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Battlefield and Postmortem Assessment of Imperial Forces at HothI contribute the failed attack to 4 main points:Tactics not congruent to the campaign typeIneffective leadership practicesExcessive lead time to the attackCheapening of Imperial forcesTactics not congruent to the campaign type:What first struck me about the battle was how mismatched it seemed that the tactics and strategies used by the Empire were to taking out a fringe insurgency base. They essentially fielded a large armada in preparation for some large naval battle and did not plan accordingly for the ground conflict.What we see in the beginning of the movie is that the Empire has lost sight of the rebellion and is in search of their base. They deploy probes across Imperial space. Their search must have indeed been desperate if a few such probes found their way to a planet inhospitable to all but the most voracious of lifeforms. There they find what appears to be evidence of the rebel base.What seems to amount from this point is that the Empire used it's valuable time to create a massive force with which to take down the tiny base. The nature of insurgency warfare is one of speed to take down the nimble movements of the smaller force. What seems to have taken place, however was that a massive fleet was assembled for what amounted to a search and destroy raid, complete with the Imperial flagship and personal ship of Darth Vader, the Executor. What must be known about this is that in naval warfare this amounts to months of logistical, administrative and managerial work to muster the ships, men and equipment for such an engagement. Given hyperspace flight, perhaps this could drilled down to weeks, but this still not a quick affair.Most notable does this mismatch happen upon the arrival of the fleet. As other answer have mentioned, this was perhaps the single greatest flaw in the Imperial battle strategy. My take on the attack is not that this was a mistake by Admiral Ozzel in that he was inept, but that he was applying the wrong strategy to the battle type. Remember the loss of Death Star I was a naval battle where the Imperial fleet lost dearly to a much smaller force. What Ozzel did would have been the perfect strategy to take down another force of star destroyers, but was incorrect for this match. This was his error. He prepared for a duel of naval fleets and not a strike on a rebel base. Let's examine.By dropping out of hyperspace near the planet, it is my belief that Ozzel wanted to get a drop on ships in the area and gain a valuable victory against the rebellion fleet and gain notoriety for exacting vengeance in the name of the Empire. Had the rebel fleet been present, the much stronger Imperial force would have been capable of doing just that. That is the battle they prepared for. The rebels would have been surprised by the sudden arrival of a large fleet which would have overrun them with superior firepower.What they found, however, was the absence of the Rebel Fleet and instead a well prepared ground force ready to evacuate their base. By dropping out of hyperspace early he gave away the presence of his forces and gave the rebels on the ground the time they needed for last minute preparations for the battle. This could have been overcome had the Admiral prepared in advance with reconnaissance to survey the planet's defenses. Had he done so he would have known the fleet strength, defenses and battlefield disposition.Ineffective leadership practicesWe've seen that there were mistakes in the command of the fleet from Admiral Ozzel. One in the lack of adequate reconnaissance, two in the improper stall of the fleet and three in the overall deployment of forces.What is worse however is Vader's choice in handling such failures. While this results in placing the fleet in a situation where victory will be much more difficult the battle is not lost. There is still much an admiral can do to attain victory over the field. In fact, had he been given the chance, there is a good likelihood that Ozzel would have had the ability to still pull a naval victory had he been allowed to do so.How does Darth Vader handle his corrective action though? He kills Ozzel and appoints the young Captain Piett to the rank of Admiral.Great for Piett. A captain is a respectable rank and worthy to lead a ship. However, now you have an inexperienced officer suddenly taking over control of the entire fleet and the whole operation midway through the mission. The problem with this is that much of the battleplan and a few years of experience are now lost with the death of Admiral Ozzel. When they arrived on the scene the admiral was not given time to readjust his strategy to overcome the new information gained. It is in my opinion that the appointment of Piett and the assassination of Ozzel may have been just as costly to the operation as was the mistakes of the former Admiral.This takes us back to the days of a young and hot under the collar padawan by the name of Anakin. It would seem that his years of leading the Imperial military have only made is rash style of handling his problems all the more deadly. Now he is at the point of severing the heads of his own military. In so doing he hands over the fleet to even more incapable men which likely leads to the inability to stop the rebels from breaking the blockade. Vader's own lack of impulse control and murderous wrath seems to be one the greatest assets the rebellion had at Hoth.Now I direct your attention to the newly promoted Admiral Piett. What we do know of Piett is that he was likely the captain of the Executor, Vader's flagship. This most likely means that he was handpicked by Vader for that role. This should tell us the captain is likely quite capable to captain a single ship. However, given Vader's history and lack of ability in reading people we really can't tell if the captain just got lucky or is good at self glorification. What we do know is that he was able to relay information from his agents to Ozzel that was the key lead in finding the Rebel base. We should assume at least that he was a capable officer for the flagship and the likely next in line. He was, however, responsible for his own share of mistakes after taking his appointment.He was unable to do the one thing that the fleet had set out to do. Capture the rebels and prevent their escape from Hoth. By not taking into account the effects of the ground based Ion Cannons he left holes in the wall that Rebel transports were able to pass right through. This not only compromised the mission, but threatened the ships in his charge. His deployment of ships also made little effect as they lacked the key element of being staged in any sort of defensive barrier to escape. As Nick Layon correctly states, the ships should have been formed in a defensive blockade to prevent the Rebels from escaping, similar to what Naboo experienced decades prior. What blockade he did manage was a staggering of his Star Destroyers leaving large gaping holes should one fall or be temporarily disabled, as happened. What he should have done was deploy TIE fighters and interceptors. The swarm of ships would have been much more difficult to maneuver through than just the single ship that was easily brought down. In fact Piett was not able to deploy any strike craft until the very end of the battle. This meant that he failed to provide an adequate defense net for the fleet and failed to provide air superiority for the ground forces. This cost the ground forces greatly and lost the overall objective of the mission. His final