Russia? Impervious?

Of course this was undeniably true for most of the war, however, the initial reaction of many Soviet peoples and how many of them continued to support the German advances even after the Nazis showed their true colors leaves a whole host of implications to what -could- have happened had a less radical German regime used a strategy like what Rosenburg wanted.
Rosenburg was still a Nazi tool and assumed Slavic people are stupid sub-humans who wouldnt see through such a crude ploy. It's a moot point through, as the fundamental nature of the Nazi regime from top to bottem would stipulate against giving ''sub-humans'' even the pretence of being treated as anything but helots. Unless you replace the Nazi regime as a whole you'll see mass partisan uprisings, but in that case without Nazi's, WW2 as a whole would be void too...

If you replace the Soviet people with the Russian people you would be absolutely correct. However, not every nation in the USSR loved the Soviet Union nor the Russian Rodina, though they might have hated the Nazis enough to fight for it
The only ‘’non-Great Russian’s occupied were Byelorussians who are just basically Russians, and whose national intently even today is rather tenuous and almost non-existent in 1941, As for the Ukrainians, well aside from the former Hapsburg provinces in the west they were deeply sceptical about any hint of secession. Even after Stalin had starved millions of them to death. Tens of thousands quickly undertook partisan warfare in the forests eating acorns & pine needles. Again that is not the profile of a population ready to revolt or turn against the state. You whole thesis is flawed on that basis.

Still even if what you said were ture, non-Nazi German invaders would still face major problems. As most, say Ukrainians could remember the last German-installed government from 1918, and would not have fond memories. It's one thing to gain ''independence'' or ''freedom from Stalinism'', and another to have it installed by an invader at gunpoint. Especially this particular invader.

Somthing like 40% of all Soviet troops were non-Russian so, after the clusterfuck of 1941. Had the Soviet populous EVER had even a substantial minority intent on overthrowing/turning against/or simply not serving the state it would have happened. ALL governments rule at the will of their populations. Soldiers and paramilitaries come from the population. If the soldiers won't shoot, the regime falls (something the Tsar learned to his sorrow).
 
I'll raise the Allied invasion of Italy and the overthrow of Vlad the Impaler (in favor of his Muslim-convert brother Radu, who was backed by Ottoman troops) as counterexamples of "the people will NEVER accept an invader" romanticism of UF and IBC.

I googled the phrase "greeted as liberators" and got some firsthand accounts of the Italian people's reaction to the Allied invasion of Sicily VERY early in the search results. It didn't seem like they decided to rally around Mussolini because he was at least Italian.

Did the Allies face an Iraq-style insurgency in occupied Italy on the grounds they were foreign invaders? I'm pretty sure that didn't happen either.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
I'll raise the Allied invasion of Italy and the overthrow of Vlad the Impaler (in favor of his Muslim-convert brother Radu, who was backed by Ottoman troops) as counterexamples of "the people will NEVER accept an invader" romanticism of UF and IBC.

I googled the phrase "greeted as liberators" and got some firsthand accounts of the Italian people's reaction to the Allied invasion of Sicily VERY early in the search results. It didn't seem like they decided to rally around Mussolini because he was at least Italian.

Did the Allies face an Iraq-style insurgency in occupied Italy on the grounds they were foreign invaders? I'm pretty sure that didn't happen either.

Your second example was a succession crisis of the upper class; both rulers were nominal vassals of the ottoman empire and, I'll remind, this is Wallachia, a country that barely had a million inhabitants.
The first example is slightly more acceptable, I guess; it sort of makes the point that there were not, in fact, massive amounts of people willing to betray the Rodina when compared to Italy.
 
I'll raise the Allied invasion of Italy and the overthrow of Vlad the Impaler (in favor of his Muslim-convert brother Radu, who was backed by Ottoman troops) as counterexamples of "the people will NEVER accept an invader" romanticism of UF and IBC.

I googled the phrase "greeted as liberators" and got some firsthand accounts of the Italian people's reaction to the Allied invasion of Sicily VERY early in the search results. It didn't seem like they decided to rally around Mussolini because he was at least Italian.

Did the Allies face an Iraq-style insurgency in occupied Italy on the grounds they were foreign invaders? I'm pretty sure that didn't happen either.

