Why the operation Barbarossa?

Marla_Singer · Dec 24, 2014

Anyway, it was just fun to realize that people in other countries learn the events in a different way. As I've already said, I am no fan of Napoleon. Overall I would say he's been more harmful to France than he served the country.

Merry christmas everyone!

red_elk · Dec 24, 2014

To put it into perspective, for the first 450 years of Moscow recorded history, significant part of the city was burnt down more than 100 times. Just a couple of examples:
In 1701, entire Zamoskvorechye region and Kremlin burnt down, including Tsar's apartments and food supplies (!)
In 11.08.1709, two regions (Belyi and Zemlyanoi gorod) burn down.
13.05.1712, central and western parts of Moscow were destroyed by fire.

In 1812, almost all Moscow houses were still wooden. When entire population left the city, including all firefighter teams, the fire was rather a logical consequence of events, than an accident. Moscow would be eventually burnt by looters even if Napoleon forces didn't enter the city.

innonimatu · Dec 24, 2014

James Stuart said:
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.

What strawmen? You stated that napoleon would have been able to impose a humiliating peace. I disagreed and went on to say why.
If Napoleon even tried to winter at Moscow, he would find (and he did anyway during that rout) a lack of provisions while withdrawing later. As it was he withdrew across the same land his own advancing army had previously foraged already (in a sense that scorched earth problem he met was of his own making, the inevitable consequence of waging war in early 19th century conditions with such a large army). But during winter the russians, whom he had failed to defeat at Borodino, could and most likely would attack his garrisons along that route. His odds of being in a good position to do anything come spring were miserable, unless another Peter III, in francophile version, were to befell the russians... The issue is, the russians had no need to make a humiliating peace, and I was taking issue with that conclusion of yours. But this is off-topic, I understand.

James Stuart said:
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.

Incompetence always plays a role in war. In North Africa both sides made many mistakes, and paid for them. The ability for the germans/italians to reach Suez existed. Different mistakes could have been made. Italy could have dared risk her navy to cover further transports, and been lucky in that gamble. Hitler would have offered much better terms to the french in exchange for use of their Mediterranean fleet as transport escorts in that theater... so many possibilities.

James Stuart said:
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.

Then why did the UK need american assistance so desperately?

James Stuart · Dec 24, 2014

innonimatu said:
What strawmen? You stated that napoleon would have been able to impose a humiliating peace. I disagreed and went on to say why.
If Napoleon even tried to winter at Moscow, he would find (and he did anyway during that rout) a lack of provisions while withdrawing later. As it was he withdrew across the same land his own advancing army had previously foraged already (in a sense that scorched earth problem he met was of his own making, the inevitable consequence of waging war in early 19th century conditions with such a large army). But during winter the russians, whom he had failed to defeat at Borodino, could and most likely would attack his garrisons along that route. His odds of being in a good position to do anything come spring were miserable, unless another Peter III, in francophile version, were to befell the russians... The issue is, the russians had no need to make a humiliating peace, and I was taking issue with that conclusion of yours. But this is off-topic, I understand.

Incompetence always plays a role in war. In North Africa both sides made many mistakes, and paid for them. The ability for the germans/italians to reach Suez existed. Different mistakes could have been made. Italy could have dared risk her navy to cover further transports, and been lucky in that gamble. Hitler would have offered much better terms to the french in exchange for use of their Mediterranean fleet as transport escorts in that theater... so many possibilities.

Then why did the UK need american assistance so desperately?

Alexander I was having trouble controlling his court due to the withdrawal from Moscow, but you're right, this is off-topic.

The Axis forces in North Africa lacked the logistical capacity to sieze Egypt. That's simple mathematics; even before Operation: Barbarossa began, there was not enough fuel to go around. Rommel, in fact, deliberately syphoned fuel from some of his tanks before the battle, so as to have enough to make the rest operational for long enough to pose a threat to Auchinleck's line. Germany simply didn't have what it needed to take Suez. Their only real shot was an Egyptian uprising, and in spite of Anwar Sadat's beliefs, that was never going to happen.

Because of bankruptcy. Britain had the industrial capacity, but not the money. Nor did they have the agricultural capacity to feed that industrial machine. In hindsight, the British Empire did not actually need the US for merchant shipping and loans, but it made the situation far more bearable. The UK never had more than six weeks' stores of food in the British Isles during the war; rationing actually became more stringent after Germany's surrender, when the US began supplying the Continent with food that had previously gone to Britain.

Also bear in mind that whatever the actual capacity of both Britain and Germany, neither one actually knew the other's capabilities at the time; this explains why Stalin was frightened of war with Germany in 1939, despite having a far stronger military, or the US belief in a "missile gap" during the Cold War.

red_elk · Dec 24, 2014

James Stuart said:
this explains why Stalin was frightened of war with Germany in 1939, despite having a far stronger military

That's right, Stalin was overestimating German military power in 1939-1941 (while Germans were underestimating the Soviet one). Though Soviet enormous military buildup in this period turned balance of power quite a bit in USSR favor.

