The Great Northern War comes to mind first. Russia's army was massively outclassed by Sweden's, but Russia could bring 40,000 to every battle, while Sweden could only bring 20,000 total, plus allies. Eventually, dumb luck would've won it for Russia.
But the Russians 'advanced relying on numbers alone' at Narva and got whalloped. When they won with superior numbers at Poltava it was because they had gotten the Swedes cold, hungry, beyond their supply lines - and that was because their army had proved able to maneuvre the Swedes away from their Baltic hinterland and into the depths of Ukraine.
Obviously numbers are a very important factor in tactics, but the superior use of forces is what creates tactical advantages. The German Blitzkrieg in France in 1940 came down to 'outnumbering' the enemy by concentrating vast numbers of tanks in a very small area. But are they lambasted for 'relying on numbers'? Where the side with superior numbers uses them better, that is apparently human waves, whereas when the side with inferior numbers uses them better that is the work or a military mastermind - assuming, of course, that the person with superior numbers, be it General Montgomery or the Russian nation, is something people wish to slander.
Same with the Napoleonic War and World War II: Russia's army was always outclassed man-for-man, but they always had more reserves, so they always outlasted their opponents.
Actually the Russians were slightly outnumbered in 1812, which is obvious: their population only surpassed that of royal France at approximately that time, and Napoleon was not drawing on royal France but on a Europe-sized empire. On both sides there were formations of dubious value in the field, of course, but the difference in numbers either way was not hugely significant.
As for WW2: if numbers win, why didn't they win in '41?
Russia has historically suffered higher casualty rates than their
opponents in a large proportion of the wars in which they've been involved. I can think of two explanations for this: (1) their own ineptitude; (2) lack of caring for individuals under their regime.
This is astonishingly two-faced. I care so much about the poor muzhiks! After all, they're so inept...
It reminds me, ironically, of the rhetoric of totalitarian regimes towards their subjects.
If the Russians can be discussed as human beings without some sort of genetic stupidity complex, perhaps your claims to care a whit about them can be taken seriously. As it is, you are an odious bigot.
"Being dealt a bad hand of cards" means that any other country put in similar circumstances would have come out with all the same troubles. Do you really think this is the case? I don't. Russia had a lot of failures and shortcomings, but I don't think it's because it had a particularly bad hand dealt to it.
The cards referred to are the forces of demography and geography which ultimately govern destiny. Similar circumstances for my own country, then, would presumably mean that the ancient Gaels and the ancient Slavs swap places before the dawn of the written word.
In which case, yeah, Scotland-in-central-Eurasia will follow the same mutable and complex (this is after all supposed to be
alternate history) historical development as Russia-in-central-Eurasia.
But it is easy to spraff.
Are you a sports fan? I am. There are teams in every sport I watch that I absolutely loathe. But, I don't go around wishing horrible injuries on their star players just because I want to see the team lose. Granted, I feel no sympathy for the Steelers when Troy Polamalu gets injured, but I feel sympathy for Polamalu, who's a great player and, as I'm told, a terrific human being, and didn't do anything to deserve a sprained ankle or a concussion or a fractured rib.
I certainly don't feel that Russian people deserved to be horribly murdered by Nazis just because they were Russians. I certainly don't feel that people of Russian ethnicity are deserving of suffering by dint of their birth, and I don't feel that what happened to Russians under the Soviet regime was preferable to what happened to Estonians, Latvians, Poles and Lithuanians.
It's possible to partition, because an organization is not the same thing as the individuals that comprise it. I know a few Russians (not many), the majority of whom I find to be rather pleasant, likeable people. But, while reading about history, I can't help but notice that repeated incarnations of the country of Russia have played the role of bully and villain in innumerable international affairs and conflicts since the time of Peter the Great. This leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and leads me to view Russia the same way I view the Pittsburgh Steelers.
But then you turn around and say the Russians are hereditarily inept, which makes me doubt your claims. After all, I'm not prejudiced, but...!
What is a villain? An unlikable antagonist. Liking is subjective and so, in fact, are antagonists. If we write histories of Russia from a Russian point of view - which is done, but normally by Russians in Russian, so that we in the glorious civilisation of the Anglo-Saxons can safely dismiss it - other people are antagonists.
The great historian Jan Zamoyski is Polish, and not only that he is Polish history: Jan Zamoyskis, his magnate ancestors, frequently held offices of state in the Commonwealth. He writes about Poland from a Polish point of view, but he shows the Russians in his stories, 'antagonists' as they are to the aspirations of his Polish subjects, as subjects in their own right with their own sets of attitudes and motivations which make their behaviour understandable.
Norman Davies is also a great historian and also writes about Poland, and since Christmas I have been tucking into his newest book, which is a tremendous and enlightening read. But the chapter in which he gave a survey of Polish-Lithuanian-Russian history and managed to get from the formation of the Commonwealth to the Deluge without mentioning 1612 whatsoever at all made me roll my eyes. He - perhaps it is natural that a Polanophile shoudl be more given to 'Polish bias' than a Pole, it would explain all my Russian bias, hoho - has drawn a line in his narrative: badness perpetrated by Russians heading west is recounted in gleeful detail and charges language; badness by Poles going east is ignored.
As writers and minds I admire both immensely, but in this particular instance one is the much better example to follow. So what is Zamoyski's trick? He writes very personal history - biography and diplomatic history - and he talks about characters who are people. Davies is writing history over a very long haul, and his 'characters' are nations. But in reality it is people who are people and all people must be treated the same.
What you are doing is treating nations as characters - Russia, which is actually a blob of ink on a map and a collection of confused ideas, is somehow able to be villainous - passing it off on to their inhabitants (who are apparently chronically inept, even if it necessary to spout untruths in support of this assertion), and then turning round and saying that if you were talking about people, which you aren't, you wouldn't appear prejudiced.
If I was talking about my favourite kinds of alcohol I wouldn't have my reputation as a Russophile, but we're not. I am engaging with what you write, which displays malignant prejudice.
Relatively speaking, you're probably better off than I am, what with buying the apartment and all, and at 43 I don't feel much of a kid. But, whatever. Work on that sarcasm, perhaps it will be your key to literary success!