blunder was the focus of most of the fleet on even small ships. This was shown most by the humiliating escape of the broken down Millennium Falcon from not just one, but three star destroyers with their (finally) launched TIE fighter detachments. This not only held the overwhelming shame of letting slip a tiny Rebel frigate, but also ended in two of the star destroyers crashing directly into each other during the chase. This was obviously a misuse of Empirical resources given that it could not have been known that Princess Leia was onboard that ship. A much more prudent action would be to assume she was on one of the massive transports slipping past the distracted and lost fleet.Switching to the ground side, we can see that Piett follows Vader's instructions and commences a hastily planned ground assault. The fact that the new Admiral is now in charge of both the orbital and land battle lead us to see that he is pushing beyond his limits in battlefield readiness. In doing so he sends General Veers to the planet without the backup he needs or the timely deployment of arms to successfully make a strike.Finally to the ground leadership of General Veers.What we have with the good general is another in the book of Vader, a rash yet cold personality who runs into battle with the biggest gun, yet lacking in the finesse to do anything but take heavy losses until the enemy is eventually overpowered by sheer strength. The general's use of forces was in many ways brought about by the ill timed deployment of forces thanks to Piett, but in all honesty, he could have waited a bit longer for support to arrive before bringing in the heavy tanks. What we see is that he deployed the AT-AT's (camel tanks) first, without air support, infantry support or support from AT-ST's, the two legged walkers capable of defending the AT-AT's vulnerable spots such as the flanks and from aerial attack. Remember that the AT-AT is a not just a walking gun, it's a transport. Inside there are troops and gear waiting to reach the base. By risking the AT-AT's he was not only risking a valuable asset, but also the assets aboard.While time was already against the Empire at Hoth, waiting for tactical reinforcements would have probably sped the advance on the rebel base and saved the mission.Excessive lead time to the attack and poor timing of key elementsResearchers and reviewers agree that that the timing of the Empire was among the greatest single mistaken practices and contributed mostly to the failed mission. This needs, however, to be broken down into several spheres to understand how practices of the Empire lead to not only a defeat of Hoth, but other battles as well.The first key take away is the Empire's use of their probe droids. At Hoth the probe droids did as much if not more for the Rebels as they did for the Empire.An obvious point is that the all black droid provides almost perfect contrast to the snowy backdrop of the Hothan tundra. One might conclude that the Empire's efforts at uniformity in all things has left them with many cases where a tool is almost completely inadequate for the job necessary. We should continue that some versatility in the makeup of these droids might give the Empire the capabilities to operate in the boundlessly diverse territory that is the Empire. This though, is a reconnaissance droid that perfectly stands out from the rest of the area.Still, not having a camouflaged droid unit was not the main problem, but more a point of interest. The main problem with the droids wasn't their visibility, but how loud they were. With fortune being on the side of the Rebellion, a vigilant crewmen noticed the strange signal that was not something that the Rebels used and was obviously not terrestrial. From this and with the aid of C3PO, the Alliance was able to assertion that the Empire had located their location. Ironically, this very signal was almost ignored completely by Admiral Ozzel, who, if not for the divine inspiration of the Force, would have continued on without giving a second thought to the snowy Hoth. Still the Rebels were made aware of the droids and in so doing knew that the Hoth base was compromised weeks and perhaps months before the mission.As I mentioned before, the fleet required a great deal of time to muster as apparent by the ships present at the battle. Such a large force was required to fulfill Admiral Ozzel's grand strategy of a battle of navies at Hoth, but this was not to be the case. Given his miscalculation he mistakenly wasted weeks preparing for a battle that took on a completely different direction. The time lost in planning the mission and ships moving in to complete the Armada, as well as the fleet's movements to Hoth, cost the Empire.In the time between when the droid was discovered by Rebels and the actual battle, we see that the Rebellion has had time to build up a substantial defensive force, bring the shield generator online and even prepare the transport ships for takeoff. This is evidenced by the lacerations on Luke's face from when he encountered the snow creature being completely healed by the time of the battle. You can't really just shrug this as magical future tech or his Jedi training. Remember the tauntaun was more aware of its imminent demise than was the padawan Skywalker at the beginning of this story. Seriously, the tauntaun is aware that something is wrong when the Jedis' last hope is completely clueless to the danger. Watch it. Excuse me for deviating. Point being, there was a considerable amount of time between the discovery of the droid and start of the battle.Once the actual mission begins, all planning and assemblance of order is essentially airlocked into the vacuum. As mentioned before, the drop out of Hyperspace too close the planet lead to the Rebels awareness of the Empire and lost the Imperials the element of surprise, ironically. From here the rebels are able to activate the defensive shielding and bombardment from space is now impossible. This was immediately followed by Vader's dispatching of the admiral and appointment of Piett. This gave a new hindrance to the time scale of the battle. As I have mentioned before, Piett had to quickly recreate and figure out every minutia of the battle that Ozzel likely did not share forthwith before the battle commenced. Even if he had, it would have taken time to reconfigure the fleet at the last moment and under a new leader. Add this to the fact that the Empire is unaccustomed to losing their senior officers as the first casualty of the battle and much confusion was likely to have taken place. I'm just saying, unless "He got Vader'd" is a common phrase among the high command I would say that it would be very curious for him to fall first. As a fellow captain of a different ship, I would be lost as to what to do next while working with other ships in the fleet. The time between getting the fleet into a stable position and the acceptance of Piett as the new Admiral was more than enough it seems for a few of the transports to slip past and the defensive trenches and turrets be armed.Now that the defenses are already manned and brimming, we see the force designated to take down the shielding and bringing down the ground defense of the Rebels. General Veers was then charged with leading the ground assault on the base. Sadly, given everything else that happened in orbit, Veers is forced to launch his heavy tanks first, the AT-AT's. Due to design flaws in the AT-AT this was not prudent. As I mentioned before, the AT-AT move slow and have large holes in their defenses, they are especially vulnerable to aircraft