Romanticism? More like predictable result of a foreign invasion, and the overwhelming evidence in the Eastern Front was the Soviet population was hostile to the invaderse start (aside from special cases like the Balts), and whatever ‘’good welcome’’ the Germans got could just as easily be interpreted as terrified locals trying to appease German troops who could kill them & burn down their homes on a whim.

Also for your own two examples you choose a medieval succession squabble and an outright civil war an example of this? and make no mistake after Benny the Moose was freed Italy was plunged into a state of civil war. Allied accounts of how eager Italy was welcome the Allies are somewhat exaggerated, for political reasons. Also by 1943 many Italians also throught they had been reduced to Nazi vassaldom and wanted the war over, while others viewed and armistice as a betrayal and wanted to keep fighting the Allies on the battlefield.

Lastly Iraqi-Style insurgency did in fact happen in Italy but like Iraq it was mostly factional infighting between Italians themselves…
 
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The big problem with invading Russia is that it presents all manner of tactical, strategic and logistic problems. You have bone chilling temperatures a good part of the year where most equipment tends to stop working and frostbite sets in in minutes. Then in spring and fall everything turns to mud. Advance 100 miles into Russia and you are still many miles from anything. You have locals who are suspicious, distrustful and downright hostile of outsiders. Governments who wrote the book on crazy and paranoia, to the point of publishing false and misleading road maps. If you should reach Moscow the Russians will burn it like they did to Napoleon or blow it up like they were planning to do to the Germans. Simply put just do yourself a favor and shoot yourself in the head at the Polish border. Faster and less painful that way.
 
If an idea in this thread is 'romantic', whatever that means, I think it's the idea that a man of military age (say, 20) in Kiev in 1941, his earliest memories being of about 1923, would somehow be magically aware that the country he grew up in, Soviet Ukraine, was nothing but a facade imposed by the Evil Russian Invaders - presumably because The Great Ukrainian Nation Cannot Die. UF has actually pointed out that sometimes people don't fight for their country if their country has ceased to give a shit about them, using the example of Tsarist Russia. All we're saying is that invaders - armed people who don't understand you, unconsciously imposing their way of life - are resented bitterly. That's a truism: where I come from, we sometimes grumble about tourists even though we live off them. It's human nature not to like 'invasions' of any sort.

We're talking about people who were born under Soviet rule or have lived under it since childhood, who went to school in the USSR, who got their jobs in the USSR, and yet Typo would have had us believe that the USSR if for these people no different from an army that suddenly comes into the country of their birth looting and killing.

Italy, on the other hand, was invaded from two ends by two foreign forces. hardly surprising that it turned out a mess: there are always partisans and collaborators in different numbers depending on the circumstances, and in Italy one person's partisan was another's collaborator and they all had a brief low-key war.
 

Typo

Banned
Rosenburg was still a Nazi tool and assumed Slavic people are stupid sub-humans who wouldnt see through such a crude ploy. It's a moot point through, as the fundamental nature of the Nazi regime from top to bottem would stipulate against giving ''sub-humans'' even the pretence of being treated as anything but helots. Unless you replace the Nazi regime as a whole you'll see mass partisan uprisings, but in that case without Nazi's, WW2 as a whole would be void too...
Agreed, and I said as much that the Nazis were incapable of this, but in the context of this thread the question is whether a German regime can use the National sentiments of the Russian empire to defeat Russia.
The only ‘’non-Great Russian’s occupied were Byelorussians who are just basically Russians, and whose national intently even today is rather tenuous and almost non-existent in 1941, As for the Ukrainians, well aside from the former Hapsburg provinces in the west they were deeply sceptical about any hint of secession. Even after Stalin had starved millions of them to death.
The occupied people including the Ukraines and Baltic states included more than just Belorussians and whom considered themselves distinct from the Russians.
Tens of thousands quickly undertook partisan warfare in the forests eating acorns & pine needles. Again that is not the profile of a population ready to revolt or turn against the state. You whole thesis is flawed on that basis.
And tens of thousands undertook collaboration as well even though they faced certain death should they be captured, the point is in 1941 I doubt there was a decisive part of the population for the partisans, after 1941, it was another matter.
Still even if what you said were ture, non-Nazi German invaders would still face major problems. As most, say Ukrainians could remember the last German-installed government from 1918, and would not have fond memories. It's one thing to gain ''independence'' or ''freedom from Stalinism'', and another to have it installed by an invader at gunpoint. Especially this particular invader.
This is not that relevant to the discussion, whether the Germans could have -held- onto the collaborationist regimes ala 1918 after the war is another matter altogether.
Somthing like 40% of all Soviet troops were non-Russian so, after the clusterfuck of 1941. Had the Soviet populous EVER had even a substantial minority intent on overthrowing/turning against/or simply not serving the state it would have happened. ALL governments rule at the will of their populations. Soldiers and paramilitaries come from the population. If the soldiers won't shoot, the regime falls (something the Tsar learned to his sorrow).
The Soviets peoples still prefer Stalinism to Nazism
 

