OK, I better understand what you are saying, though I can't agree. Firstly, remember the combined strategic bombing campaign did not begin until the Spring of 1943. Stalingrad concluded prior to the beginning of this air campaign. Stalingrad was an undeniable rout and it was immediately on the heels of this success that the Soviets began their roll over German forces throughout their theater in Europe. I think it is a stretch, at best, to say the only reason Russia won was due to the allied contribution, when one of the most massive elements of the Soviet victory took place before the beginning of the (Joint) allied air campaign. Secondly, your point is that without the American contribution the Soviets would have been hampered in their march through Leningrad's relief, the Crimea, Southeastern Europe, the Balkans, and on into Berlin, all won by Soviet aggression and offensive victory. I would say it is easy enough to flip that on its head - that without the disaster of Stalingrad and the devastating impact of German losses on their run back home, the west would have faced a unified, battle tested front, at full strength, byu June of 1944 - a time of the war when the Soviets had already won much of their side of the conflict.
Not quite true. They can also be an indicator of how much leeway generals are given to do what they do, without being hampered by civil government. When all you need to worry about is winning, and not preserving lives, sometimes, you win. Such was the case with the Soviets in their theater. Max Hastings (I mention his book, Armageddon, above) makes an excellent argument in this way.
But I do appreciate that we can disagree civilly. You would make a good neighbor. When I finally start my own nation-state, I'll send you an invitation. But bombing was well under way before the Spring of 1943. The Germans were already experiencing massive shortages of military equipment. If Hitler had been able to stabilize the Western and Southern fronts, the Eastern front would have been very doable. Instead, the German army was fighting a three front war -- and not doing terribly poorly even at that. The Germans were completely screwed for one simple reason: Their factories were in the field of war and ours weren't. Once the U.S. entered the war, the Germans never had a chance -- because of that one fact. So perhaps no ones sensitive feelings will be hurt if I say "The Atlantic Ocean won the war"?
Except that... Patton, who was never successfully hampered by civil government, had the lowest casualty rates in the European theater. Your own example, Zhukov, suffered high casualty rates -- because of interference from civil government. Stalin ordered him into a war of attrition. (Source: northpointaiki) Patton was a genius of maneuver warfare -- which leads to better results with fewer casualties.
You too, Will. I respect your scholarship and opinion. It would be interesting to see a month-by-month correlation of allied bombing with decline in German material production and transport. From my reading, I'm not convinced. I do know that as with all nations, resource allocation was seen to be a zero sum game - air, land, sea - and in England, air fought a hard-fought battle to prove its worth. Wiki correlates with what I know of contributions prior to March, 1943 (when the first American-UK combined strategic sortie took place): Wiki goes on: The effect on rail is another story, as wiki also says well: The question comes, how much, by the Spring of 1943, affected German core capacity? From my reading, the efforts didn't truly start to bear fruit until late 1943, on into 1944 (as wiki says, above). Hence, the complementary effect on the Soviet contribution isn't definitively correlated, to me.
At one time, back in the 1980's, I was a serious scholar on the Red Army. Why? I was preparing to fight them. After President Reagan's time in office, the Red Army became a whole lot less interesting. The end result is that, three decades later, I remember the conclusions a lot better than I remember the process used to arrive at them. I am not so interested in the analysis from that angle as I am from the more strategic political angle. If Hitler really started to lose a one-front war, he could have withdrawn successfully. This would have resolved his egregious troubles with long supply lines. What would Stalin have done? I believe he would have made peace with his old friend. Stalin had enough troubles at home. Stalin didn't want to be in that war. Hitler forced it upon him. It was only Roosevelt's demand for unconditional surrender that sealed the fate of the Third Reich. Roosevelt wasn't in the war to fight, he was in the war to win. Stalin was much more of a realist. The Soviets, in my estimation, would not have won a war against the Germans without the US and GB fighting on the other two fronts. The best they could have done would have been to fight the Germans to a negotiated peace. This situation is really not dissimilar to the U.S. Civil War. The South was doomed from the outset by their lack of manufacturing capability and because the vast majority of the war was conducted on their territory.
The war was basically over when Hitler lauched the "Battle of the Bulge" in 16 December 1944. Hitler committed 30 divisions and suffered losses of 100,000 casualties, 100,000 Germans taken prisioner, 800 tanks destroyed and 1000 aircraft lost. In this battle the German offesive strength was destroyed by Patton and the Soviets were given an open road to Berlin. The German forces on the eastern front were left a hollow shell having no reserves and critical shortages of tanks and fresh troops when the Soviets lauched the final offensive against Berlin. "The Soviet Union finally entered Warsaw in January 1945, after it was destroyed and abandoned by the Germans. Over three days, on a broad front incorporating four army fronts, the Red Army began an offensive across the Narew River and from Warsaw. The Soviets outnumbered the Germans on average by nine to one in troops, ten to one in artillery, and ten to one in tanks and self-propelled artillery. After four days the Red Army broke out and started moving thirty to forty kilometres a day, taking the Baltic states, Danzig, East Prussia, Poznań, and drawing up on a line sixty kilometres east of Berlin along the Oder River. During the full course of the Vistula-Oder operation (23 days), the Red Army forces sustained 194,000 casualties and lost 1,267 tanks and assault guns." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Front_(World_War_II)
I hope that the Battle of the Bulge will stand forever as the greatest battle in the history of mankind. I hope so, because man... I hope we never see anything like that again. "81,000 American casualties, including 23,554 captured and 19,000 killed." Can you imagine how the current American public would react to those numbers?