and a string. It would have been prudent to wait until the arrival of the AT-ST's for backup. Because he didn't, the advance of the tanks was slow, many were lost and the rebels had time to complete their evacuation.All this to culminate with the late arrival of infantry. While these are the troops of the Clone Wars, Stormtroopers would have been an asset had they been fielded much sooner in the fray. Stormtrooper infantry could have covered much of the strategic weaknesses of the field. Quite frankly, an aircraft should not be capable of flying listlessly around a vehicle of that size and bring them down with a rope nor should a lone Jedi have the ability to walk up to the super tank, Batman his way up there, and throw a grenade in the beast completely unobstructed by any enemy whatsoever. The maneuverability of an infantry is clear in that that same Jedi was able to run from his crashed ship, take down a tank in the middle of the battlefield and still make it to his X-wing for his own escape. Infantry are the most important element to a ground invasion, but at Hoth they were disturbingly absent save for Vader's personal guard. Infantry give a military the flexibility and on the ground problem solving to saturate an area with firepower directed and specialized for the target that is needed. The Empire knew this when they wore the banner of the Republic during the Clone Wars, but since such time they have lost the key skills of ground assault.Cheapening of Imperial forcesIn a much larger scope the assets used at Hoth are evidence of an Empire with incorrect military assumptions as their default in military design. Much of this is due to Emperor Palpatine's philosophical choices to utilize fear and intimidation with weapons of terror and mammoth scale, rather than keep to the light and fast abilities of the ships, vehicles and soldiers used during the Clone Wars. Key engineering designs attempted to combine technologies of older Republic, Clone War era and Confederate technologies. What this did, however, was to combine some capabilities into fewer ships, making them less capable at their intended purposes and giving less variability to the Empire overall in it's military strategy. Add this to a preference of Naval strength over ground capabilities and you see why the ground assault on Hoth was the perfect storm for an Empirical strike.There was a definite need for infantry at Hoth, being that the battle went to the ground. There are many problems with this, since the Empire had lost most of it's ability to get quality boots on the ground.Let's first look at the AT-AT. The AT-AT is a hybrid vehicle which stands for All Terrain Armored Transport. It's main role is to get troops and assets across a battlefield landscape. It is a hybrid vehicle because it combines the the capabilities of the Republic AT-TE, a versatile machine with true all terrain capabilities and a heavy cannon and the Republic's Clone Turbo Tank. This tank delivered a lot of manpower to the battlefield with a heavily armored wheeled platform. While the wheeled platform was limiting, this was a great troop carrier and would have given the Empire the ability to take the fight to the rebels if such vehicles were till in service. The AT-AT combines the capabilities of both vehicles, large cannon for forward assault, legs for semi-all terrain capabilities and, large carrying capacity and up-armored frame. However, with numerous design compromises to accomodate the use of few units to do many jobs, the AT-AT fails in every aspect to its predecessors. It has weaker cannons, legs are too vulnerable to attack (by rope?), lack actual all terrain capabilities and are much slower than the Turbo tank. Add to this less cargo capacity, which is it's true purpose for being. At least it seems to have adequate armor, but this is completely negated by the glaring design flaw... tow cables. Seriously, did you ever wonder why a starcraft would be equipped with harpoon? The flaws of the AT-AT were widely known and the only people unwilling to accept this was the Empire. The AT-AT is a failed design owning to the hubris of Imperial designers wishing to combine the best of many elements while not understanding the value of any of them.There, however was another solution to the Hoth problem that faded away after the raising of the Imperial banner. The conversion of dropships to shuttles left a hole in battlefield deployment that could not be filled with the lack-luster AT-AT. Dropships and gunships were used heavily during the Clone Wars to ferry men and machines to the battlefield.They were nimble agile strike transport platforms that easily had the ability to gun their way into a battlefield, drop the men and equipment they needed and get back out of there while carving a hole on the way home. These were beasts on the battlefield. During the Imperial era, however, we see them devolve away into little else than the official shuttle plane of the Empire.This reduction in getting troops to the where the fight is may be the single greatest weakness to the Empire's ground fighting capabilities. Late in Galactic Civil War a larger shuttle is seen, but for most of the era, the needs to quickly amass soldiers on the front lines are completely ignored and the honorable warrior of the Clone Wars degrades into a taxi service for the fleet officer corps.The final blow to the Empire is the atrophy of her soldier class. Stormtroopers are feared throughout the galaxy for their reputation and fierce history. Yet they appear to have been watered down from Clone Wars era to those that arrived on Hoth. I don't know if it was that the role of the ground troop went from being the crack infantry and winner of the well named Clone Wars, to the ground and security arm of the Imperial Navy, but there was a definiate reduction in skills, armaments and overall lethality of the Imperial Stormtrooper by the battle of Hoth.Let's take a look at some the capabilities clone troopers fresh from Kamino during the Clone Wars. Just skip through. You don't need to watch the whole thing.let's look version 2.0...I'm just saying... they're incompetent. Let alone that I am pretty sure we never actually see one hit a rebel. Where is that deadly precision? It's just sad really.So this is what has become of the Army of the Republic? Now it is little more than a massive shadow of its once glorious self. Given way to the belief in all powerful super-ships they have abandoned the strength of the nimble warrior that gave them victory to survive and become the Empire today. With the reduction in skills necessary to lead and maintain the military the ability to take a planet from the ground has been completely lost, visible in the Battle of Hoth.Overall Strategic Armament of the EmpireIn summary, Hoth is a study on the misaligned values of Sidious' Empire. By thinking only of setting the strategy of making the citizens of the Empire cower in fear of its world killing weapons, massive super star destroyers, behemoth walking strike tanks and historically notorious Stormtroopers it has made too many compromises in too many areas to guarantee victory. By relying too much on a large naval fleet, it has left itself to thinking only in terms of naval warfare. It has completely lost the ability to fight on the ground and has lost the respect of its Imperial citizens. Once the veil of terror is lifted, the weaknesses inherent in the strategy of Darth Sidious is given way to those wishing to rebuild the free Republic. Without the means to fight the insurgency war, the mightiest war machine in Galactic history is now completely unable to even prevent the escape of a tiny base from passing through the middle of one of its most powerful fleets.Thanks for reading!For more answers like this check out Inspired Lunacy and follow my blog War Elephant for more new content. Everything I write is completely independent research and is supported by fan and follower pledges. Please consider showing your support directly by visiting my Patreon support page here: Help Jon Davis in writing Military Novels, Articles, and Essays.

