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Some unknown questions I ask

I sometimes ask myself whether World War II was a success or a failure. I believe the reasons of failure would be the allies lack against the genocide and doing nothing while letting the Jews die and accepting the genocide after the SS St. Louis. For victory, it might be how we have learned we can't tolerate genocide and hatred of any race.

Fighting on all fronts

Yes, military planners work on specific areas of combat operations. It would be nice if these were consistently reflected in their strategic perspective. There is nothing wrong with using named theatres since they were historical frames of reference also. This goes to establishing scope of decisions made by national political, economic and military leaders. If a West European theatre is mentioned, the reader knows its "big". Barbarossa was conducted on four strategic fronts. The Allied counter-offensives in the Pacific on five. This goes to understanding military strategy. Strategy is directed to evince some significant effect for he enemy's attention. The direction is interpreted into planning of campaigns, which are in turn executed as strategic operations. Allied efforts in Italy were directed in one direction only, north, and there was only one campaign, with three separate strategic offensives. On the Eastern Front in 1944 there were four strategic directions, three of which were conducting three campaigns each, with each campaign sometimes including 1-2 simultaneous strategic offensives. This is of course hard to convey when Wikipedia editors insist on calling everything a "battle". Terminology consistency would also be nice. The description of "small French attack into the Saarland" as the Saar Offensive that actually means one by 11 French divisions with a total of roughly 40 divisions available. However the Battle of Gazala is described as an offensive with 8 divisions, and very little left in reserve. The "bitter street fighting" and the "second winter counter-offensive" in and around Stalingrad involved 2-3 Fronts as part fo a strategic offensive that aimed to unhinge two German campaigns!

So, comments please--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 02:20, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I already pointed out that "strategic offensive operation" is a literal translation form Russian. After Stalingrad they used this name for any major offensive. Of course, the terminology should be uniform, however, as it is English wikipedia, we, probably have to call Kursk, Bagration, Lvov-Sandomierz, Vistula-Oder etc. "battles", or major offensive (similarly to, for instance, Battle of Bulge).
The term "front" was used by the Soviets only (if I am not wrong). I think, Germans used the name "Army group" for that, although Army Group Center was larger than several Soviet fronts opposing it. In addition to that, one German division was about 3 times as large as one Soviet division, so the situation when 35 Soviet divisions oppose 15 German divisions is in actuality, a numerical parity etc, etc.
As a result, creation of uniform terminology is rather problematic and we can be blamed in doing original research. And I am not sure it is really necessary, because the article cannot be based on raw numbers only.
The situation with Gazala and Saar is a good example for that. "French attack into the Saarland" was really small because, despite of considerable number of troops involved, strategic implication was minimal. Actually, it wasn't a battle at all, because there was almost no resistance. In contrast to that, Gazala was a real battle, and its strategic implication was obvious. Therefore, I would agree with current wording in that concrete case. As regards to Stalingrad, I fully agree, because it is among few real turning point of whole WWII (not only in Europe). However, we can talk about that when we come to "The Tide Turns" (or Successful Allied counter-offensives)--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:55, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
"strategic offensive operation" is English for the more amateurish "big attack by the Army". It is not unique to Red Army, however it seems few "historians" have access to, or bother to read Western Allied official documents such as battle reports.
There is a standard terminology used by the professional soldiers that identifies operational contexts. Neither "battle", nor "major offensive" are among them, both being too ambiguous. Wikipedia is a reference work, and that means the reader should be able to understand what lies behind the terms used. You would not invent new terms to write an article on finance or medicine, so why is military different?
Front with a capital F is a strategic formation, and is not in general comparable with the German Army Group. To solve the issue of explaining parity, all one needs to do is write an article on the composition of Red Army and Heer rifle and infantry divisions through the war.
Comparison of Saar and Gazala is valid because raw numbers as you say do not tell the story. One also needs to understand the planning considerations. At Saar there was no real fighting because the German command refused to give it. They had other options to exercise and they did. At Gazala there were no other options (virtually), so fighting was heavy. However, in terms of commitment, which is what wars are all about, Saar was a far larger manifestation of aggressive intent. Neither British nor German commitment to North Africa was all that great. The UK only sent forces after the Battle for France, and a very large number were Commonwealth. Germany sent forces very much later, and only a few divisions. Even Italy failed to really commit.--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 06:58, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Montage

The montage suffers from a number of problems:

  1. It's small. Unless the source images are tiny (and therefore not good candidates for such an important montage), I cannot think of a reason this montage should be so small.
  2. Contrast and intensity are inconsistent. This is distracting and severely detracts from the appearance.

Needs a thorough going over at the WP:Graphics Lab so that each image is good before it is added to the montage, that they match and that the montage is big. Many other images would also benefit from Lab work. Dhatfield (talk) 20:57, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

The page had a nice montage a year or two back showing the major features of WWII - D-day landing, atomic bombing of nagasaki, Holocaust jews, Soviet Flag over berlin and a nuremberg rally. Does anyone know where that montage went? Sidgalt (talk) 04:14, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

It seems that the image itself somehow disappeared, and was later completely deleted back in May of this year (if you can see the deleted edits, here it is). I'm not sure how that could've happened though. It did cause a good deal of discord among many Eastern European editors, who felt that the D-Day image that was twice the size of the other images was unfairly biased towards the Western Allies. Parsecboy (talk) 04:19, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
Well, the D-Day was a pretty important event plus atleast to me, the montage itself was pretty dramatic - appropriate for WWII. Atleast someone familiar with WWII could at a glance tell what the pictures in the montage meant. But now what you have is pictures of a tank, a ship (or is that a submarine?), a bunch of planes, etc. and you have no idea what it means. I mean every war has ships and planes and tanks but only WWII had the atomic bombing, the Nazis, the Holocaust, etc. Plus now the montage is very unfairly biased against the Western Allies as except for one image, all you have is Soviet, German and Japanese forces. We really need a montage like the one on the WWI page, which shows the basic features of the war rather than a bunch of random facts common to all wars.Sidgalt (talk) 07:50, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
If some image shows Japanese forces, it is not biased against the US, because, obviously, "carrier borne Japanese aircraft" are prepared to attack US or UK target. Every Japanese picture implies the US and vise versa. It is senceless to speak about a bias to or against a certain country, however, the bias against a certain theatre can take place. I share Overy's point of view that in description of WWII the proirity should be given to Eastern front, then to Western front and Japan/Asia/Pacific sould go after that. Therefore, a present ratio between East - West/Africa - Asia/Pacific looks the most optimal. To my opinion, the Berlin picture is not the best one. The previous picture with red banner over Reichstag was much better. By the way, that prevoius photograph plays the same role for ex-Soviets as famous Ivo Jima picture plays for Americans.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:20, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
Yes, the flag over the Reichstag would be a better photo, but unfortunately, it's been removed from Commons, as it's been determined to not be in the public domain (1). Parsecboy (talk) 16:28, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
I probably don't understand something, but that picture is currently in the Russian Wikipedia article. Does it mean that rules are different for different national wikipedias? --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:13, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
It might be uploaded under a claim of fair use on the ru.wiki. All I know is that the image was deleted from Commons because the new Russian copyright laws remove it from the public domain, for the time being at least. Parsecboy (talk) 17:33, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
I agree that the montage at least needs one picture of American forces. Right now it has 2 pictures of Soviet forces and none of the US. Plus, Japanese planes do not automatically imply US involvement because the Japanese also used planes against China before the US was even in the war. I think a D-Day picture should replace the picture of the Soviets in Berlin; the Berlin picture is not as good as the winter tank picture. Also, the Japanese planes picture should be replaced with the atomic bomb picture, as the atomic bomb was one of the most significant events of the war (ending the war with Japan and ushering in the nuclear age). Perhaps two more pictures can be added, one of French forces and one of German forces. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.202.72.33 (talk) 01:32, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
A D-day picture is already present in the article. Taking into account that Eastern Front constituted at least a half of whole WWII (in terms of the scale of battles and Axis and Allies casualties numbers) at least two pictures from Eastern Front must be in the montage. In connection to that I propose to include the famous image of Soviet flag on the Reichstag that seems to be in public domain in Ukraine.

--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:36, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

File:Soviet flag on the Reichstag roof unaltered.jpg
I agree, but which picture should it replace? --Erikupoeg (talk) 10:26, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
I think, since the picture of the Soviets in Berlin is not the best one, it can be replaced with the Red Flag over Reichstag. However, I would propose to wait a little bit, because I am not sure if this photo is really free. We heed to double check.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:23, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

What a terrible montage, if i had the software to make a new one i would. seriously get a D-day image it was a major moment in the war and instantly recognized. get the soviet flag in berlin, atomic bomb image, holocaust image. Everyone should stop bickering about "my nation isnt represented" who cares, some countries did more in the war than others. It was a global conflict. get images of the most important moments regardless of what nation is represented. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.120.98.16 (talk) 21:42, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Is this needed?

"along with twenty-two smaller or exiled governments"

That's just a quote I saw and I just was wondering why we have to refer to every other ally as 'smaller'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.138.189.68 (talk) 00:07, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Because other allies were really much smaller. In actuality, WWII war primarily the war between UK, US and USSR (and China) and Germany, Italy and Japan. Contribution of other countries was really smaller. It is necessary to remember that, otherwise, a ridiculous situation is possible when students are being taught that "WWII was a war between Australia and Japan".--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:28, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
Excuse me, but how exactly are other countries contributions smaller? That's plain bias right there. You make it sound as if there was six or so countries fighting and the other, oh, I dunno, 28 allies were just laying back and watching. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.140.80.212 (talk) 17:23, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Well, pointing out that there were only few countries that sustained a major burden of WWII is a plain bias. Did I understand you correct that listing all Allies in the alphabetical order without any mentioning of their relative contribution would be the less biased point of view?--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:22, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

The war becomes global, new version.

Here is a preliminary version of the The war becomes global, where I tried to take into account comments of TREKphiler and mrg3105 (comms). The major drawback of the current version are as follows.
1. Operation Barbarossa, the largest military operation in human history, is represented in such a way that doesn't allow a reader to understand its scale and global strategic implications.
2. The reasons for Barbarossa's ultimate failure are presented in absolutely unsatisfactory manner.
3. Exaggerated attention is payed to some insignificant facts(e.g. climate factors, divisions from Far East, etc), whereas really important things have not been mentioned at all. .
4. Too much space is allotted to diplomatic steps taken and documents signed, whereas this year was a year of fierce battles that ultimately predetermined the outcome of the war.
5. Some linking phrase are redundant.


On June 22, 1941 Germany, along with other European Axis members and Finland, invaded the Soviet Union. The primary objectives of this surprise offensive[1] were the Baltic region, Moscow and Ukraine with an ultimate goal to end campaign of 1941 near the line connecting Caspian and White Seas, that would eliminate the Soviet Union as a military power and enable Germany to defy British blockade and to secure oil and food supplies for years.[2]. Although before the war the Red Army was preparing for a strategic offensive, "Barbarossa"' forced Stavka to adopt a strategic defence. During the summer, Axis made significant gains into Soviet territory, inflicting immense losses in personnel and matériel, however by the middle of August, German OKH decided to suspend the offensive of a considerably depleted Army Group Center, and to divert a part of its armored force to reinforce troops advancing toward central Ukraine and Leningrad[3]. The Kiev offensive was overwhelmingly successful, resulting in encirclement and elimination of four Soviet armies, and made further advance into Crimea and industrially developed Eastern Ukraine possible.

By October, when Axis operational objectives in Ukraine and the Baltic region were achieved, with only Leningrad and Sevastopol resisting in sieges[4] a major offensive against Moscow had been renewed. After two months of fierce battles, the German army almost reached Moscow suburbs, where the exhausted German army was ordered to go on the defensive. Despite impressive territorial gains, no strategic goals of the war had been accomplished: two major Soviet cities hadn’t been captured, Red Army's capability to resist was not broken, and the Soviet Union retained a considerable part of its military potential. The blitzkrieg phase of WWII in Europe had ended.[5]

In mid-December, freshly mobilized reserves [6] allowed the Soviets to achieve numerical parity[7]. This, as well as intelligence data that established a minimal amount of Soviet troops in the East sufficient to prevent Japanese Kwantung Army from the attack[8], allowed the Soviets to launch a massive counter-offensive along 1000 km front, although it was halted soon after Axis troops were pushed 100-250 km west[9][10].

With three quarters of Axis troops deployed on Eastern Front[11][12] the United Kingdom was given an opportunity to regroup.[13] In July, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union formed a military alliance against Germany[14] and shortly after jointly invaded Iran to secure the Persian Corridor and Iran's oilfields.[15] In August, the United Kingdom and the United States jointly issued the Atlantic Charter.[16] In November, Commonwealth forces launched a counter-offensive in the desert, reclaiming all gains the Germans and Italians had made.[17]

Japan, hoping to capitalize on Germany's success in Europe, made several demands, including a steady supply of oil, from the Dutch East Indies; these talks, however, broke down in June.[18] In July, Japan seized military control of southern Indochina since it would not only put her in a better position to coerce the Dutch East Indies into yielding, but it would also be a blow against China; should war be necessary, it also improved their strategic position against the Americans and British.[19] The United States, United Kingdom and other western governments reacted to the seizure of Indochina with a freeze on assets, while the United States (which supplied 80% of Japan's oil[20]) overreacted, placing a complete oil embargo.[21] Thus Japan was essentially forced to choose between withdrawing from Asia, or seizing the oil she needed by force; the Japanese military did not consider the former an option, and many officers considered the oil embargo an unspoken declaration of war.[22]

The Imperial General Headquarters thus planned to create a large perimeter stretching into the Central Pacific in order to facilitate a defensive war while exploiting the resources of Southeast Asia; to prevent intervention while securing the perimeter it was further planned to neutralize the United States Pacific Fleet on the outset.[23] On December 7 Japan attacked British, Dutch and American holdings with near simultaneous offensives against Southeast Asia and the Central Pacific, including an attack on the American naval base of Pearl Harbor.[24]

These attacks prompted the United States, United Kingdom, and other Western Allies joined by China (already a belligerent), to formally declare war on Japan. Italy, Germany, and the other members of the Tripartite Pact responded by declaring war on the United States. In January, the United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union and China, along with twenty-two smaller or exiled governments, issued the Declaration by United Nations, affirming the Atlantic Charter. [25] The Soviet Union did not adhere to the declaration, maintaining a neutrality agreement with Japan[26] and exempting herself from the principle of self-determination.[16]

Meanwhile, by the end of April, 1942, Japan had almost fully conquered Burma, Philippines, Malaya, Dutch East Indies, Singapore,[27] inflicting severe losses on Allied troops and taking a large number of prisoners. They also achieved naval victories in the South China Sea, Java Sea and Indian Ocean[28] and bombed the Allied naval base at Darwin, Australia. The only real success against Japan was a reverse at renewed attack on Changsha in early January, 1942.[29] The easy victories over unprepared opponents left Japan severely overconfident, as well as very overextended.

