HoI4 Dev Diary - A Post-Colonial World: Map Changes and New Tags

[forgeworld]

Some fairly adventurous points in your post (including some stuff I'm not going near with a ten-foot pole, because addressing it appropriately would mean breaking forum rules hard) - but this one stands out. Sure, Hitler made peace offers (he made peace offers after France fell as well - although like his earlier offers ones that were comfortably in Germany's favour). The Allies did as well - just withdraw from Poland and all's good. Hitler had a "White Peace" option, and clearly didn't take it. A "hey, I'm really peaceful and not expansionist, just misunderstood" Hitler had an out and the supposedly warmongering Allies (those same Allies who had delayed rearmament to the point they were woefully underprepared for war when it did break out - against a Germany that despite being comprehensively disarmed had rebuilt itself in less than a decade to be the premier armed force in Europe!) were never, ever given an option by Hitler to hit the "reset" button (ie, return to pre-war situation). At the end of the day, as best I understand them (and I do make mistakes, this might be one of them but I'm fairly confident in these points) the facts are pretty cut and dried here.

The allies made very few peace offers in the beginning of the war and those that were issued almost always involved occupation of the Rhine and always required the Danzig corridor to be given to poland. I never said the people of Britain and France were warmongers, quite the opposite - I mentioned the massively pasifist movements in France in particular. The peace offers given to the allies early in the war were repeatedly essentially the same thing: we’ll withdraw from everything except Danzig. They only execption was one or a few particular peace offers that offered a pact in which the British could call upon the german army if the empire ever needed it (I believe it cited the historical presence of Hessians and Hanoverians fighting for England) in return for peace and for letting Germany have a free reign in the east (essentially against communism). When France fell there was no intent when the final peace deal came to annex everything that was occupied - what was the most likely worst case scenario for France was A-L to germany, French Somaliland, tunesia, Corsica, and savoy to italy, and french flanders to Belgium or some newly independent Flanders. Even then Hitler made it very very clear he had no desire for war with France or England in many speeches in the Reichstag and other places. These are historical facts. I’m not sure how exactly 1914 eastern borders as the only major land change give germany such a lopsided agreement.

England by the way started rearming around 1936 which is when germany roughly got serious as well. France started in 1938 but the Maginot line is not taken into account there.

 

[BrotherJonathan]

Perhaps you could add a 'Home Guard' aspect to the UK national focus once they go to war with Germany? They were established around the time France fell, but since Operation Sea Lion didn't go into action, they never saw any action. Maybe putting the Home Guard into the game could bolster the British Army if a German invasion force lands.

Agreed. However, since the Home Guard was more of a volunteer militia than an extension of the regular army, it might not be best to represent them as divisions on the map. Rather, it might be better to have a "Home Guard" focus give something like a large boost to the power of partisans in occupied areas, or to slow down German progress through British-held territory. What would you propose?

 

[Axe99]

England by the way started rearming around 1936 which is when germany roughly got serious as well. France started in 1938 but the Maginot line is not taken into account there.

Britain (England isn't a sovereign state) started re-arming in response to Japanese, Italian and Germany aggression and/or rearmament, not because it was planning to get involved in wars of conquest. If you look at figures on 'proportion of GDP spent on rearming', it's clear Germany were far more enthusiastic about it than anyone else - check out the table at page 2 of this paper, for example.

Had Britain and France wanted war, and had they actually been rearming as effectively as Germany, they would have been far better placed to block either the reoccupation of the Rhineland, the Anschluss with Austria or the annexation of the Sudetenland, or the rest of Czecho-plus-effectively-puppet-Slovakia. The only way Britain and France can be sensibly cast as 'warmongers' is if they have personality transplants in mid-1939 (despite both not having changes of Government or Prime Minister at this time). The available data on rearmament, and the actions by the Allies, are entirely inconsistent with a "warmongering" approach, and it's not until the Casablanca Conference, and the new insistence on unconditional surrender, that there was any behaviour consistent with anything that could be effectively identified as such (and even the insistence on unconditional surrender isn't an obviously warmongery thing, but it's a lot greyer than the situation prevailing in 1939).

I also note that you didn't refute that Hitler wasn't happy to just withdraw from Poland (ie, he insisted on hanging onto Danzig). Someone that wasn't expansionist, I would imagine, would have been very happy with a white peace in late 1939 - at that time Hitler didn't expect France to collapse as it did, and war could potentially have been all sorts of nasty for Germany. Yet they were so committed to expansion that they were happy to risk a quagmire-like conflict in Western Europe rather than to return to pre-war borders.

It just doesn't make any sense to call Hitler 'not expansionist' in this context - there's no logic to it at all. A leader that wasn't expansionist and wasn't irrational (and, to be fair, Hitler was hardly the most rational of leaders so I'm not going to completely discount this element) would have jumped at the chance of peace over 'potentially long war with powers that have a significant economic edge'. Hitler not only ignored this opportunity, but had no trouble expanding the war as required.

Now - I'm not agreeing that Hitler wanted to 'paint the world map in German Grey' - but there's a big difference between 'Hitler wasn't playing for a World Conquest' and 'Hitler wasn't expansionist and was the victim here'.

