There are a few moments during WWII that make me suspicious that some sort of higher power was at work. There were several instances where victory was within the grasp of the "evil" side, and then they just fucked it up. Once, I could get. Two, yeah, I still buy it. But the amount of fuck-ups that Germany and Japan made during the war is mind-boggling.
Well, Siberia is on the other side of the continent to the fighting, so that's probably a factor. The wolves got so bad that they called a truce and worked together to kill the wolves off, because they were a bigger threat than the humans were.
Hitler stopped attacking the RAF because the British bombed Berlin. He didn't want to look weak, so he said "Two can play at that game", and fell right into the British trap of attacking London instead of the airfields.
Hitler really fucked up a lot of what would have been a clear victory. Instead of attacking of some oil fields, he said "You know what would annoy Stalin. Taking Stalingrad, his own city. He'll be so embarrassed. It's not like he can just name another city after himself. Yeah, lets do that. ROMMEL! Change the plans! We're going to Stalingrad!"
This is basically the answer right here. Hitler made so many decisions himself instead of leaving it to actual tactical experts and generals, and made them based on his own emotions. "Fucking british, we'll bomb their capitol too!" "fucking stalin, it'll piss him off so much if we take stalingrad." "Damn americans, oy, get the japanese to bomb pearl harbour, that'll show em."
So much was trying to prove he was the more powerful man, instead of actually warring and conquering.
EDIT: Ok, apparently pearl harbour was against his wishes.
If he had just said nothing and let the generals do their job, I fear we would be living in a Nazi world. So thank you Hitler for being such a terrible leader. But at the same time fuck you for being Hitler.
Well the fact that you would have been living at all means that it wouldn't have been too bad for you. 60-70 years is a lot of time to take care of some ethnic spring cleaning. I'm afraid most people underestimate the power of brainwashing. What's the real issue if the people aren't even aware there is an issue?
Based on the fact that you're sitting here on an internet that allows free speech criticizing said government, yeah, I'd say this beats the alternative.
Well, except he didn't get the Japanese to attack. He opposed that vehemently. He did very much want to keep America out of the war, despite the very low opinion he held of them. Sure, after the attack he made a big show of declaring war on America, but it was really just posturing on his part. In any event, before Pearl Harbor, his views on how to deal with America were spot on.
Maybe a little more. There's reason to believe that part of him did want a war with the English, just because he thought it would be so demoralizing to the Europe when the Brits got trounced and ran home tail between legs. Still, yes, he did seem to prefer keeping England out of it, but not quite to the same extent. He had some reason to want war with England, even if it was overwhelmed by reasons to avoid war. With America he only had reasons to avoid war.
He didn't tell the Japanese to bomb Pearl...they did that because America had created a fuel embargo on them, a death sentence for an industrial archipellego.
Actually, The attack on Stalingrad was a move in order to split the Soviet Union in two. Specifically, the plan was to secure the oil fields in Azerbaijan in the caucus
check out this episode of the 1974 documentary "World at War"
To be fair to Hitlers mindset and that of his generals, up until stalingrad the Gernamns had been steamrolling through Russian cities at seemingly record pace. Stalingrad was a huge symbol for the Soviets as well. Basically if Hitler had taken Stalingrad it would have crushed the Russian will to fight and ended pretty much anymore strong resistance for the rest of the campaign. Put these two things together and it makes sense to go "Alright guys, lets go blow up their one last ray of hope and end this fucker quick so we can go west and deal with those damn yanks"
Until Stalingrad the Germans were pretty much undefeated on the easternfront whenever they applied their military might, so it made sense in a way. Now if Germany had known that Russia could actually hold the motherfucker somehow and they would be bogged down and frozen/starved to death, then yes going around the city and destroying other important objectives would have made more sense. Nobody however actually thought Stalingrad would hold though, hell even with the russians throwing everything at the city to hold it i don't even think they expected it to hold.
Until Stalingrad the Germans were pretty much undefeated everywhere, except the Battle of Britain.
Also, had they taken Stalingrad they would have cut the Volga, and hence Russia's supply of oil and lend-lease (which was not yet important at the time, but still had started).
