Stalin and Hitler WERE allies… or at least, in 1941, Stalin thought they were. Stalin was a man of extreme passions. Until the Molotov-Von Ribbentrop Pact, he’d treated Hitler as Satan incarnate, and tried to form alliances against him. AFTER the pact, he talked of Hitler as if he were a close friend, and even as German troops were approaching his border, Stalin ignored warnings from his generals, and wondered what his pal Adolph could possibly want. (In 1938, Stalin was sure Hitler wanted to conquer the world- by 1941, the idea that Adolph might attack Russia was unthinkable to Stalin.)
DSYoungEsq wrote:
Well, at least the troops that slugged their way up the Italian peninsula didn’t have to worry about the Italians.
Extreme passions, or just good at rousing public opinion? (Yes, public opinion was imporant even in the totalitarian USSR.)
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People have brought up the fact that Russia’s invasion of Finland was a failure. As I said before, the Russians were not planning on a war until at least 1945 or so. They were still weak at the time of invasion because they were recovering from Stalin’s purges.
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Maybe there’s been a misunderstanding about this “conquering Europe” thing. I said Stalin was planning on heading west. I meant expansion, not necessarily all of Europe. It’s pretty certain he wasn’t planning on taking England, he didn’t have the navy for it and England was too strong anyway. He definately wanted Poland and Finland and was probably hoping to expand into the middle east and the balkans. The big question is: Was he planning on invading Germany? Not in 1941 he wasn’t. But maybe he was counting on a revoltution in France. Even without that, if he could take the Balkans and get their support he would have a pretty huge empire.
I know the Germans practiced using their tanks and planes in the USSR but I’m not sure of the year. In exchange the Germans taught the Soviet officers their tactics. It must have been a while before the war, because Stalin ended up killing most of the officers the Germans had trained for him.
DSYoungEsq sez:
Landing at Normandy doesn’t make you experienced. Even the troops that fought in Italy were fighting against under-supplied, out-numbered Germans. Also, many of the troops that fought in the Italian campaign weren’t American. So how many experienced Americans did the Italian campaign produce? Not much compared to the experienced troops the Soviets had. The majority of American troops came in through France. Why do you think operation Market Garden had to be postponed so many times? Because the Americans there rarely encountered resistance heavy enough to justify sending in paratroopers.
RE: Experience of American troops
Churchill had what I think is the right handle on this. He was aware that we were effectively demilitarized up until a few years before Pearl Harbor. During 1940 or 1941 he observed raw American recruits training in company with one or two of his generals. One of the accompanying generals commented about how green the Americans were; Churchill retorted about how fast they learned, and that they would be effective when they got into battle.
A fair chunk of the Normandy troops had fought in North Africa and/or Italy. Many, of course, had not.
Actually, the inexperience of American troops was often a blessing in a war where tactics were always rapidly evolving. American ingenuity and ability to adapt quickly were all assets that many other armies seemed to lack. As amatures, American soldiers weren’t constrained by obsolete doctrine the way the Germans, British and Russians were.
Stephen Ambrose’s interviews with vets seems to indicate that a familiarity with all the weapons and equiptment involved served the GI better than any amount of drill and manuever. American soldiers not only could keep their equiptment working but they had the mechanical skills to use those abandoned by the enemy.
Another point made in the Ambrose books is that although there was a huge difference between a soldier with one day’s combat and one with five days’ combat, there was little difference between a 5-combat days vet and one with 100 days. That would tend to even the odds between an army that had been fighting for 4 years and one that had been fighting for 11 months.
How would the Russians fare against the Americans in 1945? The Russians would have lost one of their greatest stengths they had when fighting the Germans: Hatred! The average Russian had no cause to hate Americans the way they hated the Germans. The Americans never had this kind of hatred for the Germans (at least not before they discovered the camps in '45). British and French officers often commented on the business-like way the Americans fought in Europe. The goal of the average American was to do the job and go home to their families. The goal of most Russians was revenge (many no longer had homes and families to return to).
Actually the lack of experienced troops made the Americans develop a very useful tool: An idiot-proof method of directing artillery. Even if the regular officers were wounded or sleeping or whatever, front line troops could call in artillery support with help from any soldier who happened to be there and could read a map.
As for the Russian troops you have to consider the discipline in their army. The NKVD had methods of dealing with soldiers who didn’t want to fight. Many Soviet soldiers were conscripts that had no relation to the war. There were Asians fighting from the far east that had never even heard of Germans before they were sent out to fight them. Either they went out and faced the German guns or they faced the guns of the firing squad. Actually, that would probably be reserved for senior officers, most deserters would probably be just shot on the spot. If the NKVD said to invade France, the soldiers wouldn’t ask any questions.
For part 3, Hitler’s success being a surprise: Yes, getting around the maginot line was a surprise but that should have been a setback for the French. The fact that it caused a total collapse was a surprise. The French were expecting a trench war, both in Poland and France.
The Polish sent their troops to the west, hoping to form a frontline. If they were expecting blitzkrieg tactics they would have withdrawn to defend the cities instead. But after WW1 the armoured spearheads came as a complete shock. They broke through and avoided the long war of attrition the French were hoping for, so they could have time to prepare.
(The next part is what I gathered from a book about a Polish officer who served as a company commander of Polish troops in France. I forgot the name of the book but I have it in my house somewhere so I’ll try to find it. )
So the French were hoping to form a frontline and fall back slowly while waiting for British reinforcements. Once the Germans got through Belgium the French just began surrendering left and right. (Why is the Champs D’Elysees lined with tress? Because the Germans like to march in the shade.) That was a surprise. Even the Polish, who were more outnumbered and had less time to prepare, managed to mount an organized defence when they were surrounded and their lines were breached. The total collapse of the French was not expected. They thought it would be a long, drawn-out war where eventually the combined industry of the Ango-French alliance would win out. But the British barely had time to evacuate their own troops, never mind send in reinforcements to establish a frontline. Germany industry at that point was not prepared to support a real war. That’s why winning the French campaign so quickly was crucial to Hitler.