 

[forgeworld]

Britain (England isn't a sovereign state) started re-arming in response to Japanese, Italian and Germany aggression and/or rearmament, not because it was planning to get involved in wars of conquest. If you look at figures on 'proportion of GDP spent on rearming', it's clear Germany were far more enthusiastic about it than anyone else - check out the table at page 2 of this paper, for example.

Yes, Britain had many problems on her hands - particularly in the Far East and to a lesser extent the Mediterranean, if you see my previous posts I clearly outline this. As for German military spending, please keep in mind that Germany was rebuilding an entire military from the ground up. She had nothing beforehand with regards to an army, airforce, or navy by comparison to France. England, USA, Italy, etc.

Had Britain and France wanted war, and had they actually been rearming as effectively as Germany, they would have been far better placed to block either the reoccupation of the Rhineland, the Anschluss with Austria or the annexation of the Sudetenland, or the rest of Czecho-plus-effectively-puppet-Slovakia. The only way Britain and France can be sensibly cast as 'warmongers' is if they have personality transplants in mid-1939 (despite both not having changes of Government or Prime Minister at this time). The available data on rearmament, and the actions by the Allies, are entirely inconsistent with a "warmongering" approach, and it's not until the Casablanca Conference, and the new insistence on unconditional surrender, that there was any behaviour consistent with anything that could be effectively identified as such (and even the insistence on unconditional surrender isn't an obviously warmongery thing, but it's a lot greyer than the situation prevailing in 1939).

Again, I mentioned before that the people of Britain and France were very pacifistic, and they would have not let their governments go out and wage war over something like a little stroll in the Rhineland, a unification with a state that wanted to unify in 1919, or the annexation of a land that was almost wholly ethnically german nor was military spending popular (remember those tens of millions of pounds that went into the dreadnoughts?). Yes, Chamberlain was half-hearted about the war and wrote privately about it's lack on necessity. As for the military spending, see my writing above.

With regards to unconditional surrender, Churchill, who was PM by May 1940, had been advocating for such a policy since the mid 30's. Here are some quotes:

"Britain was taking advantage of the situation to go to war against Germany because the Reich had become too strong and had upset the European balance."
- Ralph F. Keeling, Institute of American Economics

"The precise effect of the Mutual Assistance Pact was to give Poland a clear signal that aggression and belligerency was tolerable and a warning to Germany that any retaliation would be met by force."
- Sir. Basil Liddell Hart, The History of the Second World War

"The last thing Hitler wanted was to produce another great war. His people, and particularly his generals, were profoundly fearful of any such risk - the experiences of World War One had scarred their minds."
- Sir. Basil Liddell Hart, The History of the Second World War


"You must understand that this war is not against Hitler or national socialism, but against the strength of the German people, which is to be smashed once and for all, regardless of whether it is in the hands of Hitler or a Jesuit priest."

Source - Winston Churchill His Career In War and Peace by Emrys Hughes page 145

"There will be no peace in Europe until all Polish lands shall have been restored completely to Poland, until the name Prussia, being that of a people long since gone, shall have been wiped from the map of Europe, and until the Germans have moved their capital Berlin farther westwards."
- Henryk Baginski, Poland and the Baltic, Edinburgh 1942.

"I believe strongly in the honourable intentions of your Fuhrer, however, tell him he should not overlook the fact that the ancient hatred of my people against everything German is abysmal."
- Marshall Pilsudski (1867-1935)


I don't want to fill up a page, so I'll leave it at that. Britain and France's de facto policy which was strengthened by Churchill and later made official at Casablanca was unconditional surrender, which, in essence, means conquest. In unconditional surrender, the defeated parties are at the total mercy of the victors. This is aggressive warmongering. I invite you again to read my previous posts where I mention actions of the allies that indicate war mongering (such as the RAF destroying 1/3rd of the worker's housing in 1940 before the blitz happened, or the whole purpose of Rudolf Hess' flight, or perhaps the unconditional guarantee that was given to Poland).

The peace offers given to the allies early in the war were repeatedly essentially the same thing: we’ll withdraw from everything except Danzig.

The Free City of Danzig at the time was 97% German with the whole corridor (especially the northern portion) heavily german-populated. For a portion of land that was literally part of the German state just 20 years ago and had been for a little over 100 years, to call unwillingness to cede this "expansionism" is beyond absurd. Also, about that 6 week campaign on the western front, please consult my previous posts on why it was even done in the first place.

After the invasion of Poland, the British high command with the French drew up a plan called R4 to violate Norwegian and Swedish neutrality in order to deprive Germany of the vital iron and tungsten needed for Germany to continue her war effort. A similar plan was drawn up for the BeNeLux to end the glorious phony war and push into the Rhine. The most mobile French troops were lined up along the Belgian border and would act almost like a hinge from the Maginot to Dunkirk swinging into the Rhine. Meanwhile, dozens upon dozens of peace offers were made by the supposedly warmongering and expansionist Hitler at the time. The BeNeLux campaign was more of a pre-emptive strike than anything. The neutrality that was so desperately desired by the BeNeLux governments was, from the moment Maginot was finished, doomed. When france fell, the only attacks on Britain was basic strategic bombing. It wasn’t Churchill who obliterated 1/3rd of the worker’s housing in Berlin before the blitz happened.

