could have had radical implications for 20th-century history.

Seventy-five years ago, on July 19, 1940, Adolf Hitler spoke before the Reichstag in Berlin, crowing about the German victories in Poland, Denmark, Norway, France, and elsewhere. Many around the world thought that Britain's surrender was just a question of time. The speech is best known for Hitler's anti-Semitic justification for war and insults toward Allied leaders, especially Prime Minister Winston Churchill. What is less remembered today is that Hitler also mentioned that a month earlier German soldiers had captured a cache of documents from the Anglo-French Supreme War Council. These documents provided embarrassing evidence that Britain and France had hostile intent toward the Soviet Union, which in August 1939 had signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany.

Specifically, the captured documents provided details of by-then-defunct Anglo-French plans to help Finland counter the December 1939 invasion by the Soviet Red Army. While the French Government had been particularly eager to avoid fighting Hitler and proposed engaging Stalin instead, the British argued that Soviet economic support for Nazi Germany effectively made the two regimes military allies. Then, Field Marshal Gustav Mannerheim, Finland's commander-in-chief, requested Allied assistance in the form of air attacks on the vital oilfields in the Soviet Caucasus…"
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Meh. The Sovs had just signed a treaty with the Nazis and carved up Poland. Perfectly reasonable contingency planning.

Doug

The British and French bombed the SU quite regularly in 1919…

If 1919 et al is your bag, I can heartily recommend "The Day we almost bombed Moscow'

Thanks my friend.

Amicalement
Armand

Not really surprising. The US had colour-coded plans for wars with just about everyone between 1920 and the start of WW2

War plan orange – Japan
War plan red – UK and invasion of Canada
War plan ruby – India
War plan scarlet – Australia
War plan Emerald – Ireland
War plan green – Mexico
War plan black – Germany

Wikipedia has a full list. I would imagine that UK and most other powers of the time would also plan for war with any number and combination of potential enemies.

If they weren't making plans for every possible thing while in peace-time, people would start wondering if we still need to be paying them ;-)

MetalMutt:
The plan to gas and invade Canada was called Crimson and the UK was Red. You should also look into the never-completed War Plan White.
PDF link
Cheers.
Rod Robertson.