Stop the America-bashing!

[yin26]

Oh, and P.S.: Ever wonder why your precious Russia is bothering to learn English in the first place? So you can post on Apolyton? I don't expect you to know one Goddamn word of English, as a matter of fact. I don't expect you to get a good job, either.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph

Same occured in North Africa (what the heck had the Germans to do there?), and around Stalingrad the Soviets broke mainly through the lines helt by Germany's allies, thus surrounding Germany's 6th army.

They were in North Africa because they wanted to secure the Mediteranean, and not give the Allies a chance to set up bases along the coast.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Willem
They were in North Africa because they wanted to secure the Mediteranean, and not give the Allies a chance to set up bases along the coast.

They were there, because Mussolini started to build his beloved "Roman empire of modern ages", was badly beaten up by the British and came to Hitler whining.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph


They were there, because Mussolini started to build his beloved "Roman empire of modern ages", was badly beaten up by the British and came to Hitler whining.

Perhaps that's how it came about, but if they didn't feel there was some strategic value in doing so, they wouldn't have bothered. Italy may have been an considered an ally, but it was more of a puppet state of the Germans. As long as Mussolini was able to fulfill their expectations, they let him be, but as soon as he started losing ground the Germans came in and took over. By the end of the war, Italy was as much an occupied country as the rest of them.

[datakodin]

Serb, calm down. The USA was - and is - a hostile nation for us for many years. It would be strange to expect they would study our history in a proper way. And it is very strange to explain in CivIII's forum that Americains are bad guys. They are not good and not bad. Just they are not friends of us. Now what?

BTW, Russians are also not familiar with the real history of our neighbours. Can you tell something about Iranians, their culture, their art and their science?

Originally posted by yin26
Oh, and P.S.: Ever wonder why your precious Russia is bothering to learn English in the first place? So you can post on Apolyton? I don't expect you to know one Goddamn word of English, as a matter of fact. I don't expect you to get a good job, either.

Guess why?
To do business with foreign countries, you have to speak English a little. Certainly, if one wants to be successful, it is better to study the native language of your partner. But at first stage, the English - broken English, actually - would be enough.

And finally. I am Russian but I was bothering to learn German in the first place. Feel better?

[Arrian]

Mussolini got Hitler into all sorts of trouble he didn't need. The Nazis had to divert a bunch of troops to Yugolslavia, Greece and Africa because the Italians were losing, and that hurt them in Russia, where they certainly could have used more reinforcements.

Also, the Russians broke through the auxiliary troops assigned to protect the flanks of the 6th Army (I'm assuming the army # is correct, frankly I didn't remember), who I think were Hungarian, which contributed to the defeat at Stalingrad.

My understanding of the Red Army during WWII (especially early in the war) does jive with siredgar and Sir Ralph, however, I will add that another major contributing factor to the casualties was the initial speed and success of the attack. What I mean is that panzer tactics favored encircling your enemy and forcing him to surrender - get in behind him, disrupt him, cut him off. So, in the early days of Barbarossa, the Nazis were able to do that, and many Russian commanders, seeing they were surrounded and in an untenable situation, surrendered their commands (I should mention that this was a logical response). This generated a huge number of prisoners of war. I believe that most of those POW's are included in the casualty figures because the Nazis "forgot" to feed them. Very few made it home. Later in the war, the Russians began to fight more or less to the last man, even if they were in a terrible situation, because they knew that surrendering wasn't really an option.

-Arrian

p.s. Sir Ralph - yes, each country has its allotment of loud idiots who produce and reinforce cultural stereotypes (both about their own culture and that of others).

[Dry]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph


They were there, because Mussolini started to build his beloved "Roman empire of modern ages", was badly beaten up by the British and came to Hitler whining.

I disagree. What you say is true for Yougoslavia, but not for North Africa.
The goal for the Axis in Lybia was Egypt.
There were different reasons for taking Egypt. The main was with no doubt the control of the Suez canal. It meant:
- acces for Italy to their east african colonies),
- UK had to go round Africa to link their Asian colonies to homeland
Another reason was the possibility to access Mesopotamian Oil fields.
A very last and very unrealistic reason was the ability to attack the Soviet Union from the south caucasus. Unrealistic because... well, how many railroads cross those mountains? Or do you mean the panzers will do all the travel on their tracks?

The problem for the Germans was that this was not put on highest priority on Hitler's agenda and so Rommel did never receive all the units/power he needed to achieve that goal.

[Harovan]

Germany had one and only one true and final objective, and that was Russia. All other wars were "side effects" to achieve this objective.

First, Germany and Russia grabbed both a part of Poland. Both were allied in that war. This made a common border of both, there was no more a buffer state between. It was a crucual point in the war. There were almost no defenders left in Germany, merely a few infantry divisions and not a single tank unit. But France and Britain hesitated to invade and thus sacrificed their ally Poland.