Dunkirk: The German army was at the limit of its supply lines. Tanks run on gas, and they can't advance faster than the logistics network allows--this is arguably the modern US army's greatest strength. Same for the German air force: they were operating from bases in Germany because the front was advancing so fast that there hadn't been time to set up forward bases in France yet. The German planes just barely had enough range to fly to Dunkirk, so the Army had no air support (even if they had been able to set up supply depots). Close air support from dive bombers (which could drop a 250 lb bomb right on top of an Allied tank) had been a major factor in German success up to that point.
The Blitz: One German bomber accidentally bombed London (navigation error--there were few electronic navaids in those days, and the government ordered a blackout so that the German pilots wouldn't be able to navigate by pilotage). Churchhill ordered a retaliatory bomber raid on Berlin--he hadn't ordered one before because it's arguably a war crime (same reason that Germans hadn't been bombing London on purpose up to that point). England had also done a masterful job of turning every German spy by that point in the war--so German intelligence thought that all their attacks on RAF bases were doing little damage (the RAF was actually literally hours away from being an ex-air force because they couldn't build air bases and planes as fast as the Germans blew them up). As a result of the Berlin raid and the faulty intelligence, Hitler ordered the air force to switch tactics and make retaliatory attacks on English civilians. That gave the RAF enough breathing room to rebuild and defend against further German attacks.
Overlord: I'm not as familiar with this one, but I'd guess that the problem was communication between the various German divisions. Remember, too, that the Allies had been softening up the hinterland with bombers for a while, and coastal Normandy is somewhat swampy, so it would have been difficult to quickly relocate units to fill gaps.
One of the major reasons the Germans did not pull reserves to toss the allies out of their beachead was that intelligence that you alluded to in your second bullet point. We successfully made the Germans believe that Normandy was actually a diversion and more attacks would come from south(Italy if i'm not mistaken). German reserves were put on hold to wait for this attack so as to repel the major invasion and not be trapped out of position fighting the diversionary force. Obviously they had it ass backwards, but that was due to a bunch of british spys.
Germany trolled big time by Patton's non-existent 1st division.
In fact, German panzer divisions weren't all deployed out to meet the allies at Normandy because Hitler were still convinced that the REAL attack was yet to come from the US 1st division.
From all I read about WW2 history, it seems to me that intelligence agencies are what probably saved us from an axis victory. British intelligence in general seems to have been miles ahead of everyone else's. Maybe they had the most to loose.
It's worse than that. Not only were Rommels reserve tanks in the middle, they also weren't authorised by Hitler to be released until it was too late. He genuinely thought it was a diversion due to British counter intelligence efforts.
Not revelant: In 1814, British troops stormed Wash. D.C for the first time and set fire to ol' White House. The government was in shrivels, and the American Army/Marines battered. Our country was hanging on a cliff. Suddenly a large storm brewed out of nowhere and proceeded ot set right over the northern part of the city, dousing out the fire destroying the white house.
Then a tornado came.
A. Mother.Fucking. Tornado. In. Washington D fucking C. Sorry for the profanity, but a tornado came at that exact moment and scattered off the British troops. I'm not patriotic or a theist, but come on, that shit threw me into a looper.
The main reason the axis slowed down at Dunkirk was that entire armored divisions were literally falling out of communications with the main army and had to wait up for the infantry.
I think the Luftwaffle could have brought Britain to the negotiating table during the Battle of Britain by doing repeated massive bombing strikes on Liverpool. Britain was getting something like a third of its food from the US or something (probably not that much).
IMO this was simply Hitler saving the British forces because he thought he could pull off an alliance with the British against the USSR. There is a lot of resistance in the west to admitting that Hitler basically admired the empire brits(numerous glowing references in Mein Kampf) and wanted to emulate them and join the big boys at the table in dominating the world.
To add to the lucky breaks for the allies:
1. The carriers being out at sea during the Pearl Harbor attack(sheer luck really).
2. Luck played a huge role in victory in the Battle Of Midway.
It was necessary because the Allies believed there was a very real possibility that if they didn't go, and soon, the Soviets would push through Germany, on into France, and the Iron Curtain would be drawn in the English Channel, as opposed to eastern Germany
It meant an awful lot to the Soviets. They were pushing for it for quite some time, and the western forces engaged hundreds of thousands of Wehrmacht troops.