Typo

Banned
If an idea in this thread is 'romantic', whatever that means, I think it's the idea that a man of military age (say, 20) in Kiev in 1941, his earliest memories being of about 1923, would somehow be magically aware that the country he grew up in, Soviet Ukraine, was nothing but a facade imposed by the Evil Russian Invaders - presumably because The Great Ukrainian Nation Cannot Die. UF has actually pointed out that sometimes people don't fight for their country if their country has ceased to give a shit about them, using the example of Tsarist Russia. All we're saying is that invaders - armed people who don't understand you, unconsciously imposing their way of life - are resented bitterly. That's a truism: where I come from, we sometimes grumble about tourists even though we live off them. It's human nature not to like 'invasions' of any sort.

We're talking about people who were born under Soviet rule or have lived under it since childhood, who went to school in the USSR, who got their jobs in the USSR, and yet Typo would have had us believe that the USSR if for these people no different from an army that suddenly comes into the country of their birth looting and killing.

Italy, on the other hand, was invaded from two ends by two foreign forces. hardly surprising that it turned out a mess: there are always partisans and collaborators in different numbers depending on the circumstances, and in Italy one person's partisan was another's collaborator and they all had a brief low-key war.
I dunno but even in 1991 which was generations after the Ukrainian people lived in the USSR they were still pretty eager for independence
 
Agreed, and I said as much that the Nazis were incapable of this, but in the context of this thread the question is whether a German regime can use the National sentiments of the Russian empire to defeat Russia.
What by occupying areas where ''national feeling'' was only felt by a small minority of malcontents in the far western edges of the nation in question? If the Nazi had occupied Georgia yo may have a point but as things stood the areas they controlled in 1941 weren’t a seething hotbed of repressed nationalism (except for the Baltic States).

Anything still under Soviet control will stay way, ouCentral Asia was a sleepy backwater without any vestige of rebellion. The Caucasian peoples are more likely to turn on each other than revolt against the Soviet state, and there were enough loyalists in the major ethnic groups in 1941 to prevent major problems unless the Germans physically occupied the place in which case the U.S.S.R would’ve been screwed anyway...

The occupied people including the Ukraines and Baltic states included more than just Belorussians and whom considered themselves distinct from the Russians.And tens of thousands undertook collaboration as well even though they faced certain death should they be captured, the point is in 1941 I doubt there was a decisive part of the population for the partisans, after 1941, it was another matter.
Tens of thousands who otherwise had the ''choice'' of starving to death as I pointed out before. Also evey nation has it's fair share of sleazy opportunists willing to suck up to an invader. They are generally despised by everyone (even the occupier). The only serious collaborators OTL were the Balts and a relatively small group of exiled Cossacks (who fought against the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War) and even they weren’t considered reliable enough to fight the Red Army when it become clear most of their kin displayed surprising loyalty to the Soviet state.

This is not that relevant to the discussion, whether the Germans could have -held- onto the collaborationist regimes ala 1918 after the war is another matter altogether.The Soviets peoples still prefer Stalinism to Nazism.
It is very relevant. As it shows just how unsuccessful Germans efforts at
building a collaborationist regime were in the recent past under much better circumstances and with a sane government in charge in Berlin.