It just doesn't make any sense to call Hitler 'not expansionist' in this context - there's no logic to it at all. A leader that wasn't expansionist and wasn't irrational (and, to be fair, Hitler was hardly the most rational of leaders so I'm not going to completely discount this element) would have jumped at the chance of peace over 'potentially long war with powers that have a significant economic edge'. Hitler not only ignored this opportunity, but had no trouble expanding the war as required.

Again, if you look back, I never said there was never any expansionism, certainly there were those long held claims of prussia and sileasia that came into being after the partitions of poland. These came to surface much later in the war however, not in 1939-1941. Also note that Germany's economic output surpassed that of Britain at the time and Italy (though not in the war at the time) was close to if not totally surpassing France's economy (thank magitron) and, by the Fall of France, the Axis economic output in comparison to the Allies was around 0.39 allies : 1 axis.

A peace offer resulting in the occupation of your lands and the very thing you fought to get (or liberate, as was the case for many Germans in the corridor) ceded back to a hostile chauvinist neighbor, not to mention that land has millions of your ethnic countrymen living there is not a peace but rather a surrender. As for the expansion of the war, please check my previous messages.

PS: to simply dismiss a leader's actions under the reason of "dumb" or "irrational" throws away any sort of real deeper understanding and is a disrespect towards history and those who lived it.

Now - I'm not agreeing that Hitler wanted to 'paint the world map in German Grey' - but there's a big difference between 'Hitler wasn't playing for a World Conquest' and 'Hitler wasn't expansionist and was the victim here'.

In war, the first victim is truth. When truth becomes a victim, everyone involved becomes a victim.

 

[Porkman]

Hitler did some things wrong, but the Allies did things wrong too. I feel safe in my happy pro Na... er... pro-GERMANY space because forum rules prohibit people from saying the most effective counterarguments.

Every year, on these boards, we get one or two people who like playing Germany for the wrong reasons.

 

[forgeworld]

Every year, on these boards, we get one or two people who like playing Germany for the wrong reasons.

Excuse me? Please read my previous messages. I had family who fought and died on both sides and I try to do my best to remain impartial (which can land me with these types of derogatory comments against me). Way to go with the personal attacks.

EDIT: who keeps disagreeing with my posts where i'm not even arguing? is someone just trying to be vulgar in a discreet way?

 

[Stug_Life]

Lets be honest here.... Danzig belonged to Germany. It would have saved everyone a lot of time among other things.

 

[Porkman]

Excuse me? Please read my previous messages. I had family who fought and died on both sides and I try to do my best to remain impartial (which can land me with these types of derogatory comments against me). Way to go with the personal attacks.

EDIT: who keeps disagreeing with my posts where i'm not even arguing? is someone just trying to be vulgar in a discreet way?

WW2 is not a debate where both sides had some good points.... so let's call it a wash.

We can argue about the demographics of Danzig and the Sudetenland, the punitiveness of Versailles, the overt threat presented by the Soviet Union. All of those are genuine grievances that the Germans had and were debatable.

Let's give the Germans +10 points for those.

For the Allies, there is the idea of maintaining peace in Europe without war. The importance of making sure Poland is viable. Maintaining guarantees to smaller states.

+10 points for all of that.

Now for the bad,

For the Allies, you have... plans to violate Norwegian neutrality, general hostility to Germany regaining power, the hypocrisy of the existing colonial empires, and a bunch of others.

-50 for those. The Allies were far from angels.

Now let's do the bad for the Germans.

[REDACTED DUE TO FORUM RULES]

So -10000 points for the Germans.

You can't be impartial in this. Every bad thing that the Western Allies did is outweighed by the stuff we can't talk about.

Sure, Danzig is German in 1939, and maybe the "Just let us keep Danzig" would have been credible... EXCEPT they already annexed Czechoslovakia after saying that all they wanted was the German Sudetenland.

 

[pvt.conners]

Excuse me? Please read my previous messages. I had family who fought and died on both sides and I try to do my best to remain impartial (which can land me with these types of derogatory comments against me). Way to go with the personal attacks.

I feel like you've gone way past impartiality and into outright apologism at times. No one disputes that the Allies have done shady things, but to use it as a justification for an aggresive war of expansion? That's just trying to establish false moral equivalency. Why you fight matters just as much if not more than how you fight.

Regarding interviews with your relatives and the book you cite: I have bad news for you; Primary sources of the personal kind are tricky to deal with, as they can be subject to all kinds of biases, not to mention ignorance of certain aspects of historical events. There is a reason respected historians are careful when using them after all.

I strongly suggest you sit in a few university lectures on history, preferably the first ones, they can be very enlightening on how historians look at personal memoirs. I'm sure you can register as a guest listener.

You have to remember that some aspects of Nazi Germany's plans have been irrevocably lost, as the people responsible for them burned many documents pertaining to them and/or took their secrets to the grave, so we only have a general idea of what they planned to do, but what we do know is more than enough to indict the regime.

 

[Reinner]

Was the Middle East more important than South America in World War II?