Germany retained the initiative as well. Exploiting dubious American naval command decisions, the U-boat arm sunk significant resources off the American Atlantic coast.[30] Despite this, an American admiral was placed in charge of more experienced Canadian escort forces, which carried out more of this duty in the Atlantic than the U.S. for the duration of the war. In the desert, the Germans launched an offensive in January, pushing the British back to positions at the Gazala Line by early February,[31] followed by a temporary lull in combat which Germany used to prepare for their upcoming offensives.[32]

Any comments and/or editing are warmly welcomed. --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:55, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Let me see...
Thanks ever so much, on behalf of every Canadian on WP! (Now that's out of the way, we can get to the real issues... ;D)
"majority Axis troops tied down on Eastern Front the United Kingdom got an opportunity to regroup." Maybe not what you intended, but that suggests a direct causal link. As I understand Hitler's approach to the desert war, it was more sideshow; if Britain got a break, AFAIK, there were other reasons. (I'd list Brit interdiction of DAK supplies as a higher probability.) Which doesn't exclude my not knowing enough about it & getting it wrong...
"improved their strategic position against the Americans and British" Absent the source in front of me, that makes me wonder. Involvement in Indochina left her SLOCs vulnerable, if there was war with Brits or Dutch, but not U.S. (absent an attack at Pearl, not yet a given), & drew attention from attacking SU, which wasn't settled in top Japanese command (at that moment, & IIRC), so there's some "presumptiveness". If your source confirms the "improved position" re SLOCs, I can live with the 2d being omitted; it's a bit of a tightrope to tell what happened knowing the outcome & still leave off any presupposition it had to happen that way (which this seems to, a bit).
"In July, Japan...Pearl Harbor". I'd reorganize a bit. IGHQ wanted to isolate ROC, & Indochina, the "move south", & the attack at Pearl were all, one way or another, in service of that. I'd mention that first, then the "barrier" defense & the theory of holding the "southern resource area" (maybe something about how this needed good ASW, which IJN was incompetent to provide; too much operational detail?), then go to entry to Indochina & the embargo (&, if it was solely up to me, something about how somebody high in FDR's admin goofed by tightening it down too much; I'll have to have a look at my sources to see if I can find where that was raised), then the attacks.
Delete Darwin; insufficiently significant in the grand scheme of events, IMO.
Delete ref the Bomb; it's too early for it. (Did I ask for it here? Oops. It should be in, but maybe not in here.)
Agreed, far too little on SU/EF. I don't think ignoring the geopolitics or the treaties is a solution, tho; at this level of abstraction, it's the moves of govts, not armies, that really pertains.
It may not be in play yet, but better coverage of the Atlantic is warranted, IMO (& not just to give more credit to RCN, tho they deserve it! =]). As much as I'm interested in the PTO/CBI, a de-emphasis of Japan might be in order, & better coverage of EF is a must.
Some possible changes?
"Western Allies, joined by China (already a belligerent), to formally declare war on Japan."
"Japan, hoping to capitalize on Germany's success in Europe, made demands of the Netherlands (including a steady supply of oil from the Dutch East Indies), Britain (to close the Burma Road), and France (control of French Indochina), with a view to isolating China. When the Dutch refused, Imperial General Headquarters planned to create a large perimeter stretching into the Central Pacific in order to facilitate a defensive war (which depended on commerce defense IJN was incompetent to provide),[33] while exploiting the resources of Southeast Asia involved war with Britain, which IJN (wrongly) believed would inevitably involve the U.S., also.[34] To prevent U.S. intervention in this process, Japan planned to attack the Philippines (to protect the sea lanes south) and neutralize the Pacific Fleet at the outset.[35] Br, Du, & U.S. reacted to the seizure of Indochina with a freeze on assets, while the United States (which supplied 80% of Japan's oil) overreacted, placing a complete oil embargo.[36] Thus Japan was essentially forced to choose between withdrawing from Asia, or seizing the oil she needed by force; the Japanese military did not consider the former an option, and many officers considered the oil embargo an unspoken declaration of war.[37]" Questions: is "80% Japan's oil" confirmed? (IIRC, it's not quite so simple.) Is it worth mentioning, as Toland does (Japan's War, I think), the embargo was much like putting a gun to Japan's head, & no nation would acquiesce under those conditions? Was the attack at Pearl designed to protect "securing the perimeter", or part of the barrier def per se? (I don't recall from Willmott, but they seem interrelated IIRC.)
"By the end of April 1942, Japan had almost fully conquered Burma, the Philippines, Malaya, Dutch East Indies, & Singapore,[38] and achieved a significant naval victory in the Java Sea.[39] The only real Allied success against Japan was a reverse at Changsha in early January 1942[29] The easy victories over unprepared opponents left Japan severely overconfident, as well as very overextended."
I'm trying to hit the highlights for Japan, but leave room for expanded SU coverage, without going over a relatively equal length. I don't say that's essential, but if we try to keep it tight, we can't do more than hit the high spots, which is beneficial for coherence; otherwise, we can swamp the reader in detail which properly belongs in the daughter articles.
I'm not entirely sure deleting sinking PoW/Repulse & Hermes makes sense, since they're usually included in histories of the Pacific War, but...
Comment? TREKphiler hit me ♠ 21:25, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
Starting from the end...
I tried to follow your comments and probably I misunderstood them. To my opinion, Darwin, Prince of Wales, Repulse etc should be in the article, so I would propose to leave the original sentence unchanged. I agree that strategic implication of the former and, probably, the latter wasn't significant, however, it makes sense to live those events in the article because they are recognizable hallmarks for majority readers (provided that it takes not too much space). In addition, Darwin is a direct reference to Australian participation in the war.
I personally don't like too frequent usage of definitions "Allies" and "Axis" instead of concrete country name. I think that the phrase: "the Soviets defeated German, Italian and Romanian troops in Stalingrad" is much more informative than "Allies defeated Axis...". It was not the "raid of Allied commandos on strategic targets", but the British-Canadian raid, and that were not Allied troops pushed back in Egypt, but British troops. Peoples are lazy, and they don't like to click on a hyperlinks.
Regarding to your other comments, I'll try to respond a little bit later. Regards, --Paul Siebert (talk) 03:42, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
I agree with most your other comments and I included them into the text. Please check if I did it correctly.
Diplomacy. I only meant wordy description of the Atlantic Charter etc. sounds ridiculous. The present version tells literally the following: "Germany invaded SU but was pushed slightly back. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The US, along with Eur Allies issued Atlantic Charter and formally declared a war on Axis. The Axis Powers, however, were able to continue their offensives". I think, you agree that however is absolutely stupid.
As regard to causal link between Eastern Front and the UK. That was exactly what I meant. I looked through old newspapers (July-August 1941) and I concluded that it was a common impression among peoples in 1941 that the whole war had moved East. For instance, the first article I cite states clearly that "Germany's best troops deeply embroiled in Russia", while the second article states the balance in Atlantic and Mediterranean to change dramatically after Hitler invaded the USSR.
Definitely, there is a strong causal link there. This sentence is also needed because it should be stated explicitly that during 1941-1945 more than a half of Axis troops (whole Axis, not only European) fought against SU. That is especially important now, when the articles of that kind started to appear http://online.wsj.com/article/SB111560605185327917.html?mod=todays_us_opinion. I recommend to pay your attention to that:"When America in response entered the world conflagration, the Nazis had already been fighting Britain for 27 months and the Soviet Union for over five -- and seemed days away from knocking the Russians out of the war. The ascendant Reich and its Axis protectorates stretched from the Arctic Circle to the Sahara Desert and from the English Channel to near the suburbs of Moscow, gobbling up more territory in three years than had Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon in their entire bloody careers.
Just three-and-a-half years after America's abrupt entry into the war the Nazis were not merely checked or defeated -- but rather annihilated in one of the most brutal and extraordinary military achievements in history."
The best example of a wrong causal link I ever know. First, those statements are simply factually incorrect: exhausted Germans were ordered to halt on that same day when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. By that moment, the Soviets had already killed more Germans than Americans did by the end of the war. And, even after America entered the war, the most brutal and extraordinary military achievements in history took place generally with minor American participation (El-Alamein (1st and 2nd), Tobruk, Moscow, Stalingrad, Malta, Kursk, Smolensk, Leningrad, Sevastopol, Dnieper, Dieppe, Bagration, Vistula-Oder, Budapest, Praha, Yugoslavia, Berlin etc. Of course, Midway, Guadalcanal, Ivo Jima or Bulge can be credited mostly to Americans, but that is not a reason to deny (much greater) contribution of others.)
The most grievous, that article appeared in respectable Wall Street Journal.
Therefore, it's extremely important to show a real causal links. --Paul Siebert (talk) 20:08, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
80% of Japanese oil. I checked it, that's correct. I also provided the appropriate reference. I think it has already been stated in the article clearly that the US left almost no choice for Japan, so we don't need to make additional emphasis on that. (Otherwise, Japan will look like an innocent lamb, that is not absolutely correct).--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:49, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
"Atlantic Charter" Agreed.
Repulse et al." I'm split on that one, myself. I don't think they're important enough, but I don't think they're trivial, either. Darwin I think is getting undue weight, tho; I'd rather see mention of Kokoda, RAAF/RNZAF, & Oz Army in DEI toward the end in PTO, plus the Ozzies at Singapore (18h Inf, IIRC) & Tobruk. Those actually amounted to something; Darwin was about as important to Allied strategy as...retaking Kiska. (And the Aleutians ops diverted submarines to no good purpose. And cost two fleet boats! Not to mention about 50 war patrols, enough for at least 200K tons of shipping.)
"Allies/Axis" No argument; I'm using it for brevity.
80%. Good. I've seen the number, just couldn't be sure from memory, or exactly where I saw it.
"causal link" I won't defend that "U.S. entry =victory" by any means. (Bear in mind it's a U.S. source, & when have U.S. sources been unbiased about the U.S. contribution? =]) I do wonder if truck production in U.S., & Lend Lease of it to SU, had more influence than generally credited, but if you wanted to say the Red Army could defeat the Germans alone, I wouldn't put up a (strong) fight. What I mean is, it wasn't direct causation. There were enough divisions in France to spare one or two for DAK without affecting deployments to EF (where they weren't being sent anyhow), & Hitler was never going to let NAfr dictate what did/didn't go to EF. As it stands (here), I get the sense the opposite is true. Maybe I'm misreading you.
I'll have a glance & see if there's anything I think needs changing. My last look, it was pretty good. TREKphiler hit me ♠ 19:42, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I think we should leave it as it is, because, besides strategic implication, sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse was a psychological shock for Britain. In addition, they were the first capital ships sank by the air attack solely. Darwin is the only direct mentioning of Australian participation in the War.
  • Do you think it should be like that:In November, Commonwealth forces launched a counter-offensive in the desert, relieving a besieged Tobruk and reclaiming all gains the Germans and Italians had made.[40] ?
  • As regards to "causal link etc", I fully agree. By the way, I re-worded this sentence, leaving only the notion about 3/4 of axis troops in th east: Sapienti sat.
    I only would like to do a couple notes. According to Glantz (and, ironically, some German and most Soviet sources available for me) after winning the Battle of Moscow the Soviets really were able to win the war fighting alone. Therefore, on that same day when Japan attacked Perl Harbour the outcome of the war had already been pre-determined, although that happened not in the Pacific, but at another side of the globe. However, that doesn't mean the US had no relation to that. Apparently, the Japan's decision not to attack the USSR comes from the American oil embargo (I found that in the paper about 80% of Japanese oil), and would this attack happen in 1941, it could be a straw that broke a camel's back. Therefore, the American contribution into the war was immense, although it was not a military contribution.
    The Stalin's demands to open Second front come from their unwillingness to let the US and UK to sit aside and to see how Germany and the USSR devastate and exhaust each other, because after that the victorious USSR would be too weak to dictate to anybody the conditions for a post-war peace. According to Glantz's estimates, without Allies' military participation and lend-lease the war would last one more year and the USSR would suffer proportionally higher losses, although in that case Soviet soldiers would finish the war in Brest. However, lend-lease has no relation to this concrete section, because the appreciable amount of help started to arrive to the USSR in 1942 only.
    I think, we should continue at the bottom of the talk page.
    Regards, --Paul Siebert (talk) 00:38, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Title

I vote that we change the title of both the World War I and World War II titles be changed to First World War and Second World War. To me World War I and II make these wars sound like video games, rather than serious events. What do you guys think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gregcaletta (talk • contribs) 05:15, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

A great number of historians use the term "World War II", just as a great number of historians use "Second World War". The difference is largely American English usage vs British English usage. Per WP:ENGVAR, article titles or the text within them should not be altered from one to the other after one has been established. This article has been around for quite a few years under this title, and so should not be changed. Parsecboy (talk) 13:01, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
Resolved

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The war becomes global, one more version

I rearranged the version above to make an interconnection between different theatres, as well as between concurrent events, more clear. Please, comment if it is readable.

On June 22, 1941 Germany, along with other European Axis members and Finland, invaded the Soviet Union. The primary objectives of this surprise offensive[41] were the Baltic region, Moscow and Ukraine with an ultimate goal to end campaign of 1941 near the line connecting Caspian and White Seas, that would eliminate the Soviet Union as a military power and enable Germany to defy British blockade and to secure oil and food supplies for years.[42]. Although before the war the Red Army was preparing for a strategic offensive, "Barbarossa"' forced Stavka to adopt a strategic defence. During the summer, Axis made significant gains into Soviet territory, inflicting immense losses in personnel and matériel, however by the middle of August, German OKH decided to suspend the offensive of a considerably depleted Army Group Center, and to divert a part of its armored force to reinforce troops advancing toward central Ukraine and Leningrad[43]. The Kiev offensive was overwhelmingly successful, resulting in encirclement and elimination of four Soviet armies, and made further advance into Crimea and industrially developed Eastern Ukraine possible.

The diversion of three quarters of Axis troops and majority of air forces from France and central Mediterrain to the East[44][45] prompted the United Kingdom to reconsider her grand stategy.[46] In July, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union formed a military alliance against Germany[47] and shortly after jointly invaded Iran to secure the Persian Corridor and Iran's oilfields.[48] In August, the United Kingdom and the United States jointly issued the Atlantic Charter.[16] In November, Commonwealth forces launched a counter-offensive in the desert, reclaiming all gains the Germans and Italians had made.[49]

Japan, hoping to capitalize on Germany's success in Europe, made several demands, including a steady supply of oil, from the Dutch East Indies; these talks, however, broke down in June.[50] In July, Japan seized military control of southern Indochina since it would not only put her in a better position to coerce the Dutch East Indies into yielding, but it would also be a blow against China; should war be necessary, it also improved their strategic position against the Americans and British.[51] The United States, United Kingdom and other western governments reacted to the seizure of Indochina with a freeze on assets, while the United States (which supplied 80% of Japan's oil[52]) responded by placing a complete oil embargo.[53] Thus Japan was essentially forced to choose between withdrawing from Asia, or seizing the oil she needed by force; the Japanese military did not consider the former an option, and many officers considered the oil embargo an unspoken declaration of war.[54] The Imperial General Headquarters thus planned to create a large perimeter stretching into the Central Pacific in order to facilitate a defensive war while exploiting the resources of Southeast Asia; to prevent intervention while securing the perimeter it was further planned to neutralize the United States Pacific Fleet on the outset.[55]

By October, when Axis operational objectives in Ukraine and the Baltic region were achieved, with only Leningrad[56] and Sevastopol resisting in sieges[57] a major offensive against Moscow had been renewed. After two months of fierce battles, the German army almost reached Moscow suburbs, where the exhausted troops were ordered to go on the defensive.[58] Despite impressive territorial gains, no strategic goals of the war had been fully accomplished: two major Soviet cities hadn’t been captured, Red Army's capability to resist was not broken, and the Soviet Union retained a considerable part of its military potential. The blitzkrieg phase of WWII in Europe had ended.[59]

On December 7, freshly mobilized reserves [60] allowed the Soviets to achieve numerical parity with Axis troops[7]. This, as well as intelligence data that established a minimal amount of Soviet troops in the East sufficient to prevent Japanese Kwantung Army from the attack[61], allowed the Soviets to launch a massive counter-offensive along 1000 km front, although it was halted soon after Axis troops were pushed 100-250 km west[62][63].

On that same day, December 7, Japan attacked British, Dutch and American holdings with near simultaneous offensives against Southeast Asia and the Central Pacific. These included an attack on the American naval base of Pearl Harbor and landings in Thailand and Malaya.

These attacks prompted the United States, United Kingdom, other Western Allies and China (already a belligerent), to formally declare war on Japan. Germany and the other members of the Tripartite Pact responded by declaring war on the United States. In January, the United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, China and twenty-two smaller or exiled governments issued the Declaration by United Nations which affirmed the Atlantic Charter. [64] The Soviet Union did not adhere to the declaration, and maintained a neutrality agreement with Japan[65] and exempted herself from the principle of self-determination.[16]

Meanwhile, by the end of April, 1942, Japan had almost fully conquered Burma, Philippines, Malaya, Dutch East Indies, Singapore,[66] inflicting severe losses on Allied troops and taking a large number of prisoners. They also achieved naval victories in the South China Sea, Java Sea and Indian Ocean[67] and bombed the Allied naval base at Darwin, Australia. The only real success against Japan was a reverse at renewed attack on Changsha in early January, 1942.[29] The easy victories over unprepared opponents left Japan severely overconfident, as well as very overextended.