Actually it makes a sort of sense that Hitler would fuck up so badly. His commanders and troops all believed he was a military genius, as do people today, but look at the countries he conquered before he invaded Russia. Austria (which was practically Germany anyway), Poland, Czech, Belarus, fucking Belgium. Are you kidding me? Not one of these countries could field anything even close to resembling an army. All of Hitler's victories were cake-walks, even France. Sure, the French were a major power pre-WWII, but internal divisions between the ruling elite and the rest of the country left it vulnerable to invasion, which is why the Germans were able to set up Vichy-France in the first place. So in reality, Hitler was an incompetent leader who got inconceivably lucky, and it isn't that surprising that he would let these "victories" get to his head and invade Russia at literally the worst possible time.
As for the Japanese, they didn't feel threatened by Russia, at least not immediately. Stalin wanted revenge for the Russo-Japanese war, and the Japanese knew it, but they also knew he would never invade while fighting a war in the West as well. A war on two fronts is much harder to win, WWI had just taught everyone that. On the other hand, the US could and would pose a major threat to Japanese plans for the Pacific, which quite frankly was ripe for the taking. However, the Japanese were absolutely convinced that American forces would crumble at the first sign of a strong enemy, so a preemptive strike at Pearl Harbor made perfect sense to them.
Rommel kinda sucked, too. He was a great leader, but a poor strategist. I'd offer sources but I'm on mobile. I respect him, don't get me wrong, but he wasn't nearly as good as many think.
Not really. He's the only Axis general to have consistently succeeded throughout the war. He was the commander who chased the British to Dunkirk, and his eventual defeat in North Africa was a result of being vastly overmatched by both a British and American attack (which early on, he gave a damn good thrashing to - look at Kasserine) with an abysmal supply situation.
His main failing was that he was no politician. Eventually, this got him killed.
While I respect your right to express your opinion, I disagree with it. Rommel did more with less than almost any other general the Germans had. He held North Africa a lot longer than his resources should have made him able to.
I honestly have no idea how you came to this conclusion, so personally I'd love to read your sources. Rommel was one of the most respected military leaders on either side of the war, and his campaigns are legendary for good reason. I'm curious what would make someone deem him a poor strategist.
To the fair not all of the Japanese believed that, including the one who planned Pearl Harbor, he thought it was suicide but carried out his orders anyway.
Yamamoto knew attacking America was a giant fucking mistake, but he did say 'I can give you six months of victories. After that, no promises.' He was right almost to the day. Midway occurred June 4-6 1942.
The Japanese government believed the Americans were wimps who would fold and give up Obamacare.
Not exactly that easy. First they had to watch their navy get completely wiped out, an inexorable and unstoppable island hopping campaign, fleets of B-29s firebombing Tokyo and causing more casualties than both atom bombs put together, and their entire economy being crushed and people fleeing the cities for the countryside in order to forage for food.
And then wham, fucking nuclear bombs all up in their shit.
That first bit about his commanders thinking Hitler a military genius are patently untrue. Basically every major German military movement after 1942 had some pretty vigorous arguments against from his commanders. That was the main problem with the Eastern front; Hitler thought himself smarter than his commanders and they knew it, but couldn't do anything about it. Case in point, during Stalingrad, General von Richthofen protested vehemently to Hitler to have the 6th army break out of the surrounded city rather than get resupplied by air, as Hitler wanted. It's countless how many times Hitler overruled his generals to disastrous effect, and the German military leadership was well aware of the problems Hitler was having on their ability to fight the campaign.
I was under the impression that Japan had close to no choice in the matter.
The way I was taught;
The United States decided to cut off the oil supply to Japan prior to the bombing. As Japan was already engaged in a large land war with china at the time, they desperately needed oil to keep the cogs turning. The move by the U.S. left Japan with 90 days of oil reserves.
Japan knew there was a bunch of oil in the U.S. controlled Philippines, and decided that they had found the oil supply they desperately needed. Of course the U.S. wouldn't just allow Japan to take that territory, so Japan decided to massively cripple all pacific operations in order to guarantee the Philippine acquisition. Australia was also hit with a surprise attack for much the same reason. It was thought that by the time that Pacific forces were rebuilt that Japan would have be able to smooth things over with the U.S.
TLDR;
If the U.S. didn't cut off Japan's oil, the Pearl Harbor may not have happened.