James Stuart · Dec 24, 2014

red_elk said:
That's right, Stalin was overestimating German military power in 1939-1941 (while Germans were underestimating the Soviet one). Though Soviet enormous military buildup in this period turned balance of power quite a bit in USSR favor.

To be fair to Stalin, he was hardly the only world leader to make that mistake; Chamberlain is the obvious example. I've often wondered if world leaders saw Germany's military build-up, recognised tht such a build-up in their own country would require significant economic clout, and mistakenly believed this signified an underlying economic and industrial superiority on Germany's part, when in practice it was only by pillaging their own economy that Germany achieved such goals.

innonimatu · Dec 24, 2014

There is one thing that bugs me on these arguments about production numbers during WW2. And it goes back to discussions here with Lord Baal and others (whatever happened to them?): why do people keep talking about finance and bankruptcy?

You seem to be applying a contemporary, or a least a peacetime, idea of economic limitations which was not necessarily applicable to a total war situation such as WW2. Especially to Germany, but also to the UK which effectively shifted its economy to a 'war economy', I could argue that the 'free market' was suspended for the duration of the war!. Even the US did that to a large extent (Galbraith and others wrote extensively about their experience managing it).

Internal finance is not a limit on economic activity for any sovereign polity. Availability of resources (labour, raw materials, capital as equipment and knowledge) is what sets limits on national economies. Finance imposes a hard limit only on international trade. This is not to say that a government won't cripple a country at war despite having the resources available, by misusing or not using them based on arbitrary internal financial limitations. It's not even so absurd, because politics and finance are intertwined and to mobilize towards a war economy can cause the toppling of a government... but in a total war situation such as WW2 every participant eventually went on to act like finances be damned!

The UK was limited by its capacity to import raw materials, even if it had those available elsewhere on its empire. It was also limited by finance on its trade with the US and other neutrals. They could have the shipyards and factories, but without the raw materials those were useless. I think we all agree on this.
Germany likewise was limited by availability of resources. That they were running deficits but pillaging the nations they occupied was not a problem: they could keep doing it and indeed kept doing it for years after 1941. They could shift production from consumer goods to the war industry imposing more hardship on their own people and indeed went on to do it later during the war. The thing to being a totalitarian state was that they could do it. They could keep paying the soviets with looted gold and property for many years more, if they so wished. They didn't, but had reasons other than finances for that.

IMHO operation Barbarossa was carried out asap because the soviets were building up their own army even faster than the germans, not because Germany was hopelessly bankrupt as of 1941.
And the UK went on to be on the winning side because the US chose to support them and threw its own massive resources into the equation, not because the UK had greater economic potential than Germany, either on an imaginary one-on-one or with both draining their empires.

red_elk · Dec 24, 2014

innonimatu said:
Germany likewise was limited by availability of resources. That they were running deficits but pillaging the nations they occupied was not a problem: they could keep doing it and indeed kept doing it for years after 1941. They could shift production from consumer goods to the war industry imposing more hardship on their own people and indeed went on to do it later during the war. The thing to being a totalitarian state was that they could do it. They could keep paying the soviets with looted gold and property for many years more, if they so wished. They didn't, but had reasons other than finances for that.

To add to this, USSR was also getting essential materials from trading with Germany. Refined steel, machine tools (some of them were necessary to produce T-34), ships, steel pipes, other machinery.

gay_Aleks · Dec 25, 2014

Which also worked in reverse; Nazi Germany was also getting critical raw materials from USSR.

James Stuart · Dec 25, 2014

innonimatu said:
There is one thing that bugs me on these arguments about production numbers during WW2. And it goes back to discussions here with Lord Baal and others (whatever happened to them?): why do people keep talking about finance and bankruptcy?

You seem to be applying a contemporary, or a least a peacetime, idea of economic limitations which was not necessarily applicable to a total war situation such as WW2. Especially to Germany, but also to the UK which effectively shifted its economy to a 'war economy', I could argue that the 'free market' was suspended for the duration of the war!. Even the US did that to a large extent (Galbraith and others wrote extensively about their experience managing it).

Internal finance is not a limit on economic activity for any sovereign polity. Availability of resources (labour, raw materials, capital as equipment and knowledge) is what sets limits on national economies. Finance imposes a hard limit only on international trade. This is not to say that a government won't cripple a country at war despite having the resources available, by misusing or not using them based on arbitrary internal financial limitations. It's not even so absurd, because politics and finance are intertwined and to mobilize towards a war economy can cause the toppling of a government... but in a total war situation such as WW2 every participant eventually went on to act like finances be damned!