It was not the Britishers per se but Lord Mountbatten who ensured that the partition of India went in India’s favor.To begin with, Lord Mountbatten was not a Britisher in the real sense but had German heritage. Both his parents had German lineage.The Mountbatten family is a European dynasty originating as a branch of the German princely Battenberg family, which anglicized their names to Mountbatten.The name change from Battenberg to Mountbatten was adopted, on the eve of World War I by all family members residing in the United Kingdom due to the widespread and boiling anti-German sentiment among the British public which forced his father, Prince Louis of Battenberg - to resign in disgrace as the First Sea Lord of the Royal Navy.The British newspapers of the day had their screaming editorials titled:“Should we allow a Hun to Boss our Navy ?”Driven by public opinion, Churchill asked Prince Louis to resign as First Sea Lord on 27 October 1914.This incident was shocking to both father and son, and this slight, the son, wanted to avenge by rising in his career by his own merit.Increasing anti-German hysteria even threw suspicion upon the British monarchy and King George V was persuaded to change his German name of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor and relinquish all German titles and styles on behalf of his relatives who were British subjects.Mountbatten had a love affair in India with his future wife Edwina during his visit in March 1921, when he accompanied the Prince of Wales on a Royal tour of India and Japan.Edwina and he had very fond memories of both the countries during their brief stay in 1921.He liked both countries immensely, but ended up fighting against Japan in World War II as Supreme Allied Commander in South Asia and presided over the surrender ceremony of the Imperial Japanese Army in Singapore where he and his wife developed a close friendship with future Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru who had arrived just in time to witness the surrender.Here is a photograph of Mountbatten as Supreme Allied Commander in South East Asia, riding with Jawaharlal Nehru in Singapore before attending the surrender ceremony of the Imperial Japanese Army.When he came to India in 1947 as the Viceroy who was supposed to bring down the curtains of the British Raj, he was specifically instructed by Churchill, to favor M. A.Jinnah - the leader of the All India Muslim League and agree to all his demands.Winston Churchill hated the Indian Congress leaders to the core and had developed a friendly rapport with All India Muslim League leader M. A. Jinnah, who collaborated completely with the British administration during the war years while the entire Congress leadership was in jail, owing to the British clamp down on the Quit-India movement, by providing a steady stream of Muslim soldiers from the Punjab, Northwest Frontier provinces and the United Provinces to augment the flagging British Army in North Africa during the Desert War against the Deutsches Afrika Korps (D A K) under General Erwin Rommel and his Italian allies.The British armies received a major drubbing on June 21st, 1942 with the fall of their fortress of Tobruk in North Africa after the battle of Ain-al- Gazala when more than 30,000 of them surrendered to the German (D A K) and Italian auxiliary armies and Winston Churchill desperately needed foot soldiers (Cannon Fodder) to clear the extensive German minefields and shore up their defenses of El-Alamein, Alexandria, Cairo, and the Suez Canal.Jinnah immediately came to Churchill’s rescue by organizing recruitment drives in the United Provinces, Punjab, and the northwest Frontier Provinces to recruit Muslim soldiers for this purpose.Churchill’s lively correspondence with Jinnah had started during the war years 1941–45, soon after he had heard about the Lahore declaration of March 23–24 1940 made by the Muslim league calling for a separate country for India’s Muslims in the subcontinent and he promised Jinnah - his pound of flesh and pail of blood - Pakistan - in 1944 itself and it was to be a substantial part of North India - All of Punjab, all of Bengal, all of Sindh and all of Assam in addition to all those areas in Northern India with Muslim majorities.This was Churchill’s way of thanking Jinnah for his unstinted help in supplying a lot of foot soldiers for the Allied North African campaign during the years 1942 and 43.This confidential correspondence between the two leaders, which reveals in full measure, Churchill’s dastardly bias against the Hindus can be still gleaned from the archives in London, continued till 1947 and beyond.In a letter dated June 20th, 1946, Churchill chides M. A. Jinnah for his political inactivity and advises him to “Stir the pot quite a bit” .. “if you want your Pakistan to become a reality”.In another letter to Jinnah dated August 3, 1946, Churchill wrote: “I am vehemently opposed to the handing over of India to Hindu caste rule, as seems very largely to be intended…”Historians have long been aware of a nexus of sorts between Jinnah and Churchill, but these letters, for the first time, bring the relationship into the public domain.The letters also reveal that Jinnah used the Direct Action Day on August 16th, 1946, as a strategic move to upstage both the Congress and the British.In a missive dated July 7, 1946, to Churchill, Jinnah hinted that blood would soon flow on the streets of Indian cities — and it did. Nearly 6,000 people were killed in the bloodiest-ever communal riots in Calcutta, instigated by Muslim League vigilantes over Jawaharlal Nehru’s rejection of the Cripps Commission report which had given the option for Muslim majority provinces to secede from the Indian Union.This was soon followed by the Noakhali massacres against the Hindus of Eastern Bengal.Retaliatory rioting happened in Bihar where the Muslims came worse off and rioting occurred in Western Punjab and the Northwest Frontier provinces where Hindus and Sikhs suffered massacres.India was literally in flames and needed a political solution urgently.On 20 February 1947, Lord Mountbatten was appointed India’s last viceroy.Soon after he landed in India, in March 1947, he did something unprecedented..He threw open the Viceregal mansion- today known as Rashtrapati Bhavan - to the Indian public, something no viceroy before him had done and for the first time, the common man in India could attend the tea party and sip tea a few meters away from the Viceroy while he chatted amicably with the leaders of the Indian Congress Party and All India Muslim League, while also going on a guided tour of the mansion and admiring the extensive rose garden in the backyard.Mountbatten was fond of Congress leader Jawaharlal Nehru and his liberal outlook for the country. He felt differently about the Muslim leader Muhammed Ali Jinnah, but was aware of his power, stating "If it could be said that any single man held the future of India in the palm of his hand in 1947, that man was Mohammad Ali Jinnah."During his meeting with Jinnah on 5 April 1947, Mountbatten tried to persuade