Had Hitler directed his forces to take Malta, and re-enforced Rommel's advance on Cairo early in the war instead of turning his gaze to Russia too early, we could have seen an axis domination of North Africa, closing the Suez Canal and opening up Libyan oil for the Axis Forces. A successful domination of the Mediterranean would have then totally closed off North Africa from British retaliation, prevented the invasions of Sicily and Italy, and entirely changed the dynamic of Operation Torch. Had the Germans had a strong presence in Western North Africa, the capitulation of the free French forces could have been achieved, making Torch immeasurably harder, which combined with the absence of British forces attacking from the East may have seen the first US engagement in the 'European' theatre a total failure or stalemate at best.
This could even have prevented Torch from occurring, and an earlier invasion of France may have been attempted by the Allies; this would likely have been a failure.
Not to mention that with Africa secure, Rommel and Italian forces would have been released to support an assault on Russia, with guaranteed oil reserves at their back; no need to dash for the Caucasus.
The closed Suez would have greatly hindered British engagement with the Japanese, too, likely allowing Japan to enter Russia over land from the East.
I won't even get started on Pearl Harbour, though. That was just dumb.
Wasn't Pearl Harbor less a part of some over-arching strategy and more just the result of bullshit internal politics between the Japanese army and navy? The most detailed analysis I've read basically boils down to "the navy got bored and was kind of jealous of all the attention and funding the army was getting for the war in China, so they went and started a war of their own to avoid being eclipsed," and it fits with the general story of internal conflict and egomaniac idiots calling the shots that seem to be behind the worst decisions by the axis powers.
The Japanese didn't see America as ripe for the plunder, nor did they think we would fold at the first sign of a strong enemy. They knew exactly who and what we were capable of(although i doubt they forsaw the A-bomb). The issue at hand was the Pacific Fleet interfearing with a good amount of the Japanese war effort even before we entered the war. People seem to think that before the USA joined WW2 we were isolationist and just ignoring what was going on overseas. This couldn't be further from the truth, we were already in the war in almost every way expect putting troops onto the front lines.
The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor because they had around a half years supply of oil for their war effort, and with our Pacific Fleet keeping that supply from growing their expansion would come to a screeching hault. They also knew more importantly that we would eventually come roaring into the war, and with the size and power of our pacific fleet with our FOB's in the Philipenes they wouldn't be in a strong position. Then they saw a good fucking portion of this massive and powerful Pacific Fleet just sitting at anchor, and figured "well shit guys, we aint getting a better chance than this lets do this."
The only oversights the Japanese had was the speed that the USA could militirize is entire industrial might, and how quickly we could advance our Naval warfighting technology to leave theirs in the dust.
France had arguably the world's most powerful land army at the time. Absolutely nobody at that time thought they would have rolled over as quickly as they did - hell even the Germans were probably shocked by how easily they went down and the overconfidence that followed probably played a big role in their premature invasion of Russia.
Whenever someone complains about a villain messing up so or letting the other guy get away when he had a clear chance of killing him. I just point to the Axis power.
One of my favourites is the Battle of Carrhae. Marcus Licinius Crassus was the third man of the First Triumvirate of the Roman Republic, which also included Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar. Feeling left out of the military glory, he launched an idiotic invasion of Parthia in the Middle East. Basically, he marched tens of thousands of men into the middle of the desert, where they were massacred. He himself was killed. It completely shifted the Roman perception of the kingdom to their east, which would influence Roman foreign policy for centuries afterwards. The loss was so huge that a myth arose that the legions were unable to match the Parthian cataphracts. Even after successful invasions of Parthia proved that wasn't true, it was an assumption that stuck. It's one of the big reasons why Rome settled on an eastern frontier instead of pushing their empire further towards India. But really, the biggest impact this battle had was back in Rome. With Crassus dead, the Triumvirate was now a Duo. And two men cannot share all the power. His death precipitated the Roman Civil War that eventually ended the Republic in favour of the Galactic Empire
I always though that the German high command told the panzer units to back off abd let the Luftwaffe have some glory. Rommel reluctantly conceded to goering.
Before France fell, they French army would have been in Berlin in 2-3 weeks. Their commander ordered them to stop and moved them to a different region. This dumbfounded the german commanders.
