| Training Exercise "Seven Days to the River Rhine" | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theCold War | |||||||||
 A 1976 American map of probable axes of attack for theWarsaw Pact forces intoWestern Europe | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
Communist Parties in prospective Soviet Satellites:
Communist Parties in prospective Soviet Satellites |
 Austria | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| Would be carried out in response to a NATO first strike on Poland. Such a strike was estimated to cause 2 million immediate Polish deaths near theVistula | If carried out, heavy losses inWest Germany | ||||||||
Seven Days to the River Rhine (Russian:«Семь дней до реки Рейн»,romanized: "Sem' dney do reki Reyn") was a top-secretmilitary simulation exercise developed in 1979 by theWarsaw Pact, as part of a series of Warsaw Pact war plans in Europe which were made at least since 1964. It depicted the Soviet Bloc's vision of a seven-day nuclear war betweenNATO and Warsaw Pact forces.[1][2][3]
This possibleWorld War III scenario was released by Polish Defense MinisterRadosław Sikorski following theLaw and Justice Party's victories in the2005 Polish elections along with thousands of Warsaw Pact documents, in order to "break from the country's Communist past", and "educate the Polish public about the old regime."[2][4][3] Sikorski stated that documents associated with the former regime would be declassified and published through theInstitute of National Remembrance in the coming year.[2][4]
The files released included documents about "Operation Danube", the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion ofCzechoslovakia in response to thePrague Spring.[2][3] They included files on the1970 Polish protests, and from themartial law era of the 1980s.[2][4][3]
TheCzech Republic[5] andHungary[6] had declassified related documents in the 1990s. The Polish government declassified some material in this period.[7][8]
The scenario for the war was NATO launching a nuclear attack on Polish and Czechoslovak cities in theVistula river valley area in afirst-strike scenario, which would prevent Warsaw Pact commanders from sending reinforcements toEast Germany to forestall a possible NATO invasion of that country.[2][4][3] The plan expected that as many as two million Polish civilians would die in such a war, and Polish operational strength would be completely destroyed.[2][4][3]
A Soviet nuclearcounter-strike would be launched againstWest Germany,Belgium, theNetherlands,Denmark andNorth-East Italy.[2][3]
Maps associated with the released plan show nuclear strikes in many NATO states, but exclude bothFrance and theUnited Kingdom. There are several possibilities for this lack of strikes, the most probable being that both France and the United Kingdom arenuclear weapons states, and as such retain nuclear arsenals that could be employed in retaliation for nuclear strikes against their nations.[2][3][9][5]
TheFrench Force de dissuasion employed a nuclear strategy, known asdissuasion du faible au fort (weak-to-strong deterrence). This is considered a"counter-value" strategy, which implies that a nuclear attack on France would be responded to by a strike on Soviet-bloc cities.[2][3]
The Guardian assumed that "France would have escaped attack, possibly because it is not a member of NATO's integrated structure. Britain, which has always been at the heart of NATO, would also have been spared, suggesting Moscow wanted to stop at the Rhine to avoid overstretching its forces."[2][3]
In 1966, PresidentCharles de Gaulle withdrew France from NATO's integrated military command structure. In practical terms, while France remained a NATO member and fully participated in the political instances of the Organization, it was no longer represented on certain committees like the Nuclear Planning Group and the Defence Planning Committee. Foreign forces were removed from French territory and French forces temporarily withdrew from NATO commands.[10]
The1st French Army, with its headquarters atStrasbourg, on theFranco-German border, was the main field headquarters controlling operations in support of NATO in West Germany, as well as defending France. Although France had withdrawn from theNATO Military Command Structure in 1966, there was a documented understanding, formalised by regular joint exercises in West Germany, that France would go to the aid of NATO, should the Warsaw Pact attack. To that end, the Headquarters and two divisions of II (Fr) Corps were permanently stationed in West Germany, with the wartime mission of supporting NATO's US-ledCentral Army Group (CENTAG).[11]
There were many high-value targets in Britain, likeRAF Fylingdales,RAF Mildenhall, andRAF Lakenheath, that would have to be struck in a conventional manner in this plan, though a nuclear strike would be far more effective, and, as the plans show, a preferable option for the Soviet leadership as shown by their strikes in Western Europe. The plan indicates thatUSAF fighter-bombers, primarily the long-rangedF-111 Aardvark, would be employed in nuclear strikes, and that they would be launched from those British bases.[2][3]
The Soviets planned to use about 7.5 megatons of atomic weaponry during such a conflict.[6]
The Austrian capitalVienna was to be hit by two 500-kiloton bombs.[6] In Italy,Vicenza,Verona,Padua, and several military bases were to be hit by single 500-kiloton bombs.[6] TheHungarian People's Army was to capture Vienna.[5]
Stuttgart,Munich, andNuremberg inWest Germany were to be destroyed by nuclear weapons, and then captured by the Czechoslovaks and Hungarians.[5]
In Denmark, the first nuclear targets wereRoskilde andEsbjerg. Roskilde, while having no military significance, is the second-largest city onZealand and located close to the Danish capitalCopenhagen. The distance from central Copenhagen to Roskilde is only 35 km or 22 mi. It would also be targeted for its cultural and historical significance, to break the morale of the Danish population and army. Esbjerg, the fifth-largest city in Denmark, would be targeted for its large harbour capable of facilitating delivery of large NATO reinforcements. If there was Danish resistance after the two initial strikes, other targets would be bombed.[12]
The Soviet Union planned to have reachedLyon by day nine, and to press on to a final position at thePyrenees.[5]Czechoslovakia thought the plan was too optimistic at the time, and some present-day Western planners believe that such a goal was unrealistic or even unattainable.[5]