Germany retained the initiative as well. Exploiting dubious American naval command decisions, the U-boat arm sunk significant resources off the American Atlantic coast.[68] Despite this, an American admiral was placed in charge of more experienced Canadian escort forces, which carried out more of this duty in the Atlantic than the U.S. for the duration of the war. Despite severe losses, European Axis members stopped Soviet offensive in Central and Southern Russia.[44] In North Africa, the Germans launched an offensive in January, pushing the British back to positions at the Gazala Line by early February,[69] followed by a temporary lull in combat which Germany used to prepare for their upcoming offensives.[70]

Any comments and/or editing are warmly welcomed.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:11, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I have the following comments:
  • I'd strongly suggest getting rid of the period references from the New York Times - we now have 60 years of hindsight which journalists at the time didn't have and any number of excellent reference books to cite, so there's no need to use such potentially outdated sources. I can provide references from Weinberg or the Oxford Companion to the Second World War if that would help.
  • "overreacted" is POV and should be changed to "responded by"
  • Japan actually landed in Malaya a few hours before Peal Harbor, so I'd suggest that the relevant sentence be amended and expanded to: "On that same day, December 7, Japan attacked British, Dutch and American holdings with near simultaneous offensives against Southeast Asia and the Central Pacific. These included an attack on the American naval base of Pearl Harbor and landings in Thailand and Malaya.
  • I'd suggest that the 7th para read: "These attacks prompted the United States, United Kingdom, other Western Allies and China (already a belligerent), to formally declare war on Japan. Germany and the other members of the Tripartite Pact responded by declaring war on the United States. In January, the United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, China and twenty-two smaller or exiled governments issued the Declaration by United Nations which affirmed the Atlantic Charter. [71] The Soviet Union did not adhere to the declaration, and maintained a neutrality agreement with Japan[72] and exempted herself from the principle of self-determination.[16] "
  • "In the desert" should be "in North Africa" Nick Dowling (talk) 02:28, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I use NYT for one, although very important reason. When I compared war time publications with majority present day articles I found a strong drift towards overemphasising war efforts of the US and (in smaller extent) the UK (of course, that is quite inderstandable, taking ito account the post war events, Cold War, uncovering of Stalin's crimes etc, however that has no direct realtion to the WWII history). The difference is so dramatic that works of Glantz, Overy, and similar reasonable historians hardly balance it. That is why it is useful to go back and to look at the war with contemporary's eyes. And, note, I use old NYT in parallel with the more recent time sources, for instance, the NYT article, Aug 5, tells that majority Axis forces went East, whereas D.Glantz's work I cited provides exact numbers to prove that statement. However, if you can provide additional sources, it would be great.
    As regards to your other comments, I generally agree.
  • "Responded by" sounds more balanced. Agree.
  • The question whether few hours difference is small enough to consider events "simultaneous" belongs to Special Theory of Relativity rather than to history :), however, your version looks good, so I see no problem with that change.
  • The major difference is a removal direct mentioning of Italy? Agree.
  • "In desert" comes from the present version. "In North Africa" is more precise. Agree.
    I also would like to obtain your comment on the major change I did. As you can see, I changed the way events are presented in from theatre-wise to chronological. It seems to very useful, because, for instance shows that Perl Harbour and Moscow counter-offensive were simultaneous events. However, frankly, I am not sure if the new version is readable. Could you please compare the last version with the previous one (at that talk page) and tell me what seems better?
    Best regards,--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:32, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I like the new structure - it reads well, and highlights the fact that this was a truly global war.
  • Using such old references in such a high-level article isn't appropriate IMO as the journalists didn't have the knowledge of events which we have now (eg, they could have known nothing about code breaking, Soviet and German defeats which were covered up, internal politics in any of the major countries, war production and the extent of Gulag system and Holocaust as just a few examples) and there are literally thousands of scholarly history books and articles which provide a better appreciation of these events which we should steer readers towards. The limitations of these references is illustrated by only a NYT story being used to reference the statement that "the United Kingdom was given an opportunity to regroup" in July 1941 - this is basically true, but given that we now know that the Germans were greatly expanding the size of their submarine force and slowly reinforcing North Africa at this time and these factors brought Britain dangerously close to defeat in the Atlantic and North Africa at several times in 1942/43 a better source should be referenced. Nick Dowling (talk) 12:04, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
I though it was clear that the sentence was telling about the period starting from June 1941 to the end of Crusader. That was a gap between two happy times and during that time the UK achieved considerable successes in Africa, so I don't see any contradiction with newer data there. Deployement of the major part of Hitler's army to east didn't automatically mean Germany abandoned another theatres and that she hadn't expand her forces in Africa and Athlantic later. However, I can introduce additional source if that one rises your concern. --Paul Siebert (talk) 16:01, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
I've just tweaked this bit of the article as the statement that Barbarossa's goals were to "eliminate the Soviet Union as a military power and enable Germany to defy British blockade and to secure oil and food supplies for years" was missing the racial motivation of the invasion. As well as the above economic and military reasons, Hitler also decided to invade the USSR to begin the process of replacing the native population with German settlers. I've added a reference to Ian Kershaw to support this - at present the NYT story was the only citation supporting that sub-sentance. Nick Dowling (talk) 11:39, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Good point. I wasn't satisfied with that phrase too, it is much better now. However, it seems not completely correct: it sounds like Russians are not Slavs. In actuality, they are not pure Slavs, with considerable admixture of Turkish and Ugic blood. However, linguistically and psicologically they are Slavs. Therefore, it looks like: "native Anglo-Saxon and American population..."
I would also like to mention one more consequence of German invasion. In contrast to Japan with her comparatively weak economy, the only limitation for Germany's military capabilities was an access to resources. In other words, even unlimited assess to oil, iron ore, coal, food, etc would be insufficient for Japan to defeat the US (they, actually, never planned to do that), whereas United Nazi Europe was potentally able to win the Allies, provided that the Soviet Union is destroyed and the Europe (from Brest to Ural) is under Nazi's control. I think, it makes sence to mention that. --Paul Siebert (talk) 12:16, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks Paul. I've just tweaked the words a bit further to clarify that these were Hitler's objectives. Nick Dowling (talk) 10:33, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
That is better, although it probably makes sense to mention directly that the remaining Hitler's rivals were Britain and America. As regards to America, there is no mentioning that Hitler planned to attack her, although in more distant future, so the present version may looks like Germany declared a war on the US because of Pearl Harbour only (that, according to the article, was primarily a result of an oil embargo). --Paul Siebert (talk) 14:12, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
The sentance is already very long, so combining the various countries Hitler was fighting keeps it simple. Given that the US was neutral in late 1940 when the decision to invade the USSR was made and was still neutral in June 1941 when the attack occured it's confusing mentioning the US here I think. Nick Dowling (talk) 22:46, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Date: Official beginning of WWII

If the 1939 date is used, then the title of this essay should be World War II in Europe, since Japan was at war before that time and continued until its defeat in 1945.

Norm

=====

Out of respect to the 45,000 Canadian soldiers who died in WW2, could it perhaps be noted that Canada, as an independent nation, declared war on Germany one week after Britain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.27.4.78 (talk) 15:49, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry if this has been discussed before. In the info box it says the war began on Sep 1 ("September 1, 1939 – September 2, 1945"). Shouldn't this be Sep 3 to reflect the official declaration of war by the first Allies?

Cf. entry for September_3, "World War II begins when France, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia declare war on Germany after the invasion of Poland, starting the Allies"?

Other sources concur: http://wwarii.com/blog/archives/world-war-ii-history-for-september-3, http://www.feldgrau.com/september.html

87.234.117.145 (talk) 21:02, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

You may want to read through the Start date discussion archive to see why the 1st was chosen over the 3rd. Parsecboy (talk) 21:43, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler

I think this book is extremely important & should be added somewhere in the article because it shows how USA had a huge part in the rise of Hitler & helped cause World War II: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Wall_Street_Rise_Hitler.html Stars4change (talk) 05:36, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

this article is delieberately trying to make chinese look weak, its biased.

Unfortunately for China it was weak; that was the problem. Also, and imho this should be noted, is the well-documented allegation that Mao desperately avoided fighting the Japanese (despite orders from Stalin that he do so) so that the Nationalists would be weakened and he could take over as he did. I refer you to "Mao: the unknown story" by Jung Chang. ASM —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.27.4.78 (talk) 16:02, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

imao look at the article, before i added a picture of chinese soldiers there was only an "imperial japanese army soldiers" picture, plus chinese civilians being buried in a delibereate slant in trying to make the chinese army and contribution nonexistent, and perpuating the myth that the americans fought the entire war for china.ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ (talk) 00:01, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

No, it's not. The reason there wasn't a photo of Chinese soldiers is because we deliberately decided to limit the total number of photos altogether. This was to avoid overcrowding (to see an example of what we were/are trying to avoid can be found here: Invasion of Poland (1939). How it became FA looking like that is beyond me, but that's another question.) and text sandwiching. That the Chinese military was omitted was not an intentional slight on China; there aren't any pictures of any Commonwealth military (excepting the UK, of course) either, nor any of Finnish, Yugoslavian, Romanian, Greek, etc. There just isn't room for everyone. Parsecboy (talk) 00:19, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
To your opinion, what concrete events of Sino-Japanese war (in addition to Battle of Changsha (1942)) deserve mentioning in the "War Becomes Global" section? Note, majority editors do not consider the losses sustained by certain country to be a measure of her military contribution. Otherwise, more than 50% of space should be devoted to the Eastern front ~30% to South-East Asia, and other theatres would take the remaining space. Therefore, only the events having a considerable effect on the course of the war should be mentioned in the article. If you have any idea about such events during a period of June 1941 - April 1942, let's discuss it, because I am polishing the "The War becomes Global" now. When I finish with this section I plan to start with others, so if you have any ideas on this account it would be fine. However, I don't think showing a picture of Japanese soldier fighting in China to be a bias against China and vise versa. The bias is possible to or against the theatre, not a belligerent.
I am not a specialist in Chinese history, therefore if I am not right, please, correct me. My understanding of the Chinese military contribution is as follows. By 1941, China was almost defeated by technically more advanced Japanese army and the situation there was essentially similar to that in France by June 22 1940, or to a hypothetical situation in the USSR, would the Germans manage to capture Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad. In other words, any ordinary country would surrender in that situation, but Chinese refused to do that. Of course, the heavily damaged country was not in position to mount a series of massive counter-offensives during 1941-1945, therefore Chinese military contribution is overshadowed by more spectacular and impressive battles in Pacific and Europe. However, even during 1941-45 China remained to be a very important factor, because it was tying down more than a half of all Japanese land forces. Without Chinese resistance, a simultaneous attack of the USSR by Germany and Japan would be highly probable, for instance, that would lead to a fast defeat of the Soviets, and consequences of that would be terrible. Therefore, although there were almost no spectacular events during 1941-45 in China, the very fact of Chinese resistance is of paramount importance. I think, the best way to reflect that fact is to extend the "War in China" section and to explain how the stubborn Chinese resistance affected the course of the war in Pacific, in South Asia and, ultimately, in a global scale.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:57, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

has the discussion about the date already taken place? the date is totally wrong if you want to say its global. 1. japan invaded china much earlier, but then you can say it wasn"t "Global" 2. Japan attacked the USA in 1941, and then it became "global"

so i dont see why the european date qualifies, i know someone will lecture me on how the discussion has taken place already but im just saying this anyway.ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ (talk) 22:39, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the rather lengthy series of discussion about the start date can be found here. Parsecboy (talk) 23:01, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
A short summary of that discussion is as follows. There are several dates that can be considered a start date of WWII. None of them are fully appropriate, and the conventional date is least inappropriate date. I, for instance, proposed to use the conventional date and, in addition to that, to state explicitly that most major belligerents entered the war before or after this date, namely, Marco Polo, Barbarossa and Pearl Harbour. Therefore, I see no reason to think the article to be biased in the start date context. The Marco-Polo cannot be considered a start date of WWII in global scale because without Germany no world war would be possible. In other words, if we imagine Hitler was assassinated in 1938, Sino-Japanese war would remain a very large scale, but, nevertheless, a regional war. However, I fully agree that the sections "War in China" and "The War Breaks Out" should be expanded, the events in China should be presented in more details and at least one more picture devoted to the events in China should be added.
It is worth mentioning, by the way, that military contribution of the Finns, Romanians, Greeks and similar second range belligerents cannot be compared with that of China. Therefore, the Parsecboy's analogy seems not completely correct. --Paul Siebert (talk) 23:27, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
I was referring to images in the article, not the text itself. Unless there is significant expansion (i.e., at least a solid paragraph or two), I don't think any more images should be added. Text sandwiching and image overcrowding just aren't professional looking, and that's what we're striving for, right? Parsecboy (talk) 02:32, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

i found this comment in the archive- "WWII basically went global in early September 1939. That's when it really started. It's as simple as that. Every single continent was involved at that point, therefore this is the true start date for the second world war. CadenS (talk) 10:57, 27 June 2008 (UTC) "

no one bothered correcting him, he was totally wrong btw. Antartctica had no government so theres no way a bunch of penguins would have gotten involved, plus he forgot that BOTH american continents werent involved too. ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ (talk) 02:41, 26 September 2008 (UTC)


"Of course, the heavily damaged country was not in position to mount a series of massive counter-offensives during 1941-1945, therefore Chinese military contribution is overshadowed by more spectacular and impressive battles in Pacific and Europe. "

What is of importance is the guerilla warfare carried out by the chinese communist guerilla forces during that time that held up the japanese troops in northern china. the nationalists fought only the battles that the japanese wanted to fight,(meaning that they fought when the japanese attacked only) and during the end of the war it did happen, that the japanese attempted to launch offensives into china, they succeded in destryoing US airforce bases in hunan but failed to defeat the nationalists in chonqqing, and they were forced back.ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ (talk) 04:21, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

No, it was not just the Communists who were important in tying up Japanese forces. The Japanese were very much aware of the large number of standing Nationalist forces and they devoted much effort to countering the threat. Both the Communist and the Nationalist forces can take credit for stalling the Japanese in China. Binksternet (talk) 05:09, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
I think the same editor said above "In other words, any ordinary country would surrender in that situation, but Chinese refused to do that." Please understand that many things are known by the people you are talking to that cannot be said at length, that is, with too much space in this one article. How can we fit a whole war in one article? Some things must be said in a very compact (tight and small) way. Shenme (talk) 04:37, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

if world war 2 meant conducted on a global scale, then its pearl harbor that dragged the last of the countries to declare war into the war, AND the 2 last inhabited continents by humans to be involved.ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ (talk) 04:24, 26 September 2008 (

Please read the talk archives that were pointed out to you. I think you are repeating arguments mentioned there. Shenme (talk) 04:37, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I see I have to explain something. I had no intentions to understate Chinese war efforts. I am just trying to explain the origin of the anti-Chinese bias. To my understanding, it stems form the fact that, as I already pointed out, there were almost no spectacular battles in China during 1941-1945 to tell about. In contrast, in Pacific, Japan and the USA used hi-tec weaponry and fought for tropical islands that have sonorous names and occupiy large, although almost empty territory. Obviously, it is much easier to tell a story about the war in Pacific than about the undecisive seesaw in China (although the role the latter was, probably, greater than that of the former). Therefore, the story about the Japanese-American war takes too much space because it is more captivating reading, not because of any anti-Chineese bias.
The second question is, whether the war in Asia/Pacific deserves so much attention. Let me remind you that many serious historians consider European theatre of war to be much more important than the Pacific. The reason is quite obvious: both from military and economical points of view Nazi Germany was the major Axis member, therefore, German victory would mean the Axis victory, whereas Japan alone had no capability to defeat even the USA (and even never planned to do that, by the way). Without the German help, Japan was doomed, because their major continental possessions, Manchuria and Korea, were extremely vulnerable, and the loss of these possessions would automatically mean a defeat of Japan, so neither Japanese naval domination, nor Pacific archipelagoes under Japanese control would save her if JIA is defeated in the continent. So my conclusion is that the role of Pacific/Asia is overstated and the role of China is relatively understated in this article. Since it is impossible to fit the whole WWII, then the most important events should be included, not the most gripping.
As regards to the moment when the war became global... People are probably too concentrated at geographical aspects. There are many others besides them. For instance, I would remind you that by the moment WWII started more than a half of Nobel prize winners lived in Germany... --Paul Siebert (talk) 13:30, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

  • The Americas were involved from 1939 due to the involvement of Canada, Newfoundland and British territories in South America where an early battle took place: Battle of the River Plate. I suppose that the main reason that China's part is understated is due to the lack of popular accounts of the conflict there, especially in the English language and media. Note, by the way, that Germany played a significant part in arming and training the Nationalist army. Colonel Warden (talk) 14:41, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

excuse did i say that germany was not involved in training the nationalist army? i know about the sino german cooperation article already......ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ (talk) 00:40, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

to the last person, note by the way,... if your advocating white supremacy, that it was the chinese who first invented gunpowder....ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ (talk) 00:41, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

and they invented guns and rockets to btw not that stupid myth that the chines only invented firecrackers with gunpowder.ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ (talk) 00:43, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

  • Please don't understand me so fast. I agree with your general point that the article should give good coverage to the Chinese theatre. The bit about the German military mission in China is significant because it is not well known and it shows how the sides in the conflict were not fixed or pre-determined. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:15, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

These are the major engagements in the chinese theatre....

ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ (talk) 00:54, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

To User:Paul Siebert, a little fact which may be interesting for your archives : according to Hikota Abe and Akira Yamada, in september 1943, the IJA still had only 5 of its 70 divisions in Oceania (little more than 200 000), the others where in China, Manchukuo and southeast Asia... --Flying tiger (talk) 03:34, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

  • To ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ. I never take into a consideration any supremacy of any race. My point was that before and during WWII Germany accumulated huge intellectual resources, excellent military skills and created, probably, the most advanced economy. Her only limiting factors were the lack of resources and the presence of the USSR, that made Germany vulnerable towards a sudden attack from the east. If Germany had been capable to eliminate the Soviets and seize the whole Europe (from Brest to Ural), this would be sufficient to continue the war against the UK and the US for very long time, and I am absolutely not sure the outcome of the war would be favorable for America. The war in Pacific doesn't add much to that. In contrast, the presence of fighting China at the Japanese backyard kept the latter form attack of the USSR that, probably, appeared critical during the operation Barbarossa and the battle of Stalingrad. Therefore, the Chinese factor was, probably, one of critical factors that affected the fate of whole WWII.
  • To Flying tiger. Thank you. I am aware of that. Even in 1941, the USSR kept about 30 division in Far East, and the amount of Japanese forces, opposing them, was about the same. The Japanese troops in Southern China were even larger. However, the small size of troops in Oceania could be also a result of Japanese limited capabilities to deploy them there. Anyway, the battles in Oceania were mostly naval, so additional divisions could hardly tip the balance there.
    Instead of arguing about Chineese contribution, we should think about concrete changes in the article that would reflect this contribution in more details, and explain its significance. --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:24, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

group

Maybe I'm missing something.....veterans from the axis powers were tried for war crimes, weren't they, as in the actual combatants and pows?.Rodrigue (talk) 18:58, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Also, don't forget the Nuremberg Trials, when the justices from the judicial branch of Germany were put on trial as well.

Octogenarian 1928 (talk) 19:30, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Typo in Background section

The Background section refers the Hitler's "Mein Kamph" instead of "Mein Kampf". As I am not autoconfirmed yet (semiprotected article), could somebody please correct this ? Adding a link might be helpful as well. Thanks. ThorstenSchroeteler (talk) 09:08, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I fixed it, thanks for pointing it out. Parsecboy (talk) 12:17, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Problems

Why don't you let us edit this page? There is a lot of wrong stuff here.

