Kwantung Army

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#81

Egorka

I’ve refrained from responding for a few days to ensure that I don’t respond in heat.

I stand by what I’ve said here and elsewhere.

I have been insulted by what you and Chevan have said in various threads.

Regardless of what you and Chevan might intend, you come across consistently as presenting the USSR as having done all the hard fighting with the worst of the Axis powers and pretty much won the war all by itself, with occasional interference from minor irritants like Brtain and the US who, when they fought the same enemy, never had to fight such a big and bad one as the USSR did.

Such as, for example, in August 1945 fighting the supposedly ferocious, well trained, battle hardened, soundly equipped and brilliantly led Japanese forces left in Manchuria after Japan had exhausted itself fighting the other Allies elsewhere for more than four years, during which the USSR had fired not one shot at the Japanese, but which was an even more ferocious enemy than the one which the USSR defeated in 1938-39? ?? Do you ever get your hands off your dicks?

The nitpicking apportionment of calorific values of Lend Lease food is a perfect example of the “the USSR won the war all by itself“ line. The net result of your careful calculations is that food shipped into the USSR by Britain and America was worth fuck-all to the otherwise adequately fed people and troops of the magnificent USSR. If it was such a useless load of unnecessary food, it’s a pity that Stalin didn’t have the courtesy to tell the other Allies that he neither needed nor wanted the food, not to mention the other supplies, that caused the loss of many ships and vastly more lives of non-Soviet merchant seamen and non-Soviet naval escorts from Britain and America while the Russian fleet did fuck-all of any naval significance anywhere during the whole war, being wholly preoccupied with saving mother Russia while the rest of the world was engaged in a rather larger fight which, surprising though it may seem, actually extended beyond the fucking Volga.

In attempting to deny the allegations I am making about the jingoistic Soviet attitude, you have merely reinforced them by saying:

The difference is that in case of the UK the the baddest bastard spat at your and eventually tried to step on your foot, wheras in case of USSR the bastard tried to take the heart out of the chest.

The contempt for everything that every other nation did is abundantly clear from that comment. Ignoring, as it does, the efforts of the other Allies in so many theatres on land, sea and in the air which allows you to make such a contemptuous and ill-informed comment.

Has it ever occurred to you that the USSR performance was pathetic? Work out the relative populations, resources and so on of the USSR and Germany. The USSR should have creamed Germany. Why didn’t it?

Rather than the USSR being such a great element in the war, why don’t we examine why such a great power with vastly more people than Germany, and a couple of years more time to prepare than Britain and France, was so weak against Germany, and took just as long as the other Allies to defeat Germany?

Why don’t we examine why Stalin, bored with exterminating his own people, was so keen for the other Allies to open a Second Front? If the USSR was so capable of winning the war all by itself?

Putting things another way, why don’t we abandon the USSR-focused approach of the clash of the titans and look at other countries?

Such as Australia with a population of about 7 million being the last bastion against Japan with a population of between about 75 and 100 million, depending upon how one counts Japanese in the home islands and in Manchuria etc?

Other nations, notably Britain, did a bloody sight better with smaller numbers against the magnificent German forces which the USSR eventually faced after carefully keeping out of the war for a couple of years.

A heavyweight bout is always impressive, but a light or middle weight holding a heavyweight is even more impressive. Which, applied to WWII, results in Britain being the medium weight holding the heavyweight while the USSR as the biggest heavyweight can’t even hold another heavyweight, let alone defeat it.

I don’t have a problem with any nation being proud of its wartime achievements, but I do have a serious problem with people treading on my and my mates’ dicks and telling us that their dicks are bigger.

#82

Excuse my french, it is bull shit. If this is the message you and RisingSun get then we have a big problem!

Either I can not communicate my point or you do not want to listen. Or both.

It is sad… truely sad…

#83

At the risk of being pedantic, and quite diffident after many decades since I did schoolboy French, but I think your comment should be

“Excuse my French, but it is merde de taureau” :smiley:

#84

RisingSun, look at the post #78, please.

#85

Try reading my post at #79 with an open mind.

Where would the USSR have been if Britain, alone, didn’t fight the Nazis long before the USSR was forced into the war by Germany?