The UK was limited by its capacity to import raw materials, even if it had those available elsewhere on its empire. It was also limited by finance on its trade with the US and other neutrals. They could have the shipyards and factories, but without the raw materials those were useless. I think we all agree on this.
Germany likewise was limited by availability of resources. That they were running deficits but pillaging the nations they occupied was not a problem: they could keep doing it and indeed kept doing it for years after 1941. They could shift production from consumer goods to the war industry imposing more hardship on their own people and indeed went on to do it later during the war. The thing to being a totalitarian state was that they could do it. They could keep paying the soviets with looted gold and property for many years more, if they so wished. They didn't, but had reasons other than finances for that.

IMHO operation Barbarossa was carried out asap because the soviets were building up their own army even faster than the germans, not because Germany was hopelessly bankrupt as of 1941.
And the UK went on to be on the winning side because the US chose to support them and threw its own massive resources into the equation, not because the UK had greater economic potential than Germany, either on an imaginary one-on-one or with both draining their empires.

Moderator Action: Snipped part of your post. Please do not discuss the actual identities of others nor discuss why they might have left. Speak for yourself, not others.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

I never claimed that internal finance had any effect on any state's ability to prosecute the war effort. It did, but not enough for its negative effects to make a dent in the positive effects of mobilisation. I also never claimed that the UK didn't switch to a war economy, and therefore a partial command economy, during the war. They obviously did.The only state involved in the war on a large scale that didn't mobilise its economy was, ironically, Germany.

The simple fact is that all the states involved in WWII, even Germany, relied on raw materiels derived from neutral states. The inability to pay for such materiels would end a war as effectively as a bunch of bombs. So bankruptcy and the lack of foreign exchange was a very serious problem, even in wartime. The switchover to a partial command economy - in some areas, such as aeronautics, the economy became a total command economy - by even the US does not change this fundamental fact.

Germany most certainly could not continue to despoil its occupied territories. There was the very real danger of a full-blown uprising in several of them, and the necessary manpower to control such an unwilling populace would seriously detract from the war effort elsewhere.

The economic argument surrounding Barbarossa is interesting, and may have been a contributing factor, but Ockham's Razor slices it off; Germany had plenty of other reasons to invade the USSR, and Hitler knew so little about economics that it probably never even entered hs mind. It may have entered Goering's but he was so hopped up on morphine by then he would have just farted, drooled, and moved on to other matters.

You seem to be arguing against points I'm not making. Hence, my prior comment about strawmen.

innonimatu · Dec 25, 2014

Moderator Action: Snipped the discussion of people's actual identities.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

James Stuart said:
You seem to be arguing against points I'm not making. Hence, my prior comment about strawmen.

I do tend to drift away from the main subject of a discussion easily. And It might have seemed an intentional debate strategy but I wasn't trying to "strawmen" you here. Sorry if it came across like that.

Olson · Jun 11, 2015

Marla_Singer said:
All this to come back to the initial point. There is absolutely no reason to believe that capturing Moscow would have meant the end of the USSR. And it was just impossible for the Germans to go any further. Barbarossa was simply doomed from start.

There is never an advantage to losing one's capital. Morale counts. Given both sides want the advantage of occupying a capital both side go all out; usually to the point that they cannot recover from the loss. Historically, I think, only Hanoi, Viet Nam was captured and liberated numerous times without it ending a war.

Does anyone know of a time when a capital was lost, to permanent occupation, by the victor of a war?

red_elk · Jun 11, 2015

Olson said:
Does anyone know of a time when a capital was lost, to permanent occupation, by the victor of a war?

Depends on what you consider as a permanent occupation.
Loss of Moscow in 1812 can be considered as such, though it wasn't formally a capital at that time. Napoleon considered it more important than St. Petersburg and succeeded in capturing it.

Cheezy the Wiz · Jun 11, 2015

Olson said:
Does anyone know of a time when a capital was lost, to permanent occupation, by the victor of a war?

Beijing, to the Japanese invasion in 1936.

Vienna, to the Revolution of 1848.

Kabul, to the British in 1842.

Bill Shorten1 · Jun 19, 2015

Olson said:
There is never an advantage to losing one's capital. Morale counts. Given both sides want the advantage of occupying a capital both side go all out; usually to the point that they cannot recover from the loss. Historically, I think, only Hanoi, Viet Nam was captured and liberated numerous times without it ending a war.

Does anyone know of a time when a capital was lost, to permanent occupation, by the victor of a war?

You mean with a subsequent peace treaty leaving that city to the conqueror, but without a continuing war or annexation of the whole state? Poland occupied Vilnius after the newly independent Lithuania declared it their capital in the period following WWI. The Lombard kings of Italy also lost Rome back to Byzantium fairly shortly after they captured it, but it wasn't really being used as a capital at the time. Nor was Ravenna, which they also lost.

Why the operation Barbarossa?

Marla_Singer

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innonimatu

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red_elk

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James Stuart

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innonimatu

the resident Cassandra

red_elk

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gay_Aleks

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James Stuart

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innonimatu

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red_elk

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Cheezy the Wiz

Socialist In A Hurry

Bill Shorten1

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