The estimates of total casulties are too big (why do they grow year by year?), and the writings about Holocaust like it was only a Jews-killing thing, is also wrong. The Holocaust includes killing of Jews, AND slaves AND communists AND gay-men AND mentaly disordered AND many, many others.

And it was not 12 millions who died in Holocaust, but 11 millions.

The details on other casulties are also not perfect. The soviet union lost 26,6 million people, not "around 27".

This is surely written with no sence of details what so ever. Let us be able to edit this page! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jarao (talk • contribs) 22:28, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

The casualty estimates are just that—estimates. It's unlikely exact figures will ever be known. As to the article's description of the Holocaust, it clearly says:
"The Nazis were responsible for the killing of approximately six million Jews (overwhelmingly Ashkenazi) as well as two million ethnic Poles and four million others who were deemed "unworthy of life" (including the disabled and mentally ill, Soviet POWs, homosexuals, Freemasons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Roma)"
Parsecboy (talk) 12:17, 14 October 2008 (UTC)


I agree with this proposal also 207.155.35.55 (talk) 23:41, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree the overall figures may be slightly on the high side. However I'm not sure estimates can be avoided for individual country/group losses. For example I can think of no way Soviet losses being described as 26.6 million could be guaranteed as accurate. After the war even the Soviets had to guestimate their losses 25 million being their best guess I believe. It's better to use 'about 27 million' as it makes clear to a reader that exact losses for several major countries (SU, China, Yugoslavia to name three) could not be definatively established and is no more or less accurate than 26.6 million . So I'd say best to leave figures like that as they are? Kurtk60 (talk) 18:15, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Finland, Baltic States and Poland in 1944

The article appears to miss or misinterpret the events in the Northeast European region in 1944. So I propose the following editing done:

[numbering added] Erikupoeg (talk) 10:20, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again for posting this here.
  1. I find the first sentence confusing - who illegally conscripted these men? (the Germans?)
  2. Also, how big a deal was this - based on the countries' small population and the massive scale of the war on the Eastern Front I suspect that it's not significant enough to include in this very, very high-level article.
  3. The second para looks good, though I'm not sure about describing the Soviet Union's stance as a 'surprise' is clear - who was surprised by this?
[numbering added] Nick Dowling (talk) 09:56, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
[Erikupoeg responses]
  1. The Germans did. How else could they have been among the German forces!
  2. It's not big in the number of troops involved, but it was one of the two decisive moments (the first being in the first Soviet occupation in 1940) of one of the major outcomes of the war - the dissappearance of the Baltic States from the World map.
  3. Take a look at the beginning of Warsaw Uprising#Soviet stance. Both the Home Army and the Germans were surprised, which means pretty much everybody involved, except Stalin.
[numbering added] Erikupoeg (talk) 11:18, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
The present version states: "and prompted Polish resistance forces to initiate several uprisings in Poland, though the largest of these, in Warsaw, was conducted without Soviet assistance and put down by German forces." In other words, the Polish uprising started, but the Soviets lent no support. (That is what took place in actuality, to my understanding).
  Eric's version states: "To establish independence ahead of the Soviets, the Polish Home Army initiated a series of uprisings against the German rule, with the biggest of them in Warsaw put down by the Germans due to the surprise Soviet stance in the outskirts of the city." In other words, this sentence implies that:
  • the Soviets planned to annex Poland following the occupation;
  • the Soviets promised to support the uprising, however, after it started they refused to do so.
  Both of these statements are wrong, however. First, situation with Poland was closer to that in France, than in Baltic countries: Poland was considered an Allies member since the beginning of WWII she even had the government in exile ("London Poles") that was recognized by most major Allies (except, probably, the USSR). Both Western allies and the USSR agreed that the sovereignty of Poland would have to be restored after WWII. So the disagreement between the western governments and Stalin was only about a composition of the new Polish government. In other words, the Polish uprising was aimed to gain some points in that political struggle, not to restore a sovereignty.
  Second. For those who initiated the uprising a significant political component of it was obvious. Therefore, they should expect it to be obvious for Stalin also. In other words, the "London Poles" had to consider a possibility of the surprise Soviet stance. It was surprising only from the military point of view.
  Therefore, I propose to leave the old version.
  As regards to the first sentence, it is not clear for me where does Eric propose to place it. I think, the most appropriate place would be the last paragraph of the "Allies gain momentum" section (end of the siege of Leningrad, Battle of Narva). Since the article tells nothing about Courland pocket, I see no other appropriate place. In addition, as I understood form the long discussion with Eric, the situation with Baltic countries during WWII is very complex and any attempt to fit it into a singe sentence would rise numerous questions (They were a. de jure neutral; b.fought on Hitler's side; c.were conscripted illegaly, although didn't resist the conscription and fought bitterly protecting their land against the Soviets, however, d. should not be considered an Axis' ally or even co-belligerent, and are not responsible for Hitler's crimes. (To Eric. Sorry if I reproduced something incorrectly)).
  On other hand, I agree that the sentence telling about Jassy–Kishinev Offensive and Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive should be split onto two separate sentences, although the latter setence is not completely clear. In addition, the Battle of Narva had also been mentioned in the previous section. --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:12, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
The Baltic States as sovereign powers did not exist in 1940 - 1991, therefore cannot be added among the belligerents. The nationally disposed citizens of the countries were illegally conscripted by Hitler, giving them no possibility to form a national army neither to join any other army than the SS. These troops had significant impact against the Soviets in the Battle of Narva (1944) and Courland Pocket.
   A new version of the Finland, 1944 statement: "The Finnish resistance in the Karelian Isthmus and the German repulsion of the Soviet offensive towards the Gulf of Finland, denied the occupation of the country.[75][76][77]" [Revision as of 17:55, October 30, 2008 User:Erikupoeg Erikupoeg]
Eric, could you please reproduce the whole "Allies close in" section as you see it? This would facilitate the discussion.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:36, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
Eric, could you please also sign your posts and not reply in the middle of other editors' posts? It's hard to see who's saying what, and when. Nick Dowling (talk) 21:55, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
I hope no one minds my reorganizing to facilitate understanding who said what :-) —PētersV (talk) 00:31, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Here you go:"The major assault against Romania resulted in the Soviet occupation of Romania, Bulgaria and the countries' shift to the Allies side.[78] The Finnish resistance in the Karelian Isthmus and the German repulsion of the Soviet offensive towards the Gulf of Finland, denied the occupation of the country.[75][76][77]" The rest can stay in its current state.--Erikupoeg (talk) 14:51, 31 October 2008 (UTC)09:16, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

  1. The last paragraph of the "Allies gain momentum" section tells:"In January, 1944, the Soviets expelled German forces from Leningrad suburbs thus ending the longest and the most lethal blockade in history. The subsequent Soviet offensive towards the Baltic ports was halted at the Estonian border for 8 months by the German Army Group North.[75]". It seems to me that in the version you propose the same events has been mentioned again, that may lead to confusion.
  2. "The Finnish resistance in the Karelian Isthmus" sounds odd because it is not clear to whom did Finns resist.
  3. I think the mentioning of the Moscow Armistice and the ref Wiktor, Christian L. Multilateral Treaty Calendar - 1648-1995, pg. 426 should be in the article.
    However, I believe in a couple iterations we can produce a piece of text that would satisfy both of us.
    Best regards,--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:42, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Alright, here's another version: "On June 22, the Soviets launched a strategic offensive in Belarus (known as "Operation Bagration") that resulted in the almost complete destruction of the German Army Group Centre.[83] Soon after that, another Soviet major strategic offensive forced the German troops from Ukraine and Eastern Poland. The major assault against Romania resulted in the Soviet occupation of Romania, Bulgaria and the countries' shift to the Allies side[84] and prompted Polish resistance forces to initiate several uprisings in Poland, though the largest of these, in Warsaw, was conducted without Soviet assistance and put down by German forces.[85] The Finnish resistance to the Soviet offensive in the Karelian Isthmus denied the Soviet occupation of Finland.[86][76] In October 1944, the Soviets launched a massive assault against Germany occupied Hungary that lasted until the fall of Budapest in February 1945.[87]"--Erikupoeg (talk) 16:49, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Iter #2. "On June 22, the Soviets launched a strategic offensive in Belarus (known as "Operation Bagration") that resulted in the almost complete destruction of the German Army Group Centre.[88] Soon after that, another Soviet major strategic offensive forced the German troops from Ukraine and Eastern Poland. Successful advance of Soviet troops prompted Polish resistance forces to initiate several uprisings in Poland, though the largest of these, in Warsaw, was conducted without Soviet assistance and put down by German forces.[89] The major assault against Romania resulted in almost complete destruction of the German troops there with subsequent Soviet occupation of Romania, Bulgaria and the countries' shift to the Allies side[90] In contrast, the bitter Finnish resistance to the Soviet offensive in the Karelian Isthmus denied the Soviet occupation of Finland and led to signing the armistice on relatively mild conditions.[91][76] In October 1944, the Soviets launched a massive assault against Germany occupied Hungary that lasted until the fall of Budapest in February 1945.[92]"
My rationale is as follows:

  • The Polish uprising was a consequence of Operation Bagration and Lvov-Sandomierz Offensive, not Jassy–Kishinev Offensive, so such a rearrangement restores the causal linkage.
  • The presence of considerable (half a million) German troops (that had been destroyed almost completely) deserves mentioning.
  • It seems to me that additional emphasis can be done on the difference between the resistance of the Finns and the Romanians (the former did that without any appreciable German help, by the way).
    In addition to that, I think the Slovak National Uprising also deserves mentioning here along with that of the Poles. What do you think about that?--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:58, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
Fine with me. Support adding a statement about Slovak National Uprising.--Erikupoeg (talk) 18:42, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
Here's a perhaps clearer version of the last section in WWII#Allies Gain Momentum:"In January, 1944, the Soviets expelled German forces from Leningrad suburbs, ending the longest and the most lethal blockade in history. The following Soviet offensive was halted in Narva by the German Army Group North.[75] Aided by the illegally conscripted Estonians hoping to re-establish national independence,[93] the German resistance hampered subsequent Soviet offensive operations in the Baltic Sea region until September 1944.[76]"--Erikupoeg (talk) 10:29, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
According to Occupation of Estonia by Nazi Germany large numbers of Estonians volunteered to serve in or alongside the German military in 1944 so I'd suggest dropping the reference to them being illegally conscripted as this aparently only applied to a minority of them (the Wikipedia link this points to also has nothing which indicates if or why this was illegal). The use of 'illegally conscripted' is also confusing as its not clear why such men would enthusiastically fight in the German army or how this could lead to national independence. The statement that "the German resistance hampered subsequent Soviet offensive operations in the Baltic Sea region until September 1944" seems questionable. David Glantz attributes the Soviet forces's lack of success to its officers and men not being trained or experienced in mobile warfare and the difficulty of operating in the northern winter (When Titans Clashed, pg 193) and the Soviets conducted successful offensives in Latvia and Lithuania in July 1944, which included briefly reaching the Baltic before a partially successful German counter-offensive re-opened a narrow and very vunerable line of communications with Army Group North at a considerable cost (When Titans Clashed, pgs 226-227). Also, the Soviets did more than just expel German forces from "Leningrad suburbs" as a fairly large area was recaptured. As such, I would suggest that the text read: "In January, 1944, the Soviets expelled German forces from the Leningrad area, ending the longest and the most lethal siege in history. The following Soviet offensive was halted in Narva by the German Army Group North aided by Estonians hoping to re-establish national independence. Nick Dowling (talk) 23:36, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

In the article, the Hague Conventions are not outlined, only linked. Section IV, Art. 44 of the 1907 Hague Convention states:"A belligerent is forbidden to force the inhabitants of territory occupied by it to furnish information about the army of the other belligerent, or about its means of defense." The Estonians were willing to defend their country against the Soviets, while they were: 1) conscripted in a general compulsory mobilization; 2) forced into the German Armed Forces against their demand to form co-belligerent national units, and 3) forced into the SS against their demand to join the regular forces instead. Of the Germany-occupied territories, Hitler exercised such conscription only in the Baltics, therefore they are not to be confused with the volunteers joining the SS in other occupied territories. These aspects make the German conscription in the Baltics unique, and is a major fact to point on the variety of the formations within the SS. Perhaps the point should be better explained in one of the sub-articles.
I agree, that the German resistance does not need to be pointed out in the statement. It's pretty obvious, the qualities of both sides had impact on the outcome. A major fact remains, that because of the stance in Narva, Soviet operations were hampered in the Baltic Sea region until September 1944, when the Soviet Armed Forces decisively broke through to the Baltic coast.
Therefore I suggest the following text:""In January, 1944, the Soviets expelled German forces from Leningrad suburbs, ending the longest and the most lethal blockade in history. Aided by the illegally conscripted Estonians hoping to re-establish national independence,[93] the Army Group North hampered subsequent Soviet offensive operations in the Baltic Sea region until September 1944.[76]

I don't agree with that wording as a) the Soviets did more than drive the Germans from the suburbs of Leningrad b) according to the Wikipedia article Estonian volunteers greatly outnumbered those who had been conscripted (it's interesting to see that the Government in exile actually called on the population to volunteer to fight alongside the Germans) and c) the Soviets mounted a successful offensive in the Baltic sea region in July. The German-Estonian force was successful in keeping the Soviets out of Estonia for over 6 months, but you seem to be miss-stating the force's composition and over-stating its achievement. Nick Dowling (talk) 07:50, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
I agree with your proposition about "Leningrad are". It may be replaced with "Leningrad oblast" for the sake of concreteness. I also that the Baltic Sea region may be too much. Just replace the Baltic Sea Region with the Baltic Sea, and it's correct. As far as the Estonian volunteers go, the article is erroneous and perhaps shouldn't be linked before corrected. While the Estonianse were willing to fight the Soviets, they cannot be considered as volunteers for the above listed reasons. They did not volunteer, but obeyed a compulsory conscription call, while they were denied their rights to form national units and forced into the SS. --Erikupoeg (talk) 09:19, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
  • "Oblast" is neither an English word, nor a well known foreign word, so and I see no reason to use it instead of "area". If you want administrative division of the USSR to be mentioned we can introduce a link, e.g.: "Leningrad area".
  • As regard to compulsory and illegaly conscripted volunteers, you seem to give undue weight to formal considerations. Let me remind you that, for instance, some Stalin's defender may argue that formally speaking Estonia entered the USSR voluntarily. Of course, no one takes that seriously, although some (flimsy) formal bases do exist for such a statement. Similarly, in that concrete case, everybody, including yourself (I got such a feeling), consider conscripted Estonians to be freedom fighters who obeyed "illegal conscription" voluntarily to protect their country (and, unfortunately, a Hitler's regime simultaneously). It is also clear that the Germans themselves also considered them volunteers, otherwise they would never deployed them on the strategically significant sector of Eastern Front.
    To my opinion, the problem is that you pursue intrinsically self-contradictory goal: a. to show that highly motivated Estonians fough bitterly during WWII against the Soviets b. to conceal as much as possible their voluntarily collaboration with Hitler. I admit that goal would be possible to achieve in a separate long, detailed and balanced article, but not in that one. Addition of few words or even phrases hardly clarify this very complicated issue, I would say, it even leads to more confusion. Therefore, I think, we should accept the Nick Dowling's version. --Paul Siebert (talk) 13:31, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree, that mentioning the legality of the conscription may cause confusion, so leave it out. However, it is not entirely correct to call them volunteers, so it's either Estonian conscripts or just Estonians. I also agree to Leningrad area. So the current version reads:""In January, 1944, the Soviets expelled German forces from Leningrad suburbs, ending the longest and the most lethal blockade in history. Aided by the Estonian conscripts hoping to re-establish national independence,[93] the Army Group North hampered subsequent Soviet offensive operations at the Baltic Sea until September 1944.[76] --Erikupoeg (talk) 15:29, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Again, the situation with Estonian participation in WWII is so complex that any attempt to describe it in few words or brief definition would be not completely correct. For me, Estonians is better, because if we call them "conscripts" the question appears why do we need to mention them explicitly (in contrast to other nationals fighting for Germany during WWII). And again, I agree with Nick Dowling that "area" is more correct. Therefore, we again come back to the Nick Dowling's version. I think the best way is to add to it that such a delay retarded subsequent Soviet advances in the Baltic region:
""In January, 1944, the Soviets expelled German forces from the Leningrad area, ending the longest and the most lethal siege in history. The following Soviet offensive was halted on the pre-war Estonian border by the German Army Group North aided by Estonians hoping to re-establish national independence. This delay retarded subsequent Soviet advances in the Baltic region."--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:29, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
Agree. --Erikupoeg (talk) 17:02, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
'Baltic region' is a an over-statement given that the Soviets over-ran much of Latvia and Lithuania in July and reduced the German holdings in these countries to a narrow and unsustainable strip along the coast (as illustrated by Image:BagrationMap2.jpg and the excellent map on pg 200 of When Titans Clashed). Otherwise that wording looks good, so I'd suggest In January, 1944, the Soviets expelled German forces from the Leningrad area, ending the longest and the most lethal siege in history. The following Soviet offensive was halted on the pre-war Estonian border by the German Army Group North aided by Estonians hoping to re-establish national independence. The Soviets did not resume their offensive in the Baltic area until the summer. Nick Dowling (talk) 22:34, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
I suggest the Baltic Sea, which does not mean Baltic states, but concentrates on the fact, that the Soviets were denied operations at the Baltic Sea until September 22. In the context of the article, the fact that the Soviet forces were denied from operations at the Baltic Sea until as late as September 22 1944 as the gateway to Finland and Germany, deserves to be stated. --Erikupoeg (talk) 08:05, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
No, that's not correct. The Soviet offensive in early 1944 caused the Finns to begin the process of getting out of the war, the Soviets followed this up with a broadly successful offensive against Finland in June which caused the Finns to eventually sue for peace in early August, and Soviet forces reached the Baltic in July and were only pushed slightly back from the coast, thereby securing most of the Baltic countries (including a large chunk of Estonia) and dooming Army Group North to being cut off or forced to evacuate. From checking extra sources, the Soviets actually crossed into Estonia in early 1944 and stayed there. The German defensive success in early 1944 didn't do much more than delay the Soviet conquest of Estonia. Nick Dowling (talk) 09:16, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Not correct. The Finnish ended their negotiations with the Soviet Union, as it was clear, the Soviets would not break through in Narva. After the Soviet Vyborg Offensive, they started negotiations again, while closely watching the course of events in Narva. They did not sign peace until they were convinced, that the Germans were gonna withdraw their forces from Narva. The Soviet breakthrough in Narva would have meant the capture of the port of Tallinn 83 km from the Finnish Capital Helsinki and probably an end to the Finnish campaign within weeks. The Soviets reached a beach of Riga Bay on July 31st, which had no naval meaning. The first naval base, the Soviets captured, was Tallinn on September 22. The battle of Narva was a major part of the Baltic Campaign for the access to the naval bases of the Baltic Sea. --Erikupoeg (talk) 09:41, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Yet again, the Soviets did nothing significant at the Baltic Sea before September 1944. The Soviets would have never thrown 150,000 men in to gain Estonia as a strategically insignificant spot of land. The battle was for Tallinn as the first port on the other side of the minefields in the Gulf of Finland, giving the Soviets a free hand for operations at the Baltic Sea. This needs to be pointed out in the article, replacing "Estonia" with "the Baltic Sea" --Erikupoeg (talk) 10:43, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

