Why the operation Barbarossa?

While I agree the whole decision was made under coercion, I'm not entirely sure it was a coup.

Marla_Singer said:

Please don't feel my post as chauvinistic as that debacle from 1940 and its consequences with Petain is probably the most shameful episode in French History, but I just remember everyone that France wasn't alone in that debacle, the Brits lost as much then as they won during world war 1. It's only thanks to the channel that they survived.

Now of course this being said, even during the debacle, De Gaulle was already pressuring the government to continue the fight from Algiers, a decision which was refused because it was considered as abandoning the people from Metropolitan France (but which would have been the right choice). Churchill did continue the struggle. The French did not... they were invaded that's right, but still. They could have and that's not what they decided.

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to be fair , my post depends on an "article" ı was about to write for this subforum in January 2012 , as ı actually found the .rtf file containing it and it's somewhat wrong . Until 1934 the Ardennes is a special concern of the French , considering apart from Sedan 1870 and stuff , there are also the bloody battles in WW1 as well . Then Petain says it can be defended , with the absolute provision of some defensive measures . One can only say there's an higher power than the whims and finest planning of men . The 39/40 winter is severe and the said measures can not be applied . The weather is so cold that they can't pour concrete and the commander asks for 4 divisions in Spring and he can't have them and it's already too late . And the Summer will be the finest in a century so that there's nothing to stop Luftwaffe from fighting and getting mauled over the British Isles .

Marla_Singer said:

From that point, we can still wonder "why" the Generals ignored what Colonel De Gaulle was telling them.
De Gaulle actually talks about it deeply in his memories, and from what I read, there was even within the French and British army a strong reluctance to start a new war all over again. That doesn't mean both countries ignored neither the risk to get attacked nor the danger of new warfare, simply that they were thinking defensively, not offensively.

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Getting OT here, but I can quite easily understand why DeGaulle would be ignored. Pompous, arrogant, haughty, DeGaulle was universally loathed by every politician and general on the allied side - I have yet to read a single positive word written about him by a British or American contemporary. Throw in the French political and military leadership who had all the personality traits of DeGaulle and none of the competence, then its no wonder he was ignored.

CDG probably deserves his own thread tbh.

The American media at least liked him a lot. But for them, France probably would have been treated as an Axis-allied power after the war.

ı must say this is more about them Ruskies where the US had to treat the Colonial Powers as allies while busy stealing the colonies .

Russian Empire was bigger than Soviet Union.

And they signed a peace treaty with Germany in WWI.

So it's not impossible.

Yes, after a violent revolution plus a civil war happening at home.

Both those things were spurred on by the war. I agree it wasn't exclusively by the war, though.

Tolni said:

Yes, after a violent revolution plus a civil war happening at home.

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And despite that violent revolution and civil war, the Germans didn't take their advantage to go get Moscow. The Germans were probably as much releaved to get rid of their Eastern front than were the Soviets, it's true they were quite busy on the Western front, so that doesn't really prove anything.

But after the conversation we had together when I launched this thread, I actually believe that the most unexpectable element of Operation Barbarossa was that, despite the starvation caused by the lack of Ukraine wheat, the Russians did hold. We could indeed expect starvation to trigger internal conflicts within the Soviet government, and it didn't happen, not even locally. That element is I believe one of the keys which made fail Barbarossa.

James Stuart said:

Had Moscow not been accidentally burnt, Napoleon would have wintered there, and Alexander I would have made a humiliating peace after the winter. The scorched earth policy was designed to keep Napoleon from Moscow, not, as is often thought, to starve his army. That policy failed at Borodino.

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I doubt Moscow had enough food to supply Napoleon's Army for a spring campaign, even if the french successfully pillaged the whole city. The scorched earth policy would still force him to withdraw, especially as the russians still kept a large army after Borodino and could easily prevent the french from either foraging or keeping supply lines from Poland.

James Stuart said:

This assumes that Germany possessed the capacity to seize Suez. They didn't.

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They didn't possess the capacity to seize France either. The french army had better equipment, larger numbers, the advantage of defending a well fortified front, a powerful ally with its own expeditionary force deployed there, control of the seas... oh, wait, they were defeated! Turns out that the impossible sometimes does happen, and then it becomes "obvious" that it could happen.

James Stuart said:

Additionally, despite the myth of German "wonder weapons," most of the German equipment produced during the war was qualitatively inferior to that of their enemies. Even the Soviets produced better tanks than the Germans, and the British produced better ships and planes, in addition to making more of them.

