Sep 04 2009
Pat Buchanan and the Russian military on World War II
Noted political commentator and past Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan has weighed in on the origins of the Second World War, both at his own site and at townhall.com.
What’s striking to me is that Buchanan’s argument–that war could have been avoided had only Poland been more reasonable in dealing with Nazi Germany’s legitimate demands–is in its essentials identical to the case made by Russian Colonel S. N. Kovalyov a couple of months ago.
In Buchanan’s formulation,
The German-Polish war had come out of a quarrel over a town the size of Ocean City, Md., in summer. Danzig, 95 percent German, had been severed from Germany at Versailles in violation of Woodrow Wilson’s principle of self-determination. Even British leaders thought Danzig should be returned.
Why did Warsaw not negotiate with Berlin, which was hinting at an offer of compensatory territory in Slovakia? Because the Poles had a war guarantee from Britain that, should Germany attack, Britain and her empire would come to Poland’s rescue.
But why would Britain hand an unsolicited war guarantee to a junta of Polish colonels, giving them the power to drag Britain into a second war with the most powerful nation in Europe?
Was Danzig worth a war? Unlike the 7 million Hong Kongese whom the British surrendered to Beijing, who didn’t want to go, the Danzigers were clamoring to return to Germany.
In short, the Poles should have surrendered Danzig, an ethnically German city, to the Germans rather than fight.
I’ve outlined the argument (as formulated by Kovalyov) and my objections to it before. What Buchanan (and Kovalyov earlier) are omitting is the context of the guarantee to Poland against German aggression at the end of March 1939. On 13 March 1939, Hitler had invaded and annexed the rump Czechoslovakia, rendering meaningless his claims to be reuniting German territories to the Reich. Why trust him after that?
Well, Pat Buchanan is fundamentally anti-British, so it suits his philosophy of life very well to be able to blame “the Brits” for WW1, WW2, and the general collapse of the West.
in addition to all discussion here about “good” Poland and “evil” USSR it would be nice to hear about 1) who let Hitler to invade Czechoslovakia? 2) did Poland participate in it? 3) what was the role of Munich agreement in the history of WWII?
Oleg,
I did note Poland’s participation in the partition of Czechoslovakia in my post on Putin’s article in Gazeta Wyborcza.
Oleg, the Munich agreement is universally described as a shame for the governments involved. Your questions have long been answered. The question now is: is Russia capable of acknowledging her crimes and actually growing beyond them, or will she remain forever in denial, thus preventing further growth (see Sparta)?
“her crimes?”… give me a list please and we can discuss it item by item…
Every nation has something to be ashamed of, but most of them have admitted to and in some ways come to terms with them. Russia has not. The invasion of eastern Poland in 1939, the annexation of the Baltic states in 1940, the unprovoked invasion of Finland in the Winter War and the massacre of Poles at Katyn are all, according to the respective peoples who suffered because of these incidents, crimes. People in the west in general and the US in particular are amazed when Russians defend the actions of maniacs like Lenin and Stalin.
why am i not surprised with this list?
check this out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Soviet_invasion_of_Iran
do you want to add this to the “crime list” as well? agreed?
lets start with Poland – i have 3 points here, 1 is kind of historical, the other two are more personal i guess:
1) you cannot discuss “invasion” of eastern Poland without looking at the situation in europe at the end of 1930s in general including Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and Munich agreement… September 17 1939 is just a move in a long game of big boys (UK, Germany, France, USSR, etc) which started long before it…
i like this article (in russian) a lot, it is pretty close to what i think about it:
http://www.rus-obr.ru/ru-club/3937
you cannot announce USSR actions as a crime without studying what caused these actions….
2) imagine the sitation USSR did nothing in 1939… then on june 22 German forces would have been much closer to moscow… i am pretty sure moving our borders further west with these extra territories “helped” us (and consequently to the west as well) a lot at the end of the day… and actually this was one of the goal of the soviet government…
3) Relations between USSR and Poland were not “very nice” for a while… starting with Soviet-Polish wars (some people say in 1939 we just got back what we lost 1920)… thousands of our POWs who died in polish camps, polonization, etc…
btw, there is a rather good book by Mikhail Meltyukhov “Soviet-Polish Wars. Political and Military standoff of 1918–1939″ on this topic.
Of course you aren’t surprised at this list, they’re the items brought up by Russia’s neighbors constantly. I do however, appreciate your debating this rationally as opposed to getting emotional, as many do (I understand this, since Russia did lose 27 million people in this war).
Onto your points:
I have studied WHY the USSR invaded these countries–and I agree that for the most part it was to increase western territories as a cushion to a German advance, but…
The nations that were crushed and then dominated by (or appropriated into) the USSR for decades after had little consolation knowing it was for the greater good. In addition, the executions and at times brutal occupations of these territories can never be justified (slaughtering Polish intellectuals with NO Nazi sympathies didn’t help you win the Great Patriotic War at all did it?).
On top of that Stalin’s military incompetence (I understand he won the war while at the helm, but good Lord you guys could have lost SO MANY fewer people if he’d not slaughtered at least a third of the Soviet officer corps before the war and screwed things up in the beginning) quite possibly erased any strategic gain from these territories.