  • My two cents worth to Nick Dowling: This book Hitler, Dönitz, and the Baltic Sea examines the strategic importance of holding the Baltic states for the Germans: control of the Baltic Sea. Stalin knew it, and Narva was the key, when he ordered "It is mandatory that our forces seize Narva no later than 17 February 1944. This is required both for military as well as political reasons. It is the most important thing right now. I demand that you undertake all necessary measures to liberate Narva no later than the period indicated. (signed) I. Stalin". Had Stalin successfully taken Narva in February, it was an open road to the Naval facility at Tallinn, Finland would have quit earlier, and the Soviet Navy would have had open access to the Baltic Sea, disrupting iron ore shipments from Sweden and the U-boat bases where Dönitz was building the new generation U-boats Hitler had hoped to turn the tide of war. Martintg (talk) 05:08, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
I've just removed the words 'for 8 months' after 'This delay retarded subsequent Soviet operations at the Baltic Sea' as it is, once again, not correct to state this given what happened a few months after the Battle of Narva. The sentence now reads 'This delay retarded subsequent Soviet operations at the Baltic Sea region.', which is what Paul suggested and seems a good compromise to me. Nick-D (talk) 07:07, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Agree, as the article avoids presenting exact dates and numbers anyway. --Erikupoeg (talk) 07:38, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Great, it's good that we've got agreement. Thanks for fixing my bad grammar! Nick-D (talk) 09:17, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Allies close in

After several attempt to update the Allies close in section based on new changes proposed by Erikupoeg I realised that the section needs more revision. Here is a new version of that section where I tried to take into account the following:

  1. As far as the Warsaw Uprising has been mentioned, few words should be devoted to Slovak National Uprising also.
  2. The present version sounds like Romania surrendered. In actuality the government had been overturn and the new government joined the Allies' side.
  3. There were no significant hostilities in Bulgaria, the pro-German government there had been overtirned quickly and Bulgarian army almost instantly joined Allied forces to attack German troops in Yugoslavia.
  4. The offensive in Yugoslavia started soon after Jassy–Kishinev Offensive, so it is incorrect to place it into the Axis collapse section. At the same time Germany started to withdraw her troops from Greece, so everything should be mentioned here.
  5. It seems to me that the start of the last phase of WWII in Europe (and hence the start of the last section) should be the Vistula-Oder offensive, not the Battle of Bulge. By the moment the latter started, Wehrmach's capabilities were quite impressive, and subsequent six weeks of fierce battles demonstrated it very clearly. However, when the Red Army, that stayed dormant on the Vistula for almost half a year, launched the Vistula-Oder offensive (that was much more devastaning for Wehrmach in raw numbers) all German defence (both in east and west) started to crush. Actually, the Vistula-Oder offensive initiated a series of German defeats ("collapse") that lasted continuously until German surrender. That is why I propose to end the present section with the Battle of Bulge (the last Germany's strategic offensive in WWII), and start the next section (devoted to continuous series of German defeats) with the Vistula-Oder offensive.

This is a preliminary version of the Allies close in section:


Allied Invasion of Normandy.

On June 6, 1944 (known as D-Day), the Western Allies invaded northern France and, after reassigning several Allied divisions from Italy, southern France.[94] These landings were successful, and led to the defeat of the German Army units in France. Paris was liberated on 25 August[95] and the Western Allies continued to push back German forces in western Europe during the latter part of the year. Largest airborne drop, code named Market Garden has been lunched.[1] The Allies also continued their advance in Italy until they ran into the last major German defensive line there.

On June 22, the Soviets launched a strategic offensive in Belarus (known as "Operation Bagration") that resulted in the almost complete destruction of the German Army Group Centre.[96] Soon after that, another Soviet strategic offensive forced the German troops from Ukraine and Eastern Poland. Successful advance of Soviet troops prompted resistance forces in Poland and to initiate several uprisings, though the largest of these, in Warsaw, as well as a Slovak Uprising in the south, were put down by German forces.[97] The Red Army's strategic offensive in eastern Romania cut off and destroyed the considerable German troops there and triggered successful coup d'état in Romania and Bulgaria, followed by the countries' shift to the Allies side. In September 1944, Soviet Red Army advanced into Yugoslavia and forced the rapid withdrawal of the German Army Groups E and F in Greece, Albania and Yugoslavia to rescue them from being cut off. By this point, the Yugoslav Partisans under Marshal Josip Broz Tito controlled much of the Yugoslav territory and were engaged in delaying efforts against the German forces further south. In northern Serbia, the Red Army, with limited support from Bulgarian forces, assisted the Partisans in a joint liberation of the capital city of Belgrade on October 20. Few days later, the Soviets launched a massive assault against German occupied Hungary that lasted until the fall of Budapest in February 1945.[98]

File:Soviet T34 Belgrade.jpg
A Soviet T-34 tank on the street of Belgrade

In contrast with impressive victories in Balkans, the bitter Finnish resistance to the Soviet offensive in the Karelian Isthmus denied the Soviet occupation of Finland and led to signing the armistice on relatively mild conditions[99][76] and Finland's shift to the Allies side.

By the start of July, Commonwealth forces in Southeast Asia had repelled the Japanese sieges in Assam, pushing the Japanese back to the Chindwin River[100] while the Chinese captured Myitkyina. In China, the Japanese were having greater successes, having finally captured Changsha in mid-June and the city of Hengyang by early August.[101] Soon after, they further invaded the province of Guangxi, winning major engagements against Chinese forces at Guilin and Liuzhou by the end of November[102] and successfully linking up their forces in China and Indochina by the middle of December.[103]

In the Pacific, American forces continued to press back the Japanese perimeter. In mid-June 1944 they began their offensive against the Mariana and Palau islands, scoring a decisive victory against Japanese forces in the Philippine Sea within a few days. These defeats led to the resignation of Japanese Prime Minister Tōjō and provided the United States with air bases which allowed the intensification of heavy bomber attacks on the Japanese home islands. In late October, American forces invaded the Filipino island of Leyte; soon after, Allied naval forces scored another large victory during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, which was the largest naval battle in history.[104]

On December 16, 1944 German forces launched the counter-attack in the Ardennes against the Western Allies. During six weeks of bitter fighting British and American troops repulsed this last major offensive of German armed forces.


Your comments are warmly welcome --Paul Siebert (talk) 00:00, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

That looks pretty good to me. I think that the first and second last paras under-state the size and importance of the Western Allied victories though - Normandy was one of the most important battles of the war, and destroyed much of the German Army's best units, and the Marianas and Leyte campaigns were two of the most important victories in the Pacific War. As such, I propose that these paras be changed to:
The Western Allies invaded northern France on June 6, 1944 and, after reassigning several Allied divisions from Italy, southern France on 15 August.[105] These landings were successful, and led to the defeat of the German Army units in France. Paris was liberated on 25 August[106] and the Western Allies continued to push back German forces in western Europe during the latter part of the year. The Allies also continued their advance in Italy until they ran into the last major German defensive line there.

...

In the Pacific, American forces continued to press back the Japanese perimeter. In mid-June 1944 they began their offensive against the Mariana and Palau islands, scoring a decisive victory against Japanese forces in the Philippine Sea within a few days. These defeats led to the resignation of Japanese Prime Minister Tōjō and provided the United States with air bases which allowed the intensification of heavy bomber attacks on the Japanese home islands. In late October, American forces invaded the Filipino island of Leyte; soon after, Allied naval forces scored another large victory during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, which was the largest naval battle in history.[107]


What do you think? Nick-D (talk) 00:45, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
I think that the second paragraph is good. As regards to the first one, I couldn't see any appreciable difference. Maybe it makes sence to expand it a little bit more?--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:21, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
I've just realized that you already modified the first paragraph, so changes proposed by you are already there. The paragraph looks good. I'll try to add needed references and let's wait what other editors will say.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:27, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
Whoops, sorry - I didn't mean to do that. I was fiddling with it before copying and pasting it out and making further changes. I've just restored the para you proposed. The only real difference between my version and your version is the sentance 'These landings were successful, and led to the defeat of the German Army units in France.' and my fiddles with the other sentances to meet my views on readability ;) Nick-D (talk) 01:33, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
Agree with the proposal. --Erikupoeg (talk) 16:59, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Expanded somewhat on the delaying role of the Partisans in southern Serbia and Macedonia (beyond the reach of the Red Army) and added the name of the Partisan commander. I hope there are no problems? --DIREKTOR (TALK) 08:33, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Is this correct? I actually assume these documents have been declassified some other time? Just two weeks before the Second World War broke out, declassified documents have revealed that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was prepared to send nearly a million troops to the German border to stop Hitler if Britain and France agreed to an "anti-Nazi alliance. 80.57.67.243 (talk) 00:04, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Comments: Operation Tempest was Polish only, not Slovakian. I fully support mention of the Slovakian Uprising, but the links should not be confusing. It currently reads: prompted resistance forces in Poland and Slovakia to initiate several uprising. Further, next sentence equals concepts of city (Warsaw) with country (Slovakia) - that's somewhat illogical. Here's my proposed revision: Successful advance of Soviet troops prompted resistance forces in Poland and to initiate several uprisings, though the largest of these, in Warsaw, as well as a Slovak Uprising in the south, were put down by German forces.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 22:34, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Support. Any other modifications?--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:56, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Nothing stands out.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 23:38, 25 November 2008 (UTC)


Thank you for your recent changes to this section Paul and Piotus, I fully support, section looks really good, clear and simple.--Jacurek (talk) 03:13, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

One short line about Market Garden added.--Jacurek (talk) 17:50, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Question

in what we(but not everyone), call WW2 or the Second World War I found this quote near the beginning of archived page number two. What nations don't acknowledge the existence of the Second World War? Do they even exist?

--Repdetect117 (talk) 00:24, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Grammar correction

Da4an1qu1 (talk) 23:42, 23 November 2008 (UTC) Just a simple grammar tidy up

From section Concentration camps and slave work:

These prisoners where forced into hard labour which included lumbering the land and assisting in the production of pulp and paper.

the where should be were Concentration camps and slave work

Done. Binksternet (talk) 01:03, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

In this edit [2] I removed a few sentences as they were basically lifted from a news report with a few minor changes, and discuss something which the article was already covering adequetly in a couple of sentences. I don't see how it's a new revelation anyway - it's been known for decades that the Soviet Union had serious negotiations with France and Britain shortly before war broke out. Nick-D (talk) 10:51, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

1944 Warsaw Rising picture

Hello all, I was just wondering if it would be o.k. with the rest of the editors involved with this project to upload into WW2 article this picture [[3]] from 1944 Warsaw Uprising . The reason I think it would be nice to have the picture here is that the Warsaw Uprising was one of the biggest battles of the war but it is the least known. Your thoughts about it will be appreciated. Thanks a lot--Jacurek (talk) 22:01, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't think we need a picture of the uprising. It wasn't even close in scale to the biggest battles (for example, Battle of Moskow had 6+ million participants), nor did it have serious effect on the course of the war. With respect, Ko Soi IX (talk) 00:24, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

That is absolutely true what you are saying, but Warsaw Rising was very unique in many ways, with causalities 250,000+ and so tragic end, with the city literally raced to the ground. Tens of thousands "amateur" soldiers fighting, for 3 months, the mighty German Army with "gasoline bottles" without or very little outside support. It is very hard to find anything similar to that. I think that the uniqueness of the Rising makes it worth to be underlined with a picture, but of course I will respect the opinion of the majority. Thank you for your comments.--Jacurek (talk) 02:58, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I also agree that we don't need a picture of the uprising, and there isn't room for it anyway - it would have to replace the photo of the Normandy landings. If we do agree on including a photo, Image:Warsaw_Uprising_boyscouts.jpg is much more arresting in my view than the proposed photo. Nick-D (talk) 07:13, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you are right, "boys" picture would be much better if there is of course an agreement on including the photo. Normandy landing picture has to stay. Thanks again for your comments.--Jacurek (talk) 13:09, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Poland was one of the more important participants and thus deserves some graphical representation. Currently, there is only one: Soviet and German officers in Poland and it's not exactly a picture of Poles/Poland (in any case, this image may be better as it shows notable people, not anonymous officers). As far as Poland-specific pictures go, Warsaw Uprising showcases one of the most famous Poland-related WWII events (and a current Featured Article), and while indeed it was not probably among the largest battles out there, it was likely one of the largest partisan battles and urban uprisings in the world's history.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:53, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I am intended to replace the present version of the "Allies Close In" section with the new one (see above). Could you please play with that version to see how the image of Polish uprising will fit into it. However, please, take into account that the period described in that section includes (I mean only the European theatre):

  • The largest amphibious invasion in history and subsequent large scale operations in Western Europe (Normandy).
  • The massive Soviet offensive in the East (Bagration, the most calamitous defeat of all the German armed forces in World War II, according to Zaloga).
  • Two other strategic offensives of the Red Army that had catastrophic consequences for the Axis similar to that of Bagration.
  • Partisan war in Yugoslavia (that lasted longer than that in Poland and had greater strategic implication).
  • Large scale German counter-offensive in the West (Bulge).

Feel free to modify the new version of the section and let's see if it is possible to add something about Poland without giving undue weight to the events there.
--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:32, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

How come "Partisan war in Yugoslavia...lasted longer than that in Poland and had greater strategic implication"? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 22:27, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Could you please be more concrete? Once again, if you disagree with the new version of the section, do appropriate editing and let's discuss.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:53, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
As this claim is not made in the article, I don't think it is important, but from my sources I'd say that the Yugoslavian partisan struggle was as large and as important as Polish - but not significantly "better".--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 22:57, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
In actuality, the Polish contribution was not limited with the partisan activity. Large number of the Poles fought in the East and in the West, so the war contribution of Poland is about the same as that of France. Therefore, to my opinion, the amount of space in the article devoted to Poland and France should be equal. To my opinion, this is the case in the present version of the article, so I see no problem. However, if you disagree, let's discuss how to fix the situation.
--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:05, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
That's a reasonable comparison. In any case, I think the current article can benefit from a few more photos; there are entire sections devoid of those. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 23:34, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
The article has plenty of pictures in my view, and the last two sections are the only ones without pictures at present. There was a long discussion of what pictures were suitable a few months ago which resulted in the current allocation and most of the current choices. Nick-D (talk) 07:00, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Russo-German Non-Aggression Pact (1939)

This article states that Russia chose to sign the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Germany because it was rebuffed by France and Great Britain. In my understanding, this is not the case. While Russian statesmen did claim (probably correctly) that France and Britain weren't persuasively committed to fulfilling their own responsibilities in the case of German agression against the USSR, they still were distinctly in favor of a mutual protection pact. In fact, the specific reason for the breakdown of negotations seemed to be the issue that Poland resisted cooperation with the Soviets, which the Soviets thought was due to British and French influences. The much bigger issue, however, seems to have been that the Soviets under Stalin stopped trusting collective security as a whole--especially do the Munich crisis, which the Soviets saw as confirmation that France and Britain weren't really interested in defending general peace or security, but rather their own. Thus, Stalin was at this time convinced that France and Britain were trying to push away from them and towards Soviet Russia. Around the same time, however, Germany started making overtures to the USSR in order to paritition Poland. While Stalin and the Soviets had no great faith in Hitler's intention, it seems likely that the USSR pursued better relations with Germany and the policy of unlimited neutrality in order to pursue the same policy that he saw in the West. Stalin tried to use these actions to redirect German aggression towards the growing hostility of France and Great Britain. Stalin thought the prospect of a war against the victors of the First World War--secured by the prospects of fighting on only one front--would be sufficient enticement for Hitler. Furthermore, at the time Stalin's seemingly most-reliable intelligence suggested that a large scale attack by Germany was not likely in the immediate future.

