Operation Unthinkable

Operation Unthinkable was a planned preemptive strike against the forces of the Soviet Union advocated by Winston Churchill after the end of World War II in Europe.

Intended to push the Soviets back out of Eastern Europe after they had conquered the lands in the fight against Nazi Germany, Operation Unthinkable would almost certainly have sparked World War III. However, the British people had no appetite for further conflict. (AUDIO: Churchill Victorious) Churchill was voted out of office in the 1945 general election (GAME: Amy's History Hunt, AUDIO: Living History, Their Finest Hour) and the long stalemate of the Cold War set in across Europe. (PROSE: Endgame, TV: Cold War, et al.)

Origins
When Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa in July 1941, (PROSE: Just War, Losing the Audience) the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union found themselves in an unlikely alliance fighting against a common foe. Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin recognised the necessity but Churchill in particular distrusted Stalin for his non-aggression pact with Adolf Hitler at the start of the war (AUDIO: Human Conflict) and recognised the Soviets' communist ideology as diametrically opposed to the British way of life. (AUDIO: Churchill Victorious) Both sides saw the possibility of a future conflict between each other as early as 1943. (TV: The Curse of Fenric)

In 1945, the military might of the Third Reich was shattered. The United Kingdom, alongside the United States and other Allied nations, invaded Germany from the west (PROSE: Made of Steel) while the Soviets marched into Berlin from the east. Hitler committed suicide on 30 April (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass) and on 9 May (Russia time) Germany surrendered to Soviet Marshal Georgi K Zhukov. (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War)

The push for Unthinkable and Churchill's VE Day exploits
The British celebrated VE Day on 8 May, with Churchill delivering a speech to jubilant crowds alongside the Royal Family from Buckingham Palace, telling them that this was their victory. However, Churchill's mind stayed firmly on the war owing to the ongoing fighting against the Japanese in the Pacific and, closer to home, the new Soviet presence in Europe. Early planning for Operation Unthinkable had already begun in anticipation of the latter development. Churchill argued in favour of a preemptive strike against the Soviet armies, catching them off-guard and expelling them from Eastern Europe. The operation was not without its critics, regarding its risks and timing. Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Alan Brooke, urged Churchill to let the British people rest for a day.

Heeding Brooke's advice, Churchill went incognito into the London streets as William Churchyard to investigate unexplained electrical shortages in Piccadilly and divert his mind from military matters. With the help of Sidney and Diane Wheeler, Churchill encountered Visguard the bounty hunter who had imprisoned the Tenth Doctor. When it looked as if he had been apprehended at gunpoint by Churchill, Visguard attempted to exploit the Prime Minister's concerns and offered him advanced alien technology and weapons which could easily ensure the success of Unthinkable. Churchill appeared to seriously consider the offer, going to far as to turn his gun on his allies lest the opportunity to free Europe be wasted. However, he received a caustic reprimanding from Diane Wheeler who expressed Britain's exhaustion from wartime deprivations which they could not endure much longer and she threatened that the electorate would vote Churchill out of power.

In the confusion, Churchill fired on Visguard's device and incapacitated him. Diane apologised for her words and Churchill agreed to help get her son, Adam, out of jail after his wrongful imprisonment. The incident had an effect on Churchill and brought his views on Unthinkable into question. He later wrote in his diaries that he had no idea if his expressed consideration of using Visguard's weapons reflected his genuine feelings or not. (AUDIO: Churchill Victorious)

General Patton of the US Army also advocated the instigation of a new conflict against the Soviet Union. At the end of the German war, he claimed he could keep his tanks rolling all the way to Moscow. Patton was later killed in a car accident. The KGB suspected the Americans themselves had organised his death to hush up the talk of further war. (PROSE: Endgame)

Unthinkable fades
Churchill had assumed that Diane Wheeler's warning had merely been brought about in the heat of the moment. Shedding the identity of William Churchyard, he returned to 10 Downing Street to prepare to call a general election. Crowds cheered on him for his wartime leadership, instilling him with a confidence that he would be able to defeat his opponent, Clement Attlee. (AUDIO: Churchill Victorious) In the event, however, he was voted out as a result of the British public's desire for change, (WC: Amy's History Hunt) with Churchill's campaign warnings about the Soviet Union, as well as Japan, contributing to his defeat, (AUDIO: Subterfuge) although he was returned to power in 1951 until 1955. (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour)

By that time, the situation had changed. As the Cold War set in, tensions between Britain and the Soviet Union, and the capitalist West and communist East more generally, did increase. Saddled by war debts, the British Empire went into decline after the war and with it Britain's pre-war influence on the world stage. (PROSE: Endgame) The United States rose to take its place after abandoning the pre-war isolationist foreign policy and turning their attention to "the next danger" facing the world. (PROSE: Fear Itself) In 1949, the Soviets developed their own atomic bomb, breaking the American monopoly. Communism also spread into China by 1951 and their troops deployed in the Korean War. (PROSE: Endgame)

Any direct military confrontation therefore became even more dangerous due to the present threat of mutually assured destruction. (TV: Cold War) A secret society by the name of "Tightrope", consisting of spies from both the West and the East, formed in the immediate postwar years. It purpose was to defuse political tensions and crises which threatened renewed war. (PROSE: Endgame) By 1955, the First Doctor and Max Wheeler noted that the British and Soviets were no longer allies. The Doctor claimed this was demonstrative of "one of the eternal truths of history, that today's allies become tomorrow's enemies." (PROSE: Losing the Audience)

After the war, Britain attempted to update their existing maps of the Greek islands during the communist insurrection on the mainland. Although the British rejected the idea of becoming involved in the Greek struggle, they became embroiled in a diplomatic crisis with newly-Stalinist Albania in the straits of Corfu when the Albanians attacked the Royal Navy's ships. War between Britain and Albania would certainly have led to conflict between the United States and Soviet Union, but talks convinced the Albanians to back down. (PROSE: Deadly Reunion)

Unthinkable was never put into effect. Despite many incidents which threatened to heat up the Cold War, neither the East nor West was ultimately willing to engage in another large-scale conflict, especially so soon after the end of the Second World War. (PROSE: Endgame) No direct conflict between the West and the Soviets ignited by the time the Soviet Union fell in the early 1990s. (AUDIO: Protect and Survive)