Definetely one of the greatest battles of American history. US loses for both sides combined at Gettysburg were 50% of the "Battle of the Bulge" loses Killed Wounded Missing Total Union 3,155 14,530 5,365 23,040 Confederate 2,600-4,500 12,800 5,250 20,650-25,000*
Oh, c'mon, Will, you and I both know the difference between answering to Stalin and answering to a democratic polity. Patton was very much hampered by civilian government - Ike, who answered to Roosevelt, who answered to America. Same with Monty and Churchill. It's one of the reasons his plans were very much reigned in. Zhukov only answered to Stalin, who didn't give a damn about anything other than winning.
Jah, Stalin would have your nuts crushed (that's not a figure of speech) for failing to obey promptly and completely. Patton just had his career damaged. But that's not relevant to your initial point, is it?
The entire conjecture on Germany's ability to withdraw successfully in a one front war with the S.U. rests on two things: 1. Absent the U.S./U.K. command, Germany would have been able to withstand the S.U. offensive capability - ably demonstrated in 8 offensives immediately beginning on the rout at Stalingrad - and draw the Soviet Union out to a war of attrition and a negotiated peace, at best (for the S.U.). We have gone back and forth on this, and I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, for reasons both of us have discussed. 2. Hitler would be a pragmatist, not an ideologue committed to total victory over the S.U., or total destruction on losing. And the same for Stalin. There is no evidence to support that either one of them was anything other than committed to total destruction of the enemy. If Stalin was surprised by Barbarossa, and he was, once in, he would ensure Hitler's head was handed to him on a plate. And it is widely established that Hitler could never live with anything other than absolute victory over the S.U. Not the same for the west - the Bulge, for one, was a hope to negotiate a settlement in order to commit his forces east. Hitler hoped, in fact, to split the western allies on just this cause, to see him as some sort of a "vanguard against Soviet bolshevism."
Yep, it is, absolutely - Zhukov won, losing millions that did not have to be accounted for. The eastern war was the worst bloodbath in human history, making the western war, in lives lost (Allied and German), pale by comparison. If the eastern war was a war between Germany and a democratic state or states, I do not believe the level of loss, misery, and endurance required would have been sustainable. Again, I think wiki says it well: The west would not have stood for it.
Really, my point above. In the total war, the U.S. had a military loss of under half a million, or .32% of the population. That's 3 out of every 1000 families lost a loved one to the conflict, with civilian casualties being essentially none. The Soviet Union's military loss was close to 11 million, or 6% of the population. 6 out of every 100 families lost someone in the military. Add in the total losses in the S.U., military and civilian, and you get a staggering 13% of the population lost to the conflict. 13 out of every 100 families lost someone. Can you imagine trying to sustain the war effort in a democratic populace, with these kinds of losses? I cannot. Not under any scenario. But when you're Stalin, you count 6 zeros as if they were one. The collectivist famines were merely a warmup. The same for Hitler.
The US/British invasion of North Africa helped the Rssians win at Stalingard. Hitler was forced to send approx. 300,000 first rate troops and many newer model Tiger tanks to Tunisa to counter allied forces. The diverson of these German troops made the battle of Stalingrad winnable for the Russians. The Germans beleived the war would be short and had not put their economy into a total war footing until 1944. Under Albert Speer, German war production was actually increasing even with the US strategic bombing campaign. Without US involvement, the Germans with the help of their wonder weapons would have pushed the Russians back. One grave error of Hitler was the maltreatment of the Ukrainians who at first welcolmed the Germans as liberators and could have supplied much needed manpower to the Wehrmacht.
That's a fair point, to an extent. There is no denying the North African front depleted Hitler's capacity (war-experienced) capacity for the eastern front. But he still had plenty on hand of premium men, machines and supply, and both leaders made the city an absolute win or die proposal from the outset. I think more to the point is that Hitler screwed everything up (as always) by his meddling with the original operation to gain the Caucasus oilfields, mostly by splitting into 2 army groups (one heading straight on east to Stalingrad, the other South to the Caucasus), after an initial unified drive to the Caucasus and its much needed oil as planned. Strategically, Hitler just blew it. He had no idea he would meet the resistance he did, and no idea how well the Stalinist war machine could turn it out despite a hemorraging never before seen in human history. Tactically, once in Stalingrad, the German plan made no provision for the brilliance and adaptivel abilities of the Russians in waging truly urban warfare. I also agree with your statement on Hitler's belief on the length of the war and his ill-preparedness for a long war. I don't think the "wonder weapons" programs were anything more than a latter-day effort by a desperately encircled fool. I also agree with your statements on the Ukraine. Indeed, many of the former SSR's initially looked to the Germans as liberators. And were quickly, and stupidly, for Germany's sake, disabused of the notion.
The was nothing to stop the German drive in the Caucasus. However, the Germans run out of reinforcements and supply lines were too long. The Soviets were brillant in drawing the Germans into a battle of attrition in Stalingrad. Stalingard sucked in the entire German Sixth Army and there was nothing on the flanks except weak Hungarian, Romanian and Italian formations. Hitler made the same mistake again fighting another battle of attrition at the Battle of Kursk. Most of the German armor was destroyed and the Germans were never again able to go on the offensive on the eastern front. If the Germans had a few more months their wonder weapons would have turned the tide. Without the US invloved in the war the Germans would have gained air superiority on the eastern front. The Volksjager Jet fighter was cheap to make and was so simple to fly that Hitler Youth were being trained to fly them. The Volksjager (people's fighter) was planned, designed and flown in just 10 weeks during 1944 as a high-performance defensive fighter making minimal demands on strategic materials and skilled man power. It was planned to produce produce 2,000 a month by May 1945 and 4,000 a month ultimately, and about 800 were in various stages of assembly when the war in Europe ended. A further 280 or so 162A-Os, A-ls and A-2s had actually been completed. Other German jets included the ME-262 with approx 1400 produced and the Horten Ho 229 Flying Wing.