WW2 Every Day With Army Sizes - Historian Reaction
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- Опубліковано 8 тра 2022
- See the original video here - • World War II Every Day...
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My god, how does he turn and grind a 14-minute masterpiece into 44 minutes? Then I realized that he is the type of man to read the text, unlike Mr Terry.
You didn't have to do Terry like that😂
@@jackpates2940 Oh come on, I love Mr Terry, but sometimes you gotta just make fun.
We love terry, but that was well deserved.
Who is Mr Terry?
@@ksac42 a youtuber
To be fair to the French, their failure was primarily one of command rather than of troop quality, and most of the blame for their defeat lies with the high command and commanders in key areas like Charles Huntziger in the Ardennes. I would say that they were similar to the Italians in this regard; they were "lions lead by donkeys".
Exactly. An army can only be as good as its commanders and in that regard, WWII was a far cry from WWI.
If you go beyond the memes, the fallacies, the simplifications, and you study the war in a bit more details, you'll realise one thing : French troops did far better against the Germans than British, Soviet or American troops in their early engagements against the Germans.
Unfortunately for them, they were fighting on their own ground and didn't have a huge territory to retreat on. Often geography helps.
The Soviets had an entire army utterly annihilated against minimal German losses, but were able to fall back and rebuild a massive army while the German army stretched thin.
The British had their expeditionary force saved from annihilation by the French at Dunkirk and Lille, retreated to their island without fearing any real possibility of invasion (which makes it easier not to surrender), suffered a disaster at Crete in 1941 and opened a secondary front in North Africa, where they could have lost the campaign as early as at Gazala only to be saved by the French (second time). Not to mention the surrender of Singapore.
The Americans, who also didn't fear any invasion of their territory, had quite a hard time during the North African campaign (Kasserine Pass was in itself far worse than the breakthrough at Sedan, it couldn't have the same consequences though...) and whether in North Africa, Italy, France or Germany, you seriously wonder what they would have achieved without an overwhelming numerical and logistical superiority in every sector against a second-tier demoralized Germany army lacking of everything, including fuel, and they still had a very hard time.
Tactically, the French more than matched the Germans during the battle of France. Narvik, Hannut, Gembloux, Flavion, Stonne, Montcornet, Abbeville, Lille, Saumur, etc.
The Soviets, British and Americans didn't tactically match the Germans at all on their first engagements with them.
The French suffered a breakthrough that could well have been stopped had the French general of the sector (Charles Huntziger) not taken some strange decisions. And no, the French didn't think the entire Ardennes area was impenetrable. It then fell apart like it would have fallen apart for everyone, the Eastern front being a great example of how it falls apart after a successful breakthrough. However on the Eastern Front there's a lot of ground to retreat on.
The British evacuated and the French fell back to protect it. With the British gone and the Belgians consequently surrendering, that's 1 million men gone in two weeks. It was obviously over.
French troops suffered 60,000 killed in one month and a half (i.e more than twice the number of Americans killed during the battle of Normandy which lasted two months and a half and is the deadliest military campaign in American History) and 200,000 wounded. The Germans suffered 50,000 killed and 111,000 wounded. Staggering casualties, largely comparable in terms of intensity to the number of killed and wounded the Axis suffered at Stalingrad. The French airforce performed excellently. Despite being critically outnumbered, French aircraft had a kill ratio of 2.35:1. 36% of the Luftwaffe had been lost, which obviously greatly helped the British during the battle of Britain. French tanks also performed very well in numerous tank battles. Ultimately, the defeat was due to a strategic failure (greatly made possible by Huntziger) in one sector and the collapse that logically followed. Finally, not signing an armistice would have been totally irresponsible.
On the other hand, Soviet, British and American early encounters with the Germans were all disastrous defeats on a tactical point of view. Thing is, they could not lead to the same consequences. Although in the same situation as France, they would have.
As Robert Forczyk writes in "Case Red: the Collapse of France": *French tankers did far better on their first encounter with the German Panzer-Divisionen than Soviet tankers would do at Minsk in 1941, or British tankers at Gazala in 1942 or American tankers at Kasserine Pass in 1943; the DLMs inflicted equivalent damage on the enemy and survived to fight another day.*
The Vichy French won significant victories at the battle of Dakar, the battle of Ko Chang, Operation Terminal and Reservist, despite obviously limited forces.
The Free French performed excellently in every later campaign of the war (Kufra, Keren, Massawa, Bir-Hakeim, El-Alamein, Tunisian campaign, Garigliano, Monte Cassino, Ist, Operation Dragoon, Operation Romeo, Falaise Pocket, Strasbourg, Operation Nordwind, Belfort, Colmar Pocket, Black Forest, etc.)
The best example being the second French armored division which was easily one of the best allied armored divisons in 1944-1945 and was the first unit to reach the Eagle's Nest.
The last defenders of Hitler's bunker were also French...
France was the major power with the worst possible position. Nobody would have wanted to swap with them at the beginning of the campaign. Had the breakthrough at Sedan been contained for one or two days as it could have been, the French victory at Gembloux might have done the exact opposite of what happened, i.e the only thing that stopped the French from pursuing and routing the Germans after Gembloux was the breakthrough of Sedan.
Had the plane crash not happened, the Germans wouldn't have changed their plans and would have done exactly what the French wanted them to do.
The moral of the story is that it's easier not to be defeated when you can't be invaded... Hence in that case, it would be cool not to give lessons about how to act when invaded.