Despite all the smart-arse Russian comments in various threads about Britain’s failure to defend Czechoslovakia and Poland, what exactly did Russia / USSR do on this front, apart from expand its borders and kill more people?

I’m sick to fucking death of hearing from Russia about how Britain should have saved Czechoslovakia and Poland, and the moral indignation that comes from those quarters about these events.

Both nations were a bloody sight closer to Russia than to Britain, and Russia was a bloody sight more ethnically aligned with and militarily capable of assisting those nations. But it didn’t, apart from doing a great action of getting onto the battelfield after the battle and killing the wounded.

Russia’s willingness to carve up Poland with the Nazis tells us all we need to know about how great it was in that area.

The USSR survived only because Britain gave it the breathing space to do so. And because the USSR stuck by a deal with Germany to protect itself while the rest of Europe, and in the end Britain alone, was fighting Germany.

And Britain did it with rather more courage and cleaner hands than a territorially ambitious Russia did in sucking up to Germany and co-operating in wiping out various peoples.

When, given the many opportunities to fight against the evil Germans, did the USSR ever do so? While Britain was fighting for its life?

Better to be Britain which might have failed, however impossible it might have been, to stop the ovens than to be Russia which marched people into the woods and killed them by the thousands.

So, don’t tread on my dick and tell me it’s my problem when your own dick is so thorougly up your own arse that it’s blown off the top of your head.

#86

Your post, RisingSun, is one more prove of my understanding that the biggest problem we have is not actually of a historical nature, but rather lack of willingness to understand each other. We can not even do it in real life, let alone internet forums.

Anyway here it goes… with open mind as you asked.

First I would like to say something that I find very important: I live in the world of my own interpretations. Just like you live in the world of your own interpretations. Just like anyone around.
And I am perfectly aware of this. The only thing that I could say I know almost for sure to be true is that the God is mercifull and will help my soul if I acknowledge my sins. The rest in the world around me is all relative.

So if you think that I regard my statements as definitive and undoubtefull, then we have miscommunication problem. That is why, for example, I opened the thread “The greatest contributor” because I wanted us to get something that would be based as much as possible on numbers than on personal feelings. Instead I was called a “dick measurer”.

If so, then sorry for insulting you. My aim is not to isult anyone in here or in real life. Even if I use some sarcasm it is not for insulting someone feelingss but for highlighting my points.

Regardless of what you and Chevan might intend, you come across consistently as presenting the USSR as having done all the hard fighting with the worst of the Axis powers…

I will speak of my self and let Chevan comment on behalf of himself. I make statements on his behalf a bit too often. :slight_smile:

I have a set of ideas that I have developed for my self according to the knowledge I have. Just like anyone in the world. I am not always sure that this ideas represent an objective view. But this is what I have. So I present them consistently and defend them until I am presented with new facts.

I have for example, thanks to you and some others, got better impression of the importance of the sea battles in the Atlantic and Pacific. As my self being not much connect to the sea affears I deminished it’s role in my head. So thank you! Do you think it could be that you underestimate the role of land warfare?

…and pretty much won the war all by itself, with occasional interference from minor irritants like Brtain and the US who, when they fought the same enemy, never had to fight such a big and bad one as the USSR did.

This is absolutely NOT my point! I repeatedly said on this forum (maybe not in a reply to you) that if UK whould have fallen or got a deal with Germany - USSR would have been beaten in 1941/1942.
And I never said or thought that USSR would have won alone.
It still does not dnegate my ideas that ALL sides (USSR, UK, US) were persuing they own interests in the war. For ALL three all other countries and nations were either the tool/allies or material or obstacle on the way for their after war plans. Because politics in all the coutries always are a bit heartless.

Such as, for example, in August 1945 fighting the supposedly ferocious, well trained, battle hardened, soundly equipped and brilliantly led Japanese forces left in Manchuria after Japan had exhausted itself fighting the other Allies elsewhere for more than four years, during which the USSR had fired not one shot at the Japanese, but which was an even more ferocious enemy than the one which the USSR defeated in 1938-39? ?? Do you ever get your hands off your dicks?

As a sarcastic comment it is OK, but not as a serious one. Has this been said sarcasticly? I hope so.
So why Japan was “more ferocious enemy” than Germany?
I mean objectivley. Not just because you or other many people think so.
I would think that Germany was more ferocious because all the Allies agreed to deal with Japan AFTER Germany. That is kind of strange for “more ferocious enemy”, right?.

