janw@inmet.UUCP (10/07/85)
> > [al@ames.UUCP] > >2. When the Wermacht invaded the USSR on 22 June 1941 the Red Army was > >vastly superior in numbers of men, tanks, and aircraft. The Germans > >went through the Red Army like a hot knife through butter. > [slb@drutx] > I had always heard that the Germans penetrated Russia so quickly > partially as a maneuver on the Russian's part. The usual tactic > if you are a country with so much open space is to fall back, burning your > fields as you go. ... > I know that the Russians used this technique effectively in the > Napoleanic and First World Wars. I had thought that WWII saw them > use the same technique. This is wrong with respect to all three campaigns. It is least wrong for the Napoleonic invasion: the Russian army did retreat as a whole and in a purposeful way. But that was not a result of any grand plan of entrapment, but of the tactical perception on the part of the commander-in-chief Barclay de Tolly, at every given moment, that a battle would be disastrous. Neither his boss the emperor nor other generals shared this view; finally Barclay was sacked, the battle given (with terrible, but not quite fatal, losses), and then retreat, of necessity, resumed. The Russian army did not "burn its fields"; evacuation was recommended, as well as noncooperation with the enemy, that is all. The outcome of that war was as unexpected for the Rus- sians as for the French; if they deserved the victory , it was by virtue of implacable, stubborn determination to hang on. They felt much as the British did after Dunkirk. In WWI, the enemy did not penetrate deep into Russia - so the question of entrapment does not arise. The first phase of WWII was an unmitigated disaster for Stalin's Russia. "Hot knife through butter" is quite correct, but it should be added that the knife scooped up large portions of the butter and splattered around the rest: military units from an army down were being surrounded by the Germans and surrendering; others scattered in a panic flight. No one could possibly *plan* such a thing on the Soviet side. And, in fact, all the Red Army plans envisaged fighting on the *enemy* terrain (in part, no doubt, because Stalin did not trust his population to stay loyal). The catastrophy was much worse than the one in France; the USSR was saved by its vast territory, this much is true. It was also saved by German errors, especially political ones. Had Hitler done the bare minimum to preserve the goodwill of Russians and Ukranians that he at first enjoyed, the outcome would, in all probability, have been dif- ferent. Does it follow that Russia is a paper tiger ? Far from it. By the *end* of WWII the Red Army was certainly, and by a large mar- gin, the strongest in the world. Now it has a far greater accumu- lation of weapons, as well as far more expendable human material, than its NATO counterparts. Also incomparably better intelli- gence. How it would actually fight, no one knows, Afghanistan is no indicator. Wars are unpredictable. Better not to provoke them. *And the only way to provoke Soviet leadership is by weakness*. Jan Wasilewsky