@@ueieoz7975 strange example there for Britain
@@ueieoz7975 France was the first to actually invade mainland Germany in WWII too in the Saar offensive, though it was only temporary. If they had gone all in while Germany was busy invading Poland even German generals admitted that Western Germany would have buckled quickly under the combined weight of France and the U.K smashing in. The German military would not have been ready for such an attack at that time as, despite its shortcomings, the French were on paper a far stronger military still. The phony war and Allied inaction is what gave the Germans time to finish building up and honing their blitzkrieg tactics.
(From saar offensive wikipedia entry)
At the Nuremberg Trials, German military commander Alfred Jodl said that "if we did not collapse already in the year 1939 that was due only to the fact that during the Polish campaign, the approximately 110 French and British divisions in the West were held completely inactive against the 23 German divisions."[12] General Siegfried Westphal stated that if the French had attacked in full force in September 1939 the German army "could only have held out for one or two weeks."
@@Mcree114
I agree with you but the responsability here is political, not military.
Churchill: Until now we used to say that the Greeks fight like heroes. Now we shall say: Heroes fight like Greeks.”
As a Greek I was always super proud about our herculean contribution in WW2 but I had never quite realised how alone we were, we were basically the only land force opposing the Axis in Europe at the time.
Yeah and isn’t there a day in Greece called ‘no day’ to commemorate refusing Mussolini’s demands? I also remember reading that the invasion of Greece delayed Barbarossa by a couple months which meant the winter was closer when it began and Germany had less troops as they were in the Balkans
@@markselby9352 28th of October 1940! One of the two biggest national holidays, the other being 25th of March for the revolution against the Ottoman Empire in 1821.
People in Greece claim that too (the delay of the Nazi attack against the Soviets), however I don't know if the impact of the delay is overstated because of nationalism. I haven't seen foreigners pay that much attention to it although expert historians may do that.
@@thewiseguy6750 pretty important. You could argue it saved Moscow as Hitler was a few weeks off taking Moscow before the winter set in meaning the point that Greece almost saved the war is not that unfounded.
The use of the word "herculean" is very fitting here on multiple levels.
@@markselby9352 I've heard that the invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece fatally delayed Barbarossa before. I've also heard that Barbarossa couldn't have started that much earlier in any case because of the Rasputitsa. In this scenario the invasion of the Soviet Union was delayed a few weeks at most, maybe hardly at all. It's hard to believe that even a relatively short delay wouldn't have undermined Barbarossa to some degree. However your last point is unquestionably true. Hitler wanted peace in the Balkans to avoid this very situation.
Hard to believe this only ended 77 years ago. Really isn't that long ago in the grand scheme of history.
Very true. It's crazy for me to think I was born just 32 years after the war ended.
3:00 There is actually a very good depiction of this in a Polish movie "Katyń" where the beginning scene shows civilians who were trying to flee from inavading Germans standing on a bridge looking at people coming their way, one calls out "Where are you going? there are Germans behind us" and those people respond "The Soviets are rushing in, the Soviets are rushing in"
Imagine living through that as a polish citizen
@@castielthebestangle1615 Indeed, I can only imagine, especially since my grandfather refused to mention the war, or what he had to live through, which already makes me wonder what terrible things he had to see and go through for him to not want mention it once to anyone except his wife, my grandmother. One can only imagine the terror these people went through
It is unfortunate that the Katyn incident is part of the culture war against Russia - and the previous consensus view that it was perpetrated by the Germans is unthinkable to Westerners anymore. On the the other hand, nobody has made it illegal to mention the participation of the Polish People's Army in the East from 1943 onward. The Poles and the Russians were mostly friends in that period... unless you then account for the hundreds of thousands of Poles in the Wehrmacht, lmao.
- Adûnâi
It is unfortunate that the Katyn incident is part of the culture war against Russia - and the previous consensus view that it was perpetrated by the Germans is unthinkable to Westerners anymore. On the the other hand, nobody has made it illegal to mention the participation of the Polish People's Army in the East from 1943 onward.
- Adûnâi
@@angamaitesangahyando685 I will not argue about your views, but I would like to ask for you to call it by what it was, not an incident, it was a massacre
I heard a story that the British aircraft had radar on board which greatly helped in the Battle of Britain. To keep the fact of this from the Germans, Churchill claimed British pilots had superior night vision because they ate a lot of carrots, and thus the myth of carrots helping with vision was born.
I don't even know if that's true but it's still an epic story
carrots give A vitamin and A vitamin is for protecting the vision and improving it
@@Kajreir Precisely what Churchill wanted the Germans to believe. Like so many other things, your body needs a certain amount of vitamin A to be healthy. Without enough you have trouble making rhodopsin. But excessive amounts are also unhealthy. Like Goldilocks, living things need many things "to be just right." If you want to improve your vision you are better off getting glasses.
Britain had early warning ground based radar and an effective system to vector fighters into enemy formations. Mid to late war all sides would start fitting basic radar set to their aircraft usually to twin engined aircraft to be used as night fighters. This wasn't exclusive to britain.
@@andomitor8 Good point. Ground based radar was the important factor in deploying the RAF during the Battle of Britain. The RAF did use aircraft based radar, although the Germans soon found out about it and came up with their own. Further research indicates the myth about carrots was indeed propaganda used by the British, but was targeted more to the British civilian population because carrots could be grown in Britain and help with the food supply. There were posters featuring "Dr. Carrot" and posters suggesting carrots would help with night vision during the blackouts. The biggest thing was probably it gave the average Britisher something simple they could do to feel they were helping in the war effort.
You’ve gotta admire the fact Poland lasted 35 days under these circumstances
Just one of many reasons why I love Poland. Always showing incredible resolve.
which makes the French looks even worse. They didn't last much longer than that!
@@corneliali7747 yeah pretty much inferior numbers that are prepared vs greater numbers that are unprepared
@@corneliali7747 France had been massively fifth columned, the communists had undermined the French due to the Ribbentrop Molotov treat (pro German until Barbarossa)y, so France was demotivated.