South America had much more importance compared to the Middle East, which was limited to the invasion of Ira to establish a port for supplies to the USSR to the south,

I'm pretty sure Allied/Soviet invasion of Iran, Anglo-Iraqi War, Operation Exporter, Syria-Lebanon campaign and many other Axis and Vichy involvements in Middle East were more important than expeditionary forces that were sent from Brazil and other SA states to fight for the Allies.

 

[Teleros]

After the invasion of Poland, the British high command with the French drew up a plan called R4 to violate Norwegian and Swedish neutrality in order to deprive Germany of the vital iron and tungsten needed for Germany to continue her war effort. A similar plan was drawn up for the BeNeLux to end the glorious phony war and push into the Rhine. The most mobile French troops were lined up along the Belgian border and would act almost like a hinge from the Maginot to Dunkirk swinging into the Rhine.

As I understand it, the Maginot Line had been designed to extend into Belgium, but with French forces no longer able to be deployed in that country for diplomatic reasons, the French had to get ready to rush in, because if the Germans took Belgium there wasn't a Maginot Line beyond that would stop them.

Meanwhile, dozens upon dozens of peace offers were made by the supposedly warmongering and expansionist Hitler at the time.

Which were all totally trustworthy. "Hey Chamberlain, the Sudetenland is all I want, honest. Oops, my bad, I seem to have taken Prague..."

The neutrality that was so desperately desired by the BeNeLux governments was, from the moment Maginot was finished, doomed.

Well, France could've built a line along the Belgian border too, but as that would be basically saying "we expect Germany to steamroll you, GLHF" it wasn't done for diplomatic purposes .

When france fell, the only attacks on Britain was basic strategic bombing.

And U-Boats, remember. But again, this happened only because of our "wooden walls", if you will. Had there been a land route Germany could've used, there would've been German divisions in London pretty damn quick.

Ah the great “let’s pretend that germany wanted to annex all the land up to the urals and genocide everyone living there but at the same time create legions of those very people we are trying to exterminate to fight with us” mindfuck.

Nothing wrong with this at all. Conquer first, then genocide. Getting the locals to kill each other on your behalf is just sound strategy (*glances at history of British India*).

This ignores the fact the the germans attack the Soviet Union with the Soviet troop in their forward positions - i.e. poised to attack. If the germans has waited 3 weeks longer, the Soviets would have steam rolled across that contenent.

I've read Suvorov on this, and suffice it to say that whilst it's a neat idea, he was probably off by a year (Nigel Askey weighed in about this recently, and given what he's writing, it pays to listen).

http://www.lulu.com/shop/nigel-aske...tion-volume-i/paperback/product-21063821.html
https://voxday.blogspot.com/2018/06/stalins-strike-historians-view.html

Spoilerised blog post for those who don't want to click on an Alt-Right website...

Spoiler

I asked Nigel Askey, the author of the massive Operation Barbarossa: The Complete Organisational and Statistical Analysis, and Military Simulation, about his opinion of Viktor Suvorov's thesis we've been discussing this week. He graciously gave permission for me to quote his reply on the blog.

Your email has prompted me, and I have now ordered a copy of Suvorov's Chief Culprit. I haven’t read this one by Suvorov; I probably should. However it looks very similar to, and an extension of, his original Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War? This one was also an entertaining read. I might as well express my opinion about the overall Suvorov hypothesis as it has gained such a lot of attention.

I agree with Suvorov on some points, but definitely not on others. I believe Stalin did have plans to invade Western Europe at some point, and it completely fits with the overall Soviet - and Stalin - policy of communist expansion as well as Stalin’s character. He definitely gambled on the fact that Germany would be embroiled in prolonged war with France and Britain, which would buy him time to prepare. He gambled on it lasting at least until 1942, which was backed up by his own Stavka assessments. In addition, it was around this time he attenuated, and mostly stopped, the massively damaging officer purging that were going on. He realised that any Red Army that was going to conquer Western Europe would need decent officers, and that Germany was now a bigger external threat to him than any ‘internal’ threat from his officer corps. I believe Stalin was hoping his Army, especially the mass of newly formed Mechanised Corps with its new tank types; all belatedly formed after the Germans had demonstrated their panzer corps in France, would be ready by the summer of 1942, one year after Barbarossa started. Similarly, his air force was desperately reequipping with more modern fighters and bombers (Yak-1, LaGG-3, Mig-3, Pe-2, etc), and a massive air crew training program was underway.

France and Britain, of course, had handed all this to him on a plate, so to speak, by declaring war on Germany when Germany invaded Poland, but then only a few days later did not declare war on the USSR when it did exactly the same thing from the East! From a moral perspective, this has always left a ‘bad taste in my mouth’: especially when Britain and France historically claim the moral high ground about why they declared war on Germany in 1939. It turns out that so called treaty with Poland by France and Britain was worded so that it only applied to German aggression; apparently anyone else could do what they liked to any of the three countries. How’s that for selective moralising and post-war hypocrisy? Anyway I digress.

Where I really disagree completely with Suvorov is timing. 1941, definitely not. The summer of 1942 was very likely Stalin’s plan, and even then, there was a struggle to be ready. I can guarantee that there was absolutely no way the Soviet armed forces were in any shape to conduct a major offensive into Poland and then into Western Europe in June or July 1941. They were just so totally unready at so many levels, they would have been very easily stopped. Their logistical and C&C set up was so bad they would have almost stopped themselves, as they almost did in Poland in 1939. One just has to look at their absolutely dismal performance when they did invade Poland from the East - it degenerated onto a ludicrous fiasco against a very token Polish force - and the almost equally poor performance against Finland in the Winter War to see just a few of the problems.

