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Comment by AlbertCory | Hacker News Reader

I recently reread The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. It's really worthwhile and there's a lot of stuff people have forgotten.

For a month or two in 1940, Hitler was pushing his military for invasion plans for England. They dutifully came up with "plans." We know it never happened, of course. There was a lot of discussion among the staff.

The staff battles were about the width of the beachhead. Too narrow and the English could overwhelm it before they could break out; too wide and the Germans didn't have the naval forces to defend and resupply it.

Eventually, Hitler decided they could starve out / bomb out England, plus he wanted to invade Russia.

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> plus he wanted to invade Russia.

Which worked great! I think WW2 was the first great example of how wars have become unwinnable; Germany had success conquering large swathes of Europe through sheer force, overwhelming odds and not enough time to prepare, but they couldn't make it to the UK, and Russia was just too large, too long a distance, and too harsh a climate to have any chances.

More recent examples; Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine. None of which ended up in a decisive victory.

I would have said Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq all ended with decisive victories - there is no South Vietnam, the Taliban rule in Kabul, and Saddam Hussein was hanged.

But the second world war did end in a decisive victory? Hitler simply bit off more than he could chew by making war with pretty much everyone else, more or less the same mistake Napoleon made.

"Decisive victory" is a bit tricky to define; the Soviets and US has had some trouble in Afghanistan, but the Taliban won pretty decisively – twice. First in the civil war of the 90s, and more recently against the Afghan government after the US left. On the other hand all these conflicts are related, and who knows what the future will bring?

Vietnam war ended in a fairly decisive victor for North-Vietnam, the US defeated the Iraqi government without too much trouble (but then had a lot more trouble with other groups).

If we look at past wars then long-lasting conflicts weren't too rare: the Protestant/Catholic religious wars took forever, the wars of the roses in England, 80 years war between Netherlands and Spain, etc. etc.

Things in Russia could have gone the other way, and I believe nearly did due to Stalin's paranoid purges of the officer corp and his unhelpful interference in military matters.

Also 'lend lease' was a big factor in Russia's victory (in addition to Russian bravery and their climate and geography).

I think my comment about lend lease isn't controversial. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease :

"According to the Russian historian Boris Vadimovich Sokolov, Lend-Lease had a crucial role in winning the war:

    On the whole the following conclusion can be drawn: that without these Western shipments under Lend-Lease the Soviet Union not only would not have been able to win the Great Patriotic War, it would not have been able even to oppose the German invaders, since it could not itself produce sufficient quantities of arms and military equipment or adequate supplies of fuel and ammunition. The Soviet authorities were well aware of this dependency on Lend-Lease. Thus, Stalin told Harry Hopkins [FDR's emissary to Moscow in July 1941] that the U.S.S.R. could not match Germany's might as an occupier of Europe and its resources."

So I assume I am getting downvoted because I said the Russian were brave in WWII? That is hard to deny, isn't it? Lots of German accounts praise the near suicidal bravery of Russian soldiers in WWII[1]. But I get that isn't a very popular thing to say given the monstrous war crimes that the Russian state is currently committing.

[1]Admitedly some of this bravery may have been due to NKVD stationed behind them with orders to shoot retreaters.

It’s not commonly remembered that the Soviets, with Allied assistance, are who really won WW2- the Germans had something like 90% of their forces in the East.

Given the current war I’m unsurprised you’re getting downvotes for anything that may be understood as pro-Russian.

For the avoidance of doubt, I am 100% rooting for Ukraine. But I don't think we should write out of history the sacrifice Russian solders made in beating Nazi Germany, just because Stalin was a monster and the current criminal regime.

I upvoted. Their bravery in WW II is a fact. Yes, they were forced into it, but "battling for Mother Russia" was a powerful motivator, too. Also, the fact that the Nazis literally wanted them all dead or slaves.

>The staff battles were about the width of the beachhead.

There were similar arguments about how many beaches they should attack on D-Day.

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