In summary, the USSR did not agree to neutrality with Germany because it was rebuffed by France and Great Britian--this was the time when they tried to bring Russia in the most. Instead, Stalin thought that Russia was more likely to mantain peace by stablizing relations with Germany than by pursuing discredited collective security arrangements. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.143.155.247 (talk) 15:14, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

You are absolutely right. In actuality, this piece of text has evolved during a series of small editions in a wrong direction. If we compare the present version and the 24 July 2008 version we will see that recent edits didn't improved it:
Present version: Shortly after the Franco-British pledges to Poland, Germany and Italy formalized their own alliance with the Pact of Steel.
Since France and Britain were unwilling to create a formal military alliance with the USSR[30] and apprehensive of a possible war with Hitler while the Western powers remained neutral or tacitly favorable to Hitler,[31] the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact, named after the foreign secretaries of the two countries, on August 23, with Germany, including a secret agreement to split Poland and Eastern Europe between them.[32][33]
Old version: The Soviet Union also attempted to ally with France and Britain, but was rebuffed due to western suspicions about Soviet motives and capability.[108] Shortly after the Franco-British pledges to Poland, Germany and Italy formalized their own alliance with the Pact of Steel. Understanding that French and Britain are unwilling to create a formal military alliance with USSR[109] and that it might be a war between Hitler and the USSR with the Western powers neutral or tacitly favorable to Hitler[110], urged Soviet Union to offer Germany signing a non-aggression pact, including a secret agreement to split Poland and Eastern Europe between them.[111]
The present version looks like the Triple Alliance negotiations had been interrupted by the UK and France, and, as a result, the USSR signed the MRP with Germany. In actuality, these negotiations continued until the very last moment. According to Derek Watson, the Soviet decision to negotiate a non-aggression pact was taken late and the Soviet contribution to the failure of the (Triple Alliance) negotiations was not lack of motivation but a failure to understand the French and British political position and diplomatic tactics; that Soviet foreign policy was 'passive', 'reactive' and ad hoc. It remains true, however, and must have been clear to Molotov and Stalin, that an agreement with Germany avoided an immediate war with that country and could satisfy Soviet territorial ambitions in eastern Poland, the Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Finland, and Bessarabia; an alliance with Britain and France offered no territorial gains and a war with Germany in which the USSR was most likely to bear the brunt of a German attack.[112]
According to J. Roberts, the common opinion that the USSR's negotiations for a triple alliance with Great Britain and France in the spring and summer of 1939 were paralleled by secret Soviet-German discussions which eventually lead to the Nazi-Soviet pact of August 1939 is a cold war myth and the Merekalov-Weizsjcker meeting of 17 April 1939 wasn't a beginning of the secret negotiations.[113]
Therefore, I agree that MRP was a result of mutual mistrust and misunderstanding, not of the UK/France's refusal to sign the agreement. So I propose to modify the paragraph as follows:
Shortly after the Franco-British pledges to Poland, Germany and Italy formalized their own alliance with the Pact of Steel. The USSR's negotiations for a triple alliance with Great Britain and France in the spring and summer of 1939 failed due to mutual mistrust[114] and because the collective security system in Europe was severely undermined by the Munich agreement and the subsequent events.[115] Apprehensive of a possible war with Hitler while the Western powers remained neutral or tacitly favorable to Hitler[116], the Soviet Union signed the non-aggression pact with Germany, including a secret agreement to split Poland and Eastern Europe between them.[117]
Comments/modifications are wellcome (as usually)
--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:39, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
I agree, though I would keep this part of the present text: "Apprehensive of a possible war with Hitler while the Western powers remained neutral or tacitly favorable to Hitler..." -- Petri Krohn (talk) 06:07, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
Ok.--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:29, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Area Bombing

Some issues that might be briefly added to the article, if it is agreed:

On May 15 1940 the RAF started its long anticipated area bombing though it was after much internal controversy regarding the bombing of civilians, however, Lord Trenchant, for some time in charge of RAF policy, was hawkish about it.

Does the bombing of those cities in the Ruhr Valley May 15 1940 constitute something of a first in this war?

The 20 years of the then new air-power theory suggesting the domination of morale through the bombing of civilians, however showed itself to be perhaps the biggest mistake of the war, it had little effect on morale in the direction suppose, Trenchant had hoped it would drive the population against its own leadership, in fact it provided Hitler with another string to his bow, and became a point of unity amongst them.

I realize that the article is mainly concerned with facts, dates, etc but these have obviously been selected under some criteria, the number of bodies or whatever, many died in these bombings of the Ruhr on the 15th of May 194 and if a criterion is not bodies but spectacle then this spectacular show of airpower over cities is that. If a criterion is based on strategy then the failure of this "Morale" strategy, shows perhaps how this strategic misuse of airpower continues to haunt us. Though one could make such a comment about many air bombings prior to this here we have a connecting line, the strategist and implementer, Trenchard.84.203.39.11 (talk) 22:25, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Hitler declares war on the United States. Is this picture needed?

Before introduction of this picture, there were four photos in the section: two from Eastern Front, one from China-Pacific and one from Africa. This roughly reflected the overall scale and importance of the events during 1941-beginning of 1942. To my opinion, five pictures is too much. In addition, the new photograph simply represents usual Nazi official ceremony, so it carries no additional information. I propose to remove it.
--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:34, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I don't think that the photo of Monty adds anything either, especially as it is being wrongly used and titled - it actually depicts Monty during the Second Battle of El-Alemain, which occurred in October-November 1942, and so is outside the time period this section covers (Monty wasn't even in command of the Commonwealth forces during the first Battle of El-Alemain). Nick-D (talk) 07:14, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
I just removed the photo of Monty, and think that photo of Hitler should go as well. I think that the article is starting to suffer from an over-load of photos again - it looks very crowded on my large 24" monitor. Nick-D (talk) 10:46, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
I am not sure if we need to remove the Montgomery's photo from the article. We can move it to the next section ("the tide turns"). To my opinion, the best ratio would be three pictures per section: one from Asia/Pacific, one from East (Poland/USSR) and one from West (Mediterranean/Western Front). So for the "The Tide Turn" section, pictures from Midway, Stalingrad and Second El-Alamein (three pivotal battles) are axactly what we need. And I always support showing pictures of historical persons, because otherwise the war looks faceless.
--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:55, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
I agree with your view on the number of photos, but not on this particular photo. There's already a photo of Monty in the article (photographed with the other senior Allied generals at the end of the war) and this isn't a particularly interesting photo given that it only shows Monty and is obviously staged. Nick-D (talk) 09:38, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Relative importance of western and eastern fronts

The level of casualties on the Eastern front was much higher than elsewhere in Europe. The Soviet Union of course suffered massive military and civilian losses, an order of magnitude larger than those of the Western allies. Also, I remember hearing on the radio that something like 90% of German military losses were sustained on the eastern front. I was stunned to hear that a war in which I had always thought of the USSR as being on par with the United States in terms of its contribution had really essentially been won by them.

Since this is the English Wikipedia, it is to be expected that there will be some bias towards the western front, not because this is desirable, but because of the natural inclinations of the editors.

I'm not sure how to remedy this, but perhaps, at least, a paragraph could be added to the lead comparing the various theatres in terms of military significance and civilian casualties. Asian theatres could be mentioned too. 67.150.245.45 (talk) 11:05, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

WW II war becomes global, 7th Paragraph

Hi Paul

I thank yr call about the blanks in my edition. Anyway Here some links with a brief texts related to subject :

Given that Brazil was the only country to actually provide any assistance, and it was limited to an Army division and some ships and aircraft (eg, less than New Zealand's contribution to the war), I don't see why this needs to be mentioned in the article. Nick-D (talk) 04:36, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
Agree. In addition, no country declared a war on the Axis in Rio. The conference just recommended that those Latin American countries that had not already done so sever diplomatic and commercial relations with Germany, Italy, and Japan. Too insignificant to be mentioned.
--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:48, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
I again respectfully disaccord of you. Yes, indeed the assistance was very modest and limited but I must remember for example that the contribution to the allied effort of war wasn't just relied on ( the most important front ) military aspects but also the strategic supplying, provison necessary to make the war machine keep moving. After the Japanese occupied the SouthEast of Asia for example, Brazil became practically the only supplier of rubber... having more deaths caused to the workers on jungle due the terrible work conditions than Italian Campaign cause to the Army Division.
The campaign in South Atlantic was also secondary related to North Atlantic But the German Navy keep one pressure there until 1943 knowing the importance of the supplying of some commodities and raw material to allies as well as the US basis on NorthEast of Brazil cannot be considered by any means irrelevant as much as to combat the submarine warfare as to operations on North of Africa before the Torch Operation in November 1942. Furthermore if only the direct military participation would count many European and Asian countries that had much more civilian killed under occupation than its military in combats wouldn't not deserve to be mentioned. A War are complex matter not just related to the Battle Fields and last but not least the head of the section are "war becomes GLOBAL".
Anyway even not having succeed in doing a minor and ( I believe ) justified edit in a encyclopedia that "anyone" can edit, I Thank You for the opportunity to show my arguments. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cybershore (talk • contribs) 06:58, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
I must remember you Cybershore that the Brazilian Navy participation was not restricted to South Atlantic. It was actively engaged in the Anti-submarine warfare on all Central Atlantic from west ( in Caribean ) to ( since 1943 ) east, taking part on convoys to North Africa and Mediterranean, never having lost a single merchant ship under its scort.
And the last Brazilian ships sunk by German U-Boats dated from July, 1944 not from 1943, 189.62.128.108 (talk) 02:06, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

3rd paragraph, Axis collapse, Allied victory section

I respectfully disaccord of Nick-D position about the matter since the section was extended just one line and half giving links for all main subjects related to the Italian Front that could not be covered in the main article of World War II. Hoping that I had clear my point here, I Thank You comprehension. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cybershore (talk • contribs) 04:12, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

The problem with the change is that this article very briefly covers the war's main campaigns, and the expansion you added gave undue weight to what was a relatively unimportant campaign (compare the coverage of the much more important Allied advance into Germany and capture of Berlin, which are covered in just a few words). Nick-D (talk) 04:39, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
Dear Nick-D. In close future I plan to replace the present "Allies Close In" section with the new version form the talk page (above), because it seems to me that no one has any objections on that account. Since the new version ends with the Bulge, the "Axis collapse, Allied victory" section has to be modified accordingly. Therefore, it can probably be slightly extended, so the Cybershore's sentence may fit well into it. What do you think about that?
--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:55, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
That sounds good to me, but it will require the 'Axis collapse, Allied victory' section to be modified to slightly expand the coverage of all the final battles of the war in Europe so that balance is maintained. Nick-D (talk) 06:35, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
Ok, Paul and Nick I appreciate Yr attention. Thank You

Lithuania and Poland in 1939

78.151.173.242 (talk) 18:07, 25 December 2008 (UTC)IN THIS ARTICLE IS WRITTEN A LIE!!!! Lithuania REGAINED ONLY A TINY PART of Lithuania's ethnic lands which for nearly 20 years WAS OCCUPIED BY POLAND. So please do not write like this: 'On September 17, 1939, after signing an armistice with Japan, the Soviets launched their own invasion of Poland.[35] By early October, the campaign ended with division of Poland among Germany, the Soviet Union, Lithuania and Slovakia[36], although officially Poland never surrendered.' LITHUANIA TOOK 0% OF POLISH LANDS!!! So please make it clear!!! Moreover this was the part of ethnic lands with the CAPITAL of Lithuania VILNIUS!!! And by counting deaths DO NOT COUNT DEATHS OF LITHUANIANS AS POLISH DEATHS in occupied parts, otherwise Russia can claim that So0viet Union had casualties and Lithuania had 0 casualties!!! The same is true and with percentages78.151.173.242 (talk) 18:07, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

You are right. In 1939 Lithuania just took back the land Poland occupied and annexed earlier. However, the same is true in other cases: Slovakia took part in the partition of Poland, however, she just did the same what Poland did after the Munich (annexation of former Czechoslovakian province). Moreover, as far as you introduced the term "ethnic land", let me remind you that the territories occupied and annexed by the USSR were ethnically primarily Ukrainian and Belarussian lands, because the pre-war eastern boeder of Poland was a result of the successful Polish offensive at the end of the Polish-Soviet war.
My point is that before WWII most borders in Central Europe didn't coincide with the ethnical map, so noone recognized it. If you have any idea how to reflect this fact in another way, please, propose what has to be modified in the article.
--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:29, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

78.151.173.242 (talk) 19:01, 25 December 2008 (UTC)No such ethnicity as Belorus ever existed until Russia occupied Lithuania in 1795, this ethnicity was deliberately created in order to divide Lithuanian into catholics and orthodoxs. I have no idea about Slovakia's actions so I will not speak about it at all. However if the term 'ethnic teritories' exists at all, then all lands till Vystula and Bug rivers are ethnic Lithuanian teritories. To remind you - Lithuania is the only all Balts unified state formed by Balts union to withstand slavs and germans genocide. However nowadays Belorus is half inhabited by russians and local Balts are almost slavised and they are banned from any political activity. So the teritories belonged to Lithuania till 1975 and all germans occupied Prussia must be counted as Lithuania. Otherwise we will have slavic nazis propaganda in order to justify Balts genocide during the last 200 years after we have lost our independence and many millions souls. It's slavs victory not against fashizm, but slavs fashizm victory against Balts78.151.173.242 (talk) 19:01, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Probably. However, let me remind you that before being "occupied" by the Russians, Lithuania herself occupied a huge Slav populated territories to become the biggest Russian state (greater than its rival, the Duchy of Moscow). As a result, the chancellery languages of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were Ruthenian, Latin, German and Polish. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania as well as its decendant, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were multi-ethnic countries, therefore, the words "Grand Duchy of Lithuania" and "contemporary Lithuania" have absolutely different meaning. In other words, all your claims are just a pure chauvinism.
In addition, although the Old Prussians were the Baltic tribe, they weren't Lithuanians.
As regards to artificially created Belarussian nation, let me remind you that the Lithuanians and the Litvins (contemporary Bealrussians) were two different nations. (BTW, I think calling the whole nation to be artificially created is insulting, and, therefore, not acceptable)
The history of WWII is too complex subject to discuss it from chauvinistic positions, therefore I don't think this discussion to be fruitful.
--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:04, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
PS. I am ready to discuss concrete modifications, however.

It is correct to say that Vilnius Region was under dispute at the time of the partitioning of Poland. How about we change the statement to By early October, the campaign ended with the division of Poland among Germany, the Soviet Union, Slovakia, and the transfer of the disputed Vilnius region to Lithuania, although officially Poland never surrendered. --Erikupoeg (talk) 05:25, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Dear Erikupoeg. Of course, you are right. However, if we accept your proposal, it will look like other regions weren't under dispute. Even annexation of Sudetes by Germany had some ground (it was the territory populated by ethnic Germans). As I already pointed out, the Eastern Poland, that was occupied and annexed by the USSR in 1939 was under dispute also. Bessarabia (former Russian Empire province) was annexed by Romania during Russian Civil war, therefore Stalin's claims also had some ground. Polish attempts to annex some Czech territories also look somewhat reasonable, because the post-WWI-Poland was re-created mostly within former Russian part of the medieval Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, although, as you know, the latter was partitioned between Russia, Prussia and Austria. Consequently Czechoslovakia inherited a part of old Poland lands as an Austrian legacy. Vienna Awards also had some base.
In other words, most post-WWI borders in Central Europe were questionable, and majority states tried to annex their neighbours' lands.
To my opinion, arbitrary separation these territories onto disputable and indigenous would be incorrect. No country was absolutely right and absolutely wrong during that time.
--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:17, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Parsing this necessarily LARGE subject

In comparison with the way the World War I article has been parsed, this article about World War II seems almost thin.

It seems clear that the WWI-article has grown to a size which is unwieldy; but perhaps there is still some room for enlarging the scope of this WWII-article? Is it possible to argue that any of those WWI-article sub-sections should be mirrored in an expanded overview of the Second World War?

