The Importance of the Eastern Front.

[Dominic 'Dragon' Cassidy]

lol. 
They didn't lose at the Crimea, they lost the war, but mentally they defeated you all.

[JC_von_Preußen]

The British last assault against the fortified Sebastopol was indeed a real shame. The Brits attacked and fleed befor reahing the Russian defence line. A big thanx goes to the French colonial troops, they just did all the job.

So no. The Russians did not win "mentally" against all (because all is iferent from British and Americans  ).

Cheers

[JC_von_Preußen]

One figure sums it all :

80 % of the overall german casualties were sustained on the eastern front.

[Loupblanc]

 : 80% of all losses on eastern front? Er, ouch?
 Where did you get this info?
 : As for british/french colonial troops attacking/fleeing
 from Soviet Sevastopol... er... ... Am I on drugs, here?
 GERMANS/AXIS attacked Sevastopol... yes?

[UeArtemis]

About losses is an all-known fact.
The Crimean war (British vs Rus) was in a XIX century.

[JC_von_Preußen]

 : 80% of all losses on eastern front? Er, ouch?
 Where did you get this info?
 : As for british/french colonial troops attacking/fleeing
 from Soviet Sevastopol... er... ... Am I on drugs, here?
 GERMANS/AXIS attacked Sevastopol... yes?

As Artemis said I'm not saying bullshits.
80% of military german losses tho. Not German people.

Concerning Sebastopol, it was during the Crimean War.

Facts are facts gentlemen !

[ford_prefect]

 : 80% of all losses on eastern front? Er, ouch?
 Where did you get this info?
 : As for british/french colonial troops attacking/fleeing
 from Soviet Sevastopol... er... ... Am I on drugs, here?
 GERMANS/AXIS attacked Sevastopol... yes?

As Artemis said I'm not saying bullshits.
80% of military german losses tho. Not German people.

Concerning Sebastopol, it was during the Crimean War.

Facts are facts gentlemen !

wait he brought up the Crimean War?

[Loupblanc]

 Yea, I know. Got me confused
 I generally know my wars quite well, but never heard of
 the british attacking there?! lol. Well, it's XIXth century,
 so, bleh

 Napoleon attacking Russia, though, yess!
 But British?!. Ahh, I got to go hit my history books now,
 damn you!

[Bigpop]

There are several arguments of what would have happened if Germany had won.  If they had won WWI there would be no WWII.  If they had won either war we would probably have the current European Union with Germany dominating it, but many years earlier.  That is, if by winning WWII they had never attacked russia and forced Britian and her allies to sue for peace.  This would have been entirely possible if different actions were taken at Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, and the early campaigns in Africa.  But these outcomes would only have happened if Hitler was removed from power, as he was a madman who would never back down and never agree to peace.  Most German generals believed that there would be peace after the fall of France, but the mistakes made afterwards and the invasion of Russia prevented it.  There is also the contended point that Russia would have attacked Germany no matter what.  There is ample evidence that the enormous German gains at the opening of Barbarossa were a direct result of attacking on the eve of a Russian invasion of Germany.  Russian troops were caught out of position while readying their own invasion and taken by surprise.  There is supposedly a large amount of evidence in the form of orders and communications records that support this.

The Wehrmacht high command had NEVER wanted a two front war. With so many WWI veterans they had seen the difficulty of doing that. Everyone with the slightest intelligence begged Hitler to not fight on two fronts. That being said in all fairness to Hitler, he hadn't PLANNED on fighting two fronts. England had no mainland ground presence, so they didn't need to worry about that. Obviously France had nothing going on after the invasion, the only real threat was Russia. And as stated previously, make no mistake, Russia WAS a threat to Germany. However Hitler had estimated that the invasion of Russia would take no more then 6 weeks. In all reality this was impossible, but you can certainly make an argument that, would Hitler have stuck to his own plans instead of changing them over and over, the Wehrmacht could have had Leningrad, Moscow and pushing the Crimea by late '41.

The same argument can be made however, that capturing those two major cities would NOT have ended Russian resistance. Many Historians believe that Stalin would have moved back towards the vast hinterlands and set up his regime there and continued resisting the Germans. This is mostly speculation, but even some German commanders didn't know how they could win IF Moscow and Leningrad were taken and the Russians fought on. Basically this strategy played on the Russian populations fear. They had hoped by crushing the Red Army and taking the two most significant cities in Russia, that Stalin would loose control of Russia, the population would rise up (hoping for peace with Germany) and Hitler would be able to make a humiliating treaty for the Russians who had no other way out but to sign it.

Guderian's Panzer Group sat idle for almost 4 weeks outside of the gates of Moscow in November of '41, by Hitler's orders. If he would have given Army Group Center the green light at THAT time, they very well may have been able to take the city by a coup de grâce. Alas, it never happened.

[Loupblanc]

 Impossible Luck :
 - Crushing France\Britain so easily.
 - Cancelling Sea Lion when he'd won (without knowing it)
 (Although, then Russia would have attacked Germany and
 won big time, with so many German troops in Britain).
 - Attacking Russia when he did (Riiiight before they were
 themselves invaded).
 - Guderian

 Major Blunders :
 - Dunkirk.
 - Switching to bombing London instead of airfields.
 - Mussolini probably lost Hitler's war all by himself the
 moment he went after Greece. While Germany crushed
 Greece handily, that threw the EF assault out of whack
 and Moscow was gotten nowhere as fast as it should
 have.
 - Being greedy and going all over the place in
 Russia. Initial success made him reckless (though
 with his luck so far, could you blame him??)
 *Not giving winter gear to his troops for political reasons*
 (Showing doubt would sap troop's morale)
 * Treating Ukrainians like he did. They hated soviets.
 Had he gone in there as a savior, his army size might
 have doubled, or tripled. Partisans would never have
 had so much fun as they did. (Yes, I know. Not same
 area, but syndrome is the same).
 - Putting italians covering Army Center's flank. Next
 to Stalingrad.
 - Crete's paratroopers. As GI dude said, that unsettled
 Hitler, and never would they be used for what they were
 meant to be used. Giving the Soviets chance to recoup.

