Re: LOTR and 20th Century Western European Prejudices

"Jordan179" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
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> al-Daoud al-Bedlami <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
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> > On 15 Nov 2003, Jordan179 wrote:
> > to the Soviets you may be right -- but I think stalemate rather than
> > victory as the USSR had gobs more warm bodies with cheap guns.
>
> "Warm bodies with cheap guns" are simply cannon fodder. Absent the
> proper equipment, they could have been killed by the Axis troops
> faster than they could have been trained and armed.
>

I think that the Soviets could possibly have achieved a stalemate without
American involvement. Up to and including the time that the Soviets turned
the tide (Stalingrad), US and UK lend-lease had not yet had a significant
effect on the Soviet fighting effort. It would have been very close.

> > One of
> > my pet peeves is that armed U.S. intervention on the ground (opposed
> > to just operating as an RAF adjunct) was basically unnecessary: what
> > that accomplished was shortening the war by a few months, giving the
> > "Axis personnel" non-Soviets to surrender to, and killing thousands
> > of Americans and western Europeans,

If the Allies had not invaded Europe and shortened the war, then consider
the following:
A. Your estimate of 'a few months' is by no means certain. I believe that
the final defeat of Germany would have taken the Soviets longer than a few
months - let us say 6 months to a year.
B. The Germans were working on quite a number of special weapons which were
nearing a workable stage. This could potentially have wreaked a great deal
of havoc upon the Soviets.
C. The French would have even less reason to be ungrateful to the US.

But I agree that the USSR would still have had a reasonably likely (not
certain) chance of defeating Germany without the invasion of Europe. The
Allies did the smart thing, of course. It was in their best interest to
allow the Germans and Soviets to kill as many of each other as possible,
then to move in at the end and grab as much of western Europe as possible.
Nothing wrong with that.