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That was uneven during the war, you shouldn't make such broad comparisons. The germans also took much longer to turn their industry fully towards war, it might have happened sooner.

James Stuart said:

In short, Germany was making less planes and ships than the UK, the planes and ships they were making weren't as good as those made by the UK, and while the German army was larger and better, it didn't possess the transports to actually get it to the UK, or even across the Mediterranean to cut off Britain from its Empire.

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I guess the Africa Corps just materialized across the Mediterranean?

I don't take issue with your general arguments but, really, do try to avoid such broad statements. WW2's evolution was not so deterministic as you paint it.

English speakers seriously learn at school that Moscow has burnt by accident during the Napoleon campaign?

Funny, here in France we learn that the city has been burnt on purpose exactly to avoid Napoleon to winter his troops there. Sorry to say, but the French version of the story makes a lot better sense if you ask me.


EDIT: Looking at the English Wikipedia article on the topic, it seems that truth at least prevails in that topic. It is Count Rostopchin, after the city was abandonned by the population and cleared out of all supplies, who has set fire to several buildings over the city to make it sure it would be impossible for Napoleon's troop to winter there:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_of_Moscow_(1812)


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Except that there's no evidence it's true. It's just wishful thinking.

The issue with seizing Suez was entirely different from the battle for France. Success was limited almost entirely by logistics. Unfortunately for Rommel, the British navy (and control over Malta) made resupply difficult. That's an entirely different situation from France where the German army could be resupplied from Germany directly.

Lol you just crack me up.
So after a painful journey to finally reach Moscow, the lousy French soldiers would accidentely set fire to the city, destroying everything that could make them survive!!! Do you seriously learn that joke at school?


The story is actually quite well-documented. After 3 days in Moscow, a first fire has broken but was quickly extinguished. Then there's been a second, and a third and a fourth and multiple fires sparked all over the city in the same day. How this could not be criminal? If the French soldiers are that lousy, they should have burnt the city from day one.

And trust me, I'm clearly not a fan of Napoleon so I'm not saying so to particularly defend him. That's just factual.

Marla_Singer said:

Lol you just crack me up.
So after a painful journey to finally reach Moscow, the lousy French soldiers would accidentely set fire to the city, destroying everything that could make them survive!!! Do you seriously learn that joke at school?

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It seems you have very little idea how capturing and pillaging of city looked like.

innonimatu said:

I doubt Moscow had enough food to supply Napoleon's Army for a spring campaign, even if the french successfully pillaged the whole city. The scorched earth policy would still force him to withdraw, especially as the russians still kept a large army after Borodino and could easily prevent the french from either foraging or keeping supply lines from Poland.



They didn't possess the capacity to seize France either. The french army had better equipment, larger numbers, the advantage of defending a well fortified front, a powerful ally with its own expeditionary force deployed there, control of the seas... oh, wait, they were defeated! Turns out that the impossible sometimes does happen, and then it becomes "obvious" that it could happen.



That was uneven during the war, you shouldn't make such broad comparisons. The germans also took much longer to turn their industry fully towards war, it might have happened sooner.



I guess the Africa Corps just materialized across the Mediterranean?

I don't take issue with your general arguments but, really, do try to avoid such broad statements. WW2's evolution was not so deterministic as you paint it.

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I had no intention of ever posting here again, but what the hell:

I never stated that Napoleon ever intended to use Moscow as a springboard for a spring campaign. In fact, there are several accounts indicating that he always planned an evacuation, just not a confused rout in the middle of a series of blizzards. It's strawmen like this crap that encouraged me to leave this site.

Don't be a dick. Suez was an entirely different scenario. Even if Rommel had utterly wiped out the entire British - and Free French - North African military at El Amarna, he still couln't take Suez, on account of NOT HAVING ANY FUEL. And Germany most definitely had the capacity to occupy France; it was an adjacent state. Britain is a far more comparable situation; as it was across a hostile waterway, Germany lacked the capacity to occupy it. They had tremendous difficulty with Norway, and they only seized Crete due to the incompetence of the New Zealand military force on the island.

I don't even know what you think you mean here. German industrial capacity never equalled that of the UK, even after Speer's rationalisation. It also could not do so, without at least five years of further rationalisation. A lot of people like to quote statistics about German industrial production, but they forget that such production includes things like textiles and Nuremberg's frosted glass, which are next to useless in warfare. Unless Kevin McAllister was a German Field Marshall.