The nitpicking apportionment of calorific values of Lend Lease food is a perfect example of the “the USSR won the war all by itself“ line.

MAn! Friend! Amigo!
Where do you get this from?

My result, as I said, showed that the Lend-Lease help likely saved more than 5 million Soviet sitizens. HOW is that not a good evaluation of the Lend-Lease food supply?

Yes, I was trying to show that Lend-Lease food help could not save the population of USSR from a complete stravation to death as it was said in some post in this forum. That is I am still stending by.

You wrote this: “the USSR won the war all by itself“. It is a stupid statement. So why is it in quotes? Have I said it? Has Chevan said it? Who said it?

The net result of your careful calculations is that food shipped into the USSR by Britain and America was worth fuck-all to the otherwise adequately fed people and troops of the magnificent USSR.

See my answer to the previous quote.

You did not read my posts carefully.
I never clamed that USSR population was feed good or even adequatly. I already said before that there were death due to hunger, especially in 1943.
Again I repeat. +5 mil saved people is more than good evaluation of the food help.

If it was such a useless load of unnecessary food, it’s a pity that Stalin didn’t have the courtesy to tell the other Allies that he neither needed nor wanted the food, not to mention the other supplies, that caused the loss of many ships and vastly more lives of non-Soviet merchant seamen and non-Soviet naval escorts from Britain and America while the Russian fleet did fuck-all of any naval significance anywhere during the whole war, being wholly preoccupied with saving mother Russia while the rest of the world was engaged in a rather larger fight which, surprising though it may seem, actually extended beyond the fucking Volga.

Ok. Again I did not say the food was "unnecessary ". Quite contrary.

Stalin would take all the food he whould be able to get for free. Just like any other country whould.

Regarding the convoys. I see your point and I find your position very relevant. But I would like to ask you if you know answers on these 2 questions:
[ol]
[li]How big was the part of the Lend-Lease goods moved by SOVIET sailors ot USSR?[/li][li]What was the share (in %) of killed SOVIET sailors in the total number of killed sailor during the delivery of Lend-Lease to USSR.[/li][/ol]

In attempting to deny the allegations I am making about the jingoistic Soviet attitude, you have merely reinforced them by saying:

[QUOTE]The difference is that in case of the UK the the baddest bastard spat at your and eventually tried to step on your foot, wheras in case of USSR the bastard tried to take the heart out of the chest.

The contempt for everything that every other nation did is abundantly clear from that comment. Ignoring, as it does, the efforts of the other Allies in so many theatres on land, sea and in the air which allows you to make such a contemptuous and ill-informed comment.

Has it ever occurred to you that the USSR performance was pathetic? Work out the relative populations, resources and so on of the USSR and Germany. The USSR should have creamed Germany. Why didn’t it?

Rather than the USSR being such a great element in the war, why don’t we examine why such a great power with vastly more people than Germany, and a couple of years more time to prepare than Britain and France, was so weak against Germany, and took just as long as the other Allies to defeat Germany?

Why don’t we examine why Stalin, bored with exterminating his own people, was so keen for the other Allies to open a Second Front? If the USSR was so capable of winning the war all by itself?[/QUOTE]
I will disregard most of this comment because you did not understand my statement. If you read your own words that I answere to you will see that I reffered only to UK in the period 1939 - june 1941, and not to “every other nation”:
[INDENT]This is what happens when the Soviet line is pushed as if nobody did anything else, and nobody has anything else to be proud of because they didn’t face the biggest, baddest bastard on the block. Which, as I have said often enough before, only the British Commonwealth was doing from the fall of France until Germany attacked Russia.[/INDENT]
It is the last sentence I was answering to. Germany NEVER seriously planned defeating UK before getting rid of USSR first. The aftrican campaign was a joke on the large scale of the complete was. This of course has nothing to do with the experience of particular soldiers on the battlefield. But we are talking of countries and their goverments making political descisions.
Germany just tried they luck and turned away until later. They of course would come back in case of USSR was defeated.

Putting things another way, why don’t we abandon the USSR-focused approach of the clash of the titans and look at other countries?

