russia vs. japan in 1941 [WAS: 50% of NAZI oil..]

Figures dont't really agree, you know. France sent 8,410,000 soldiers to the
front. Out of them, 1,357,800 were killed and 3,595,000 wounded. The only
country that suffered higher losses in this war was Russia.

There must have been close to a million slave laborers (guest workers,
if you prefer) sent to Germany. I've seen newsreels of them returning,
still in their 1940 uniforms.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 02:42:58 +0100, "John Mullen" wrote:

"Mikhail Medved" wrote in message
. com...

(snip)

OTOH they alsoguaranteed a fight with the UK, then still (just!) the
world's
leading military power.

Any proof to that opinion? The "leading military power" was removed
from the continent in a few weeks of actual fighting. The biggest
battle was the battle of Alamein, in which they fiught a small German
corps.

That battle was actually on the continent of Africa. The real biggest land
battle didn't come until 1944 when we teamed up with the US to invade
German-occupied France. Meantime we were fighting in the air, at sea, and in
the minor theatres like N Africa. Would have become important had we lost
though, doubt it not.

North Africa was hardly a minor theatre, in that given a German win,
the loss of mid-east oil & Suez would have been critical to the war
effort.



The Navy was strong, of course, but so far no-one won a war on
continent with only the Navy.

We did not badly to win the air and sea battles with Nazi Germany. Neither
was easy and both had costs attached. Of course we couldn't have won overall
without the support of the USA and the USSR, both of which in their own ways
hedged their bets until the decision to enter the war was forced upon them.
Of the two, that of the USSR was IMO the less honourable.

Of course, if that makes you feel beeter...

Having a fairly balanced view about history, and exchanging ideas with
people about it, both definitely make me feel better.

John

On 22 Oct 2003 02:44:52 -0700, (Stuart Wilkes)
wrote:

"John Mullen" wrote in message ...

snip

We did not badly to win the air and sea battles with Nazi Germany. Neither
was easy and both had costs attached. Of course we couldn't have won overall
without the support of the USA and the USSR, both of which in their own ways
hedged their bets until the decision to enter the war was forced upon them.

Not by their choice. The Soviets had alliances with Czechoslovakia
and France since 1935, and offered Great Britain and France a full-up
Triple Alliance with all the trimmings on 17 April 1939. Too bad
Chamberlain refused to take it seriously, preferring to pursue
Anglo-German agreement.

The only way that an treaty with the USSR could have been signed is to
accede to Stalin's demand for a free rein in the Baltic, an agreement
not likely to have gone well with any of the Western powers. Stalin
finally got it from Hitler, which is what he was after.



Of the two, that of the USSR was IMO the less honourable.

They had been excluded from the prewar European diplomacy, and their
alliance offers to the Western Allies refused. Once that was clear,
they looked after themselves. Nothing dishonorable about that.

Stuart Wilkes

Cub Driver wrote:
The book title, by the way, is Flyboys: A True Story of Courage, by
James Bradley. After initially being put off by the moral equivalence
(oh sure, the Japanese murdered, cooked, and ate bits of seven
American fliers off Chichi Jima, but hey! Americans behaved badly at
the Battle of Wounded Knee!), I've decided it's worth the read.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...f=nosim/annals


Thanks, Dan. I just ordered a copy myself at $14.00 plus shipping.



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN


http://www.mortimerschnerd.com

In article , John
Mullen wrote:

The RN may have been arguably the strongest although
the USN was surely equal or better. The RAF was able
to hold its own on the defensive (just) but it was in no
shape to launch any real attacks on the nemey and the
army was pitifully small in comparison to that of Germany
and was for the most part less well equipped and led.

1) RN was still (slightly) stronger than the USN (see 3 below). RAF was, as
you say, able (just) to do its job in defending the UK. The army was not
nearly as pitifully small as in WW1 and could count on massive reinforcement
in logistics from the colonies, which the aforementioned RN and RAF would
guarantee would (mostly) get through.


No the RAF was more than capable of holding out against the Luftwaffe.
The germans had the wrong aircraft the wrong tactics and well, just
about everything. -Even had they worked out what the strange looking
towers round the south coast were for and demolished them, enabling
them to knock out the RAF's frontline airfields, all the RAF would have
had to do was to pull their fighters back to the North of London (out
of the limited range of the german bombers) and continue sniping away.
-The RAF ended the Battle of Britain materially stronger than when it
started. -Of course they enjoyed the advantage of being able to recover
their downed pilots, and a large proportion of even the most badly
damaged aircraft, but they also enjoyed the most sophisticated command
and control system in existance at the time, together with professional
leadership, and an operational ethos which did not glorify the few aces
at the expense of the majority of canon fodder. I could go on but I
would recommend instead that you read "The Most Dangerous Enemy" by
Stephen Bungay.

Favourite quote from a German pilot, assured that the RAF was on it's
last legs sometime in September 1940

"Oh look, here come the last 50 Spitfires ..... again"

On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 05:58:19 +0200, "Christophe Chazot"
wrote:


"John Mullen" a écrit dans le message news:
...
"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...
(snip)


The French were involved rather heavily in WW1 you'll find

For sure, but not (with all respect) in the second. They were invaded,
defeated, surrendered, collaborated or resisted according to taste, and
then
liberated themselves with the help of a third of a million US and UK
troops.
For most of the war, most of the time, most of them weren't involved.

