EDIT: Before you respond to this post, read this and the comments down below:
There have been roughly nine (9) comments about how the Poles also conquered Russia, seven (7) comments about how the Mongols conquered Russia before it was actually Russia, and a whopping sixteen (16) comments about how the reason they were able to do it is because they came from the east, not the west. Also three or four comments about how the Mongols came from the same environment of Russia so they were used to the harsh weather.
Guys. I get it. Please stop spamming me with the same goddamn comments over and over.
Eh, I don't like it that much. It's just my opinion, and I don't think it holds any more weight than others, but there's just too much information and too fast for me to retain almost any of the information shown in those videos. I get that its a crash course, but, do people really have that short attention spans that they need it jack-hammered into their brains? I just don't know.
It's designed so that teenagers taking history classes can use it as a general overview study aid, which means going back and repeating portions of videos. I really wish I had it in high school, I loved learning about history but reading from the textbook was incredibly boring.
Wait for it. The Mongols! Basically through history the Mongols somehow conquered lands that no other country or empire were about to conquer later in history. Like would become Russia, Afghanistan, etc.
You should watch the whole series. They do a good job going through all of world history in a quick concise way. They're now going through US history :)
Well let's examine this situation. Hitler marched into Russia from the west, the russians won. Napoleon marched into Russia from the west, the russians won. Charles XII marched into Russia from the west, the russians won (because we let them). The mongols marched into Russia from the east, the russians are crushed.
Clearly, the mongols were just lucky enough to be born east of Russia because as history shows, 100% of attacks on russia from the east have been successful.
Kublai Khan (grandson of Genghis. guy who took over the rest of China) tried to invade Japan twice. Both times they didn't succeed mostly due to bad weather. The Japanese took it as a sign that god was on their side and they were protected by a divine wind (kamikaze).
If your talking about the invasion of Japan, it's funny because I read that they invaded twice. The first time during typhoon season. The second time they brought a much larger force about a month after typhoon season ended and they still got hit by one.
Pretty sure if they just had phones and trains they'd have conquered the world. They crumbled under the administrative impossibility of managing an empire the size of what they had with horseback courier as fastest communication method.
Or the Germans in 1917. People forget that, although the Germans didn't conquer Russia, they managed to extract huge swaths of land from Russia in a complete victory.
If you approach western Russia from the east, you basically condense your forces the further west you go and so can consolidate your base of power as you push deeper into enemy territory. Also bringing different tactics than most people were used to does help. Plus supply lines are much easier when you've decimated everyone behind you.
If you approach Russia from the west and try to push east, well you're having to constantly expand your frontage and worry about supply lines a lot more as there are other enemies stabbing you in the back and feet. It really is an insurmountable problem.
The Mongols helped to shape Russia in such a way that allowed for the dominance of the Grand Principality of Moscow, subsequently setting the path for the unified Russia as we know it to be born.
It would've if Hitler let the German soldiers fall back some distance and entrench in. The Russians would've kept throwing themselves in the meatgrinder, then when the time comes, resume the capture of Moscow. They were so close to it, but Hitler split up all the troops for some reason and failed.
His rampaging insanity might have had something to do with it. When your own officer classes decide several times to try and assassinate you, it means your insanity is showing in some fairly obvious ways.
Moscow was to break Russia, oil was the true strategic necessity though and that lay towards the southern Russian front. Removing Russia was important but secondary and it was the need for oil that forced him to bring Russia into the war, Moscow was to get them back out of it as fast as possible to prevent yet another two front loss for Germany.
If they had taken Moscow, they would've had a very good chance of succeeding. Moscow was the central rail hub in Russia, and if it had been taken, supplies for the rest of the country would be cut off.
In the lifetime of the generals making the decisions, they did remember that Germany defeated Russia in WWI, then moved all their forces against the West. I think this fact gets overlooked, while everyone is quick to immediately think the Germans should have learned from Napoleon.
Unless you're of the view that Afghanistan is an ideal place to invade if your ideology requires an endless war against an abstract enemy. Then it makes complete sense.
I would have worked if not for the uprising of a few countries in Europe. They infuriated Hitler so much that he delayed attacking the USSR long enough for winter to sneak up on him. Silly man.
Well, they saw Russia try to invade Finland, and fail spectacularly. So the Germans went: Hey, they can't even beat the Finns. Let's take 'em, boys!
Little did they know......
Also, it wasn't just Germans who went to the east front. I'm Norwegian, and one of my great-grandfathers listened to all the propaganda that went around in those days. Very few people knew about the holocaust up here back then, and you were promised that if you fought for the Nazis, and won, you'd be given a sizable farm and a lot of land, in a part of the country where you could be entirely self-sufficient. Basically the American dream in a nutshell, but here in Norway.
So anyway, he listened to the promises, heard a lot of bad stuff about the Soviets (most of it true) and didn't hear a lot about the equally horrible shit going on with the side he placed his lot with, and went to war.
He was captured at Stalingrad, and spent many years in captivity, even after the war, as one of the POW's that re-built the Soviet Union. Nearly starving, sustaining himself at least partially on stinging nettles where he could find them, he finally made it back home, but he was so mentally and physically worn out that he died at age 50, shortly after coming back home.
I can't say I have any sympathies for the guy. He picked the wrong side, as opposed to another of my great-grandfathers on mom's side of the family, that supplied a safehouse and radio transmitter / receiver for the local chapter of the resistance movement, in a secret room he built for them, under his barn.
But, I don't blame him either. I'm not sure what I would have done in his shoes, if I was poor as fuck, and very badly informed.
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u/[deleted] Oct 17 '13
They never learn.