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20 Historical Events Seldom Taught in School

Khalid Elhassan June 28, 2019 24 min

13. Winston Churchill Wanted to Attack the Soviets Soon as WWII Ended

Army positions in Europe at the close of WWII. Wikimedia

As WWII drew to a close, Winston Churchill grew exasperated by Stalin’s intentions to subjugate Eastern Europe. Britain had joined the war to defend Polish independence, but here was Stalin, riding roughshod over the Poles, reducing them to Soviet clients, and extinguishing their freedom and independence. Churchill saw it as a matter touching British honor, so he ordered his generals to draw up plans for an attack on the Soviets soon as Germany surrendered, with the nebulous aim of pushing them back to the USSR’s borders, or at least forcing them to treat Poland fairly.

The generals presented him with Operation Unthinkable, whose title indicates what they thought of the idea. An offensive version envisaged a surprise attack on the soviets in July, 1945, intended to force Stalin to give Poland a “fair deal”. A defensive version envisaged a British defense of Western Europe after America withdrew from the continent. In either scenario, Churchill was told, it would probably end with the Red Army conquering all of continental Europe, instead of getting chased back to the USSR. The prime minister grudgingly let the matter drop, and Operation Unthinkable was archived.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.