This last part can be an hours long discussion in itself but the jist is that because Soviet frontier forces were so far IN FRONT of the Stalin line on the OLD Soviet frontier they were turned into mince meat by the Germans in the first 6 weeks of the war (if they had opted for a fighting withdrawal and using these fortifications later instead of standing up to the Wermacht Moscow may never have been in any danger). On top of that, it was the Winter War that convinced the hitherto neutral Finns to fight with the Germans, leading to the siege of Leningrad and the tying down of an entire Soviet army on the Kola Peninsula.
In conclusion, given the speed with which the Germans crossed these territories and the casualties that the Red Army took all along the Eastern Front the strategic “gain” posited as a reason for the prewar Soviet invasions are minimal, if not non-existent.
P.S. Apologies, but I can’t read Russian, so any articles you post I’d be happy to read so long as they’re in English.
Matt: “Stalin’s military incompetence…. slaughtered at least a third of the Soviet officer corps…”
Oleg: OK, after these sentencese where you repeat Krushev/Gorbachev era legends the discussion about russian military history with you can be closed. Come on, man, the number of officers fired/arrested in 1936-1941 is known for a while and hearing the same crap is kind of irritating….
Matt: “you guys could have lost SO MANY fewer people”
Oleg: just for curiosity, do you know what was considered to be a good ratio in terms of allies troops vs german troops by american/british generals for a successfull fight against germans? do not underestimate the germans and do not overestimate the soviet army in 1941…. do you know what was the size of USSR army 1920s/beginning of 30s? do not forget ussr was a very poor country after civil war….
Matt: “…the Stalin line on the OLD Soviet frontier… they were turned into mince meat by the Germans in the first 6 weeks of the war…”
Oleg: do you know anything about Stalin line and its strength? you can find the info and will be really surprised… it was built in 1920s/1930s by an extremely poor country after civil war… it is just a hint for you….
Matt: “(if they had opted for a fighting withdrawal and using these fortifications later instead of standing up to the Wermacht Moscow may never have been in any danger). ”
Oleg: these lines were used…. and in many cases where passed by germans just in a couple of days… they had a very good experience of the 1st WW… regarding you comment on
fighting withdrawal? hm… i guess your knowledge about tactics/strategy is as poor…. russian counter attacks by mechanized corps was the right thing to do … check what germans did in 1943-45 durnig russian offensive…
Matt: “In conclusion, given the speed…”
Oleg: all these is after-knowledge…. Soviet government and nobody in the world could expect what happened… try to think what you had done if you did know it….
my last sentence in the previous post should be
“… try to think what you had done if you did NOT know it….”
Matt: “On top of that, it was the Winter War that convinced the hitherto neutral Finns to fight with the Germans”
Oleg: …as far as i remember there were military incidents on the border with Finns even before the winter war… so, i am not that sure the relations were nice even before the war…. OK, this is a debatable point, frankly speaking, i am not really very knowledgeable on the winter war… but again the USSR government had the same idea here…. move the borders west as far as possible… and USSR offered Fins before the war a territory in exchange….
I’m hardly underestimating the Germans or overestimating the Soviets. I’ll give you an example of “Stalin’s military incompetence” and a chance he had to lose “SO many fewer people”–Stalin’s insistence on holding the line around Kiev in 1941, which led to 650,000 Soviet soldiers being surrounded and being forced to surrender (after a good whacking). This is but one example– I can list the others but it would take awhile.
As for the fortifications I have no illusions about those either, and while I’m sure the Germans would have penetrated them sooner or later, it wouldn’t have been nearly as easy as it was once the Soviet front line had been crushed. Counter attacks were obviously necessary, but allowing yourself to be caught in the open with your air force on the ground lined wing tip to wing tip with your primary fortifications behind you (against the advice of Georgi Zhukov) and allowing yourself to be encircled en masse on multiple occasions AFTER witnessing the German tactics in Poland, France and the Low Countries (remember the encirclement at Dunkirk?) is stupid, not inevitable. No one thinks Soviet casualties could have been light by Western standards but 2 million troops killed or captured in 6 weeks and a total of 9 million soldiers killed by war’s end was hardly necessary.
Stalin’s general staff (especially Zhukov) predicted this would happen to some degree (a military practice exercise in 1940 in which Zhukov played the part of the Germans ended with the Germans occupying territory deep in the Soviet Union). It’s not just the benefit of hindsight.
Oh yeah, and the Winter War hurt the Soviets more than you realize–the Germans (along with the rest of the world) believed that the Soviet Union would be an easy conquest after watching 200,000-400,000 Soviet troops die in the span of a few months fighting a country with 2% of the Soviet population at the time.
I guess your knowledge of history as a whole is pretty poor. Keep reading kid, eventually you’ll get there.
Matt just one comment. i will reply later on others.
Matt: “Oh yeah, and the Winter War hurt the Soviets more than you realize–the Germans (along with the rest of the world) believed that the Soviet Union would be an easy conquest after watching 200,000-400,000 Soviet troops die in the span of a few months fighting a country with 2% of the Soviet population at the time.”