I have examined in extreme detail the Soviet forces right across the USSR on 22nd June 1941, and not just apparent raw number in the Western Military Districts as Suvorov does. This analysis has been done for the Red Army (the RKKA) and the air force (the VMF). Special attention has been reserved for the forces deployed in the Western Military Districts and the Mechanised Forces. These include a massive and complete Soviet Tank Deployment Matrix and Aircraft Deployment Matrix, which in a great many cases go down to individual tanks and aircraft. In addition, readiness, training, and HQ assignments are included, as well as positions ‘on the map’. In addition, the Soviet truck park is analysed, and it was in a terrible state, along with the Red Army supply and logistics state. All this will be fully published in Volume IIIB. The published Volume IIIA has the Western Military District land forces already.

In comparison to this and some research done by others, I find Suvorov’s figures to be high-level, superficial, token, and worst of all, very selective. I am sorry to say he takes the statistics that suit his agenda, and then simply throws them at the reader with a convincing argument. For the reader, presented with these ‘facts’, the conclusions are convincing. However, no amount of convincing rhetoric can, in the end, replace weak argument foundations. For example, deeper analysis shows that the Soviets were employing what is termed an echelon defence strategy as laid out by various (now dead from the purges) Red Army theorists in the ‘Deep Battle’ and Deep Operations’ manner. These are not just offensive methodologies, they also lay out the mechanism to defend against these types of attack as well. The fact that the Wehrmacht had surpassed this in real practical terms and totally ripped through both the 1st and 2nd level of these defences and then encircled them all was surprising, especially to the Soviets. This, of course, has led to the “why were so many Soviet forces forwards and vulnerable?” questions. The Germans then had to work a bit to penetrate the 3rd echelon defences which were also being deployed and still formed on 22nd June 1941, largely the Stavka Reserves.

Well, its only with post-war hindsight, and the realisation of just how fast the Wehrmacht could operate and had perfected mobile warfare, that we realise how vulnerable the Soviet echelon defence was. To the Soviets at the time, and to the Western observers, it looked like a very reasonable set up. We are talking hundreds of kilometres of depth here, with multiple lines of defence, and not just a single concentration of forward deployed troops apparently massing for an attack as proposed by Suvorov. Unfortunately, the Wehrmacht, as it was in 1941, could penetrate even hundreds of kilometres of such a defence in days, making all this look extremely vulnerable. Thus, with post-war hindsight, this looks like an extremely incompetent deployment, even for a defensive posture. Note, the Deep Battle and Deep Operations theories stressed the ability to go from a defensive posture to an offensive posture relatively quickly. Thus, when ready, the Red Army could transit from one to the other in a matter of weeks. Eg, in this case the 1st defensive line, mostly rifle divisions, would perform the breakthrough assault, while the 2nd echelon defensive lime, usually mobile mechanised forces, would exploit the breach. I am only stressing this because I do not want to portray the Red Army, or Stalin’s regime, as inherently a defensive force backed by a defensive ideology: the echelon defence used suited both. But it does not mean the Soviets were about to attack in June 1941, and it does explain why they were deployed as they were historically.

Another example is the relatively forward deployment of many VVS units, another fact used by Suvorov. Yes it was stupid to deploy so many VVS air units within a few hundred km of the border and these were hit by the initial surprise airfield attacks. However, the VVS was a huge force, the biggest air force in the world at that time, and was deployed in a great many locations across the USSR. The very large majority of these units were undergoing replacement and training operations and exercises, including those in the Western military Districts, the vast majority of the VVS including most of their new fighter and bomber units were actually deployed well inside the USSR in the Internal Military districts, and the vital Long Range DBA forces, the largest strategic bomber force in the World at that time, was deployed very deep in the USSR and completely unreachable by the Luftwaffe. Suvorov only talks about the VVS forces in the Western Military Districts and how they were therefore obviously “deployed for an attack?”. He doesn’t mention that over 70% of the VVS and VMF (naval air-forces), and especially the bomber forces, were in no position to attack anything in the West, and that the DBA, a very large and totally offensive force was so far back it could barely reach Western Europe.

He also doesn’t focus on the overall readiness of the VVS forces in the Western Military Districts just as he doesn’t focus on the readiness or state of the mechanised force (see below). Only raw numbers are used, which are close to useless if there is no context and other factors are not included. No doubt these VVS forces in the depths of the USSR would have been redeployed forward by the summer of 1942. As it was they survived the initial Luftwaffe onslaught. The fact that the Luftwaffe the systematically destroyed these forces from July to October 1941, is a separate discourse. It does, however, again, highlight how unready the VVS was overall (again, supposed to be fully ready by 1942, if lucky), and how most of the VVS units were entrenched in the depths of USSR that it took that length of time for the Luftwaffe to reach them. None of this suits with Suvorov’s hypothesis.

