Forwarded message:
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 13:04:13 -0500 From: Fabrice Planchon <fabrice@math.Princeton.EDU> Subject: Re: Further costs of war (fwd)
Reread what you quoted below, and you will see that I don't want to debate over wether or not in a frontal clash between USSR and Japan the japanese army wins or not. I will grant you they win the first battle. The same way the germans won for a while... And even admittedly if you destroy the organised forces from your enemy, it doesn't mean you are done. You are only if you manage to get the population on your side. Dimitri makes a very good point in his post, saying that the germans fucked up in the west, as they could have taken great advantage from being seen as liberators. As for "Moscow fall, Stalin fall", remember Napoleon ?
Napolean never took Moscow, he was stopped - just like Hitler - at the gates. The closest either French or German forces got was to look at the spires of the Kremlin. Beyond that similarity there are a wide range of differences between the situation. The fact remains that had Stalin *not* been able to withdraw troops from the Chinese border he would not have been able to keep Stalingrad or Moscow. Further, the *only* reason that Stalin could afford to do that was because Sorge indicated that the Japanese were interested in other goals at the time. Oh, regarding Napolean, the reason that he couldn't take Moscow was because troops, called Cossacks, were moved from the east to the west.
Had it not been for the oil, food, and weapons we shipped Britian he would have owned Europe in toto. It is clear from Hitlers earliest writings that he had full intention of taking Russia. Had Stalin not had Sorge's
Yeah, he was stupid. That's my point ;-)
Hitler may have been a lot of things, stupid was not one of them.
Ultimatly this cost them the game. Not enough men. Had the situation last a little longer, japanese occupation forces in China would have faced some serious problems (they were already, actually).
Such as? The situation in China at the time was that a variety of warlords were spending more time fighting each other than the Japanese. China at that time was not a cohesive entity. The reason that Japan lost WWII was that at no point did they have strategic supplies of oil for longer than 5-9 months *and* the US waged unrestricted submarine warfare in the Pacific destroying what merchant marine the Japanese had so they could not take advantage of the oil refineries in such nifty places as Palembang, Sumatra (whose taking in Feb. 1942 was the first use of Japanese paratroops, all 700 were wiped out). It was not because they didn't have the men.
Well, in 34 it wasn't yet the case: when there were serious rumors that Hitler might be tempted to invade Austria, Mussolini moved troops close to his autrian border. He was a close friend of the austrian prime minister of the time (later to be killed...). How Mussolini changed his mind is a mix of his internal situation in Italy, and his rejection by the rest of Europe...
In 1934 Mussolini invaded Abyssinia all on his own, Hitler took the opportunity to march into the Rhineland while the rest of the world stood aghast at the use of modern weapons against stone-age tribesmen. The next thing Mussolini did was send troops to help Franco, troops which fought right along side Germans troops. On Nov. 30, 1938 Ciano made a comment in the Fascist Chamber about 'natural aspiration' and the members stood yelling "Corsica, Tunis, Nice!". The talk of taking Nice obviously did nothing to settle the French's worries. In July, 1938 5 billion lire was asigned to modernize the Italian forces. The Abyssinian campaign cost 13 billion lire and tied up 300,000 Italian troops. The help in Spain cost hardware and involved another 50,000 troops who were still there. When the Spanish Civil War ended in 1939 he invaded Albania, which was an Italian protectorate. By this time Italy as allied strongly to Germany in the minds of just about everyone. Around 12 August, 1939 after Ciano discovered the intended invasion of Poland and passed this to Mussolini did there become a measure of doubt in Mussolini's mind that perhaps he had picked the wrong allies.
I think you are the one playing games, not me. Once again, I don't disagree with you on the fact that the US made the right decision anyway. But had they waited until Hitler was knocking on their door it wouldn't probably have changed the issue by much. (I would be a native german-speaker, perhaps...)
If the US had waited until Hitler began dropping bombs on New York and firing V2's from submarines 20 miles off the coast while at the same time Japan was doing the same sorts of things, with a nice base at Pearl Harbor, *and* you claim the US could have stood the test then I can only say you are confused at best. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there | | be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. | | | | -Alan Greenspan- | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage@ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|