“It was cheaper than using pigs” as the old quote goes - but not completely accurate.
The doctrine re: minefields varied, but often minefields were simply disregarded when planning attacks - the logic being that attacking positions protected by a minefield, which would often be more lightly defended as compared to positions that were not, would generate about the same amount of casualties as attacking more heavily defended positions without a protective barrier.
Penal battalions would often be used for such assaults and due to the NKVD blocking units set up to stop anyone from retreating unless ordered to, the end result was that penal battalions would be more likely to charge into minefields - figuring they at least had a chance of surviving rather than risk certain death if they retreated.
That is as dubious a historical statement as the opposite claim that the only thing that saved Europe from Nazi tyranny was British pluck, spitfires and bulldog spirit.
The British decision to stay in the war, and ability to successfully survive the battle of Britain definitely had some effect on the final outcome (the lack of 2000 aircraft and 4000 airmen during the invasion of Russia had some effect if nothing else).
It’s probably important to note that it wasn’t 80,000 Russian soldiers who died, but 80,000 Soviet soldiers, only some of whom were Russian. Like the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union was a multi-ethnic state consisting of several countries (16 at the time of World War II). Russia was the largest of these, but the army included many soldiers from the other republics (Byelorussia, Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia, Karelia, etc.) and from many other ethnic minorities living in those republics. Probably the only large ethnic minority of the USSR not represented at the battle were Germans, who in 1941 were banned from serving in the armed forces.
The Soviet Union would of won the war eventually with or without American/British support especially little Britian . Once blitzkrieg failed and the war of attrition began Germany was doomed. British people patting themselves on the back about their contribution to the war is frankly far more annoying then when Americans do it. Bravery is the estimated 27 million Soviets that gave up their lives defeating Germany and their axis allies in the war.
He didn’t want them anywhere near the front lines for fear they would defect to Germany.
Some half a million of them were forcibly resettled from the European parts of Russia into Siberia and the Central Asian republics. They were then pressed into labour gangs—not in gulags as such, but in similarly oppressive conditions. Even after the war I don’t think they were allowed to return to Europe. After the dissolution of the USSR, they and their descendants emigrated en masse to Germany. These include several of my colleagues (ethnic Germans who had been living in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan).
The career of General George S. Patton would suggest otherwise.
Besides, there seems to be a tendency to lay all of the responsibility at General Zhukov’s feet for simply being a poor general, which is too simplistic an explanation for my taste.
I would kind of agree with his assertion. By definition, the country with more assets is going to prevail in a war of attrition and the Soviet Union definitely had more men and materiel (especially fuel) than the Axis countries. It would have taken years longer, though. Uncle Joe wasn’t demanding the Allies invade France for eighteen months before we did because he wanted to share the glory.
However, I would not be so quick to denigrate the US/UK* contributions to the victory. Besides tying up troops that otherwise would be participating in Barbarossa (even before D-day) the US sent more than 17-million tons of supplies to the USSR.
The UK sent its share as well. 30 to 40% of the tanks defending Moscow in December 1941 were British. For its part, the USSR shipped chromium and manganese ore, gold, and wood. The was in Europe was pretty much everybody bringing what he could to the fray.
There’s also the fact that without the Western Allies if the war wound up bogging down sometime in 1942-1943 Stalin might have been willing to look at a ceasefire like he had during the initial stages of the war when he felt he was close to being overthrown for his failure to see the German invasion.
Yeah, the amount of material that the USA sent to the USSR is astounding, especially when you consider the routes it had to take to get to them.
The Soviets drove into Germany in American built trucks. Fords hauled their thousands of artillery pieces, delivered fuel to tanks and hauled ammo to everyone in the Soviet army.
By the end of the war it was known that the Soviets would continue to control the countries they had “liberated”. With the cessation of hostilities, USA convoys to the Soviet Union turned around returned home.
I also think it’s reasonable to surmise the Soviets could have won a Russo-German war sooner or later in various scenarios. But one point is that there wouldn’t be just one scenario. Just the fact that Britain put German-occupied Europe under a blockade, largely preventing trade by conventional merchant ships to the rest of the world (only very limited trade via blockade runners even early in the war and more limited still by submarine later) was a significant factor in Germany’s war potential. Depends in part what you assume: no complete second ground front, no Lend Lease, no Allied bombing campaign, no war at all with the Western Allies, tacit support by the neutral Western Allies for Germany?
Anyway the outcome of some (incompletely specified) counter factual scenario is not a fact. It is a fact though that the ground war in the East was on an enormous scale, and Soviet casualties and equipment losses were enormous, going back to the thread question.
Not to nitpick but I think that point illustrates how the impact of LL could be important but sometimes in a ‘for want of a nail’ kind of way. Some recent books on the Eastern Front footnote the article “British “Lend-Lease” Tanks and the Battle for Moscow, November–December 1941—A ResearchNote” by Alexander Hill in “Journal of Slavic Military Studies” 2006. Per Hill the Soviets lost a remarkable 20,500 tanks from the start of the war to the end of 1941. Of which 3,200 were medium and heavy which meant T-34 and KV-1 respectively among Soviet made tanks. The initial medium/heavy force was around 1,400: the great bulk of the initial Soviet tank force was lighter types like the T-26 and BT series. Around 3,200 new medium/heavy were delivered by year end including 466 British Valentines and Matilida’s, which qualified as medium or heavy due their heavy armor protection though they weren’t really comparable to the T-34 and KV in overall combat capability. So of the ~1,400 non-light tanks again left by the end of the year, a significant % were British, only 6.5% of the total tank force, but among medium/heavy tanks around 1/3 overall and 1/4 actually in the hands of units per Hill.
Around Moscow in early December 1941 there were under 100 British tanks. But though a very small absolute number by overall Eastern Front standards it was again a significant % of non-light tanks, in an army desperate for tanks. It can’t be said that removing even relatively small forces like that in a critical battle would not have changed the outcome. That just can’t be known.
From 1943 items larger LL components like US motor transport for example had a significant effect on the logistical capability of the Red Army to sustain advances after large breakthroughs of the German front. But one can’t say the Soviets would not still have advanced all the way to Berlin, more slowly, without it.