Jinnah of the express need of keeping India united, citing the difficult task of dividing the mixed states of Punjab and Bengal, but the Muslim leader was unyielding in his goal of establishing a separate Muslim state called Pakistan.Discussions began with both the Congress leaders who did not favor the partition of India and with whom he got along well and the Muslim League leader Jinnah who insisted on it and came across as a cold and distant schemer.He was rather irritated by Jinnah’s logic when Jinnah demanded that the whole of the Punjab and Bengal which had large Hindu majority regions and all of Assam, be made part of Pakistan.Lord Mountbatten had an independent mind and knew right from wrong because of his German heritage. He was not going to follow anybody’s advice.. even if that advice and directive came from Winston Churchill himself.He knew from personal experience, how horrible a person wronged by prejudice, felt, by looking back with remorse at the career of his own German father which had been cut short abruptly on the eve on World War I.He did not share the withering, contemptuous and nauseating hatred the English upper classes had developed during the closing years of the RAJ towards India’s Hindu people who they felt were the majority in India’s anti-colonial struggle having allowed themselves to be lead by that “Half Naked Charlatan” - Gandhi to wrest the “Jewel in the Crown” from them.He first reasoned with Jinnah against partition and pointed out to him the humongous human and material cost of such an undertaking and the bloodshed and misery it would cause and also the lasting ill effects it would bring to the entire subcontinent for decades to come.When Jinnah with Churchill’s backing, was adamant and insisted on partitioning the country, he pointed out to Jinnah the flaws in his own theory.His conversations with Jinnah in May 1947 went like this.Jinnah:Your Excellency doesn't understand that the Punjab is a region. Bengal is a region.A man is a Punjabi or a Bengali first before he is a Hindu or a Muslim. If you give us those provinces you must, under no condition, partition them. You will destroy their viability and cause endless bloodshed and trouble. We want the whole of Punjab and Bengal to be awarded to Pakistan.Mountbatten replied:Yes, of course. A man is not only a Punjabi or a Bengali before he is a Muslim or Hindu, but he is an Indian before all else. What you're saying is the perfect, absolute answer I've been looking for. You've presented me with the most sound arguments to keep India united and never partition this country.Mr. Jinnah, if you insist on partitioning India and state that Muslims cannot live with Hindus as minorities in this land, then how do you suppose that it is alright for the large Hindu populations of Eastern Punjab and Western Bengal to be under Muslim majority Pakistan?Sorry, you cannot have it both ways. If you insist on partitioning India based on religious demography, then the Hindu majority regions of Eastern Punjab and Western Bengal, including the city of Calcutta will have to become part of India and cannot be part of Pakistan.Bengal and Punjab will have to be partitioned based on demographic realities.I also need to remind you that all of Assam cannot be part of Pakistan because there is clearly no Muslim majority in that region.Jinnah was clearly taken aback by this and began to complain loudly about getting a “moth-eaten” Pakistan, but Mountbatten told him to sit down quietly and accept what was going to be been granted by the boundary commission which drew the borders between the two states.Here is a picture of the final meeting where everybody was on board.Mountbatten had verbally belabored Jinnah the previous day behind closed doors and ordered him to express his assent to the arrangement with a mere nod of his head.He threatened Jinnah, telling him in a very candid and stern manner that if he made any more unreasonable demands, then the whole “Pakistan affair” would be “Off” and consigned to the dustbin of history.In some ways, Mountbatten may have been under a lot of pressure from Churchill and others in the British government who desperately wanted to create a “client state” in India’s Northwest to check Soviet expansionism towards the Arabian sea.Since the city of Lahore in Punjab was given to Pakistan by the boundary commission, Mountbatten compensated India by awarding the city of Amritsar and the district of Gurdaspur to India at the last minute to assuage the feelings of the aggrieved Sikhs, who hated to see all of Western Punjab which had been their homeland and holy land for close to five centuries, being awarded to Pakistan.Jinnah avenged these decisions which were very unpalatable to him, by not allowing Mountbatten to be Governor-General of Pakistan in 1947 and appointed himself Governor-General of that newly formed dominion instead.Mountbatten remembered this slight and paid him in kind when it came to the Kashmir issue.Churchill wanted the princely states to declare their independence from India.He was always fond of uttering loudly the following sentence :Pakistan, Princestan and whatever remains of that mess will be called Hindustan and that … will be the final fate of our Indian empire.Lord Mountbatten overruled Churchill, torpedoed this atrocious plan that would have Balkanized India and told the princes that their fate was left entirely to their final decisions and they had to decide whether to join India or Pakistan.Remaining independent was not an option for them.Soon Hindu and Sikh ruled princely states in the subcontinent joined India after being coerced by Sardar Patel and VP Menon and Muslim majority princely states like Bahawalpur and Khairpur, joined Pakistan.When Jinnah pushed his luck and tried to annex the princely state of Kashmir by force, then Mountbatten who was Governor-General of India clearly sided with Nehru after advising Nehru to FIRST secure in a legal manner, the instrument of accession to the Indian Union, from the vacillating Hindu Maharaja of Kashmir and then allowed the Indian army and airforce to airlift troops to the vale of Kashmir and defeat and drive out the armed Lashkars Jinnah had sent to take over the valley.Douglas Gracey, a general of the former British Indian Army who was Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army from 1947 to 1948, reported directly to Lord Mountbatten who had ordered him to stand down and do nothing when the Kashmir crisis unfolded.Gracey overruled and openly disobeyed an exasperated Jinnah who repeatedly ordered him to send the newly formed Pakistan army to intervene with full force in Kashmir.Gracey’s aide-de-camp later recollected that he would bang the phone down as soon as he heard Jinnah’s voice at the other end of the line pleading with him to do something.The Pakistan Army stayed put in its barracks and consequently Jinnah had to rely on irregular Pathan Lashkars who were not a professional fighting force at all and were no match for the seasoned and professional Indian ArmyNehru very naively did not push matters too far, although he was advised by his astute Home Minister - Sardar Patel to wait till the Indian army had overrun all of Kashmir and not approach the United Nations Security Council, knowing fully well that a cease-fire would be immediately ordered by the UN Body.This blunder of Himalayan proportions allowed Kashmir’s Northern areas: Gilgit Baltistan and a small portion of Kashmir which is today known as Pakistan Occupied Kashmir to remain under Pakistan’s control.Kashmir did not see much rioting between Hindus and Muslims in 1947 or 1948 and the populace led by Sheikh Abdullah, a personal friend of Nehru, was at peace after their state was given a special status in the Indian Union.Before Mountbatten returned home, in 1948, he made a startling and accurate prediction one day before his departure to England.He said that this abnormal dominion of Pakistan will not last more than a quarter-century before it breaks apart into two separate nations.His prescient observation came true, a mere twenty-four years later on Dec 16th, 1971, when Jinnah’s Pakistan was sundered forever, following a humiliating surrender, when the East Pakistan Army surrendered to a joint command of the Indian Army and the Bangladesh Resistance Army at the Ramna Race Course garden, heralding the birth a new Nation - Bangladesh in the subcontinent.East Pakistan became Bangladesh.