.
.
.

I don’t have a problem with any nation being proud of its wartime achievements, but I do have a serious problem with people treading on my and my mates’ dicks and telling us that their dicks are bigger.

It is late now… I am exhausted… RisingSun! My friend, if it makes you happy I am ready to admit that your tool is bigger! Happy now?:cry:

#87

I hope my openness has been satisfactory to you.

Where would the USSR have been if Britain, alone, didn’t fight the Nazis long before the USSR was forced into the war by Germany?

Where wohuld USSR be? Likely to be defeated by Germany as I said MANY times before. Unless of course much bigger USA’s help.

Despite all the smart-arse Russian comments in various threads about Britain’s failure to defend Czechoslovakia and Poland, what exactly did Russia / USSR do on this front, apart from expand its borders and kill more people?

RisingSun, you miserpresent the reality (the way I see it of course :slight_smile: ). You see, this “Britain’s failure to defend Czechoslovakia and Poland” is wrong. Do you know why? Because there was NO attempt to save them at all. Do you see the it now too?

Poor Czechoslovakia was the just sacrificed by ALL of it’s partners! This includes UK, France and Poland! Poland also got a peice of it. Kind of Stalin like attitude, do not you think? Yosef Beck even bragged to Hitler and used as an argument in negotiations with Germnay the fact that he blocked any attempts of USSR to provide military help to Czechoslovakia. How sincere this Stalin’s intentions to help Czechoslovakia were is irrelevant (they were not).

I’m sick to fucking death of hearing from Russia about how Britain should have saved Czechoslovakia and Poland, and the moral indignation that comes from those quarters about these events.

Both nations were a bloody sight closer to Russia than to Britain, and Russia was a bloody sight more ethnically aligned with and militarily capable of assisting those nations. But it didn’t, apart from doing a great action of getting onto the battelfield after the battle and killing the wounded.

This is strange to hear form you. You are informed person. USSR, for sure, could not help Czechoslovakia. This has been discussed in this forum during last 6 months a bit. Look for it.

Poland is different. Stalin wanted a part of it back. And this made him more practical about the issues.

But have you heard about the “mutual security” negotiations in 1939 between UK, France and USSR? What do you think of them? Who proposed mutual security in Europe in 1939? Who objected and why? What happened that made Stalin to sign Molotov-Ribbentrop pact while the French and British envoys were still in Moscow talking to him in August 1939? What do you think?

Russia’s willingness to carve up Poland with the Nazis tells us all we need to know about how great it was in that area.

Yes, you are right about it. It also tells us about Poland carving Czechoslovakia. Tough times there were…

The USSR survived only because Britain gave it the breathing space to do so. And because the USSR stuck by a deal with Germany to protect itself while the rest of Europe, and in the end Britain alone, was fighting Germany.

True most of it. The only comment I have is that Britain did not fight Germany in the sence of defeating it. Britain just protected it self and tried to prevent colapse of it’s Empier.

And Britain did it with rather more courage and cleaner hands than a territorially ambitious Russia did in sucking up to Germany and co-operating in wiping out various peoples.

Yes, Britains hands were cleaner than USSR’s but the mind is filthier. Do you understand what I mean? Stlain’s politics were crude and butchery. Chirchils were refined and corrupt.

Who do you want to meet? A street huligan who would brake your leg or a conman who would trick your money from you? Take a pick.

When, given the many opportunities to fight against the evil Germans, did the USSR ever do so? While Britain was fighting for its life?

Better to be Britain which might have failed, however impossible it might have been, to stop the ovens than to be Russia which marched people into the woods and killed them by the thousands.

Ovens? You mean the ovens in the camps for Jews stoped thanks ti Britain? Is that what you mean?

So, don’t tread on my dick and tell me it’s my problem when your own dick is so thorougly up your own arse that it’s blown off the top of your head.

You keep bringing in some biology terms I never heard before. Why is that? Any particular urges? Confused? Need an advice?

#88

I can see Chevan is reading this thread right now… I guess his eye are going to fall out of the orbits! :slight_smile:

And just change a bit the pace of this thread: RisingSun, I love you. And all other ozzies that are not Osbournes.
Last week in Italy we had as neighbour a couple from Adelaide, Australia. They were of your age, I guess, around 60+. We had such a great time together!!! We would have dinner together every evening, drink great Italian wine and talk a lot about many subjects (no WW2 though).