A final example is the state of the Soviet Mechanised Corps. This is arguably the biggest single massive hole in Suvorov’s whole hypothesis. Over two-thirds of this entire Red Army force had only started forming in February-March 1941, only months earlier. This was the most critical force for any invasion of Europe. The divisions in this force had plenty of tanks, especially those in the Western Military Districts. But this was simply because the USSR had the biggest tank park in the world due to its pre-war production going back to the early 1930s. I have no doubt that Suvorov sticks to these raw tank numbers, most of these were T-26s and BT types only because this is what was mostly produced. However, over 80 percent of these divisions were barely mobile in June 1941! Most were still actually forming and, incredibly, only one mechanised corps in the entire Red Army had actually done any pre-war divisional sized manoeuvres by June 1941! All this is detailed in extreme detail in Volume IIIA for each division for anyone who really wants to know the facts. These divisions had barely mobile artillery, most had no trucks for their infantry, most had almost no mobile workshop and repair facilities for their tanks, many had almost none at all yet, etc. The list goes on and on.

Many of these so called tank and mechanised divisions were far less mobile than the standard German infantry divisions they faced in June 1941. In fact we find that the average German infantry division that invaded the USSR in June 1941 had considerably more trucks and other types of vehicles than the average Soviet tank and mechanised division. Yet the German infantry divisions were apparently horse-drawn according to most western literature. What people don’t realise is that the vast majority of Soviet tanks and mechanised forces in 1941 were destroyed by German infantry divisions. In many cases the German infantry divisions, which almost all had a motorised anti-tank and reconnaissance battalion, moved faster than the floundering and barely formed tank and mechanised divisions (in the 2nd defensive echelon), and encircled them! These Soviet divisions never even got to see a German tank, as the German panzer divisions had already moved far eastwards. The biggest actual killer of Soviet tanks in 1941 was the much misaligned little 36mm PaK 36, called the ‘door knocker’ in post-war literature in the West, in German infantry divisions, and the result of breakdowns and abandonment by the Red Army tankers because there was never any infrastructure(in the barely formed divisions to keep them going.

And yet, despite all this, Suvorov maintains that this force was going to attack and run over Western Europe in June 1941. It is really a joke! I believe Suvorov is banking on people’s general ignorance and sensational revisionism to sell books! In reality, the Red Army in June 1941 would barely have reached the others side of Poland against the Wehrmacht in 1941 before it ran out of steam at the operational level. It would have then been promptly encircled by the many-times-more combat ready Wehrmacht and annihilated. The Soviets and Stalin were many things in the summer of 1941, but they were not that stupid.

I am all for revisionist history, but only if it is carefully researched and thought out. For example, despite the apparent crazy numbers that apparently make Hitler look nuts to attack the USSR, you have to take into account all the factors. Hitler always planned to “destroy the Bolshevik menace to Western Civilisation” from the very earliest days: he made this very clear. The German OKH new the Soviets were preparing to attack at some point, but would not be anywhere near ready by June 1941. This was also why Stalin was so diplomatically passive at this time: he did not want to prematurely trigger a military conflict until at least 1942. Even the Germans were surprised how fast France had fallen. They also knew the state of the Red Army as they had studied their recent operation.

Thus, despite their underestimating the Soviet raw numbers of tanks and aircraft, they actually accurately estimated the Red Army’s readiness, training, logistics and C&C. With these factors and many others I have not included, they laid their plans, and ultimately came much closer to defeating the USSR than most people realise. With a few different strategic-level and operational-level decisions, I believe the Axis forces might very well have defeated the USSR by mid-1942, or at least enforced some type of Vichy French type treaty. Stalin, of course, would have likely met his end. In that sense, Hitler waiting until 1942 to attack a much stronger Red Army and VVS was definitely not a good idea.

Also, yes, I believe in the longer term that Stalin was definitely planning to conquer Western Europe. As I said, I do not have a problem with revisionist history as such, as long as it stands up to some close scrutiny.

This is why Hitler wanted peace because he know the M-R pact was a very fragile document.

Hitler wanted peace because fighting a two-front war has always been Germany's doom. France's sudden fall and Britain's inability to do much beyond the periphery for several years shook things up though.

This is the reason why when the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS went from village to village they were often welcomed as guests, or even liberators.

I can easily imagine why German troops would be seen as liberators to people under the yoke of Comrade Stalin, especially in those days when true information was hard to come by. But supposing Germany had won in the east, those people would've been very miffed indeed when good old Hitler turned them out of their homelands or reduced them to vassals.

Italy and Germany even almost went to war after an attempted coup in Austria in 34 I think.

Over the first attempt at Anschluss, in fact. However, when Britain & France (but the UK in particular) screwed Mussolini over in other departments (I think Med / naval stuff), he switched sides - had this not happened, you'd likely have seen Fascist Italy fighting against the Nazis in WW2.

= = =

Britain (England isn't a sovereign state) started re-arming in response to Japanese, Italian and Germany aggression and/or rearmament, not because it was planning to get involved in wars of conquest.

Yup. The timing of rearmament also matters a lot - in 1939 Italy apparently had a good army by 1930s standards, including in terms of equipment - but the world had moved on since then, and it was now outdated.