@@corneliali7747 Denmark lasted a whole 6 hours (a good thing for them)
The team from real time history(the same guys behind the great war youtube channel) are currently also working on a weekly series of napoleons 1812 invasion of russia, and it's pretty good. Would love to see your reaction and thoughts on that subject.
Love your videos no matter what, keep up the great work!
Epic history tv already have amazing series on Napoleon and Russian invasion. But yeah that series is good I think.
@@jobfranschman8436 epic history tv's videos on the napoleonic wars are also amazing
I agree 👍
Do History Dose please :D
@@jobfranschman8436 Different focusses. Real time aim at the decision making and the human element on the ground, epic history detail the overall events.
Minor correction: The pocket along the Baltic where 80k Polish soldier were trapped was Gdynia (not Konigsberg) and its surrounding area, Including the Hel Peninsula. There were two separate battles fought at Gdynia and Hel (yes, Hel with one "L", though it would resemble the one with two after the battle). According to Wikipedia, there were some 17.000 Polish soldiers trapped at Gdynia and 2k at Hel. The Polish fortifications on the Hel Peninsula were apparently very formidable. Despite being outnumbered by about 12:1 and coming under almost immediate attack by the Germans after their invasion on Sept. 1st, the Polish army was able to hold out there until Oct 2nd.
My Great Grandfather fought in North Africa against the armies of Rommel. He lied about his age and was signed up at just 16. He never forget the things he saw, and he used to tell harrowing stories about the invasion of Sicily, it's interesting, yet slightly horrifying, to see the mass tragedy that was ww2 shown so quickly.
my great grandfather was sent the the Eastern front to fight "bolshewism" man and he told me storys when i was like 10-13 years old which from time to time still horrorfies me. He nearly lost a leg, he was captured and sent into a Mine to work, which than collapsed and barely made it out. Nontheless, he was still quite funny to talk about it even tho it was horrific, he is basically like me, making jokes about anything. But going into a big war and lie with your age is something special, ultra "patriotic" americans would call it, mad lad.
My grandfather fought on the eastern front in Hungary and Austria in 1945 when he was 15 years old. But not voluntarily. At this point, the Wehrmacht marched from door to door, sending young men who could hold a rifle to the front. After that he was captured by the Russians and returned from Russia in 1948. But he died in the 80's before I was born.
Before the Molotov-Ripentrop pact, the soviets proposed an alliance to UK and France to defend Czechoslovakia, which was refused by France and UK.
Really? Where can I find more information on this?
@@4GNG Check wikipedia/google. its easy to find articles on this topic. If u dont fine let me know.
@@4GNG there's even an arte documentary
And before that Poland wanted to ally with nazi germany to go to war with soviets...WW2 was crazy.
@@4GNG The above is indeed correct. The leadership in France and UK were more worried about the bolcheviks (aka communism overturning capitalism in Europe) and like most liberals, decided it was better to placate the fascists for a future war against the communists. Need not look farther than how many Japanese and German middle officer war criminals were accepted into the post WW2 world order.
I've long had respect for the Yugoslavian partisans and what they did to liberate themselves, but after seeing this, the Greeks just earned mad respect as well. They didn't start giving up ground until they were outnumbered about 3-1!? I want that on my side anytime!
On par with Finland for sure
As always, Churchill said it best: Until now we used to say that the Greeks fight like heroes. Now we shall say: Heroes fight like Greeks.”
@@oobee123 Yes, I should have mentioned the Finns next to the Yugoslavians. I did some reading and watched some videos about the Winter War not long ago. Heroic defense!
But they were eventually captured. Soviet partisans put up the most fierce resistance to the Nazis.
The Yugoslavs put a lot of pressure on the Germans, but to be honest they fought each other more than Germany. The Germans committed serious war crimes in Yugoslavia, no question, but almost 90%, and I mean that seriously, of the victims after the occupation arose from fights between various Yugoslav militias made up of partisans or collaborators. Tito also only became supreme leader of a common resistance after wiping out all other groups after bloody battles.
People often make the mistake of thinking the German offensive was halted only because of the cold when really it was the Germans having to rely on their over extended supply lines combined with the Soviet scorched earth strategy also the cold and a good portion of army group center being diverted south, but this doesn’t really matter the outcome of the war would Be the same
Meanwhile japan is dealing with supply lines that range from alaska to fiji
@@rayquaza1245 it’s much easier to supply your forces by water when you’re a significant naval power like Japan opposed to Germany(with limited man power) having to leave troops to maintain their supply lines to stop them from being hounded and many more factors…it was much harder for Germany to maintain their supply lines in their circumstances
People also forget the causalites the Germans suffered early on during Barbarossa were not evenly distributed. The best of the panzer divisions and the officers who led them suffered atrociously, these being the same officers who took personal initiative during the Polish and French campaigns, often winning decisive victories as a result, the caliber of men replacing them was simply not the same.
@@svenrio8521 yeah the casualties were very very lob sided the Germans killed a lot more Soviets. And yeah some of the german armor commanders did die. But I don’t think this changes anything in the eastern front
Without Winter, the USA, and Hitler's stubbornness combined, there would be no Soviets or Russia.
7:14 I believe that this was a speech by Hitler reading a list of countries from FDR/USA had sent to Germany to not invade, they are: Finland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, France, UK, Ireland, Poland, Spain Yugoslavia, Liechtenstein, Hungary, Romania, Turkey, Portugal, Greece
That was Goebells not Hitler
@@thevirtualpug3d868 No Colton is right. That's 110% Hitler's voice.
@@thevirtualpug3d868 No it was Hitler, he made that speech in 1939 before the war.
