The Soviets played a more important role in winning WWII in Europe than the western allies

Very good opening arguments. However, Pro makes some historical mistakes. PART ONE Pro's Historical mistakes 1) Hitler invaded Russia in hopes to demoralize the British Isles. This is a point that is simply not true. The Battle of Britain was the battle meant to demoralize the British, which failed to do its job. The real reasons for invading Russia were fear of attack by the Soviet Union and a want for the key resources in the Ukraine, oil fields to the south, and Hitler absolutely hated Stalin and considered them "subhuman" and had hated them long before the invasion of 1941[3]. 2) The only major battle that the western allies fought was the Battle of the Bulge. I am literally calling BS on this one. The Battle of El Alamein was one of the top ten decisive battles of WW2. It decided the war for the African front and set the stage for the invasion of italy[4]. The Battle of the Bulge was also a decisive battle that destroyed much of Germany's armies[4]. If America had been as unprepared as Russia was, we would have had major set backs in the war for Europe. However, America and her allies were prepared for the onslaught and repelled the attack. Another decisive Battle was that of Britain. If Britain had fallen, America would have had a much more difficult time taking back Western Europe and it might have even been impossible. The Soviets would have faced the full force of the better trained, better equipped, and frankly much better German army. In other words, the war would have been lost for the Soviet Union[4]. The pivotal failure of Operation Barbarossa Germany Russia Divisions 166 190 1 : 1.1 Personnel 4,306,8003,289,8511.3 : 1 Guns and mortars 42,601 59,787 1 : 1.4 Tanks (incl assault guns)4,171 15,687 1 : 3.8 Aircraft 4,389 11,537 1 : 2.6 This graph[6] shows the true numbers of the forces at the beginning of the operation. Now, for Germany to mass that many troops along the border, it took from December 1940-June 1941 when the attack was carried out. It was originally planned for May[2], but Hitler delayed it to June. This was his first mistake. Hitler's mistakes. A) Timing is everything in war, and the timing of May 1941 for the Invasion start was perfect to avoid the harsh Russian winter. If Hitler had invaded then, he still would have destroyed Russia and possibly even defeated the Russians at Moscow. This is because the only thing that turned the tide in the USSR was the weather. Hitler, much like Napoleon, went in unprepared for the winter. In Germany, they started taking all fur coats from the Jews and the poor and shipping them East so their soldiers wouldn't freeze to death in the winter. The weather also made getting supplies from Germany, to Poland, then finally to the Front lines near impossible. They couldn't fly enough in, they couldn't maintain a good supply line and there wasn't enough food to eat due to the Russian tactic of "scorched earth" which had also been done with Napoleon and was to destroy everything the Germans could use before they retreated. B) One of the most detrimental mistakes made by Hitler was the idea to split his armies and go after two objectives: Stalingrad and the Oil fields in Southern Russia. If he had dedicated all of his forces to the attack Stalingrad, he would have won the city and then Moscow. However, his decision and early declaration of victory in Stalingrad were one of the many factors that led to his ultimate downfall. C) Due to the Brutality of the Germans in Russia, the citizens rose up and pestered the German supply lines. That, along with the distance of the front lines of Russia from Germany, was yet another crippling blow. These, among many other mistakes, were the factors contributing to Operation Barbarossa's failure. However, the Soviet generals were terrible and their tactics ineffective A) When the German tanks rolled across the border, they met much resistance from the 3.5 million Russian Soldiers, and, using less tanks, airplanes and artillery guns but with a comparably large advantage in numbers. Despite detailed reconnaissance reports and no effort by the Germans to hid their intentions (except for details like when, where, and how[2]), the Soviets were taken completely by surprise. Stalin had never expected Hitler to attack the Soviet Union before England was destroyed. He thought that it would be stupid to open a two front war. So he ignored multiple indicators of the impending invasion. The result was devastating. Not only was the Russian Air Force almost completely annihilated, but their guns were destroyed, their armies lost, and their resources gone. The only effective thing the new generals and those that