Had Britain and France wanted war, and had they actually been rearming as effectively as Germany, they would have been far better placed to block either the reoccupation of the Rhineland

The Rhineland could have been blocked there and then IRL, only the political will was lacking.

I also note that you didn't refute that Hitler wasn't happy to just withdraw from Poland (ie, he insisted on hanging onto Danzig).

In fairness to Hitler (I know, I know), Danzig had been a German / Prussian city for a hell of a long time, divided East Prussia from Germany proper, and had a fair few Germans in it. Per Woodrow Wilson's "self-determination" thing at Versailles, trying to reclaim it was actually justified, and not necessarily expansionist. Same deal with the Sudetenland and Austria - people forget that the end of WW1 left hundreds of thousands of Germans outside the borders of Germany & Austria (in violation of the self-determination ideal), and this oftentimes resulted in ethnic cleansing. The Greeks & Turks solved this by ethnically cleansing Turkey of its Greek population & shipping them to Greece - Germany wanted the land its people were on as well though, hence claiming the Sudetenland and all that.

= = =

Lets be honest here.... Danzig belonged to Germany. It would have saved everyone a lot of time among other things.

Yes indeed. The Allies (I mostly blame France for this) really screwed up at Versailles. Either don't humiliate Germany as much (eg Danzig), or go the whole nine yards and break Germany up into, say, Prussia, Hanover, and Bavaria, or West & East Germany, or whatever. As peace conferences go, Versailles was just one gigantic clusterf---.

 

[Porkman]

In fairness to Hitler (I know, I know), Danzig had been a German / Prussian city for a hell of a long time, divided East Prussia from Germany proper, and had a fair few Germans in it. Per Woodrow Wilson's "self-determination" thing at Versailles, trying to reclaim it was actually justified, and not necessarily expansionist. Same deal with the Sudetenland and Austria - people forget that the end of WW1 left hundreds of thousands of Germans outside the borders of Germany & Austria (in violation of the self-determination ideal), and this oftentimes resulted in ethnic cleansing. The Greeks & Turks solved this by ethnically cleansing Turkey of its Greek population & shipping them to Greece - Germany wanted the land its people were on as well though, hence claiming the Sudetenland and all that.

= = =


Yes indeed. The Allies (I mostly blame France for this) really screwed up at Versailles. Either don't humiliate Germany as much (eg Danzig), or go the whole nine yards and break Germany up into, say, Prussia, Hanover, and Bavaria, or West & East Germany, or whatever. As peace conferences go, Versailles was just one gigantic clusterf---.

I love most of your post, but Danzig ceases to be a legitimate grievance after March of 1939.

Once you ask for a limited concession for Wilsonian national sovereignty reasons and then break it to invade all of Czechoslovakia.... There is no way anyone is going to believe that all Germany wants is Danzig. The Germans don't get to use that argument anymore. People arguing that "Danzig should have been German" for Wilsonian reasons in 1920 are legitimate.

People arguing that Danzig should have gone to Nazi Germany for Wilsonian reasons are mistaken. The Nazis didn't believe in Wilsonian national sovereignty. They had shown that it was a bad faith argument on their part so they don't get to use it to ask for Danzig.

 

[Balesir]

"You must understand that this war is not against Hitler or national socialism, but against the strength of the German people, which is to be smashed once and for all, regardless of whether it is in the hands of Hitler or a Jesuit priest."

Source - Winston Churchill His Career In War and Peace by Emrys Hughes page 145

I don't know where Hughes - an avid political opponent of Churchill in almost every respect - got this, but it runs counter to most if not all of Churchill's outlook through the interwar years. He personified what he was fighting as "Herr Hitler" pretty consistently.

The Free City of Danzig at the time was 97% German with the whole corridor (especially the northern portion) heavily german-populated. For a portion of land that was literally part of the German state just 20 years ago and had been for a little over 100 years, to call unwillingness to cede this "expansionism" is beyond absurd.

Language spoken or claimed "nationality" is an excuse, not a reason, for claims of governmental jurisdiction. It was expansionism, especially in the context of earlier claims and demands, pure and simple.

 

[Teleros]

Once you ask for a limited concession for Wilsonian national sovereignty reasons and then break it to invade all of Czechoslovakia.... There is no way anyone is going to believe that all Germany wants is Danzig. The Germans don't get to use that argument anymore. People arguing that "Danzig should have been German" for Wilsonian reasons in 1920 are legitimate.

As a practical matter I think it's a bit more complicated - to use an age of sail example, Britain might capture Martinique then trade it back to France in exchange for returning a Dutch province to the Netherlands during the peace treaty. In the same vein, if Germany conquered Poland but then offered to give it all up except for Danzig... well, I can completely understand that kind of politicking.

The trouble is that Hitler didn't just want to reunify Germany & historically German lands. Heck, even conquering Poland I can understand in the context of traditional European politics - conquering a neighbour for ~reasons~ is Diplomacy 101 for most of human history, no biggie. No, the problem was twofold:

First, Hitler's promises (see Munich) weren't worth the paper they were written on. "It's okay guys, we'll stop at Austria - I mean at the Sudetenland - I mean at Danzig - I swear, pinkie promise!"