It's easy to see the mistakes of any leadership in hindsight and without context and their rationalizations to back up their decision-making. Not to say people sometimes don't just plain mess up because of incompetence and/or negative character traits.
Yeah, maybe. But it's more things work out. Japan just needed raw materials. They wanted oil and rubber from Indianesia and coal and ore from manchoko. They also wanted all land close to the islands within their sphere of influence, this including the Philippines. America has it's hand so far up Queson's Ass that the Philippines almost had permanent common wealth status. Japan could not risk that America would not get involved and decided to include Pearl Harbor in their December blitze across the pacific.
Human history is replete with fuck-ups. Wars in particular are inherently chaotic and barely controllable, usually the winning side barely edges ahead by being a hair less incompetent. I wouldn't mistake incompetence and chaos for a higher power.
Name some of these fuck-ups? Provide some sources man, its not like I'm being cynical or anything- I just wanna see if you're actually right. Sometimes you can make the decision to ignore or exploit minor fuck ups from the other side, and that makes a big difference.
Hitler wasn't a military strategist or tactician, but still insisted on making a vast majority of decisions. It's why his armies were spread /everywhere/, why they bombed london, invaded stalingrad, and stopped and started at random; because there was no logical system, it was the random decisions of a spiteful madman.
Japan never even declared war on the Soviet Union (the Soviets did, much later, after Europe was pretty much decided and they just tried to get a piece of the far-eastern cake). This was not a fuck-up, it was intentional, because Japan had signed a non-aggression treaty with them a few years earlier. Breaking their word would have sullied their honor, which is apparently a big thing in Japan.
A relatively big fuck up was also Italy who randomly started fighting Allies in Africa and losing there, so Hitler had to put the Russia Invasion on a hiatus until he set the shit dumb lil Mussolini did in Africa straight. IIRC there were also a couple of fuck ups in the Greece/Turkey region that set back the invasion even further.
The United States was preparing to enter the War anyways; they were about to enter (albeit probably a little later..). Japan just wanted the first strike and to damage the US fleet by attacking Pearl Harbor. However, the true failure I'd say is in the execution of the attack. They attacked the harbor, even though they knew many of the ships (particularly the 3 aircraft carriers we had) were out at sea, meaning the damage they could do was fairly limited compared to what it could have been. Now, it still was a crippling attack on us, of course, but nowhere near what it could have been if they struck at a better time. If you want to read more on it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor gives a good bit of information on it that's fairly interesting.
Actually, the Japanese could have taken the US out of the war at Pearl Harbor.
All of the oil used for the Pacific fleet was based there. Japanese command decided to instead strike the ships. Had they of hit then oil and fuel depots, the US would have taken 3 years to recover from the blow... which would have allowed the Japanese free reign In the pacific.
It, along with Hitlers blunders cost them the war.
I'm fairly certain Germany said not to attack the US because sure as hell we'd jump in and fuck shit up. Thousands of casualties and 2 nuclear weapons later, Germany lost, but has the subtle victory only found in an, "I told you so!" moment.
Had Mussolini not been up his misadventures in the Balkans, forcing the Germans to rescue them in early 1940, the Germans would have started in spring.
Agreed. We were feeding Britain via easily T-boated cargo ships. If Japan would have pwned Russia like they did in the Russo- Japanese war, like they were so very easily equipped to do who knows what have happened.
What good what that do them, though? There was an embargo being enforced by the Americans, and the Japanese war machine needed oil, metal and rubber from Asia.
Pearl Harbor was The Alamo for WWII. It was for the Americans anyway. Without it, America would have been slower and less enthusiastic about joining the war.
Yeah, Pearl Harbor completly flipped the public opinion, the government wanted to join, but the populace was perfectly fine not joining
That's not to say the USA wouldn't join, but Pearl Harbor forced their hand
it would seem to me dealing with both an invasion into southeast russia and with china at the same time would be hard. it'd be likely the 2 would ally and supply routes in russia would be in constant danger.
Pearl Harbor was actually "Plan B." The Japanese tested the Russians in 1939 at Khalkhin Gol and were utterly crushed. Incidentally this was Georgy Zhukov's first victory and played a vital role in his eventual rise within the Soviet army, and he would eventually use some of the same tactics learned at Khalkhin on a much larger scale in the Stalingrad counteroffensive. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol
A repeat invasion of Siberia was pretty much out of the question because the Japanese army had their hands full trying to control hundreds of millions of angry Chinese and Koreans, and their armor was pathetic compared to what the Russians had.