——————————————————————————After the final settlement in 1948, Winston Churchill, in London, looked testily at the new borders of India and Pakistan, fuming and fretting over what had transpired there under Mountbatten’s watch.He flew into paroxysms of screaming rage whenever anyone mentioned India or Mountbatten to him.The last meeting between Churchill and Mountbatten is retold here to help readers understand the situation caused by the British partition of India.After Mountbatten had returned home, accomplishing his task of 'quitting and splitting' India in less than half the time allotted, August 1947 instead of June 1948.He was given a hero's welcome.Anthony Eden hosted a Tory party dinner and invited Churchill also.When Mountbatten spotted Churchill, he made a beeline for him and advanced with his arms open and a smile lighting up his face.Churchill halted him with an upheld arresting hand with a pointing, accusing finger. He used Lord Louis's pet name to scream at the top of his voice,'Dickie, stand right there!' which caused the taller gentleman to halt in his tracks immediately with a look of complete surprise on his face and the audience all around to be shocked into silence as well.“What you did in India was like whipping your riding crop against my face!'The way you partitioned India was contrary to what I had imagined the final frontiers of the two countries to be.You gave to those lowly, mangy and accursed Hindus a lot more land than to our friends - the Mussalmans of India - who stood by us during the war and you betrayed in the foulest manner, the Maharajahs of our Indian Empire by depriving them of their birthright to secede from India to form their own Independent Dominions “The room had already fallen silent and everyone could hear each word clearly.Churchill next turned on his heel and walked out of the room.He never spoke to Mountbatten for the next seven years.Source: Wikipedia articles.Mountbatten and Jinnah’s negotiations on Pakistan April-July 1947 - CabinetMissionPlanChurchill, Jinnah letters: Churchill encouraged Hindu and Muslim divideWhy did Winston Churchill hate the Hindus and prefer the Muslims?Not his finest hour: The dark side of Winston ChurchillHow Patel, Mountbatten and Nehru warded off India’s power grabbing princely states.

Short answerRomania entered the war on the Axis side on June 22, 1941 and fought all the way to Stalingrad and Northern Caucasus. In 1944 Romania switched sides and fought against Nazi Germany.TL; DR (No, it’s really long)Slightly longer answerPolitical situation 1940-1941In 1940, Romania is already for two years a personal dictatorship of King Carol's. The Parliament and the Constitution are dissolved and every political decision taken by the King himself and a narrow ring of acolytes.The King's dictatorship is best described as very corrupt state, however not leaning towards fascism, at least for the most part. It is true there was a fascist movement in the country, the ruthless Iron Guard. Although they had some popular support because of their nationalistic message (even some prominent cultural leaders were sympathizers) most people didn't like them, especially because they were very violent and resorted to political assassinations without hesitation.In fact, one of the King's first moves after establishing the dictatorship in 1938 was to order the killing of the leader of the movement - Corneliu Zelea Codreanu. For this act, the King secured the unenviable position of worst enemy of the fascist movement, a position which will resurface later, in 1940.So, up to mid 1940, even a distant thought of Romania being an ally of Nazi Germany was still inconceivable - Romania was allied with France and Britain.Both countries guaranteed Romania's integrity, but at the same time they were in a dire position. France's fall in June was a shock for Romanians, and Britain was not that far from disaster either. So basically in late June Romania was left without any ally but with an increasingly insistent Germany, who had it's interests in the oil fields.Then the thunder struck. In June 1940, days after France capitulated, happens the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina - Wikipedia following the secret protocols of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact from previous year. A few weeks later, on August 30, Germany and Italy force Romania to cede the northern Transylvania to Hungary, as stipulated by the Second Vienna Award - WikipediaBoth these acts (plus the later Craiova Treaty from September 7, by which the southern part of Dobrudja was ceded to Bulgaria) caused a huge anger in the population, everybody blaming King Carol II for accepting the losses without even protesting.In order to calm the people and to advert the increasing danger of the pro Nazi Iron Guard coming to power, on September 4th, the King appoints general Ion Antonescu to become prime minister.The general was an open critic of the King, has been previously incarcerated for his declarations and was held in house arrest. However, he was still considered to be the only person capable to block the rise of the Iron Guard.The first thing the General did as Prime Minister, was to ask the King to abdicate and leave the throne to his heir, Prince Mihai, who was barely 19 years old, just finished high school and had absolutely no experience in state affairs.On Sept 6th King Carol II abdicates, Mihai becomes King and Antonescu promptly asks him to delegate all his powers. Romania was a constitutional monarchy, but the King has some very special powers, one of them being the capacity to revoke any Prime Minister if it was in the interest of the state. By delegating all his prerogatives, Mihai becomes a mere decorative figure and all the power is concentrated in the hands of General Antonescu, who becomes Dictator de facto.The next move of the General is to ask the leaders of the two main political parties to join the government, in order to avoid the rise of the Iron Guard. Both parties see the mess Romania was in and refuse to implicate themselves politically. They only promise to provide a few "specialists" to help the designated ministers. This was a lame compromise and couldn't defuse the prospect of anarchy the Iron Guard was promising.So Antonescu finds himself in the impossible position to accept exactly what he wanted to avoid and ask Horia Sima - the leader of the Iron Guard - to join him.Obviously the Iron Guard is more than happy to accept the invitation and on September 14, the National Legionnaire State is founded. Antonescu managed to avoid the blood shed the Iron Guard was promising, at the price of co-opting them to power. However, the honeymoon doesn't last long and in January 1941 the Iron Guard rebells in