World War Two
Published 2 Sep 2021Citizens in Stalingrad face German bombs as Soviet officials refuse to evacuate. The German counter-insurgency effort increases, but people continue to resist against all odds. The Treblinka camp breaks down under the ambitions of its commandant, Irmfried Eberl.
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September 3, 2021
Why Don’t the French Resist? – WAH 041 – August 1942, pt. 2
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September 2, 2021
Road to WWII: A Basic Causal Analysis
Thersites the Historian
Published 19 Nov 2019This video is a primer for undergraduates in broad history survey courses that will hopefully help make sense of the interwar years between World War I and World War II.
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September 1, 2021
August 31, 2021
Spy Affair that Started the Cold War
The Cold War
Published 3 Aug 2019Our series on the history of the Cold War period continues with a documentary on Gouzenko affair — a spy thriller that provoked the beginning of the Cold War.
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August 29, 2021
Yamamoto: Midway Round Two? – World War Two – 157 – August 28, 1942
World War Two
Published 28 Aug 2021The Battle of the Eastern Solomons takes place this week — another carrier battle. As for the Germans, they’re advancing on Stalingrad, slowing down in the Caucasus, and Erwin Rommel is preparing to launch another assault in North Africa.
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August 25, 2021
August 23, 2021
Swastika Raised on Highest Point in Europe – WW2 – 156 – August 21, 1942
World War Two
Published 21 Aug 2021The Axis advance in the Caucasus takes Mt. Elbrus, and the one on Stalingrad continues, and there are several raids of note this week- a Japanese one on Guadalcanal is destroyed, an Allied one on Dieppe is badly savaged, and an American one at Makin Atoll is successful in the short term, but with bad long term ramifications.
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August 15, 2021
No Soviet Oil for Hitler – WW2 – 155 – August 14, 1942
World War Two
Published 14 Aug 2021The Axis advance into the Caucasus is going great … except the oil towns they take have no oil, and wasn’t that the whole purpose? Meanwhile in the Pacific, the US Navy is suffering perhaps its greatest defeat ever off Savo Island, even as the Marines take Tulagi, Gavutu, and Tanambogo.
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August 11, 2021
The Symphony That Defeated the Wehrmacht – WAH 040 – August 1942, Pt .1
World War Two
Pubished 10 Aug 2021The Big Action at the Warsaw Ghetto continues, while The Japanese carry out retaliations against the Chinese for aiding American airmen. Dmitri Shostakovich’s “Symphony no. 7” premieres in the besieged city of Leningrad.
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August 9, 2021
QotD: Leonid Brezhnev and his mother
In China, The Communist Party’s Latest, Unlikely Target: Young Marxists. “Young people who belong to Marxist groups have recently become the unlikely targets of a state crackdown due to their zeal to help educate and mobilize China’s working class to fight for their rights. The conflict has exposed a paradox between a party founded on Marxist principles and the very young people it has tasked with carrying those principles out.”
It’s not really a paradox. Communism is just a con. When the true believers get in the way of the con, they have to be shut up.
The old Soviet joke went like this: General Secretary Brezhnev shows his mother his palatial apartment in Moscow, his fancy dacha in the countryside, his chauffer-driven limousine, his personal helicopter, etc. and says “See mom, I’ve really made it. Aren’t you proud?”
“Very much so,” she says. “But I’m worried, too.”
“What are you worried about?” asks Brezhnev.
“Well, Leonid — what if the communists come back?”
Glenn Reynolds, “This Reminds Me Of The Old Soviet Joke About Leonid Brezhnev And His Mother”, Instapundit, 2018-11-24.
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August 8, 2021
Guadalcanal – Allies Take the Initiative – WW2 – 154 – August 7, 1942
World War Two
Published 7 Aug 2021The Axis Forces are on the move on the Eastern Front and in the Caucasus, but this week the Allies begin an offensive of their own: this week come Allied landings and attacks on Guadalcanal and nearby islands, the first American offensive against the Japanese.