7:50 Funny thing, the Finns mainly surrendered because they ran out of bullets. That's why they were rapidly losing troops, they were demobilizing to try and conserve ammo.
Dem
I am Canadian and did not realize the amount of pilots from other countries who flew in the Battle of Britain. My Uncle who I never got to meet was shot down and killed flying for the RAF. While it was mainly British who flew, there were a lot of Poles (who were really pissed and were some of the fiercest as I understand), Czechs, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans, Americans, etc who fought.
In Britain we know this, especially regarding Poles, Kiwis and Czechs. RIP to your uncle. The Canadian contribution to the allied war effort was probably the mightiest per capita in the world
All those fought, but very few other than the Poles and Czechs, but only 2 American pilots
There was supposedly a Mexican who married a Canadian woman and flew for the RAF over The Battle of Britain as well, shi crazy
Это не просто цифры на экране, это люди, это жизни, миллионы жизней, миллионы семей. Попробуйте на концерте или на спортивном соревновании на стадионе посмотреть, сколько это 50 тысяч человек, а теперь представьте тысячи таких стадионов, и все эти люди умерли в бессмысленной войне.
I couldnt stop laughing, Chris being annoyed not being able to read anything as a History Freak 😂 28:43 - 29:04
I mean he's got a point, why have all that overlapping text?
Both names are Chris dem
Thanks for making the video! A while ago I commented on this, and today I saw this on my feed and wondered what the new VLG video would be, and there it is! Amazing video, the insight was really helpful, especially considering how fast-paced the video was and how there was a lack of context often times!
Interesting fact about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Most Soviet citizens didn't even know about it until the era of Gorbachev in the late 1980s, when his policies of perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness) allowed archivists to go deep within the Soviet archives to find copies.
If you weren't stupid, you'd know that such treaties were between all countries. In addition, the USSR was also looking for similar treaties among other countries - Poland, England
but they refused. And the USSR did what it did - it took without a fight the territories that Poland had hidden 20 years before.
it's fascinating how vlogging through history actually adds something to a reaction video, really great job!
There is a good movie called April 9th, it shows the invasion of Denmark. It follows a Danish bicycle infantry company that responds to the invasion. It must have been unreal for the soldiers to hear how the Government had surrendered and that they had to hear it from the Germans, not their own commanders.
People fail to realize the problems the Germans had in the Battle of Britan. If a British pilot was shot down he took a train back to the air base, a German pilot was typically captured and sent to a POW camp in Canada.
It does need to be remembered that the French Army itself wasn't actually equal to the German Army. The "French" army in this case is composed of 4 major components, French, British, Belgian, and Dutch. Although the French Army was easily the largest of these, roughly 2/3 of the total, there are still 4 main armies with different goals and command structures. The latter 2 which clung to neutrality as long as possible had little time or opportunity to coordinate with the French and British. So that million drop off in numbers primarily represents the surrender of the Dutch and Belgians, and the surrounding of the BEF at Dunkirk. France certainly performed poorly, and their doctrine of trying to fight WW1 all over again lead to much of the disaster that ensued. Just pointing out that the Allies in 1940 suffered from many disadvantages which were completely unrelated to pure numbers.
Yeah, Belgian here, our army was on paper 600 000 strong (for a population of 8,5 million) and underequiped. On paper Belgium and the Netherlands both were neutral until war broke out on May 10. So due to neutrality both the Dutch and Belgian armies could not have prepared in advance with the French and British forces, that goes against the concept of neutrality .The Dutch surrendered on May 15, we on May 28.
The coordination between UK, France and Belgium was troubling, there are numerous cases of friendly fire because they didn't recognize each other. It took two days before the general staff of the countries were able to meet. By that time the Germans had already broken through the first barrier at the Belgian-German border. The amount of misunderstandings on tactics are huge: the Belgians blew up most of their bridges and then the French were unhappy because they wanted to use the bridges to deploy the troops. You had a lot of arguments like this and no preparation or people to mediate. Later in the war someone like Eisenhower had a role as a military diplomat and coordinated all the different components of the western allies, in 1940 this was non-existant. And as many people know, the Germans bundled their tank divisions together, let them break through enemy lines and then have the infantry back them up. The French had about as many tanks on paper, but they were evenly distributed over their divisions which meant they were less effectively used. All this combined makes that it would've been very hard to stop the Germans in 1940.
It's very easy to blame the French defeat in 1940. But had the UK (or the US) been a continental European power, it would've been knocked out just like the French were in 1940. At that time the Germans clearly had a well oiled military machine. That changed after 1942 when the series of victories for the German armies made room for a series of losses until 1945.
That's not quite accurate. The French had for example a thousand more tanks than the Germans (and for these were for the most part better armoured, better gunned but far less responsive due to a lack on onboard radios) and they had with their allies about 170 to 150 German divisions, though the Germans had their Panzers all organied into ten Panzer divisions, at the front also they had the advantage of the Maginot line as a secure base line and about nigh on parity in the air. The German High Command expected a slugfest against the French similar to WW I. They were themselfes surprised how far they outclassed the French on a tactical level (they expected to walk over the Belgians an the Dutch).
@@1teneris The technical details of the tanks are probably less important than the lack of cohesion between the "allies".
The British just fled back to their island through Dunkirk, but didn't even notify their "allies" until they started the evacuation. Then they were angry that the Belgians (almost driven back to the sea) surrendered... Very easy to judge them if you're on an island and don't have to be confronted with the second occupation in 30 years time, which devastated your country.
There was zero cohesion and that made it a complete fiasco. And there was an awful lot of blaming each other and none of the participants acknowledged their own mistakes.