Maybe something in the way that the WWII-article is organized can suggest a better model in a process of streamlining that overview of the First World War? --Tenmei (talk) 18:53, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Earlier this year this article was totally re-written so that it provides a short summary of the war, which is too large a topic to be comprehensively covered in any single article. This was a major project and the current structure and text reflects the consensus of the project - please read through the archives of this talk page to see the process which was used to restructure and re-write the article. Nick-D (talk) 01:49, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
Nick-D -- My comment was modestly focused only on comparisons between the two articles. I had the temerity to suggest that some unspecified value might be adduced from the differences and similarities; and that remains a valid point worth making, even in the face of settled consensus. Indeed, who is there to dispute that the work invested in this major project has produced both a yardstick and a road map for further enhancements not immediately apparent at this time.
At a minimum, my intention had been to tweak a process of thinning the bloated article about WWI by pointing to this article's organizational model -- see Talk:World War I#Parsing this necessarily LARGE subject. You make a valuable contribution to that task by suggesting that the archives of this talk page are likely to be helpful. --Tenmei (talk) 05:43, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

World War II is in a much better state than World War I. Can I suggest we keep this conversation at Talk:World War I#Parsing this necessarily LARGE subject and close this one. It is never a good idea to conduct the same conversation in two different places. The Land (talk) 11:41, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Romania

I've just removed this para which was added to the article yesterday. While Romania was a significant player in the war, I think that the section is over-long in comparison of the coverage of other countries.

In parallel, the Soviet Union presented an ultimatum note to Romania, in which the Soviet Union demanded the evacuation of the Romanian military and administration from Bessarabia and from the northern part of Bukovina, with an implied threat of invasion in the event of non-compliance. Under pressure from both Moscow and Berlin, Romania complied to the demands, and the Soviet Union started its Occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. This, alongside the effects of the Second Vienna Award and the Treaty of Craiova did much to indignate the Romanian public and incite the country towards a conflict against the Soviet Union. Eventually, Romania joined the Axis Powers on November 23, 1940 becoming Germany's main ally and contributor to the war on the Eastern Front, providing more troops than all other German Allies combined. Furthermore, Germany now had access to Romania's strategic oil reserves and industry.

I don't know the history of this part of the world, but I suspect that this can be summarised in one or two sentences as per the article's coverage of almost all events of the war. Nick-D (talk) 04:32, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the paragraph is unproportionally long. However, the information on Romania is necessary, because, although the article mentions Romania, along with Hungary and Bulgaria as the Axis members in 1944, nothing has been said about the time and the reason for joining the Axis. In connection to that, I think it make sense:
-to mention Soviet occupation and annexation of Bessarabia;
-to explain a reason behind that (it was the former Russian province);
-to describe the war contribution of Romania;
In addition, I think we need to move it into the next section, because these events took place after the Battle of France started.
--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:58, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Being a Russian imperial province has only indirect value in a legal and political appraisal of status of Bessarabia and Bukovina in the war. The direct factor was that the Soviet Union never reckognized the provinces as part of Romania and claimed them being Soviet throughout the interwar period. --Erikupoeg (talk) 13:08, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

I think that I agree with you Paul, but we need to be careful of giving Romania undue weight. We don't have a stand-alone description of why most countries entered the war or their military contribution, and that seems reasonable in such a high-level article. Romania's contribution to the war was significant, but so was the contribution of places like India, Canada and Australia (to name just three countries which also fielded hundreds of thousands of soldiers and had a large industrial output). I think that it would be best to integrate coverage of Romania's role in the war in with the current text where its missing but necessary rather than have a potted description of the country. Nick-D (talk) 05:06, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. More weight can be given in a sub-article dealing with Romanian involvement in WWII (similar to Military History of Canada during the Second World War). similar to overarching campaign articles, this page is meant to give a brief summary of the major events. Laborious detail can be given on the sub-articles about each country's participation. Cam (Chat) 07:08, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
I didn't mean to devote a separate paragraph to Romania. I've just pointed your attention at the obvious fact that it is unclear from the article why and when Romania (and Hungary and Bulgaria) became the Axis members. As regards to Bessarabia as a former Russian province, I think it would be sufficient to add a word "disputable". Bessarabia (Moladvia) had never been a part of Wallachia, therefore, although the former, without any doubts, wasn't an indigenous Russian territory, it was not a Romanian land either. By the way, similarity of languages is also not sufficient, and the recent war between Serbia and Croatia is a good proof for that.
Although a separate paragraph for Romanis alone would be too much, these three countries deserve a separate paragraph. In addition, the role of Romania as a Germany oil supply also deserves mentioning because she was as important to Germany as Indonesia (included into the article) was for Japan.
--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:47, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough. The oil access indeed merits mention. Cam (Chat) 17:56, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
Maybe, something like that? I propose to put it into the "Axis Advances" section after 4th paragraph. All corrections and modificationa are wellcome.
In June of 1940 the USSR forced Romania to cede disputable[118] province Bessarabia and the northern part of Bukovina. This became a final argument for Romania, which also lost considerable territories as a result of preceding events, to sign the tripartite pact on November 1940 (along with Hungary and Slovakia)[119] and to become a major participant of the subsequent invasion of the USSR.[120] Furthermore, Germany now had access to Romania's strategic oil reserves that she desperately needed.
--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:36, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
I think that's still too long and needlessly Romanian-centric, and somewhat incorrect as Hitler had forced Romania to hand over its territory to the USSR in exchange for German protection/occupation, and Germany had extensive access to Romania's oil reserves from early 1939 when a German-Romanian economic agreement was signed. How about this:
The Axis expanded in November 1940 when Hungary, Slovakia and Romania signed the Tripartite Pact.[121] These countries participated in the subsequent invasion of the USSR, with Romania making the largest contribution in order to recapture territory ceded to the USSR and pursue its leader's desire to combat communism.[122] Bulgaria and Croatia also joined the Pact in 1941,[121] but did not contribute forces to the Eastern Front. [I'm not sure about Croatia, but Bulgaria definitely didn't]
I think that the 'Allies close in' section would be the best place to mention the importance of Romania's oil, and this be changed to read: 'The Red Army's strategic offensive in eastern Romania cut off and destroyed the considerable German troops there and triggered successful coup d'état in Romania and Bulgaria, followed by the countries' shift to the Allies side. The loss of access to Romania's oil fields was a serious blow to Germany's war effort.' (with appropriate refs) Nick-D (talk) 03:22, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
That looks good to me. My only proposal is to remove mentioning of Croatia and Bulgaria, because their military contribution was minor. Since no Bulgarian or Croatian editors proposed to include them, I don't think their removal to rise any objections. In addition, Croatia didn't exist before WWII had started and ceased to exist before the war had ended. --Paul Siebert (talk) 03:53, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
No worries. I only added Bulgaria and Croatia for 'completeness', but as you point out neither country played a significant role in the war beyond the fighting the the Balkans. Nick-D (talk) 05:15, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Canada's Role in the War?

Hey I'm just reading this artical for the first time and I'm really insulted that Canada is not mentioned more. I know that we fought under the British Commonwealth but it dosn't even mention that. I had to do research to find this out, and for a first time reader from Canada I shouldn't have to go searching around for information on our role in this war. I know that Canadian's fought very bravely in this war and I think that they should be paid some respect with more reference to them and information on their role in the war. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.149.62.108 (talk) 20:31, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree that Canada's role in the war should be alluded to more often. The only major Canadian operation that is commonly noted is the Battle of Vimy Ridge, and that wasn't even in WWII-it was in WWI. Still, Canada did take part in WWII, and for that reason, I would be willing to help out in finding proper references for that (if they are available, of course). ~ Troy (talk) 20:37, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
See, for instance, "The war becomes global" section, last paragraph. In addition, "Western Allies" means "The US, the UK and dominions", therefore Canada is implicitly mentioned every time we speak about the Western allies.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:45, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah I was going to mention that the only time Canada is mentioned outright is when they say "Germany retained the initiative as well. Exploiting dubious American naval command decisions, the U-boat arm sunk significant resources off the American Atlantic coast.[103] Despite this, an American admiral was placed in charge of more experienced Canadian escort forces, which carried out more of this duty in the Atlantic than the U.S. for the duration of the war." I realize that every time they say western allies they "implicate" Canada, but it is never explained when Canada declared war on Germany or even that they fought under the British Commonwealth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shanannagins (talk • contribs) 21:07, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Mmm, Canada was involved in a much more prominent role than any of the other dominions, for example Juno beach was Canada's task; and Canadians were involved in the war from 1939 onwards. With about 1.1 million people serving in the military, and heavy involvement in Atlantic/western front battles (seeMilitary history of Canada during the Second World War) Canada had probably/likely a more important military role than the Free French (although politically and in public relations de Gaule was of course important). All in all I think something more than mere implicit mention could do no harm. Arnoutf (talk) 21:16, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
"The war Breaks Out in Europe", 4th paragraph states:"On September 1, 1939, Adolf Hitler launched his invasion of Poland and World War II broke out. France, Britain, and the countries of the Commonwealth declared war on Germany". Taking into account that Canada is (and was) a Commonwealth member, it is clear that Canada declared a war on Germany along with France, Britain etc. I personally have no objection to replace "the Allies" with Canada every time Canadian forces acted alone, however I am aware of only few examples of that. Othervise, replacement of Allied with American, Brithish, Canadian, Australian and Polish would make a text not readable.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:26, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
As regards to Free France, I am inclined to think its contribution was far less than that of Poland.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:29, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes well it would be helpful for less informed readers to initally state who was fighting under the commonwealth. Considering that Canada and other Countries declared war independently and fought under the Commonwealth, we could figure out which Countries were specifically involved in each battle.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Shanannagins (talk • contribs) 21:42, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps that would be a suggestion - list the countries declaring war in the first paragraph and after that leave it with common wealth. Arnoutf (talk) 21:46, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
I don't agree with that. Articles like Military history of Canada during the Second World War, Military history of Australia during World War II and the like exist to describe each nation's contribution to the war, and it would be unsuitable to use this very high-level article to describe individual countries experiences. There's an article on most countries involvement in the war at Category:World War II national military histories and these are also linked by a template in this article. There's no need to describe the Commonwealth countries which took part in the war as all of them did, and all entered the war within days of Britain declaring war on Germany. The Commonwealth fought as a genuinely integrated force (for instance, the First Canadian Army contained a British Corps, the Article XV squadrons were all a mix of nationalities, personnel from across the Commonwealth served in the Royal Navy, etc), so there's no need to separate out the component forces in a very high level article like this one - terms like 'Commonwealth forces' or 'Western Allies' do the job perfectly well. Nick-D (talk) 22:25, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. It would be different in the World War I article, where the ANZAC & Canadians Corps were used as independent shock-units by British Command for the majority of the war (thinking specifically of Paschendaele, Amiens, & the Hindenburg Line). However, since commonwealth forces were more integrated in WWII, I think it's safe to say that they can be referred to as Commonwealth Forces. Cam (Chat) 23:16, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
Let me remind you that the article's first sentence is:"World War II, or the Second World War,[123] (often abbreviated WWII or WW2) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all of the great powers,[124] organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis." Therefore, from very beginning readers get a links to the articles that fully describe the Axis and the Allies, including all members, the date of joining the alliance and all other needed information. No country, including the Big Three or major Axis members have been mentioned in the lead explicitly. In that sence, I agree with Nick-D.
However, I would like to point your attention at one more issue. The article contains no (or little) information about a relative strategic implication of different battles, theatres and about relative contribution of each country. Without such an explicit description, reader has to judge about the importance simply by the amount of space devoted to one or the another event in the article (or by the frequency one or another country is mentioned). The anonimous reader (67.150.245.45) pointed our attention at that major drawback in connection to the role of the Eastern Front. I fully agree with him, although I think that such a comparative description has to be done for all WWII theatres (including Asia/Pacific).
--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:53, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
From memory, the fact that the article doesn't describe the relative importance of battles and national contributions was a deliberate choice which was made when the it was being re-written earlier this year. The thinking was something like: a) As the article is limited to a high-level description of the war, the only campaigns and battles it covers are those which had important results and b) specifying what those results are would cause the article to bloat and this is better covered in the relevant articles on the campaigns and battles (especially as this kind of material is often subjective and subject to dispute). Personally, I think that the balance between the various theatres of the war in the article is about right at the moment, and am getting concerned at the current wave of nationalistic edits. Nick-D (talk) 01:47, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
Mhm, to the point where three MilHist coordinators (you, myself, & Ed/Allanon) have watchlisted it to monitor the disputes. We want the WWII Article to be brief and concise. If it isn't, you end up with a massively-bloated and oversized article, much like what World War I is right now. Cam (Chat) 05:05, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
Well, not too brief. :) But is that really a bad thing (having three coord's watching one of MILHIST's flagship articles)? Allanon ♠The Dark Druid♠ 06:47, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

North Africa Campaign

I have added a much needed image from the North Africa campaign to The war becomes global section as this was one of the most important theatres in World War II but it is not as represented in this article as much as other campaigns. Usergreatpower (talk) 18:34, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Why was it so important? Arnoutf (talk) 18:57, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
Of course, it had never been one of the most important theatres. However, during that time it was the only land theatre of war Western Allies fought against the European Axis members, therefore, at least one picture is needed to demonstrate that fact. One has to remember, however, that the African picture is already present in the collage. In addition, the picture of African campaign seems to be more relevant to the next section (El-Alamein).--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:15, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
Nice image of a tank in the North African desert—very appropriate. There's no need rattle the hornet's nest in saying "one of the most important theatres" in order to place this image. It's quite enough that it portrays the action and fits in the article flow. Binksternet (talk) 19:56, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
It is easy to find a lot of pictures that portrays the action and fits in the article flow, however only the most appropriate of them can be introduced into the article. To my opinion, we need to choose between a picture for Crusader and for El-Alamein. To my opinion, the second is much more appropriate. In that case in the "the Tide Turns" section we will have one picture for three pivotal WWII battles: Midway, El-Alamein and Stalingrad. I propose to remove the Crusader picture when someone find a good picture for El-Alamein.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:32, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
That photo looks good to me, and thanks for posting the notification. It would have been better to discuss the image here before adding it rather than after, however. Nick-D (talk) 07:24, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Extra italic quotes

{{editsemiprotected}} Towards the bottom

  • Battlefield (documentary series) is a television documentary series initially issued in 1994–1995 that explores many of the most important battles fought during the Second World War

Has extra italic quotes at the end. (I have a picky parser...)

Broken link - reference 58

Can anyone find a valid source for this? Thanks Kvsh5 (talk) 09:00, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I can't find a reference which supports the use of the word 'sustained', but I can reference the rest of the sentence. How about we change it to "As a result, Germany and the United States found themselves engaged in naval warfare in the North Atlantic by October 1941, even though the United States remained officially neutral"? and reference this to page 52 of the Oxford Companion to World War II? Nick-D (talk) 23:29, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
The Library of Congress companion also mentions it, although I can't remember the page at the moment. Cam (Chat) 07:36, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Cost of WW2

I see a fair amount of reference in the media to the cost of WW2 either as 2008 adjusted US$ or as a percent of GDP, usually compared to the cost of the current bailout. It would be nice to have a page branching out from the WW2 page that summarizes these costs in an impartial way, but I'm not expert enough to write it. I assume this is the place for such a page request?

Baron ridiculous (talk) 21:39, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

That should be cost for all combatants (not only the US) and include damages (e.g. costs of damages to people and buildings, infrastructure etc. in London, Hiroshima and Dresden). I think no such figure can be given. I would hazard that the cost for Germany including all damages (Dresden, Berlin) destruction of civilian life (including Jews), etc. will be many, many times the GDP. Arnoutf (talk) 21:45, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
I understand that the article might want to do more than just count up the monetary cost, and certainly would want to have a world-wide scope, but I don't agree that no figures could be given. There was a cost in money, in human life, in damage, etc, I don't see any reason why historians' best estimates of those things can't be listed. Regarding US monetary expenditures, people are throwing around all sorts of comparisons in the media. If there's an amount agreed upon by historians it would be nice to have it listed.

