I’m not sure I agree with the assessment on France. I might be mistaken, but I was under the impression they had a reasonable strategy for regrouping after the Nazis decided to give up on going through the Maginot line. The issue was that they misjudged the pace at which the Nazis would make it through the Ardennes. And if I’m not mistaken, the reason for that misjudgement was they didn’t expect that amphetamine fueled soldiers would be able to work the hours they did.
I think the battle of France kind of came down to luck on the timing more than either tactics or the “unstoppable German War machine”.
the French staff literally thought a substantial armored force couldn’t go through the Ardennes. they ignored intelligence giving them advanced warning because it was not a possibility and the scouts mustve been mistaken. they could’ve moved more troops to counter, attacked them aerially/conventionally in the forest, but their rigid understanding of the combat theater blinded them until it was too late.
i wouldn’t necessarily call it an ‘outdated command structure’ but poor leadership & strategic inflexibility in spades
“Had to take on both the nazis and the Soviet union” is reactionary polish revisionism.
The second “Republic” of Poland, after collaborating with nazi Germany to carve up Czech and Slovakian lands, was assured that there would be future collaboration with the nazis against the asiatic Red hordes in the east. The fascists grabbed them by the ear and started kicking them in the ass so bad through a surprise invasion the legal polish government fled out of the country so fast it was impossible to get a hold of them to communicate any orders to the Polish State.
When the Soviets stepped into “Polish” lands, it was a lawless land with no government authority. With little resistance from the people, the Soviet Union reclaimed Western Ukraine and Western Byelorus that had been torn from the Ukrainian and Byelorussian Socialist Republics by the German Kaiserreich in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
Asserting that the Soviet Union invaded Poland is a cold war lie on behalf of American imperialism.
God dammit, I believed that my entire life. What books or articles do you recommend to learn more about this?
Depends, this, on the section of '38 gives some cursory info on the land-grabs And this details the Soviet-Polish war of 1920 in which the fledgling Soviet republics sought to liberate lands stolen by the Germans and granted to the reactionary nationalists during ww1’s Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
They’re good rough starts on the subjects to get an idea of the bigger picture of the region.
Thanks! I’ll look into them. I didn’t think it would be as easy a reading wikipedia, I expected that you’d recommend academic articles or books.
It also holds entire sections of additional names of sources and references of the encyclopedia. To reach it word search “October Revolution and Civil War, 1917-20”
You can compare it to what the great Russian encyclopedia says on the same period
Lenin sending A Letter to the Polish Communists. October 19, 1921
An interview of Trotsky on the Polish Front. May 6 1920.
If you want an “unbiased” glimpse into the Civil War period, Kotkin’s first book on Stalin covers the Civil war.