@@1teneris The better armored and armed French tanks were designed to operate as support for the infantry. So not only did they not have radios, but they were generally much slower than their German equivalents. They were designed to fulfill the WW1 type role that the French High Command envisioned for them. They did build some solid medium tanks designed for mobile warfare, particularly the Somua-35, but those were only available in small numbers. One of the major issues the French faced is that their military budget from the mid 30's forward was overtaken and ultimately vastly eclipsed by the Germans. This means that while the French tanks and planes involved a variety of designs built over many years, the German tanks and planes were designed and built over a much shorter time period for a unified purpose. If even half of the French tanks had been S-35's, they could've easily prevented the encirclement. However the lack of available military funding meant that it would've taken many more years than it took the Germans to build a tank pack of that nature. French military leaders would've had to have correctly envisioned the type of war their forces would be called upon to fight way before 1940. By then it was already too late.
@@gunterke "The technical details of the tanks are probably less important than the lack of cohesion between the "allies"."
Agreed. I would say that the most important thing about the technical details of the French tanks specifically, is they indicated the type of war France was prepared to fight. That is a defensive, grind the enemy down type of war. The Maginot line is also emblematic of that mentality.
My understanding regarding the position of Belgium is that they didn't trust that the French or British intended to defend all of Belgium. Nor did they believe that the French and British were willing to invade Germany. This would by definition turn Belgium into a war zone, potentially for years. In the event as I recall the Allied plan was to defend on the Dyle line, which would've left something like a third of Belgium in German hands.
It's understandable that Belgium sought to avoid this situation, it just didn't work out. In the end all of the countries involved were just looking out for their own interests. To be fair to the British, if they hadn't successfully evacuated their army from Dunkirk, they may have been compelled to accept the lenient German peace terms. It's difficult to see how any of the countries occupied by the Germans regain their independence if that had happened.
Corsica was liberated by general Giraud in 1943, on this map it’s still occupied at the end of the war.
Also the numbers of the allies but with the numbers of soldiers from each country forming the alliance would have been good i think.(some would have been surprised…)
Thank you for this reaction.
Many say that the USSR would not have been able to defeat Germany without Lendlise, but many do not look at the figures, the entire lendlise for the entire war is less than 5% of what the USSR produced.
Hey VLH, not related to this video but in some of your previous vids you mentioned James Garfield and his assassination so I decided to read a book about him which I just finished yesterday, and it was such an interesting read so thank you for introducing that topic to me. It’s a shame that Garfield is such a forgotten figure in American history. He has such an interesting story from his upbringing in poverty to his education and even the story of his rise to the top of the Republican Party is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I never would have learned about him had it not been for your channel.
One of my favorite presidents by far. He might have been one of our best if he never got shot and his doctors never killed him.
@@watchingyou yeah it’s hard for me to say that he’s one of my favorite presidents since we were robbed of seeing what a Garfield presidency would look like but I can easily say that he’s probably my favorite person to hold office. He seemed like a great man, one who was truly worthy of the position even if he didn’t want it. Similar to Washington in that regard.
@@Alex-kd5xc True that. He was very smart, apparently being able to write in Latin on one hand and Greek on the other simultaneously if I remember correctly. He was also an abolitionist, so who knows, maybe the civil rights issue would have been "solved" much earlier. It's hard to tell, but I'd like to think that he would have done good for this country.
Great video! I love hearing your information added to this video, makes it a lot better since it is quite short.
2:40 The town with the 80k encirclement should be Danzig. Königsberg is more to the east, at the southeastern part of the small peninsula called Samland.
One thing you forget to say about the landing in Normandy : It was designed to attack on 5th of June. But that day the sea is too high. This attack was postponed by 24 hours. And 6th of June is the birthday of Erwin Rommel's wife. Erwin Rommel loves his wife and went back Germany that day to celebrate. It is also one of the reasons Hilter did not forget him.
Watched this one recently so glad you reacted to it . Keep up the good work Chris
Another thing often missed, the Soviets at the start of operation Barbarossa whilst losing ground along most of the front, puts up a very stubborn resistance in the south and army group south falls behind in its objectives, forcing army group center to divert troops and resources.
Yep exactly, mansteins southern turn wasn’t some crazy Hitler lost us the war moment, it was strategically sound and represented (imo) a better understanding of the conflict at hand.
@@finndaniels9139 Exactly, it would have been fool hardy to leave that large of a Russian force in Army Group Centers effective rear at Kiev.
Love these! A lot of work went into creating that map, that is a great job and a very interesting thing to watch.
The Soviet Union has an infinite manpower glitch
*Had
@@Alex-kd5xc *will
@@Starshina-yo8ue well had because 1) Soviet Union is no more, and 2) I think modern Russia can no longer rely on sheer manpower like it used to
@@Alex-kd5xc I was joking
They were scraping the barrel at the end, without lend-lease they would have lost badly. The american supplies held the soviets afloat in 1942 and afterwards. (And of course the distraction of Germany by Italian stupidity in Greece and Libya)
As a guy from a mostly Russian family, I can tell you that there isn’t a single family from the USSR that hasn’t lost someone in WW2. My grandma’s two brothers were in the red army, Nikita fought all the way from Moscow to Berlin, and Valeri died in Budapest.
Victory day, that was yesterday, is a day of conflicting emotions, because it’s both a day of pride(“WE defeated the Nazis”) and a day to visit cemeteries.
Cool
Ok orc
about the french collapse, nowaday, we pretty much know exactly what went wrong .
Our general where still thinking in ww1 term . Our tanks, even though they were pretty much equal or even superior to the german in capability, had almost no radio, only one per group, and not every group . They were communicating with signal flag ... yeah ...