Second, Hitler had ambitions of a truly Napoleonic (or for the classically minded, Alexandrian) scope. Meaning there was no real end to his ambition. Oh sure, he wanted lebensraum up to the Urals or whatever, but it's not like that was the end. Alexander didn't stop at India because he'd accomplished his goals - he stopped because he was unable to go any further. Napoleon wouldn't have stopped at Russia if he'd conquered it either. Let's suppose Hitler accomplishes his main goals - the USSR is destroyed, Germany gets all the land in the east she wants, yada yada yada. Is he really going to suddenly turn swords into ploughshares? Colour me sceptical.

Now, those two points are of course valid both from a modern and 1930s perspective, but let's not forget what Hitler had planned for any "inferiors" he happened to conquer. At least when the Russians ruled the Grand Duchy of Warsaw they didn't set out to exterminate the populace.

People arguing that Danzig should have gone to Nazi Germany for Wilsonian reasons are mistaken. The Nazis didn't believe in Wilsonian national sovereignty. They had shown that it was a bad faith argument on their part so they don't get to use it to ask for Danzig.

Yes, it was basically Alinsky tactics as diplomacy. "Hold the enemy to their standard whilst you flout it" more or less.

 

[aono]

The Greeks & Turks solved this by ethnically cleansing Turkey of its Greek population & shipping them to Greece - Germany wanted the land its people were on as well though, hence claiming the Sudetenland and all that.

...and also a lot of land on the east would be good as well, thank you very much. Or, citing a man who was not expansionist at all:
"And so we National Socialists consciously draw a line beneath the foreign policy tendency of our pre-War period. We take up where we broke off six hundred years ago. We stop the endless German movement to the south and west, and turn our gaze toward the land in the east. At long last we break off the colonial and commercial policy of the pre-War period and shift to the soil policy of the future."

A peace offer resulting in the occupation of your lands and the very thing you fought to get (or liberate, as was the case for many Germans in the corridor) ceded back to a hostile chauvinist neighbor, not to mention that land has millions of your ethnic countrymen living there is not a peace but rather a surrender.

Yup. That's why Allies wasn't agree.

 

[Axe99]

PS: to simply dismiss a leader's actions under the reason of "dumb" or "irrational" throws away any sort of real deeper understanding and is a disrespect towards history and those who lived it.

I didn't do this at all - I just noted that at times Hitler made some irrational decisions, and that (in my view) he made more, on average, than other leaders (they all did irrational things at one point or other). Hitler even wrote a book which gives written evidence for some of his more outlandish ideas - he's a primary piece of evidence for his own irrationalism, so while I didn't suggest his decisions at this point were irrational (from a short-term perspective he strikes me as a gambler 'trying his hand', and getting caught out with one bluff too many - but my main interest is naval history, not the higher-level political stuff).

EDIT: who keeps disagreeing with my posts where i'm not even arguing? is someone just trying to be vulgar in a discreet way?

You can see who agrees/disagrees with your posts in your profile somewhere-or-other (there's not too many links, hopefully it shouldn't be too hard to find). It won't be me, I don't put red 'X's on pages by principle (although I do respectfully disagree with your views, for the reasons stated, amongst others). One thing I will mention - quoting Churchill doesn't make a lot of sense given that he wasn't PM until after the 'point of decision' (he became PM around the time the German offensive into Belgium/Netherlands/France started - by that point peace was clearly out of the question). Other than that though, Porkman's got you pretty well covered.

As Porkman well says, the Allies were no angels, and the realpolitik was (and almost always is) real, but Germany was clearly the aggressor. At the end of the day, had Germany not done anything (or just been satisfied with Austra/large bits of Czechoslovakia (much of which had pretty much never been part of Germany historically, unless one gets creative to the point that it'd be the same as suggesting Britain has a strong claim on Hannover!)), then there wouldn't have been a war. That's the last I'll say, I'd rather be talking about ships (on that note, it was Germany that repudiated the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, not Britain - who had been quite accommodating to their naval expansion - although I'm not suggesting this was Britain playing 'nice', they saw Germany as a counterweight to the USSR).

 

[aono]

At the end of the day, had Germany not done anything ..., then there wouldn't have been a war.

...and Churchill would never became PM, by the way. He was hard-liner in every sense, including Irish, Ireland, communists, you name them, and he became PM exactly because GB needed hard-liner - because war.
It was Hitler who moved Churchill to highest chair in Empire.

 

[JohnnyDepressio]

Diplomacy did nor begin when the war broke out. After Germany had broken its peace deal (Versails), start redrawing the european map as it liked (Anschluss), when making a new deal that was awfully in its favor (Munich) just to break it again (annexation of Czech republic) and when just keep going and going (Vienna Award, Attack on Poland).
Everybody must realise at this point that a treaty with germany is not worth the paper it is written on and that it will only last as long as it benefits Germany. For that reason any peace deal with germany that keeps Germany in a stronger position when it was befor the Anschluss was rejected with good reason.
At this point it was plain that a lasting peace in europe can only be achieved by breaking Germany.

 

[iBlessTheRains]

Actually, crimea was part of the Russian SSR and was 'only' added to the Ukrainian SSR in 1991

That would be 1954, actually

 

[Ruslan]

Ah, but can they extract the useful ones in usable quantities with at best 1950 tech?

it was in 1940