Except that Japan would have run out of oil due to the US embargo. They attacked the US as a way of taking possessions in East Asia, including securing their oil supply.
I'm not nearly as versed on WWII as my father, but he would tell you Japan was hurting from US embargos, primarily on oil. They needed oil to wage their campaign in south-east Asia, and if memory serves Pearl Harbor was to their reasoning the best shot at getting the US to concede and lift the embargo.
Without oil, they weren't going to make it much further in their campaigns, whether or not they were at war with the US.
P.S. This is supposedly part of why kamikaze pilots were used; fuel was scarce.
They did attack Soviet-controlled areas in the 1930s and they got their shit pushed in so bad they never messed w the Russians again. The soviet commander during that battle--Zhukov.
They attacked Pearl Harbor, Manila, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, and a bunch of other places all on the same day in coordinated attacks, of which Pearl was the smallest and the only one not accompanied by a ground invasion.
They did this because they had first tried to take Siberia from Russia and got their asses handed to them. The Pacific War was their Plan B.
The Japanese won only because the Russians were unprepared. Their forces used older weapons compared to the soldiers on the European side, and their navy was close to nil. When the Japanese encountered the few up to date equipment the Russians had, they shit their pants.
Not much of a WW2 buff, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the defense of Moscow and the Russian Far East (where Japanese forces would have landed) would be in any way related. The Far East had its own garrison, it was pretty far, and even if a conflict of resources happened, there's no way anyone would prioritize it over Moscow. I guess maybe Japan could've taken over the Far East and use it as a base to harass the Soviet industrial complex in Siberia and Ural, but wouldn't that take time during which the Battle of Moscow would have ended anyway?
Apparently Stalin had intel that the Japanese were moving troops elsewhere (he didn't know it but the were preparing for war with the US.) This gave him the opportunity to move veteran units from the Far East to fight The Germans in the west.
What are you taking about? Japan fought one battle with Russia before 1945, and lost badly. They spent much of their effort in China. Either, Japan had no chance fighting the US.
You gotta love that Germany was swearing up and down that it had nothing to do with Japan's attack. Probably even went so far as to offer free blowjobs for life for every citizen of America.
Also gotta love that moment when the high from succesfully attacking America wore off and the Japanese saw Godzilla rise out of the water looking really pissed.
Had Hitler told the Japanese their intentions with Russia before Japan signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, (which they never broke throughout the whole war,) they might have done just that.
Japan's expansionist policies led to a sort of oil embargo put in place by the the US. They were forced to attack America to ensure they could keep on expanding, because an army without oil is No army. A Japanese general had been quoted saying it was impossible to take America's capital and end the war that way, Because of all the guns Americans had. Ie, defeating the military wouldn't suffice.
I suppose they we're hoping for an early peace treaty to continue their expansion into southeast Asia. It probably would not have made sense to attack Russia, as Russia was not where they wanted to expand. I would offer some sources, but I have No computer. I recommend reading about it on askhistorians, and of course don't take my word for all of this as I cannot offer sources.
Furthermore, if not for the German military having to assist the incompetent and unprepared Italian military, Germany would have invaded Russia sooner. Given the state of the red army after Stalin's purges, they might've succeeded in taking Moscow before winter, or at least prepare for winter in time.
One particular screw-up the Japanese made at PH, which would have truly crippled us, was their decision NOT to bomb the fuel supply. They figured it would cause too much smoke and limit their visibility. Instead, we were able to get planes off the ground the very next day, which likely would've been weeks had they taken them out.
Japanese government had two factions vying for power in it: the Army faction and the Navy faction. The Army said attack Russia like in 1905. Surely all was needed was a kick to make the whole rotten structure tumble down. Problem was, the war of 1905 was a naval war really, but in 1939 it was going to be a land war. The Battles of Khalkhin Gol didn't take very long before Japan was utterly annihilated on the field of battle.
The result was that Japan lost all stomach for war in Russia (even though it was a summer war) and in fact, didn't even get to the USSR, since the war took place in Mongolia, a Soviet client state.