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August 7, 2021
The Black Markets of World War Two – WW2 – On the Homefront 012
World War Two
Published 6 Aug 2021With the scarce food supply brought about by war, many turn to the black market and its astronomic prices as supplements. It is a place for opportunists and patriotic protesters, but mainly it’s a means to survive.
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August 6, 2021
Shostakovich: Stalin’s Composer? – WW2 Biography Special
World War Two
Published 5 Aug 2021Leningrad’s Dmitri Shostakovich has risen from a child prodigy to be one of the Soviet Union’s most celebrated composers, having rescued his career from Stalin’s interference along the way. Desperate to defend Russia after the German invasion, he fights back, not with a rifle, but with music.
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August 5, 2021
QotD: September 1939 was pretty much the optimal moment for Germany to go to war
Demographically German military manpower was at a height in 1940/41 that gave it an advantage over the allies and potentially the Russians, that would quickly evaporate within a few years. (Demographics was an important science between the wars, and many leaders – like Hitler and Stalin – made frequent references to it. The Russians in particular would start having more manpower available starting in 1942 … perhaps not a coincidence that Germany invaded in 1941?)
The Nazi air forces had a temporary superiority over the Allies in 1939 that was already being rapidly undercut as both the British and the French finally started mass production of newer aircraft. (By mid-1940 British aircraft production had overtaken the Germans, even without the French. If the war had not started in 1939, by 1941 the Luftwaffe would have been numerically quite inferior to the combined British and French air forces, even without the surprisingly effective new fighters being brought on line by the Dutch and others.)
German ground forces, while not really ready for war in September 1939 (half of their divisions were still pretty much immobile, and they had only 120,000 vehicles all up compared to 300,000 for the French army alone), were nonetheless in a peak of efficiency considering the Czechs and Poles had been knocked out, and the British and French were struggling to get new equipment into service. The Soviet short-term decision to ally with the Germans to carve up Eastern Europe (Stalin knew this was only a temporary delay to inevitable conflict), also allowed the Germans an easy victory and much greater freedom of action. Again, by 1941 British conscription and production, and French (and Belgian, and Dutch, etc.) upgrades and increases in fortifications, would have come a lot closer to making the German task next to impossible. (Even then it was the collapse of French morale after the loss of Finland — leading to the collapse of the French government – and Norway, that really defeated France, not vastly inferior divisions or equipment.)
A byproduct of an Allied ramp up might also have seen Belgium rejoin the allied camp in 1941, or at least make significant planning preparations to properly add its 22 divisions and strong border fortifications to allied defences if Germany attacked. (Rather than the hopeless mess that happened in 1940 when the allies rushed to rescue the temporary non-ally that had undermined the whole interwar defensive project …) Again, the Germans managed to find a sweet spot in 1939-40 that temporarily undermined long-standing interwar co-operation, and one that was not likely to last very long.
Similarly a delay of war would have allowed allied negotiations with the Balkan states to advance. The same guarantee that was given to Poland had been given to Yugoslavia, Rumania and Greece. (It is usually forgotten that Greece – attacked by Italy – and Yugoslavia – voluntarily – joined the British side at the worst possible moment in 1941. (Only to be crushed by the Germans … but with the interesting by-product of effectively undermining Germany’s chances of defeating the Soviets and occupying Moscow in the same year …)
Nigel Davies, “If the War hadn’t started until December 1941, would it?”, rethinking history, 2021-05-01.
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August 4, 2021
Oil – Hitler’s Only Chance to Win the War? – WW2 Special
World War Two
Published 3 Aug 2021Well, we all know by know that the Wehrmacht is driving into the Caucasus to try and take the Soviet oilfields, but how bad is their oil situation, actually? And how will they get it out of the ground if the Soviets sabotage the fields and wells? What exactly is the plan? Let’s find out.
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