I dunno but even in 1991 which was generations after the Ukrainian people lived in the USSR they were still pretty eager for independence

They really wernt you know. Russia declared it’s secession from the U.S.S.R before Ukraine did.

1991 was mostly a Yeltsinite power-grab. To make sure boozy Boris wouldn’t have to share power with the federal Soviet authorities. Once the U.S.S.R was gone Yeltsin and his criminal friends were free to loot the country at will…The same is true in the other SSR’s the voters (pro-union) feelings on the matter were wholesale disregarded.
 
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Typo

Banned
They really wernt you know. Russia declared it’s secession from the U.S.S.R before Ukraine did.
If you seriously believe this then there's is no point at all in having this debate, more than -90%- of Ukrainians voted for independence.
 

Maur

Banned
So marching an army hundreds of miles across frozen hostile territory is a pretty dumb idea. Granted. My question though, revolves around the fact that from 1700 onward there seems to be this consensus that any land invasion of Russia is doomed to failure if it moves more then a few miles from the Black Sea coast. Is that necessarily fair? Is a successful land invasion of Russia possible for Napoleon? Any other power?

Partly because I am curious, and partly because I'm working on a TL and one of the significant changes is Napoleon times his campaign better and follows the Baltic coast to St. Petersburg rather than head for Moscow. Does he have the proverbial snowball's chance in Hell? Is it remotely possible? Or do we tend to give General Winter more credit than he is due?
I'm not sure about the consensus. Apart from 1812 and 1941, Russia was pretty normal country to fight against, even if large. Certainly neither PLC nor Sweden found it impregnable (Karl XII the mad aside. Really, compared to him Pyrrhus of Epirrhus was paragon of long-term strategic planning and decisiveness)
 
I'm not sure about the consensus. Apart from 1812 and 1941, Russia was pretty normal country to fight against, even if large. Certainly neither PLC nor Sweden found it impregnable (Karl XII the mad aside. Really, compared to him Pyrrhus of Epirrhus was paragon of long-term strategic planning and decisiveness)

Maur

I think the two key factors are:

a) Are you trying to defeat the Russian state on a factor of importance to you as opposed to destroying it? Russia/USSR suffered a lot of defeats when it was seeking to expand it's power and lacked the advantages of huge poorly developed spaces.

b) How co-herent and supported is the state? Even the WWI one under Niclolas proved very duriable and took a hell of a lot of damage before it started coming apart at the seams. Stalin caused a lot of resentment by his brutality and massive murders and [despite what Urban fox claims] plenty of people were willing to at least consider alternatives when given the chance. The only problem for them was that for one [albeit coincidentally] the Soviet authorities were telling the truth and the invaders were even more brutal and thuggish than they were.

It should be noticed that Vaslov's defection occurred in late spring 42 after Stalin's disastrous counter-offensive that gravely over-exposed the Soviet forces. Even as late as that, if the Nazis had had any sense, then could have made a lot more of resentment of the communists and a rational invader could have torn the state apart by giving the people what they wanted [peace, land and security].

Steve

PS Sorry, I realised I added a 3rd there. The nature of the invaders. They need to look a better alternative than the current regime and show that they can win. The Nazis briefly looked like they could meet the 2nd category but never even attempted to fulfil the former one.
 
The Vlad the Impaler situation wasn't a succession issue. Vlad had made himself so odious to the Wallachians that the Wallachians (or at least their nobility) preferred a foreign puppet--who was a Muslim and had at one point been the sultan's boyfriend on top of that--to him.

About Italy, Sicily came before Italy's side-switch and the German invasion (and consequent ugly battles up and down the mountains), so the "invaded from both ends" thing didn't really apply at this point.

The argument that even before the land war came to Italy, the Italian people viewed themselves under German occupation due to Mussolini's subservience to Hitler is a better argument.

About reports of Italians' receptiveness to the Allied invaders being exaggerated, three things:

1. Who is doing the exaggerating?

2. For what purpose?

3. Do you have any proof of this exaggeration?

Here's the Google search:

http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&...&aql=f&oq=&gs_rfai=&pbx=1&fp=f799d644c9cc206c

Which of these is Allied propaganda again?
 
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