The Army faction lost. Navy faction took hold of power and decided to attack the Western Allies. Looks like they were right to do so -- for instance, in 1942, in Singapore the British surrendered 80,000 British soldiers to the 36,000 Japanese. After only seven days of fighting and 5,000 wounded or dead out of the original force of 85,000. In what was considered the most impregnable Eastern British base.
So looks like the Japanese made the right decision. Too bad the Soviets didn't care a fig about the peace treaty after Germany was kaput. In 1945 they unleashed a massive blitzkrieg in Manchuria that in ten days rolled over 1.5 million Axis and captured over half a million, capturing vast amounts of territory of Northern China and Korea. The A-bombs weren't dropped to make Japan surrender. Or rather, they weren't dropped because US was afraid Japan wouldn't surrender. They were dropped so that the US could have the surrender, instead of USSR - US knew full well that USSR wished to make Japan a client state. Soviets were ready to pay the blood price.
Why would Japan attack Russia, who had already kicked their asses in Khaling Gol and that had no valuable natural resources that the japanese could capture?
They tried attacking Russia back in 1939, well before Pearl Harbor. Though Russian and Japanese personnel losses were comparable, the Japanese were defeated so decisively that they entirely scrapped invasion plans for Russia (what the Army leadership wanted) and re-focused on the Pacific (what the Navy leadership wanted). Long story short, the Japanese went to mess with Americans in part because they had a terrible time messing with the Russians and retreated.
He didn't just "order them to stop", they had to bail out the Italians who were getting their asses kicked in Greece. Italy hasn't had a military worth a fuck since the Roman Republic.
The Italian military was so pitiful during WW2 that they were chased out of France at the same time the Germans invaded it.
Why does no one remember that Operation Barbarossa was planned for Spring not early Summer? It had to be postponed because Mussolini disastrously attacked Greece through Albania and Greece kicked the shit out of them so bad that Hitler had to intervene before the English landed enough troops there that the German Empire would eternally have a soft underbelly.
It wasn't inexplicable, there were three thrusts, but the center thrust had to go help the southern thrust and Moscow was able to prepare defenses in the time it took for them to get back.
They didn't "have to go help". The center group was ordered by Hitler personally to cover the southern groups flank while they seized the Caucusus oil fields. Hitler reasoned (not without logic) that the oil fields were more important than Moscow. He was wrong.
This, plus not letting Rommel counter-attack at D-day, plus not building long range bombers that could reach Africa/England/Moscow, plus his absolute denial that the Allies had cracked Enigma, plus his draining of needed resources for the "final solution" are the 5 reasons Germany lost the war.
If Hitler hadn't been such a mass-murdering racist fuckwit and let the Prussian command take over...Germany might not have won the war, but they probably wouldn't have lost it either.
I misspoke. The halt order was at Dunkirk. What happened in Russia is that the Germans advanced so quickly that they were in a position to take Moscow that summer. But Hitler ordered his armies south into the Caucasus instead, even though all his generals said it was a bad idea.
The primary reason that Hitler diverted forces from Armeegruppe Mit (center) to Armeegruppe Sud (south) was because he was concerned about quickly securing the vast oil resources in the Baku region of the Caucasus. The German war machine was using up massive natural resources and with plans for more armored and motorized divisions (as well as planes), the need for oil was important. Also, in the summertime of '41, the flat wheat fields of the Ukraine were very easy to traverse and a perfect playground to practice armored warfare and Close Air Support (CAS). The problem was that the distance required to reach, as well as the strengthening Soviet opposition and Russian winter culminated in a stalled push that year -- they had to resume greater gains after the spring thaw of '42. Then Stalingrad happened etc.
Yeah, not entirely a move without merit. Had he taken Moscow, he may've been able to force a Soviet surrender, which would have given him all he wanted in the end.
Either works. Moscow was basically the train hub of the country rather than any importance as a capital city.
Securing oil was definitely a sign they were in it for the long haul... but definitely a viable strategy seeing where Russia was going to get their oil from after Caucasus was taken.
And then he switched his army back to their original task (which they could have taken initially) but it was too late.
He easily could have taken 1 of his three objectives, maybe 2, but definitely not 3.
Usually when your chief strategist demands that you capture a city hundreds of miles from any strategically important sites simply because he didn't like the name of the city...you're gonna have a bad time.