Same thing for the communication in the chain of command . Most of the french general staff was FAR behind the front line and with only way of communication some messanger on motorcycle . Compared to the german with radio at all the level and independant group for better mobility (like romel and his ghost division) .
Then, their was the way the french division where organised . Most tank where not in specialised division like the german, but mixed with infantry, wich massively limited their mobility .
Ad the cheer level of stupidity from the french general staff (the german colomn in the ardenne had been spoted, but some general refused to order their position bombarded) .
De Gaulle (only a colonel at the time) had predicted that the next war would be mobile and even wrote a very good book on mechanised warfare . A book that the french general staff will completly ignore . One man who does not on the other hand, is guderian and the german general staff .
Good write up
So relying way too much on the Maginot line was not such a big blunder and cause of fast french defeat? That was the (oversimplified?) reason we learned in high school history class.
@@joelinsb8650 germany going around it and crossing by belgium was not a blunder . It WAS THE WHOLE PLAN .
Belgium had to build multiple weaker and inccrisily stronger fortification where french and belgium troup would be stationed before the war start . As such, a german invasion would be met with a fighting retreat that would get incrisingly difficult to push against until their advance was completly stoped ans their ressources depleted .
But in 1937, Belgium left the alliance with France hopping that be being neutral, they would stay ignored be the german (worked so well in 1914, why not do it again ?) . As such, most defense line where not built at the time of the invasion and french troup could not get in position early .
The only masssive blunder in this plan was the ardennes forest that was thought to be impossible to be crossed with tank . It was not, massively difficult and a simple rain would have made the trails impracticabe, but still doable . It was a bet that germany did, and they won it
@@joelinsb8650 No, it is indeed not the reason; the maginot line was meant to protect france's industry, to cover the mobilisation of the French Army which took a few weeks and, to save manpower and finally *to push germany into an effort to circumvent via Switzerland or Belgium and allow France to fight the next war off French soil to avoid a repeat of WW1*
Had the french fortified the north, the germans would have been more tempted to attack alsace
The real issue was the neglected defense of the Ardennes like luc said
I feel Gernany in WW2 is the sunk cost phalicy personified, love this reaction I feel it adds a lot
Hi Chris. Another great video, thanks for the new info.
I just wanted to recommend a channel I've been watching for a couple of years now called history buffs. He makes videos critiquing the historic accuracy of different movies and shows. From 'a bridge too far' to 'band of brothers' to 'braveheart'.
I thought you might be interested in watching even if you don't have the time to react. He gives a lot of background info. Thanks again.
12:57 This line from Churchill is one of my favorite lines in all of history because it resonates to the person listening even today in a way that other speeches from that era don't. They are impactful for the significance and the time, but the audience is largely the people of the 1940's. This line from Churchill is directed at the people listening to the speech in 1940, but also to us all of these years later. Because we in America and most of the world, not just the UK owe so much to those few pilots who were able to keep air supremacy in the Battle of Britain. If the UK is knocked out of the war, even in a peace where they just recognize Germany's conquests in Europe, the world would be so much darker of a place. I think the actions of those pilots are one of the few legitimate examples of heroism in war because of the circumstances and what was at stake not just for Britain, but for humanity.
We will never know if it would be"darker times" if Britain was knocked out. Churchill was like Stalin, the man for the time, if both of those diddnt exist, Europe would probably look VERY different. We know that both aswell did horrendus stuff and both diddnt were saints, but as mentioned, for the time that it was, probably noone fitted better in their places.
😂😂 Churchill was racist
@@franciscoaraujo2016Who helped save Britain that's why the British people love him.
@@cpj93070 ?
The speech is famous for his use of words derived from old English instead of from Latin or Norman.
For example, in the famous section “We will fight in the streets”, every single word is thoroughly English in origin (which is known as Anglish) until the word surrender. Which is a word from older French, using it like this creates this distinction between surrendering (what they’ll never do) and all the stuff he said before about fighting in the hills.
Just compare “we shall fight in the cities” to “we intend to conduct military operations in urban environments”.
It gives the speech a very specific and interesting quality.
its fcking unbelievable germany performed so good while getting outnumbered over 3 years
The encircled men are not at Königsberg but near Gdynia, specifically Hel Peninsula which is mentioned in Poland's last broadcast.
Thank you. I wasn’t sure so I probably shouldn’t have speculated.
watching this in Sweden while awaiting surgery! You are awesome! 👌🏼
Best wishes for your surgery and recovery, Simon!
Good luck on your surgery and God Bless.
@@VloggingThroughHistory It was a total success 🙌🏼 Thank you!
USSR and Great Britain: we will not make a separate peace with Germany
Frederick the Great: you guys actually follow that rule? 🤔
4:30 Well, it was connected to it. The speech about it was one of the few reliable things in his plans, so one of the few places you could prepare something with it having a shot. And if it hadn't been for crappy weather that forced Hitler to go to Berlin by train rather than by plane, he probably would have talked longer than 2 minutes and stayed longer
Finally, i found someone educated talking about history on youtube. Keep up the good work, ive subscribed automatically, we need more people like you, sir!!!
Welcome aboard!
Insane, literally just watched this an hour ago. Love your stuff man
Same
Thanks a lot for this detailed commentary! i was honestly hoping you would go into even more depth on all the individual events that happened in the war all the way until VE day and even after that. But i understand that might make the video extremely long, but anyway pls do continue to do content like this!
So ironic that at the beginning, Hitler wanted to avoid fighting a two-front war and he ended up fighting a THREE front war.
West, South and East. He totally got **crushed**
Even when it was "just the UK", they still had a big empire with them.