Then, Hitler had to secure Western Europe and could do this safely, with an ally in the back with no fear to be backstabbed. He succeeded with the exception of Britain, but they were in an island and unable for an invasion in the early 40's (after Dunkirk). Norway was captured for 2 reasons: First to secure access to Swedish iron. 2nd to make the North of the British isle and Scapa Flow vulnerable to airstrikes (from Germany and France only the southern part could be reached).

All this was done just to have a clean back when invading Russia.

Yugoslavia, Greece and North Africa were totally insignificant to achieve the main objective, at least for Germany. They were the Duce's playground, he was as insane as Hitler was, without being so dangerous. His Bersaglieri failed in Greece and Northern Africa. Both times the ally Germany had to help out. But I don't dare to say "We saved their asses" though .

All this is not some German propaganda, but stated by a Polish historician who emigrated to Britain and can not be suspected to be pro German. The title of the book is simply "History of World War II", it's awfully large and thick, but I can't remember the name of the author... as far as I remember Prz...(something) Poles tend to have names I can neither keep in mind nor speak them out .

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Dry
The problem for the Germans was that this was not put on highest priority on Hitler's agenda and so Rommel did never receive all the units/power he needed to achieve that goal.

Rommel was meant to be a placebo for the Italians. He started the attack by own decision (he was told to wait) and nobody, not even the Wehrmacht high command, did expect, that he makes it so far. But he suffered the same lack of reinforcements and fuel like the other German tank force. The desert and the distance to the home land made all still worse.

EDIT: By the way, did you know, that his famous "Panzer army" had only 5 bataillons of tanks? That is less than a modern tank division has.

[jasev]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Germany had one and only one true and final objective, and that was Russia. All other wars were "side effects" to achieve this objective.

I must disagree; controlling Egypt, and consequently Suez, the germans could have isolated Britain from their colonies in India and their Allies in Australia. That would have been a really destructive hit to british war economy, which depended a lot of the resources coming from India and Australia.

Hitler's mad plan to connect Rommel forces with the forces opering in Russia in the caucasic zone came later, and it was a result of Rommel staying in Africa, not a cause.

[Shaka Naldur]

and to take revenge on france and britain for the unfairs treaty after WWI

[jasev]

Shaka:
Sorry but I can't see your point

[Arrian]

Based upon what I was taught, the goal was Russia, from the beginning. Sure, the Suez was strategically important and nice to have, but what Hitler really wanted was Russia - probably everything west of the Urals. Keep in mind that Hitler never really wanted to fight Britain and France (although he did enjoy beating the French and forcing them to sign a surrender at the exact same spot as the Germans had surrendered in WWI). He figured, based upon their decision to sell out Czechoslovachia (eek, that's probably spelled wrong) at Munich, that they would betray Poland too. Well, he was only half right. They stood by during the destruction of Poland, but still decided to fight him. The British refusal to surrender frustrated him, and he eventually ran out of patience and hit Russia before the western front was closed, leaving Britain in position to bother him from behind.

The plan was to wipe out (or at least drive out) the "inferior" Slavs and replace them with German settlers. He also had this idea that they would leave the eastern part of Russia as a sort of "frontier" zone, and send future generations of German youth out there to do battle with the "savages", and thus keep the knife blade keen, so-to-speak. Psychotic, huh?

-Arrian

[Bereta_Eder]

Duce was considered a joke in Greece (unfortunately so did the Italians of that time with whom we have many in common and we like them).

They were a country of 60 millions (6 times bigger than us) and had a far superior army to ours and still we defeated them.

"From now on we will not say that the Greeks fight like Heroes, but that Heroes fight like Greeks." Winston Churchill, 1941

After the Germans came, they did capture us because they were too strong for us and we were tired from fighting the Italians.

When the Germans occupied Greece they treated Italians like scum really. Most of the time it was the Greeks which hided the Italians in their houses so they wouldn'd feel the wrath of the Germans which were pissed at them. Basically we were friends even at the times of war. And I don't really think that the Italians wanted to fight us. It was just Duce who ordered them (there are so many funny songs about him from that perid ).
But the German occupation was one of the worst periods for Greece. Famine, executions because we did resistance against them etc. But fortunately, in the end, the english came and liberated us. In the lakes of Northen Greece there still are German and British planes that have shot eachother down during that period. And a museum is being constructed for them.

Also the Germans of that time were really strange and inhumane.
First, they saluted the defeated by them Greek armies with ceremonies of the highest military respect. Then they didn't hesitate to burn up whole villages because of the Greek resistance (guerilla) war.

In any case, don't you feel nice that we have the EU now?

[Harovan]

Originally posted by paiktis22
In any case, don't you feel nice that we have the EU now?

Indeed, we do. God bless the Euro