So I am imagining you now, RisingSun, as that ozzy guy. So I love you.

P.S: Though I love you, could you please stop mentioning the meaty part of you body? :wink:

#89

Mate i’m sure our friend Risin Sum soon calm down and stop to spread the emotional posts.

How do you thing Egorka is this really our guilt for that what’s happands with Risin Sun;)?
He so tired to hear about Chechoslovakia but at the same time he has no problems to repeate about “cutting of Poland” in everywhere.

What do i hear ?It so stange to hear it from you Rising Sun - the specialist (in our forum) of the Pacific thearte.
May be you do not know but NOBODY did not even planned to defend the Chehoslovakia and Poland;)
When Edvard Beneh (Chech president) has saw the France and Britain demanded to take the German conditions in the 1938 (i/e/ lost the independence of state) he trued to turn to the USSR help ( the chechoslovakia had a war-defence treaty with USSR). But the Britains notified him - if the chehoslovakia admit the soviet help then the Britain could not to help and war will has the total anti-bolshevic character (i/e/ Britain supported the GErmany).
So this was a tupica blackmail for own political purposes- not the defence of Chehoslovakia.
And about Poland.
Don’t you really know the Britain and France decided not to help the Poland befor the 1 sep 1939?
The war plan of the british-France union defence troops even do not consider the Poland as a side in the war.
Not bad defence of Poland how do you think?:wink:
Well if seriously, i think we need “to sign the peace” with Rising Sun.
He is really neitral member and good guy. :wink:

#90

Although Germany was theoretically very powerful it did not utilize its assets for the war until late in the conflict. When debating alternative scenarios regarding whether one country could beat Germany alone one must take into account that Germany did not mobilize for war for a long time so even a country with far less potential than Germany could match or surpass German weapons production.

#91

Don’t confuse me being pissed off with listening to jingoistic Soviet bragging with me being emotional.

Having offered that conciliatory comment :D, I’ll move on to the the real purpose of this post.

Well if seriously, i think we need “to sign the peace” with Rising Sun.

Agreed.

Egorka and Chevan

I’ve said what I wanted to say.

You’ve replied.

I’m not going to turn this into something rivalling Tolstoy’s War and Peace in both complexity and length and, were it possible, even harder to follow, by responding to your replies.

I don’t have any problem with either of you or your opinions, apart from my (and others’) perception that you have a tendency to focus in an unbalanced way on Soviet aspects, about which I’ve expressed my views forcefully. I accept that you may think that the perception that your focus is unbalanced is an unbalanced perception on my and others’ parts. There is nothing to be gained by disputing these perceptions further. It can lead only to more lack of balance. :smiley:

I think you both have deep knowledge of many aspects of WWII and I have learned a lot from both of you.

I have also learned a lot from both of you on internal Soviet aspects and perceptions which aren’t covered too well in a lot of Western sources.

So, having expressed our respective views, how about we resume our normal more or less peaceful relations, to the extent that it is possible with Egorka and his obsession with reducing everything to numbers and Chevan with his posts fuelled by his 500% proof vodka and my posts fuelled by 5% alcohol Aussie beer, which naturally is nowhere near as big and bad as Russia’s standard drink, as Egorka will undoubtedly prove with some complicated calculations? :smiley:

Peace?

#92

“Alrighty then!”
Jim Carrey in Pet Detective

Peace and love!

I will continue the information in the post #78 within next couple of days or so.

#93

Rising Sun*, by the way the large font in my post #70 was not ment as a shouting, but rather the cry out.
So if you got it a was shouting at you, then it is just an other example how difficult it is for people to understand each other. Especially if they talk about different issues!

#94

Not a problem. I didn’t even notice it. :smiley:

#95

Russians/Kazakhs/Ukranians and others who composed the former USSR who want to emphasize Soviet contribution to the war effort might best do so by merely pointing out facts. For example, the Soviets did kill more Germans than all the other allies put together as far as I can tell.

#96

Figures don’t mean much.

The Nazis killed about six million Jews, which is about six million more than anyone else managed (ignoring routine exterminations in Europe and Russia for centuries before the war and those enthusiastically aided during the war by the French, Poles, Hungarians etc).

