Quote:
Originally Posted by GloucesterChief
Quantity over quality has always been a Russian thing. While Siberia has harsh winters, western and southern Russia where the vast majority of the population lives has no more harsher winters than say Poland and less harsh winters than Finland. That area is also bigger than most European countries.
Western Russia is also extremely fertile and able to support a huge population. Remember also that the German invasion of Russia was put on hold as the army had to swing south to assist the Italians in capturing Greece, as the Greeks had completely pushed the Italians out of Greece and were marching up the Adriatic coast looking to completely destroy the Italian army.
|
The Germans have always been pretty bad at picking allies.
The 'sick man of Europe' - the Ottoman Empire in WWI, and Italy in WWII did more to hurt Germany than help them. I understand the thought behind the Ottoman Empire (the Germans seemed to think that the Muslims would rise up en mass throughout Europe in support of the Sheikh - they did not) and I guess Hitler saw Mussolini as something of a role model but had they managed to get better allies here and there, they could've actually won something.
But hell, the Germans could've done dozens of things differently over WWI and WWII and won (especially WWI; several monumental cockups there).