survived the Communist purge of the 1930's actually did was the scorched earth tactic that had left Napoleon stranded in the cold as well. The generals were hardly effect at any of the counter attacks that were attempted and for the summer of 1941, the Great Soviet Union, the Motherland, lay in ruins and ashes. B) In Stalingrad, it was not the Soviets' great military strategies of "Do not retreat or we kill you." or "flood them with soldiers, with or without a rifle" (Many soviets did not go into battle with any weapon. They had to pick one up off the ground.), but it was instead the idiocy of Hitler in splitting his armies and relying on resources he could find in Stalingrad, as well as the fact that his tanks couldn't work in the cold, his armies lacked proper clothing for the winter, and he rarely listened to his generals. C) Soviets were careless with their soldiers lives and this is shown by their 14,000,000 person loss [7], which was many more times the American losses of 416,800 soldiers and airmen[7]. This low American numbers was despite the fact that America was fighting two fronts rather than one! We had better tactics, better trained soldiers, and better technology which prevented the staggering losses America could have taken. The Soviets, on the other hand, threw their soldiers into battle poorly equipped, badly trained, and in terrible situations under the threat of death by execution regiments if they retreated and horror stories of treatment of POW's by the Germans. This tactic was only effective because of the mistakes made by Germany. In Conclusion of part one of my argument In conclusion, it has been shown that the Soviets' victories were only due to German mistakes. The victory in Eastern Europe by the Red Army was not because of superior tactics, technology, or anything that usually wins a war. It was really due to the Germans' overconfidence in their win, poor conduct with civilians, distance in supplies, and being unprepared for the challenges ahead. PART TWO Importance of the Western Allies A) Western aid to the Soviets If the Soviets had not received the massive amounts of material aid by Britain and America, Soviet Russia would have fallen to the Nazi Armies when the Winter finally let up in 1942 [8][9]. "American deliveries to the Soviet Union can be divided into the following phases: "pre Lend-lease" 22 June 1941 to 30 September 1941 (paid for in gold) first protocol period from 1 October 1941 to 30 June 1942 (signed 1 October 1941) second protocol period from 1 July 1942 to 30 June 1943 (signed 6 October 1942) third protocol period from 1 July 1943 to 30 June 1944 (signed 19 October 1943) fourth protocol period from 1 July 1944, (signed 17 April 1945), formally ended 12 May 1945 but deliveries continued for the duration of the war with Japan (which the Soviet Union entered on the 8 August 1945) under the "Milepost" agreement until 2 September 1945 when Japan capitulated. On 20 September 1945 all Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union was terminated."[8] Here we see the massive time between start and stop of the lend-lease program, a program where America became the source of supplies to a war torn world. "Some 3,964,000 tons of goods were shipped by the Arctic route; 7% was lost, while 93% arrived safely.[21] This constituted some 23% of the total aid to the USSR during the war." [8] That was just from America via one of three routes, the Arctic Route. If I must, I will make more points about this in further rounds. B) If the Allies had not been fighting Germany in the West, then Russia would have had to deal with the full might of Germany to deal with. The petty "holding out" of Great Britain and her empire in London and North Africa were pivotal points that kept Russia alive. When Germany provided aid to the Italians in Africa, this caused the delay that set Germany into the Cold winter of WW2 [2]. In Conclusion I apologize for the short length of part two, but I must conclude now. All I had to do was show that without the Western Allies, Russia would have failed. It doesn't matter that the most pivotal battles took place in Russia, all I am here to show is that they were equal importance to the victory over Germany and that Hitler created his own demise rather than Russian minds and guns being victorious. Russia was only the theater and not the perpetrator of Hitlers end. Without the West, he would have died. Sources 1. http://www.academia.org... 2. http://suite101.com... 3. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk... 4. http://tendecisivebattles.webs.com... 5. http://www.theatlantic.com... 6. http://en.wikipedia.org... 7. http://en.wikipedia.org... 8. http://en.wikipedia.org... 9. http://lend-lease.airforce.ru...