+ polish pilots that were crucial to the win
@@finndaniels9139 okay polands help is appreciated but they do over inflate their contribution in ww2
@@Anakin_Sandy_High_Ground eh for a country that was under occupation they gave a hell of a lot, disproportionately influential for sure.
@@finndaniels9139 yes but polish natiaonlists love to say they were solely responsible for saving britain
@@finndaniels9139But they were not crucial to winning the Battle of Britain though.
Another great video Chris. Hey if you're still taking recommendations for videos to watch then I have a good one for you.
It's by Dan Bull (the guy who played Jack the Ripper in that ERB vid) he has a Civilization V rap video that has tons of references to history. In fact it's more a rap about humanity than Civilization V, just thought you would like to listen to it.
Love the videos. Love the commentary. Keep up the work!
On November 7th, 1941, Joseph Stalin said that it will take a few months, half a year, or maybe an entire year at most before "the Hitlerite Germany must collapse under the weight of its crimes." That same day, my great-grandfather was in Leningrad. He would be forced to move into the center of that city in early 1942, where he would spend the most difficult year of the Blockade of Leningrad. He was lucky to be evacuated in 1943, after Stalingrad. Many of his friends didn't make it, and he believes that it was because Stalin's counterattacks were inefficient until Stalingrad. Speaking of which, Stalin did not make another appearance at the Kremlin following his speech in 1941 until 1944.
Find information about the journal of visits to Stalin's office during the war.
4:50 pretty sure the hitler bombing at a beer hall was exactly the same beer hall hitler did his putsch at, they were there to celebrate that event
Switzerland being neutral through out the whole thing in the middle of the fight is just mindblowing amazing.
We’re they really neutral though ;)
They werent neutral. Well, I mean in a military sense maybe, but if you let someone who murders people for fun to trade, store money, and pass through your territories, youre not neutral, youre collaborating with it. Just more passively than if you were to openly join it
@@willevensen7130 So were most of the countries Germany did invade 🙂
Switzerland was managing Germany's money aka laundering money for Germany so hitler saw no reason to invade them
"If you don't invade, we do business. If you invade, we blow our country the hell up and force you to fight in the mountains. How's that?"
Amazing video. Been my favorite youtube recently! keep it up!
Hey man, fellow NE Ohioer here. I'm on the other side of Cleveland from you. Really enjoying your work. I actually drove past your area over the weekend, went hiking just on the other side of the PA border... McConnell Mills if you have heard of it. Small world :)
My great grandfather fought during the battle of France in 1940, he was in the tanks and was part of one of the few victory that France had on Germany during WWII. Really proud to have him in my familly.
In relation to the operation in Sicily I have just watched the movie Operation Mincemeat about the allies deception of where they are going to land absolutely fascinating. If it was a plot in a movie and not real people would call it far fetched
This is my favorite WW2 Europe every day video, lots of others have been made over the years.
I love this video and I'm surprised you've made a reaction to this. Exited to watch
That was an awesome video im always amazed when I look at the numbers on the Soviet side.
Is there any chance you could cover Armchair Historian's video on the winter war and continuation war? I think that is a very misrepresented part of WW2 with some unsettling similarities with what's going on today.
Great video and awesome commentary as usual
Hi i love your videos
Ayo global things. Where’s that kangaroo Australia pic
I was about to suggest you to watch, good that you reacted to it
14:25 Churchill's words just gave me chills.
My WW2 vet grandfather always talked about how valuable a WW2 French rifle would have been because it was never fired and only dropped once. Needless to say, Gramps was a bit bitter about France's ease of defeat.
From which country was your grandfather?
I’m asking because i wonder why he was a bit bitter. Thank you
@@bastienrannou6346 US. Not bitter. Bit of a comedian who spoke his mind. It was the going sentiment of a lot of Allied service men, revisited in film and books. Don't worry, his bitterness was reserved for the Nazis, the German people(he is of German descent), and the Triple Entente for creating several of the variables that led to WW2. He did his duty along with millions of other Allied soldiers who have all earned their opinions. Why is your grandfather bitter?
@@dbach1025 im quite late on that but a lot of the French army once they understood how the governments was capitulating exiled themselves in Africa and to the UK whit there supply and arms creatly helping the allies in africa and as the liberation of France was undergoing more and more soldier that was forced to lay down there weapon joined The gaul at a point that when Berlin finally was occupied a total of 1,25 Millions had rejoins the army most being in Germany so the France Liberation greatly speeded up the total collapse of germany
Wow he did a really good job portraying just the absolute collapse of Germany in 1943-1945 good job to vth too
I thought I new history pretty well until I met you man, good video bro.
Still watching the video and so far, great video!
Hi, Chris, thanks for your commentary that made this really interesting. That was fascinating. It would be great if you could do something more on the allied invasion of Italy, I feel it doesn't get the publicity that Normandy does.
Id say he almost completely ignored the Eastern front. Way too much time given to the northwest of Europe. Arguably, a side show to the east in term of troops,men and material.
@@Nanatsaya77 You're right. Very little mention of major counteroffensives like those at Leningrad or the Manstein's Kharkov plan. Germans werent really dead until they lost Kharkov and the entire foothold.
You should react to Eastory’s series on the Eastern Front and the Sino-Japanese theater of WW2.
Yes he should I really wish he could sometime.
I wrote an email to you asking you to react to this, was really happy this morning to see you did! :)
7:00 I agree, but i would like to give you the advice to first pause the video and then use the "," and the "." keys on your keyboard during videos like this. With the , key you go back a frame and with the . key you go forward a frame in the video. You can hold them to be a bit faster as well. That makes it easier to navigate precise through the video without going seconds back and hoping to stop at the right point.