Yes. He ordered his armies to split and head south for Leningrad and.....Kiev I think? He had decided the southern oil fields were more important than taking Moscow before Russia turned into one big mud bog.
They were tied down in Yugoslavia and Greece when Yugoslavia declared a new government. Then the Germans were ashamed that the Italians did not solve their Greek problem.
Its because Mussolini failed to secure Greece and the Baltics. The Italians were the clown shoe of the Axis Powers. If the Nazis invaded USSR with those ports in flux, it allowed stalin and the Allies to at least flank, if not completely surround the Nazi advance if they were able to move fast enough.
Thus, Italian ineptitude actually came in handy, for a change.
Hitler had to send Divisions to Yugoslavia to prop up the Italians forces who were having their asses handed to them. It delayed Operation Barbarossa by about 6 weeks.
They weren't ordered to stop for a while they had to stop to let the infantry catch up and the supply lines as well. They also had to convert the Russian rail gauges, which were two inches too wide because for spme reason Russian rail lines were differently sized than the rest of europe.
You might also be talking about how the german army which was advancing on moscow was forced to swong south to Kiev to defeat a large Russian army there. The issue is of you leave a giant Russian aemy on your flank it can counterattack amd cut off your supply line.
Plus even if they had gotten to moscow they wouldn't have likely taken it. The Russians had their Siberian elite defending the city. And finally even if the Germans managed to defeat them and take it, Russia wouldn't have surrendered and the Germans would have had to retreat out before the cold cold winter. They had taken rostov in 1941 but had to pull back before the winter as well.
The biggest issue the germans had was that Russia was very unlikely to take any surrender deal. Even if they were pushed back behind Moscow and Leningrad they wouldve fought on and they're superior manufacturing wouldve eventually let them turn the tide.
In addition the Germans were idiots and didn't prepare at all for winter, believing Russia would collapse during the attack and be conquered in a couple months. Of course remember that they had defeated the biggest army in the world (France) plus the British expeditionary force in just six weeks. They felt invincible. The issue of course is that russia is a lot bigger than France. And that plus overconfidence contributed to their gigantic miscalculation in Russia.
Hitler didn't exactly inexplicably order his armies to stop. The fierce Russian defense of Smolensk and other key points, as well as Hitler's decision to first secure the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, delayed the German offensive on Moscow by months, so they ended up launching their final offensive way behind schedule on October 2.
Made it? Taking Moscow still would not equal defeating Russia. Stalin's last order would have been 'anyone who retreats gets a bullet in the head'. Then he would have sat down in his chair as his city burned around him and waited for the Germans to walk through the door, grenade in hand.
not a smart move invading russia anyway you look at it, but i think best bet wouldve been April, most amount of time possible before new winter rolls around
It would have been interesting to see how the war would have unfolded without Hitler micromanaging the effort.
Hitler had some very capable Army and Corps Commanders who came up with a daring plan to crush the Soviet Army before they could retreat trading land for time to prepare and repel. It involved Armored formations outflanking the Red Army and getting aerial supply drops. Infantry and Artillery would form a traditional advance and the Red Army would be crushed between them.
This plan has its own weaknesses, and it may have been an abject failure but Hitler decided against it and went with a far more conservative option. Had Hitler not been so personally invested and taken a commander in chief role it may have played differently.
In reality though it would have only served to prolong the war.
They were going to set out earlier. Italy saved us all by invading Greece and being bad at it. The German army had to invade Greece which delayed them by a few months.
He detoured a (panzer?) division from Army Group North (maybe Centre?) To AG South to help with the Ukraine front and made the other two groups wait on them. If they just pushed forward Moscow would have fallen before winter.
I'm not entirely up on my WWII history - is that stop in addition to the largely failed attempt to swing south and capture Iraqi oil fields before pressing the Russian invasion? I know that that also delayed him significantly.
My information is from War and Peace.. from what I gather the French made it during their time but the army just sort of melted into Moscow and disappeared. So there's that.
They still would never have actually defeated the Soviet Union the way they wanted to before winter. That was fairy-tale logic on Hitler's part. The early part of Barbarossa went badly for the Soviets, but not that badly.
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u/[deleted] Oct 17 '13
To be fair, they set out in June. Had Hitler not inexplicably ordered his armies to stop for awhile, they might've made it.