order to seize complete power. Antonescu asks Hitler if he is backing the Iron Guard and at the same time assures him that Romania is on the Axis side, but the Iron Guard has to go.Hitler basically washes his hand in regard of the Iron Guard issue, leaving Antonescu fully in charge. The General promptly annihilates the rebellion, the Guard's leaders are arrested, most of them flee or are killed and the movement is reduced to nothing. From now on, Antonescu has no more competitors.German units had already started to flow into the country and military equipments are delivered to the Romanian Army, ever since September 1940. The apparent reason for this was the need of protecting the Oil fields north of Bucharest, at Ploiesti. The oil fields were considered vital for the German war machine and were the only reason Hitler acted somewhat differently with Romania, at least compared to other countries Germany occupied.Hitler wanted Romania to be as quiet as possible and to not pose any danger to the oil deliveries. Sabotages were always a possibility and in fact the British SOE in co-operation with Romanians has already tried to blow up the wells and block the main transport route - the Danube river. However the mission failed and apart from bombings, nothing else was tried again during the war.Now we're in Spring 1941, the German presence in Romania is soundly established, the diplomatic links between Romania and it's Allies are cut and British, American and French business owners start to leave the country.It's worth mentioning that both Britain and US had strong interests themselves in the Ploiesti oil fields - 3 of the 5 main refineries and several wells had US and British capital, and until February 1941, it was common to see German officers and British diplomats and military attaches going to the same restaurants and casually discussing the course of the war.Antonescu is firmly tied to German interests now. However, this alliance happens not just because he is an admirer of Hitler and Nazi policies.Less than an year before, a third of the country has been seized by Soviets, Hungarians and Bulgarians. The General's promise from the first day he is in power is that he will take all the territories back. Now he is searching for help, Romania alone can't do it, with two behemoths at their borders.Both France and Britain weren't in position to assist anymore, the only power capable to help was the obvious choice - Germany.There was a saying in those days, if Romania had to choose between Britain and Germany, 90% would vote for Britain. But if it had to choose between USSR and Germany, 100% would go with the Germans.In a series of meetings with Hitler, Antonescu obtains the Nazi dictator's promise that all these issues will be settled - northern Transylvania will be recuperated, the same with Bessarabia. But in exchange, Romania must enter the war on Germany's side.Antonescu accepts the pact with the devil, so in June 22, two Romanian Armies are at the eastern border, waiting for the order to attack Soviet Union.The warSo Romania attacks USSR and the liberation of Bessarabia happens one month later. At this moment, King Mihai asks Antonescu to stop and not go further. Up to this point, Antonescu's actions were backed by every soul in the country, even by her former ally, Britain. Not that the Brits went "Jolly go, Romania!" but they kept a diplomatic silence, knowing that in fact Romania had the right to recuperate the lost territories.However, all these changed on July 27, when Antonescu sends his orders to continue the attack to east of River Dniestr, the former eastern border of the land. More, Antonescu kindly asks Hitler to allow the Romanian Army to lead the combined attack in direction Odessa. The permission is granted, and after huge losses (over 90.000 casualties, from which about 30.000 deaths), Romania is in the dubious position to have secured a victory of zero strategic value - Odessa was anyway encircled and of no importance for the general course of the war. And it didn't even conquest the city in direct assault, it was evacuated by Stalin's orders.At this moment, the situation was starting to go from bad to worse. The Romanian Army, allegedly on suspicion that communist partisans have blown up the Romanian HQ in Odessa, starts a series of brutal repressions directed mostly against the Jewish population.The Holocaust in RomaniaSpeaking of Jewish killings, this unfortunately was not an isolated incident, Romania had its share in the holocaust. Already during King Carol's regime, his last puppet government led by Ion Gigurtu, a pro Nazi politician, introduced a series of racial laws in June-July 1940. The laws were directly inspired by the Nuremberg Laws.Atrocities against the Jews were conducted starting with June 1941, when approx. 4,000 were killed in Iasi and continued as the Army advanced in Bessarabia. It is considered that at least 100,000 local Jews were killed by Romanian and Germans in Odessa region alone, in 1941.To these figures, a notable number of Gypsies and Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina - aprox. 140,000 - were deported to Transnistria, where they perished. According to Wiesel Commision, between 280,000- 380,000 Jews and at least 15,000 Gypsies died because of Romanian actions. This puts Romania on second place after Nazi Germany in terms of Holocaust.At the same time, Jews in Bucharest and other regions in the south were spared, and they were even allowed to have an almost normal life. They didn’t even have to wear the yellow star badge and were largely allowed to keep their businesses and properties. Even if racial laws were officially in effect, they were not applied. Weird enough, German officers in Bucharest frequently visited the Jewish State Theater, which functioned for the whole period of the war. Starting with October 1942, atrocities against the Jews stopped altogether, mostly on demand from the mother Queen, who vehemently protested when she found out about what happened. Also, Antonescu has started contemplating an early exit of the war and contacts with the Allies were made.As a consequence, Jews were left unharmed and were even allowed to leave the country for Palestine, to the total outrage of the Germans. Also, not one single train was sent to death camps, despite an increasingly insistent Eichmann.The downfallIn the meantime, the situation on the front was, as said, going from rosy to rotten. In 1942, the 3rd Romanian Army was practically decimated in the battle at the Don River (part of the Stalingrad battle) and the 4th army was also in a very bad shape. In February 1943, the largest part of the remains of the 3rd and 4th armies were sent back in the country to be newly formed. The Romanian presence on the eastern front was reduced to 7 divisions, which defended the bridge head at Kuban and finally retreated to Crimea in October 1943. The prisoners from Stalingrad later returned (after Aug. 1944), indoctrinated by the communists. Granted, most of them chose the doctrine in exchange of being deported to lead mines in Siberia.In Spring 1944, what was left in Crimea - less than 65,000 men, were also forced to retreat from face of the Soviet offensive.The freshly re-formed 3rd and 4th armies continued fighting the advancing Soviets, up until August 23rd, when Romania switched sides and continued the war on the Allies side. Northern Transylvania was recuperated in October 1944 and the armies continued west under Soviet high command, participating in the assault on Budapest and further to Czechoslovakia, stopping in the Tatra