One third of the supplies Rommel needed to supply the Afrika Corps did. Even with Vichy allowing large-scale shipping through Tunisia, Italy never controlled the sea-lanes in the Mediterranean, and Egypt was a long overland trip from Tunis.

I'm not a determinist, and literally none of my statements have been determinist. So cut the bullcrap.

Marla_Singer said:

Lol you just crack me up.
So after a painful journey to finally reach Moscow, the lousy French soldiers would accidentely set fire to the city, destroying everything that could make them survive!!! Do you seriously learn that joke at school?

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It happened in Persepolis.

I can't say I learned either version in school. The minutiae of your continental wars are less important than the big picture events. While Napoleon is undoubtedly interesting, it's the Congress of Vienna that gets greater attention.

Louis XXIV said:

It happened in Persepolis.

I can't say I learned either version in school. The minutiae of your continental wars are less important than the big picture events. While Napoleon is undoubtedly interesting, it's the Congress of Vienna that gets greater attention.

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It's happened literally hundreds of times in history. The German army on the Western Front in WWI may well have failed to capture Paris in 1917 because the soldiers 'liberated' a store of Scotch Whiskey from a BEF supply depot, and refused their officers blandishments to move until they were well and truly hammered. Which made them less than effective when confronted by the French counterattack.

Soldiers don't always behave rationally. Like the German soldiers who agreed to surrender Heidelberg without a fight in the last six months of WWII in order to "save such a beautiful city from destruction," but who destroyed the Old Bridge, the city's most historic landmark, out of "soldier's honour." And the drunker and more fatigued a soldier is, the more likely they are to do something incredibly stupid.

The plan of Napoleon's great army was to winter in Moscow. The Russians knew it, everybody knew it. The city had already been evacuated by Count Rostopchin who took out all the food supplies before the French arrived.

But the city hasn't been burnt then. It's been burnt 3 days after the arrival of the French, with multiple fires being simultaneously set in different districts of the city. The city has been burnt at 75%, it wasn't just a small accidental fire. All witnesses say it wasn't by accident anyway so I'm even surprized this could emerge as a topic. Rostopchin's plan was to prevent Napoleon's troops to be able to winter in the city. And the plan turned successful because of the fire, forcing the French retreat to happen in the winter. This is all well-documented.

Marla_Singer said:

The plan of Napoleon's great army was to winter in Moscow. The Russians knew it, everybody knew it. The city had already been evacuated by Count Rostopchin who took out all the food supplies before the French arrived.

But the city hasn't been burnt then. It's been burnt 3 days after the arrival of the French, with multiple fires being simultaneously set in different districts of the city. The city has been burnt at 75%, it wasn't just a small accidental fire. All witnesses say it wasn't by accident anyway so I'm even surprized this could emerge as a topic. Rostopchin's plan was to prevent Napoleon's troops to be able to winter in the city. And the plan turned successful because of the fire, forcing the French retreat to happen in the winter. This is all well-documented.

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Then please provide some English-language sources, as I have literally never read anything that proves, one way or the other, who started those fires.

Marla_Singer said:

The plan of Napoleon's great army was to winter in Moscow. The Russians knew it, everybody knew it. The city had already been evacuated by Count Rostopchin who took out all the food supplies before the French arrived.

But the city hasn't been burnt then. It's been burnt 3 days after the arrival of the French, with multiple fires being simultaneously set in different districts of the city. The city has been burnt at 75%, it wasn't just a small accidental fire. All witnesses say it wasn't by accident anyway so I'm even surprized this could emerge as a topic. Rostopchin's plan was to prevent Napoleon's troops to be able to winter in the city. And the plan turned successful because of the fire, forcing the French retreat to happen in the winter. This is all well-documented.

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Since you're trying to argue that logic is on your side, answer me this: Why wait three days? If the plan was to damage Napoleon's campaign (and, as you point out, they had already taken the food supplies), why not burn the city on day one? What did the delay gain them? It seems to me that, if burning the city was deliberate, it would have happened on day one.

The three fires "simultaneously" seems to me to be a symptom of human memory being uncertain, our brain's desire to find patterns even when there isn't any, and the delay in information traveling back then. The fires could easily have been hours apart and only meaningful because of the other fires. They alone don't really suggest sabotage.

But if you want to argue we may never know, I'll agree with that. Neither drunken revelers nor saboteurs tend to keep records.