banky's Journal: Today in revisionist horseshit news

"How we didn't win the war . . . but the Russians did. Britain and America still insist they defeated the Nazis, in the face of overwhelming evidence that they were minor partners, says Norman Davies"

(Source)

There is an academic movement, of late, to essentially reverse the common historical belief about a number of topics. I've seen things like "Stonewall Jackson was actually a piss-poor commander", along with a generally scathing critique of the notion that the CSA had better generals and NCOs. The argument for this usually goes something like, "Well really Lee is the only one who really had any success, the western front of the war (ie along the Mississippi) was a total loss for the CSA".

Whatever. There's a lot of room to pare down the idea that the CSA lost as a result of manufacturing capability alone, but no amount of revisionist horseshit will change Lee being, by and large, a goddamn fantastic general. Right up until he ordered the damn charge....

Anyway this Davies jackass brings up the recent notion that really all the US and Britan did was kinda sit back and wait for the Russians to grind up the Wehrmacht, and then deliver the killing stroke.

And he's right ... to a point.

It's almost inarguable that Hitler lost the war by ordering his own Pickett's Charge, Operation Barbarossa. It was laughably stupid. It cost him the war and his Reich. Thank God he did it, for all the suffering it caused, for all the horrible things that came as a result (eg the Cold War), we'd be looking at 60 years of the Reich now, maybe, if he'd not done it.

But.

Jackass first seems to entirely ignore Lend-Lease, stating only "American industrial output was one of the marvels of the war; and all members of the allied coalition, including the Soviet Union, benefited greatly from it". He devotes an entire paragraph to troop strengths, but a single sentence to the fact that we outfitted the brits, the russians, and ourselves while fighting the Japanese (who were thus unable to apply sufficient pressure on Russia, preventing it from fighting a costly 2-front war).

Jackass then completely dismisses daylight bombing: "Nonetheless, the Third Reich was not brought to its knees by bombers and blockades." Yes it was, you moronic dicktard. Daylight bombing crippled the Reich. They could not produce any of their innovative weapons in quantity; they ran out of oil; they lost air superiority entirely; and they were forced to rely on slave labor for "grade A" production (instead of ancillary items), and the quality of "German engineering" went to 0 in the later years of the war. Without daylight bombing, RADAR, cracking some of Enigma, and other supply-chain/logistical factors, the Soviets would have seen the mighty T-34 shot to shit by better and better Panzers.

Jackass ignores the Battle of Britain. OK, even if you assume it's been elevated from "tough fight" to "cultural mythos of surpassing heroism and warrior spirit" the goddamn fact is Hitler didn't invade your little island because he couldn't control the air, and that meant his invasion fleet would get bombed to the bottom of the Channel. Because he could not invade, and because he never gained control of the seas, the Allies had a way in. Had Britain fallen, it would have been a different war.

Jackass ignores the hopeless Italians. How much shit did propping them up cost the Reich?

Jackass ignores the Africa campaign. How much did that cost the Reich? How much did that get our heads out of our ass, and put us into the fight? Rather a lot.

And like I said above, Jackass ignores that we then tied down the Japanese from penetrating deeply into China and Russia; if we'd not fight back it could have been a much different war.

IN summation, Mr. Davies, lick my taint.

Two related items.

[GMontag]

A while back I noticed some similar nonsense at TNR and posted it as: Montag Review of the TNR Review of My Dear Mr. Stalin and fejta [slashdot.org] made some good observations too.

Secondly, I had no idea how "modern" this joke post about revisionist writing [slashdot.org] sounded until I read your JE.

Other notes

[GMontag]

Sorry for miscoding the link: Stalin on TNR [slashdot.org].

The Germans lost North Africa due in great part to the US and British efforts to sink supplies coming from Italy on Italian ships. The German Army had inconsistant and insufficent supplies to sustain operations. It was an allied success due to the Enigma project that broke the codes for the shipping schedules (along with many other things).

The Italians themselves got rid of Il Duce and the king had him jailed after the Allied invasion of Sicili. His own cabinet v

I agree mostly

[tqft]

I agree with you sort of generally. But:

"And like I said above, Jackass ignores that we then tied down the Japanese from penetrating deeply into China and Russia; "

The Chinese may have a very different different view of this. The Rape of Nanking comes to mind. A lot of US/Allied material went to Mao, Kiang Chi-Shek and friends to beat up on the Japanese.

You may also want to research the Battle of Khalkhin_Gol Why the Japanese go south? Coz Zuhkov handed them their ass in North Asia.
http://en.wikipedia [wikipedia.org]