Just for a moment like 17:00
It feels good to be this early! This is gonna be an awesome video, much love Chris 🤝
I'm still hoping that one day you will react about the decolanazation of the americas
Dude in the first 6th months the soviets got like 3 million of their men encircled and were still able to replenish them. Imagine how much equipment and manpower they had. That's insane
You know 40 mins is a long video but I watched every second of it!!!!!
Wish I had this guy for a history teacher in HS.
You knew he would do it after his trip in the Benelux/low countries.
39:00 - this is not random "effect". This is an attack operation by USSR for helping Allies with overlord operations
I’ve been waiting for this one!
As a closet history nerd, just found your two channels. Been watching a lot of your videos, I like how you have your channel setup.
Is The F on your sweater UofF Gators?
Hahahahaha no way! Ohio State fan here. It's my kids' high school.
@@VloggingThroughHistory oh, sorry you're an Ohio State Fan I won't hold it against you. lol
Is hearts of iron 4 your favorite historical game and will you still play it?
One of my favorites and yes.
@@VloggingThroughHistory ok thank you for responding to my comment
This was fantastic thank you
On the Munich beer hall bomb plot of 1939, which Hitler escaped. It was in Bürgerbräukeller. The very same beer hall where Hitler had proclaimed his putsch in 1923. To commemorate, Hitler and other high-ranking Nazis often held speeches on the anniversary on 8 November there. A worker called Georg Elser had decided to single-handedly kill Hitler and tried to assassinate him on that day in order to prevent further war. He had perfectly timed the bomb, but for some reason Hitler decided, unusually, to leave earlier than normal on this event, so the bomb missed him just by around 10-15 minutes. Elser was imprisoned in Dachau concentration camp and would survive until April 1945, when shortly before the liberation of the camp his murder was ordered by the higher-ups. I am from Munich, so back in school, we also visited nearby Dachau concentration camp, and we were also shown the isolation cell in which Elser was placed in.
Basically the Russians did most of the fighting
Soviet Union* not Russia
Yup, in both world wars
Очень интересно и познавательно! Спасибо!
Greetings, I am enjoying a lot your content. Will you ever complete the reaction/commentary on Historia Civillis about Julius Caesar ?
9:45 Not 3 million troops from the French army but from 4 different countries: Belgium, United Kingdom, France, and the Netherlands.
I think your should watch a winter war history video. I find it so cool that Finland 🇫🇮 was able to hold against a global super power at the time with nothing more than skilled riflemen and no anti-tank weapons or tanks. They didn’t even have any (what would have been at the time) modern artillery.
In those moment ussr was not a "superpower" country
@@Uran_KH-98 indeed
@@grahamgarringer Or do you not know that at that moment a "civil war" was still going on inside the country of the USSR?
@@Uran_KH-98 or do you know that their civil war ended nearly 10 yrs before the winter war?
@@grahamgarringer so in your opinion, after such an event, people in the country quickly put things in order? Especially during the war? Are you serious?
Something kind of interesting in regard to your comment about Russia possibly being kicked off the UN Security Council. Ukraine had made the argument that Chapter 5, Article 23 of the UN Charter about the security council specifically states that "the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics . . . shall be [a] permanent member of the Security Council." The obvious point there being that the USSR no longer exists. So, there's seemingly nothing in UN Charter that makes the Russian Federation a permanent member.
Wouldn't that just provoke Russia into desperation?
@@TheSkyGuy77 Need to stop worrying about provoking dictators. It’s meekness and policies of appeasement that give them confidence and allow them to run rampant.
@@Letterman0412 It’s different when they have nukes.
@@jiraffe9600 Not really. Sit back and let Russia do whatever they want and soon they will think they can even use nukes without repercussions.
@@Letterman0412 I mean ok, so the world ends, GG shit teams.
Could you potentially do a video on Churchill?
Don't know much about him but he seems like an incredible wartime leader
This is perfect, the only part christopher failed was thar glitched subtitles around stalingrad
4:08 France invaded the Saarland though.
Not beneficial enough
@@RandomVidsforthought It wasn't beneficial because poland was crushed by germany and the ussr in just a month, so a few weeks after france launched its offensive in the saar this military action had no more reasons to be. But the fact remains that france was the only country to launch a military invasion of Germany in response to the invasion of Poland.
Would love to see your reaction and commentary on the Suez crisis of 1956. The other side of Suez is a great little documentary on the subject, and you can fine it here on UA-cam if your interested. Love the reactions and the original content, keep it up!
This analysis only adds to the hard and incredible work “Chris” had done.
Hey, VTH. I know this video is a year old, but the reason Poland had not mobilized prior to the German invasion is because the UK had told them that they would refuse to honor their treaty if Poland mobilized their army.
Mr VTH, your reactions are amazing! I really love what you do. Just a small comment, but I think it is important. Quite often you referred to the Soviets as Russians, and once you corrected yourself that you shouldn't say Russians because there were other nationalities involved (Belarusians, Ukrainians, Georgians etc.), thank you for that, but still there have been cases of this confusion later. It is important not to mix everyone and say that Russians did this or that because it undermines the role of others in the war (some people still think that there were only Russians, and haven't heard about those small nations that were involved in the war as much as any nation), and we should not do that.
But all in all, thank you for this reaction, and for eveything you do, love it!
It makes sense when almost 60% of the population of the USSR were Russians
@@Anonymous-qj3sf So other 40% does not count?
When will you do some more Sabaton reactions?😅
This week.
Really good video and analysis
Great job and hello from france
My father was in the V Corp on Omaha on June 6th, one the the first in Paris, told not to go further to let the French go first. They were in the Ardennes, passed by Buchenwald, at the end of the war ended up in Czechoslovakia. I've his D-Day map, and a German made map which he traced their path across Europe on.