Oleg: ok, your knowledge of history probably as “poor” as mine if you do not know where to check the losses. The best source is G.F. Krivosheyev, ‘Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the twentieth century’, London, Greenhill Books, 1997. Any person who is really interested in WW2 knows this source.
Here is in Russian: http://soldat.ru/doc/casualties/book/chapter4_8.html
See Table 111. Soviet-Finn War – killed+mia+died in hospitals=126875
you do not need estimates, you need to know the literature….
sorry for the delay with the response, here it is.
Matt: “Stalin’s insistence on holding the line around Kiev in 1941″
Oleg: again, another urban myth in action. I guess it is mostly based on Zhukov memoirs. He mentions about his conversation with Stalin, where Zhukov suggests that the army should leave Kiev and hold the defense along the Dnieper river. Check his memoirs (here in russian http://militera.lib.ru/memo/russian/zhukov1/index.html) – that is exactly what he suggests.
Couple of comments here:
1) Zhukov suggestion is not that “cool” as it seems. This suggestion (besides having some minuses and pluses from the military pont of view, which i do not want to get into details), does not necessary resolve the main issue, i.e., encirclement. If you look at the battle map (e.g., here, sorry in russian http://rkka.ru/maps/07-09-41.jpg) , please check where 1st and 2nd Panzer groups met each other: it is way further east from Dnieper and Kiev….
2) there is a nice recent book by Isaev “Kotly 41″ (Encirclements of 41st) with a detailed discussion of this and other related issues.
Matt: “but allowing yourself to be caught in the open with your air force on the ground lined wing tip to wing tip with your primary fortifications behind you (against the advice of Georgi Zhukov) and allowing yourself to be encircled en masse on multiple occasions AFTER witnessing the German tactics in Poland, France and the Low Countries (remember the encirclement at Dunkirk?) is stupid”
Oleg: i like the phrase AFTER witnessing
have you heard anything about “Deep Battle”? google it, and please do not think that russian are that stupid…. the main reason why all these encirclements happened is that Germans had a huge advantage in mechanised forces. Please note that i do not mean the numbers (e.g., tanks, etc), but i mean large mechanised formations (e.g., german panzer groups, soviet mechanised corpses at the beginning of the war and tank armies, which appeared later) . These type of highly manoeuvrable formations are necessary not only for offense but also for effective defense (e.g., in counter attacks). Check , for example, the way Germans defended in 1943-45: they always had a couple of tank divisions in reserve…
Unfortunately, by august 1941 soviet mechanized corpses have been destroyed in the battles along the soviet border…. The rest is self-explanatory… The germans had a strategic initiative and they could rotate/move around their panzer groups along the battlefront, while soviet army without large mechanized formations could not effectively counteract…
Here is my last comment. Please stop watching history/discovery channel and reading guys like Beevor. If you want to know more about “Eastern front”, please read, for example, David Glantz (i hope this name sounds familiar for you). Though, nowdays, even his books should be read very carefully cross-checking and filtering with other references and sources …. (as we say in russia “with a pencil”) …
I would think Zhukov’s memoirs would be a reliable source. On the one hand Oleg you keep correctly maintaining the need for accurate sources but on the other hand you keep disregarding statements and memoirs of prominent Soviets who lived throught the time– Zhukov, Khruschev, Gorbachev, the military channel, etc. Stalin’s goevrnment admitted to 200,000 dead in the Winter War, yet your book claims only 126,000 died. Why would Stalin make himself look WEAKER at a time when he was trying to stall a German attack?
On top of this a few posts ago I made the point that a major sticking point with Europeans as it relates to Soviet occupations was the politically motivated executions that killed thousands, and had no positive effect on preventing or fighting the war. You have yet to mention that in any of your responses.
As to me thinking the Russians were stupid–the opposite is true–I have little repect for much of the Soviet polical leadership, especially Stalin.
As for the notion that encirclement by German forces was a given, as I said before I have no doubt that the only real alternative to standing and fighting (and getting encircled) was a fighting withdrawal, and I know the Soviets were in an inferior position as far as mechanized divisions went. Stalin had restructured the army in the 1930s–there were no armored divisions, only armored units attached to infantry divisions. Hence, no effective armored counter thrusts in the beginning of the war. As you mentioned, the Soviet mechanized forces had been destroyed along the border, which is why if they had been farther back they would have been better placed to counter attack–they would have gotten over the initial shock of invasion out of the range of German ground-based guns (perhaps not the Luftwaffe) and had better information and been able to counter attack when it suited them more. Not to say they would have pulled off some miraculous victory–my only point is that they would have lost fewer men and killed more Germans (this was the tactic used in the spring/summer of 1942).
I’m also aware that the German encirclement of Kiev happened far east of the city (about 120 km I think), but having a large river as an obstacle and being able to attack German formations as they tried to establish bridgeheads would have been preferable to having the entire army encircled in a city and forced to surrender.
[...] the summer of 2009, I noted a piece by Pat Buchanan on the origins of World War II which essentially took the same position as the Russian military: [...]