The Soviets lost up to 25 million combined military and civilian deaths.

On that basis the European Jews contributed about one quarter of the effort that the Soviets contributed to the defeat of Germany, without even picking up a gun.

The Soviets lost maybe 13% of their population, against maybe 18% lost from Poland’s population. Does that mean that the Soviet contribution to the defeat of Germany was only about 70% of Poland’s?

Factor in about 60% of Polish losses being Jews killed by the Germans, with Polish complicity, which means that only about 8% of Poland’s non-Jewish population was killed, which leaves the Soviets ahead at 13% (omitting the million or so Jews killed by the Nazis left from the Jews killed by various Soviet / Russian regimes).

What matters in war is not the absolute or relative numbers or percentages of deaths, but the strategic significance of events.

#97

The numbers are not the goal, not the end of discussion. It is the start for discussion, the beginning.

And I do believe they are very important to know!

Because it is very easy to give up to the common ideas floating arround about millions of killed in GULAG, about how Russains repayed many times over to the German POWs, about millions of rapes in Germany. It is easy because we are kind of scared of that time and therefore tend to overestimate what happenned.

For example you say about “routine exterminations (of jews) in Europe and Russia for centuries before”.
I can only say about Russia it is wrong. But again it depends what you mean by “routine exterminations”? How many jews were killed in the conflicts? How many local none jewish people were killed in those conflicts? You can not say it is irrelevant to know.

#98

I don’t think the exact number of deaths matters too much.

It’s the attitudes which cause the deaths which matter.

And it goes back a long way.

The year 1096 ushered in a period of viciously cruel harassment unique in Jewish history in terms of duration: the Crusades.(20)

'Great, ill-organized hordes of nobles, knights, monks, and peasants – “God wills it” on their lips as they set off to free the Holy Land from the Muslim infidel – suddenly turned on the Jews … One chronicler, Guibert of Nogent (1053-1124), reported the crusaders of Rouen as saying: “We desire to combat the enemies of God in the East; but we have under our eyes the Jews, a race more inimical to God than all the others. We are doing this whole thing backwards.” '(21)

Approximately a quarter to one-third of the entire Jewish population in Germany and northern France was murdered during the First Crusade.(22)

In Jerusalem the Jews fled from the Crusaders, locking themselves in the main synagogue, where all 969 were burnt to death. Outside, the Crusaders, who believed they were avenging the death of Christ, sang, Christ, We Adore Thee, holding their Crusader crosses aloft. Earlier that day, as the Crusaders ran over the mutilated bodies of those slaughtered, one leader, Raymond of Aguilers, quoted Psalm 118:24: ‘This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.’ The Crusaders intended to make Jerusalem a Christian city."

http://www.kanaan.org/israel1.htm

It didn’t get any better in the next thousand years or so.

Does it matter whether it was six or two or eleven million Jews or Russians or anyone else killed in WWII?

I’m more concerned by the national philosophy which permits any of these things to happen.

#99

Well said.

#100

Yes, I agree. Well said.

The exact number is not important as such. As I wrote before on this forum 1 unjust death is one too many. The number starts getting more important whe someone tries to call you nazi or fascist if you say that it MAYBE was 4 million. The funny thing is that ther will be usually no reaction regarding different numbers of gipsies, polish, belorussians and russians.

Yes, it goes back a long way. The existense of those anti jewish events is note disputable. The reasons, on the contrary, are much more complex. It is not only pure anty jewish hatred. There were also mercantile intrests involved (on both sides). Not all the Jews were exactly good to the local population either. And the locals paied them with the similar curency.

Sidenote 1: By the way, are you aware of the very explicit antagonism towards the none jews among the orthodox jewish community. Some jewish sects do not even concider people of other religions as humans at all, but rather like animals with no immortal souls. Things like that could hardly be working for the peacefull and friendly coexistence in the old days.

Sidenote 2: The qrusades were enourmous butcher fares really! I guess the Jews were not very popular among the people involved. The same day that is mentioned in the quote also the whole muslim population of Jerusalem was slaughtered. BTW, do you know that Jerusalem was not the only destination for Qrusades? In the 13th century Russia had to reppell a Qrusade from Europe as well.