Figures dont't really agree, you know. France sent 8,410,000 soldiers to the
front. Out of them, 1,357,800 were killed and 3,595,000 wounded. The only
country that suffered higher losses in this war was Russia.

That number is WWI French deaths, not casualties. Germany lost
1,900,000 appoximately, probably somewhat more than Russian
(haven't seen figures I trusted for Russia) Austria-Hungarian
losses were about equal to the French.

Peter Skelton

Am 21 Oct 2003 16:09:53 -0700, schrieb (The
Black Monk) :

Unfortunately, rather than statesmen Germany was led by madmen.
Hitler's racial theories prevented him from making Germany a leader of
Europe in the manner that America would later be. As Spengler
predicted in 1936, Hitler's sick reich didn't last 10 years.


If Germany would have been lead by statesmen and not madmen it would
not have waged war, me thinks.


Owe
--
My from-adress is valid and being read.
www.owejessen.de

"raymond o'hara" wrote in message .net...
"The Black Monk" wrote in message
om...
"John Mullen" wrote in message
...


Yep, there still wasnt any oil in Siberia and that was the limiting
factor
for Japan.

Accepted. I still think it's an interesting thought experiment to
imagine
what happens if Germany and Japan get their act together and do some
proper
joint planning either before or even during the war. The Panama Canal
comes
to mind.

John

I think that Germany would only have had a chance if it had done what
Spengler envisioned it should do - become the leader of Europe. Had
Germany attacked the USSR with the motive of liberating its captive
peoples - through establishing friendly semi-puppet republics as was
done following Russia's collapse during World War I - it is likely
that Moscow would have fallen. And if I recall correctly, Stalin
would have been ready to offer terms had Moscow been taken.
Intelligent, not fanatic, leadership would have accepted such terms,
which would have meant the gain of the Baltics, Ukraine, and probably
the Caucuses. Had the Germans been statesmen they would not have had
to contend with resistence in eastern Europe, indeed they would
probably have had several 100,000 more allied troops. It is likely
that even within Russia some friendly troops cpuld be had. Not
Vlasov's sullen war criminals, but free cossacks from the Don, Terek
or Kuban fighting willingly against their oppresors. If the Germans
had wanted to make the war into a crusade for Europe (naturally at the
expense of a few unfortunates - the French and Poles) they would have
stood a chance of winning. Instead, of course, Hitler's war was a
crusade only for his grotesque and evil ideology, as bad as if not
worse than the Bolshevism he fought. In this world, the British
would not have held onto the middle east with its oil, and the world
would have been a much different place for the past fifty years.

This alternative strategy is not as far-fetched as it seems. Elements
in the Wehrmacht were outraged at the Nazi mistreatment of Eastern
Europeans, and even within the Nazi party there was for example
Rosenberg, an ethnic German from Estonia, who envisioned an allied
puppet Ukraine stretching from "Lviv to Saratov" (there as an
interesting article about this in the Ukrainian Weekly a year or so
ago).

Unfortunately, rather than statesmen Germany was led by madmen.
Hitler's racial theories prevented him from making Germany a leader of
Europe in the manner that America would later be. As Spengler
predicted in 1936, Hitler's sick reich didn't last 10 years.

BM


this has been said a thousand times before in a hundred books . the truth is
if they were reasonable thoughtful men they wouldn't have been nazies .

Of course!

BM

kirill wrote in message ...
The Black Monk wrote:

Instead, of course, Hitler's war was a
crusade only for his grotesque and evil ideology, as bad as if not
worse than the Bolshevism he fought.

There is simply no comparison between the explicit genocide
promulgated by the Nazi ideology and the de facto repressive
implementation of "communism" in the USSR.

Well, the Nazis were at least honest about their brutality. For the
millions who were sacrificed for the purpose of building the worker's
paradise it is small consolation that some of their murderers thought
that they were building a better world rather than just destroying
subhumans.

All this talk
about "famine holocausts" is nothing but revisionist and
Nazi apologist drivel especially considering that it originates
from areas that never suffered through any Soviet famine and
which actively supported Hitler during WWII.

I dispute the latter statements. OF course talk of the famine was
greatest in areas not under soviet control, where news was suppressed.
My grandfather and a few others - a small minority of people from
"velyka ukrainia" within the diaspora lived through the Famine, had
family that died during it. While obviously the post-Stalin USSR
could not be compared to Nazi Germany (though it was still worse than,
for example, Franco's Spain), Stalinism, and Pol Pot's communism were
not much different.

respectfully,

BM

Owe Jessen wrote:

:Am 21 Oct 2003 16:09:53 -0700, schrieb (The
:Black Monk) :
:
:Unfortunately, rather than statesmen Germany was led by madmen.
:Hitler's racial theories prevented him from making Germany a leader of
:Europe in the manner that America would later be. As Spengler
:predicted in 1936, Hitler's sick reich didn't last 10 years.
:
:If Germany would have been lead by statesmen and not madmen it would
:not have waged war, me thinks.

And if Germany had been fairly treated by the victors of WWI, rather
than robbed blind, and hadn't had such sensible options as Anshluss
foreclosed, she might have been led by statesmen rather than madmen.


--
"Now this is the Law of the Jungle --
as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper,
but the Wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk
the Law runneth forward and back --
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf,
and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack."

-- "The Law of the Jungle", Rudyard Kipling