mountains.Secret negotiations with the Allies and side switchAlthough the official links with the western Allied powers were cut in 1941, a permanent connection was kept between the opposition political parties, King Michael and even Antonescu on one part and Britain and US on the other part. Constantly messages were exchanged between Cairo and Bucharest, most of the messages being transmitted via a cell of SOE officers who were kept in custody by the Romanian government, after a failed attempt in 1943 to establish links with the purpose of sabotage - Operation Autonomous.Although the three officers were held prisoners, they had access to radio and were in charge with encrypting/decrypting any message from and to Cairo.The opposition parties and the King have been trying from the very beginning to find a way to exit the war, however without a firm support and guarantee from Allies, any attempt was futile - the Germans would have annihilated any action. So as long as a bridgehead in the Balkans was still - at least theoretically - a possibility, concrete plans were made by SOE and the Romanian counterpart to exit the war. However, as the war continued, Churchill's plan to invade the Balkans started to fade and finally was off the table completely, and after Tehran conference the Soviets were co-opted in the correspondence between the parts.This news came as a shock to the Romanian conspirators, who realized that Romania was to be served on a silver tray to Stalin. Nevertheless, they continued to ask for guarantees from all parts that the country will at least be able to remain independent after the war was over. Formally, the Soviets agreed, however it was just a bluff. After the war, Romania was destined to fall completely under Soviet influence.Both the Allies and Romanian parts agreed to make the side switch in August, to correlate with the Soviet summer offensive. The final date was set for Aug 26th, and the Soviets demanded that the Romanian Communist party to be co-opted for the action. This came at a great surprise, as the Communist Party was virtually inexistent in Romania, they had less than 1,000 members at the time, some sources even advance a number much lower - about 300.But, they were co-opted nevertheless. The plan was to ask Antonescu to declare unconditional surrender and in case he refused, to arrest him. The King was to make the move, as he was the most respected and loved figure in the country (yes, he was inexperienced and young, but he was wildly loved by the masses). He was also quite a different person from 1940, his knowledge and understanding of the situation was now on par with anyone else's.In the meantime, Antonescu also had his own feelers and tried to come to an agreement with the Soviets. Contacts were made with SU via their Embassy in Stockholm, but the problem was the same - the guarantees. After tedious negotiations, he agreed to all Soviet demands, and sent his emissary to Stockholm with instructions for the Romanian Ambassador to sign the capitulation. He reached Stockholm on Aug 24th, when the work was done already - read further down. On a side note, this person was Neagu Djuvara, a young diplomat who remained in the west after the war, was later involved in CIA operations in Romania, worked a lifetime in French diplomacy and as political consultant for the president of Niger and returned to Romania after 1990, only to become one of the most respected historians and insanely loved public figure. He just died yesterday, at the venerable age of 101 years.The King was planning to make the switch on August 26, he also sent co-ordinates of German military emplacements north of Bucharest to the USAAF, asking for bombing them in the morning of 26th.However, he found out that Antonescu planned to visit the front on 25th, so the planned meeting on 26th was impossible. Therefore, he called the general to the palace on 23rd.The King asked the General to capitulate, which he refused, so he was arrested. Later that evening, King Mihai made his proclamation on public Radio and the hostilities against the Soviets were ordered to be stopped, with immediate effect.The obvious question that arises, is why did Antonescu refuse to resign or capitulate, if he also wanted to exit the war. Well, there are two reasons. First, he had an extremely good opinion about himself, and equally bad opinion about the King. Therefore, executing an order coming from this youngster whom he deeply despised, was for him, the mighty Conducator (translated - Leader, Führer, a title he had given to himself) totally unimaginable. The second reason is that he had obtained better surrender conditions from the Soviets- or at least this is what he thought. Also, in his arrogance, it was not acceptable that he was not in charge of the capitulation. In his head, Antonescu was nothing less than a demigod. So finally, his own arrogance lost him. He was arrested, taken into custody by the representatives of the minuscule communist party and sent later to Moscow. He was later sent back to Romania, where he was trialed by a show court and sentenced to death. The King tried to pardon him and commute the sentence, however it was not accepted by the communists and the sentence was executed by firing squad in 1946.After the coupThe Germans were given a period of 48 hours to leave the country. To the amazement of everybody, most German units in the country accepted the situation and packed their stuff and left (also because their telephone connection with the German HQ in Bucharest was cut). In Bucharest however, they didn't take so easily and starting with the morning of 24th, Luftwaffe bombed the city, targeting especially the Royal palace. The fight stopped soon, after their positions being bombed by the Americans and the fierce opposition of the highly outnumbered Romanian ground forces. An estimated number of 20,000 Germans were taken prisoners, the Ambassador - Manfred von Killinger - shot himself.When the Soviet forces finally reached Bucharest on August 30th, no more Germans were to be found anywhere in the capital.What remained of the Romanian Army, plus the two indoctrinated divisions (formed in USSR with war prisoners) were sent to fight against the Germans in west.EpiloguePolitically, after August 30th, 1944, the day the Soviets arrived, the country was firmly in their hands. Bessarabia, the main reason Romania entered the war, was never recuperated. It became a Soviet Republic and after the fall of communism, the independent Republic of Moldova, still heavily under Russian influence. In what was left of Romania, the Soviets first handled with gloves, however later they showed their true face. The King resisted on the throne until the end of 1947, when he was forced at gunpoint to abdicate and leave the country. At that moment, most opposition forces were already incarcerated or left the country.Many former members of military (and also students and other regular civilians) fled in the mountains and organized partisan warfare - Romanian anti-communist resistance movement - Wikipedia They attacked the newly formed communist regime, sabotaged everything they could. Were helped by local population, but after the communists started the repression against the villagers, the support faded and finally disappeared. Many partisans were killed on spot, others were arrested and sentenced to death, life prison or hard labor - which meant also death, in communist concentration camps.Most of them were caught until the late fifties, with some cell resisting up to the early seventies. Few survived and left the country.The end!