 - Japanese not poking hello to Siberian troops.
 Pinning army there.

 Afterwards, it was game over, really.

 Small note : Yougoslavian partisans pinned an EXTRAORDINARY amount of troops who never managed to
exterminate them. Like, woah. Tito did a lot to help Soviet
 Union right there.

 That's just off the bat

 Goering, Mussollini And appointing that Field Marshal
 to Army Group Center (forgot his name) M something.
 Bad.
 

[rummy]

Most German generals believed that there would be peace after the fall of France, but the mistakes made afterwards and the invasion of Russia prevented it.  There is also the contended point that Russia would have attacked Germany no matter what.  There is ample evidence that the enormous German gains at the opening of Barbarossa were a direct result of attacking on the eve of a Russian invasion of Germany.  Russian troops were caught out of position while readying their own invasion and taken by surprise.  There is supposedly a large amount of evidence in the form of orders and communications records that support this.

I was just wondering if you had any sources that I could read up on about this (in English). Everything I have read says that yes Stalin was interested in launching an attack, though much further down the track, and that he was extremely paranoid about his staff creating any such potential plans, in case they go leaked to the Germans, who would obviously see it as a case of agression, and attack before they were ready.

[Saavedra]

Well, I´m not saying I am 100% sure this was owed to a supposed, possible Russian attack. But do look at the results of Barbarossa in its first phases. They are incredibly impressive...

[greyreth]

* Treating Ukrainians like he did. They hated soviets.
 Had he gone in there as a savior, his army size might
 have doubled, or tripled.

an interesting item. why only Ukrainians? in any case, it seems like just the Western Ukraine would join the Axis ranks - as the rest of the territory cannot just "hate" their ... government like they cannot just "hate" the previous gov't and the gov't before the previous one... gov't is always considered bad - but have to live with that.
do you have Ukrainian roots? (just curious)

[figgy]

About Ukranians, yes Ukranians very much so did not like Russian rule. Stalin starved 10-11 million people when he switched their agriculture output to industrialize their nation. Also, many White Civil war veterans came from Ukraine if I remember correctly. Many White War Vets who fought the Bolshevik party greeted the Germans as liberators.

And more about Ukrainians joining Germans, that was VERY suprisingly prevelant, especially in the Stalingrad region. Did you know that somewhere near 70,000 Hiwis (Nickname for Russians in German uniform) served in the 6th army? (meaning only 230,000 were even German) Isn't that just crazy? That's a fact from Antony Beevor's Stalingrad, good book. Alot of Ukranians were also used as POW camp guards and for the roundup of Jews as the Germans marched through Russia.

About the 2 front war, at the launch of Barbarossa, you couln't really consider the war for Germany at that point as two fronted. Only the African Theater and a small garrison in France to ward off English raids, as England was in no shape to establish itself in France again after loosing their equipment (can't load tanks, artillery, trucks ect. at beaches)at Dunqirk. Rommel was winning in Africa and Hitler had just brushed away yet another nation (Greece).

Russia was simply the ideological enemy. Had Hitler's plans gone his way, he would have went from  the annexation of Austria, Czechs, Poland, to Russia. He only wanted living space in the east. And after fighting for power in the Reichstag for years against the communist party in Germany and having his party based off of the denunciation of Jews and Communists, how could he and Stalin not have an eye on eachother?

Just one more thing I wanted to add, bear with me here, =)

I always found Stalin's paranoia and distrust quite interesting. In the weeks leading up to Barbarossa, Stalin had around 80 warnings from seperate occasions about an imminent attack from Germany, alot of which came from Great Britain. Stalin disregarded these warnings time and time again, as he thought that the U.K. was making these warnings up so as to draw the Soviets into the war against Germany. He also did not trust socialist countries in general, as they all denounced communism. Even after the Soviet Delegate in Germany sent a pamphlet back to Moscow containing phrases in russian for German soldiers to memorize, such as," Are you a communist", and," Where is the collective farm chairman?", and "I'll shoot!", Stalin still did not find them credible, figuring these were part of England's deception plan. Even 3 months into the Invasion, when  a German armored column was spotted heading towards Smolensk by a recon plan, Stalin did not beleive the Germans could have broken through that far so quickly, and sent another plan out. After the second pilot confirmed the sighting, Stalin sent yet ANOTHER plan out to confirm it again.

Thanks for reading if you read that far, if you didn't, there's some pretty interesting stuff in there.

[comrade_daelin]

The Eastern Front was important to everyone, but for different reasons. For the British, this meant a second front in their favour; for Germany, this was both the apocalyptic dream of Hitler's ideological vision and a bane that, due to te date of Barbarossa, allowed Britain to remain in the war. For Russia, war with Germany was inevitable; the non-aggression pact with Germany was acknowledged to be nothing but lip service to an extended truce between ideological arch-rivals. The Japanese and Americans I think were affected the least, since Japan sought to secure South-East Asia for resources rather than fight a pointless conflict over two giant enemies initially uninterested in hostilities.

What made the Eastern Front important in hindsight was that it involved Hitler achieving his life mission- defeating Communist Russia and securing Lebensraum in the East. His insistence that it happen at an unreasonably early date prevented Germany from focusing on North Africa, the Balkans and Britain, as forces were prioritized to stockpiling for operation Barbarossa. The majority of the cream of German forces were earmarked for Barbarossa, leaving lower-quality forces to occupy places like France.