98.194.79.167 (talk) 07:00, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, you are going to get a very large range of cost figures. Certain figures put the US as having the highest total expenditure, while others put Nazi Germany's expenditure of significantly outdoing those of its competitors, while others put the USSR as having spent the most (and certainly losing the most). I'll look into it. If three or four sources agree, then we'll have to triple-cite to ensure accuracy. Cam (Chat) 07:38, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

World_War_II#Concentration_camps_and_slave_work

regarding the section World_War_II#Concentration_camps_and_slave_work, we have a total of 3 pictures, one about China's Unit 143, but two about the holocaust, I think it should be balanced by removing or replacing one of the holocaust with one about gulag or something?, which one? discuss? --Andersmusician NO 03:14, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

What concretely? Gulag is hardly relevant: the maximal total Gulag population (including usual criminals) during WWII never exceeded 1,5 million (the USSR population was 150 million). For comparison, the present day prisoner population in the USA (300 million) is about 2.5 million. Mortality never exceeded 412,100 (in 1942, in other years much lower). So it wasn't something extraordinary as compared to Bengal famine, or extermination of the Belorussians or the Poles, for instance. Killing of Chinese civilians is already in the collage. To my opinion, there is no need to change pictures.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:01, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with that Paul, and am curious as to what your source for those statistics is. The Oxford Companion to World War II states that 'up to' 10% of the USSR's population were in the GULAG system in March 1939 and that Robert Conquest has estimated that one million people died in the camps during each year of World War II. Millions of Soviet civilians were also forcibly sent into exile to Siberia or the southern deserts and a high proportion of these died. Norman Davies argues, persuasively in my view, that the USSR's prison system wasn't much less murderous than Nazi Germany's. As such, a photo seems very apt. Nick-D (talk) 07:07, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
As another comment, this section of the article needs to be re-worked. It doesn't explicitly state that the USSR killed millions of its own citizens for internal political reasons (it only mentions citizens of occupied countries and "Soviet citizens themselves who had been or were thought to be supporters of the Nazis") and the inclusion of almost a whole paragraph on the relatively minor mistreatment of POWs in Canadian camps seems both unjustified and POV given that the Geneva (owned by Mcdonadls) Convention allowed POWs to be used for non-military labour. Nick-D (talk) 07:13, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
Dear Nick-D, could you please familiarize yourself with the Gulag talk page? You can find there a direct quote from the Robert Conquest himself who conceded that the source I used (the Zemskov's works) was a reliable source: "We are all inclined to accept the Zemskov totals (even if not as complete) with their 14 million intake to Gulag 'camps' alone, to which must be added 4-5 million going to Gulag 'colonies', to say nothing of the 3.5 million already in, or sent to, 'labour settlements'. However taken, these are surely 'high' figures." (Victims of Stalinism: A Comment. Author(s): Robert Conquest Source: Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 49, No. 7 (Nov., 1997), pp. 1317-1319). It worths mentioning that after Soviet archives became available in 1990th Conquest, along with many other scholars, corrected his earlier estimates considerably. Note, please, the number of 14 million, Conquest agreed with, is a total number of Gulag intake during 1932-1953, not during the war. "Colonies" were something else, conditions there were much milder and the terms never exceeded 1-3 years, their inmates were just ordinary criminals, and such a number is normal for every large country.
Regarding to your second comment, the statement "the USSR killed millions of its own citizens for internal political reasons", although generally correct, is hardly relevant to the WWII period. Before doing such a statement, it makes sense to take into account the following:
(i) majority of Gulag deaths during the war were a result of simple food and medical help shortage that, BTW, was common not only for Gulag, but for the USSR as whole. The home front life and labour conditions were also extremely hard, otherwise the USSR would never survive. The regime simply had no resources for the prisoners. I agree that liberation of them with subsequent conscriprion would be, probably, a better option, however, I know no evidence of deliberate mass killing, or starvation of the Gulag inmates, or other categories of the USSR population during WWII (by the Soviet authorities, of course).
(ii) Deportations had the same reason as the notorious deportation of the Japanese Americans (in other words, not political, but military), although in both cases the Stalin's and Roosevelt's fears had lesser ground than they thought. In addition, the adjustment to the dramatic difference in the economical and military situation in the US and the USSR should be made: in the latter, such deportations had to be more brutal because of much greater overall brutality of the war there. It is well known, by the way, that Japan didn't and couldn't plan any invasion of the continental USA, whereas the Soviet Union had already been invaded, and the areas affected by deportations (Volga German Republic, North Caucasus or Crimea) were either directly adjacent to or few hundred kilometers from the front line.
As regards to "mistreatment of POWs in Canadian camps" etc, I have a dual feeling: on the one hand, I agree that such an incident is hardly a military crime at all, as compared with terrible war crimes in Europe and Asia; on the another hand, at least one example is needed to demonstrate that even those countries only indirectly affected by the WWII brutality also committed war crimes. Mentioning of Japanese deportation in America would be sufficient, though.
Regards,
--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:53, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
In addition, let me remind you that Conquest is one of the most anti-Soviet authors. Others, like his constant opponent Wheatcroft, give lower numbers. Therefore, the Conquest's data and conclusions are the upper estimate rather than the ultimate truth.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:09, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
I think that we've going to have to agree to disagree there Paul as I have no intention of being sucked into the various eastern-European edit wars. I'll draft an alternate version of this section as I think that it really needs work and invite comments and changes in the usual way. I agree that the deportation of Japanese-Americans should be covered alongside Soviet deportations and thinks that the entire topic of western Allied abuse of Axis prisoners deserves only brief coverage given that it was fairly rare. Nick-D (talk) 09:34, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
1. I don't understand what war do you mean taking into account that I hate edit wars and always try to achieve a consensus.
2. I see no reasons for disagreement: I've just pointed your attention at the fact that the sources you used were obsolete. Gulag population didn't increase during the war, and never exceeded 2.5 million. Most western scholars agree with that.
3. I also have no data that confirms that "the USSR killed millions of its own citizens for internal political reasons" during the war. According to Wheatcroft,[125] "Stalin by contrast can be charged with causing the purposive death of something in the order of a million people." Note, these numbers relate to the 1932-1953 period. Of course, the actual population losses, including excessive mortality in Gulag camps or famines were much higher, however, one has to separate it from deliberate killing for political reasons. I also unaware of any mass repressions in the USSR during WWII.
4. I already agreed that "relatively minor mistreatment of POWs in Canadian camps" hardly deserves mentioning taking into accont that the story about Japanese Americans has already been included into the article. I also agreed that the latter should be just mentioned.
In additiion, after looking again at the section (I didn't read it for a long time) I have to agree that it is really terrible. Giving so negligible details is such an article is simply ridiculous. Therefore, I fully agree that the section should be rewritten. Since I paid a special attention to Gulag and POWs, I can provide modern reliable sources for that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:52, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

there is a misplaced comma in the line stating how many dutch POWs were inprizoned "from the UK, 28,500 from the, Netherlands and" 04-01-2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.57.41.141 (talk) 18:18, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Paul. I didn't intend to imply that you're an edit warrior - your actions on this page clearly demonstrate that you're not. Sorry about that. Nick-D (talk) 22:21, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Listing some causes behind the facts

Shouldn't be some causes listed behind the facts in this article? It's like a list of dates and places and nothing else. I added that the German invasion was halted, due to the heavy Russian winter but this was removed for some reason. I think this is important, because this is why Napoleon failed, too, during his campaign...thus histroy repeats itself... Hitler didn't realize that thx --Bizso (talk) 05:32, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

That was discussed when this article was re-written last year, and the consensus view was that as this has to be a very high-level summary article it should simply describe the main events of the war. Attempting to discuss causal relationships is unmanageable as Wikipedia rules require that all reputable theories would have to be discussed. Using this example, it means that the article would need to acknowledge that the German failure in 1941 has been variously attributed to bad weather at the start of the campaign, stubborn Soviet resistance, Hitler's decision to direct the German armies away from Moscow, bad weather during the drive on Moscow, better Soviet clothing equipment, the presence of fresh Soviet reserves, the German tank fleet requiring maintainence, and various other reasons. This obviously isn't managable for an article which covers the whole war, and should be discussed in the articles on the individual battles. Nick-D (talk) 09:26, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
I see. There are entire books written about World war 2 so this article is just a very concise extract.--Bizso (talk) 16:59, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Exactly. If we went even a little more in-depth everywhere, we'd be staring at a 150-200 kb article...which would be verrrry bad. :) —Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 22:42, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Use of Images

I am concerned about the use of the historic photograph "Holocaust123.JPG‎" which depicts the graphic image of the dead victims of the holocaust piled upon each other in the section of this article "Concentration camps and slave work". I know such images are nessessary in displaying the terrible horror of WWII, and to help prevent this happening again, but i believe this image is potentially scaring for children who may be researching WWII or the holocaust for a school project, etc, and undermines Wikipedia as a "safe" website for kids. I suggest that either the image is removed, or a banner is added at the top of the page stating that this article contains disturbing images. Thanks for your time! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 3atc3 (talk • contribs) 08:53, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

To my opinion, a dramatic difference exists between scaring children with staged pictures from action movies and presenting a real evidences of the war crimes. The first is harmful and redundant, the second is useful and even desirable. If the child is educated enough to open a WP article, he/she is mature enough to know about the horror of the war.--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:08, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
Although I understand the sentiment, I think this motivation to remove material is fairly close to censoring Wikipedia; which we decided should not be done. Also note that Wikipedia does not intend to be safe for kids, and that (as Paul Siebert says) when a kid is old and educated enough to use WP articles, he/she should be mature enough to learn something about the horror of war. Arnoutf (talk) 18:52, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
As Paul and Arnoutf point out, Wikipedia is not censored and is not specifically written to be suitable for children. All material is covered by the content disclaimer and it is against current policy to add disclaimers to any articles. See also Wikipedia:No disclaimers in articles and Wikipedia:Options to not see an image. Nick-D (talk) 22:22, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
wikipedia has a neutral point of view policy, nobody just can't argue in favor of putting a picture depicting a pile of dead bodies in order to make people aware of the horrors of war. fyi --Andersmusician NO 00:33, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Thank you all for your points, they are entirely valid. I am relatively new to Wikipedia and was unaware of some of the facts stated above. I was merely trying to raise the point, but I now understand that Wikipedia is, after all, a chronicle of time and therefore can not be edited for the approval of any single minority or majority. Cheers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 3atc3 (talk • contribs) 05:43, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Andersmusician's point somewhat confused me. While I support the fact that Wikipedia is a NPOV and non-censored encyclopedia, I did not understand this phrase: "nobody just can't argue in favor of putting a picture depicting... blah de blah." Is the double negative being used in a grammatical way that I have never seen before? Or is it trying to say that it is acceptable to censor Wikipedia? (Notice he said: "nobody...can't...argue in favor of...blah blah blah." So, nobody, can not argue in favor ... blah. Or if I were to reverse the whole thing, per simple Algebra, anybody can argue against... blah.) Sorry for the meandering post, but Jeeminey those victims are thin. Cheers, indeed! Sorry, that made me sound like a heartless freak. Luna RainHowLCry 03:20, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
Also, consider looking through the archives or the photo's talk page, as this photo has been on Wikipedia for well over two years. I believe this debate can be found here Luna RainHowLCry 03:42, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

overcats

I think this page has too many categories. Do we should put this article in Category:Wars involving <xxxcountry>?--Kwj2772 (talk) 02:14, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

If you look some 4,000 edits ago, in the history, you will see the exact same concern being brought up. I agree that it is absolutely unnecessary to say "| Wars involving Mexico | Wars involving the Netherlands | Wars involving New Zealand | Wars involving Norway | Wars involving the Philippines | Wars involving Poland | Wars involving Romania | Wars involving South Africa | Wars involving Thailand | " But wait, there's more! "| Wars involving Bulgaria | Wars involving Burma | Wars involving the Balkans | Wars involving Hungary | Wars involving Indonesia | Wars involving Iran | Wars involving Iraq |" could all be removed as excessive categories. Luna RainHowLCry 03:54, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Heck, this talk page is overCatted.Luna RainHowLCry 03:58, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

I'd missed reading this article and just ran across a somewhat odd (okay, it was sort of comical actually) representation of the Pact's signing contained therein.

It happened to leave out a minor detail, to put it mildly. Like the that the Tripartite talks actually broke down as the Soviets agreed with Germany to do a deal, with whom they had also been talking. Actually, for those interested in the rather dramatic history surrounding this, it included a desperate telegram from Hitler personally to Stalin two days before to confirm the final deal as Allied military negotiators were talking to Soviet negotiators in Moscow -- with no idea of the Soviet-German negotiations going on -- though I didn't include that in this article.

That's all in the Molotov-Ribbentrop article which includes details of the dual discussions not needed in this summary article.

Also, only one reason was given for signing the Pact (historians have discussed 20 or more). Even worse, it was actually from an admittedly non-neutral pro-Soviet historian E.H. Carr -- not exactly "NPOV". Mosedschurte (talk) 05:55, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Note: I was just passed a comment by an editor that apparently this article has gone through such turmoil that all edits of any sort must be discussed on the Talk Page. No problem, but maybe some sort of banner should be placed at the top of the article so that people adding sources or correcting errors will know about it.

Anyway, here are the suggested corrections to the paragraph with cites:

In April, 19389, the USSR launched the tripartite alliance negotiations with Britain and France,(ref)Michael Jabara Carley (1993). End of the 'Low, Dishonest Decade': Failure of the Anglo-Franco-Soviet Alliance in 1939. Europe-Asia Studies 45 (2), 303-341.(/ref) while thereafter it began discussions with Germany regarding a potential agreement.(ref name="fest589")Fest, Joachim C., Hitler, Harcourt Brace Publishing, 2002 ISBN 0156027542, page 589-90</ref>(ref)Shirer, William L., The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany, Simon and Schuster, 1990 ISBN 0671728687, page 501-505(/ref) However, Tthe tripartite negotiations failed when the Soviet Union agreed to enter a pact with Germany(ref name="dwatson715")Derek Watson Molotov's Apprenticeship in Foreign Policy: The Triple Alliance Negotiations in 1939 Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 52, No. 4 (Jun., 2000), page 715. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/153322(/ref)(ref name="shirer528")Shirer, William L., The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany, Simon and Schuster, 1990 ISBN 0671728687, pages 528</ref>, and due to mutual mistrust(ref)Derek Watson. Molotov's Apprenticeship in Foreign Policy: The Triple Alliance Negotiations in 1939. Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 52, No. 4 (Jun., 2000), pp. 695-722</ref> and because the collective security system in Europe was severely undermined by the Munich agreement and the subsequent events.(ref)Max Beloff. The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, vol. II, 1936–41. Issued under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Oxford University Press, 1949. (/ref) Apprehensive of a possible war with Hitler while the Western powers remained neutral or tacitly favorable to Hitler(ref) E. H. Carr., From Munich to Moscow. I. Soviet Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1, (Jun., 1949), pp. 3-17. Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.(/ref), tThe Soviet Union signed the non-aggression pact with Germany, including a secret agreement to split Poland and Eastern Europe between them.(ref)Day, Alan J.; East, Roger; Thomas, Richard. A Political and Economic Dictionary of Eastern Europe, pg. 405(/ref)(ref name="mrtext")Text of the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, executed August 23, 1939(/ref)

Most of the addition (underlined above) is source text. It would actually probably decrease the readable text size of the paragraph (I'm sure length is an issue with this article) with Carr's take gone.Mosedschurte (talk) 06:27, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that - I support the change. Despite Munich, there was little good will towards the Nazis in the French and British governments by 1939 and the current text needs to be fixed - Chamberlain's willingness to go to war in 1939 is often under-stated. There's a comment at the top of the article when you edit it asking that significant changes be discussed first, but it does tend to get lost. Nick-D (talk) 06:30, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
The Chamberlain history is kind of interesting and more complex than we all (or at least I) learned in school. The details of the competing negotiations for a Soviet deal in August are pretty fascinating. Hitler watched carefully for months as the Britain/France talks were chronicled in the press and political speeches, while Germany quietly had talks with the Soviets about their own deal. While the Allied Military talks were going on in mid-August, Germany wwas desperately working to finalize the Pact, and the Soviets knew the Germans were in a hurry and let them hang a bit. Hitler and Ribbentrop desperately waited together twice for replies back from Stalin on two occasions in mid-August, including the final deal. When the Germany-Soviet deal was announced, world leaders and media were shocked beyond belief after covering the UK-France-USSR talks for months. Floored UK/French negotiators still in Moscow desperately requested a meeting and were thereafter told face-to-face "In view of the changed political situation, no useful purpose can be served in continuing the conversation."
As a heads up, re the note on the edit page, I'm not seeing that. I just get the "protected" note: "Note: This page has been semi-protected so that only established users can edit it. "
It's the first lines of text in the editing field. Nick-D (talk) 06:53, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
I can't believe I missed that. Thanks.Mosedschurte (talk) 06:55, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
I just noticed why I missed it the first time. The note doesn't appear in the edit field when you just try to edit a section. Like this one. It's only at the top of the article. If a general edit page warning (including for section edit links) can't be added, maybe some kind of banner at the top of the article regarding edits could be added. Just a suggestion. It's not a huge deal.Mosedschurte (talk) 06:59, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
Dear Mosedschurte. It is a big surprise for me to read this: "Like the that the Tripartite talks actually broke down as the Soviets agreed with Germany to do a deal, with whom they had also been talking. " During our extensive discussion on the MRP talk page I got the impression (based on the sources both you and I rely upon) that the chronology of the events was the following:
1. In April 1939 the Soviet Union proposed the UK/France to sigh a tripartite alliance, whereas Germany "hinted to Soviet diplomats that it could offer better terms for a political agreement".
2. In May 1939 Stalin replaced Litvinov (a Jew, a proponent of anti-fascist coalition, a person prone to compromisses and a man whose failures during Munich crisis demontrated his inefficiency) with a stubborn Molotov, who had no diplomatic experience but could be (according to Stalin) a better negotiator. By this step, Stalin demonstrated that one more option became available for him, namely, the rapprochement with Germany. This was the message to both Chamberlain, who thought that only two option were available for Stalin (to accept British proposal, or to remain in isolation) and to Hitler (that the rapprochement cannot be ruled out.
3. However, no decisive diplomatic steps towards Germany were taken by the USSR until the political triple alliance negotiations had stalled in July 1939. On 3 August 1939 Germany proposed the USSR to improve relations via defining spheres of interests in the Eastern Europe, but recieved no concrete answer. On that same day Britain proposed Germany to sign a non-aggression treaty (sic!). Only after Strang's departure on 7 August, that meant a suspension of the triple negotiations, did the Nazi-Soviet negotiations started.
4. The fact that military part of triple talks still continued during the secret Nazi-Soviet talks means almost nothing because this agreement couldn't be signed until the political agreement had been achieved. Therefore, in the absence of the political agreement the military negotiations were just a visibility of talks.
My conclusion is:
a) The words:"while thereafter it began discussions with Germany regarding a potential agreement" are incorrect.
b) In the sentence:"the tripartite negotiations failed when the Soviet Union agreed to enter a pact with Germany" the casual linkage has been reversed. In actuality, "the Soviet Union agreed to enter a pact with Germany when the triple negotiation stalled and were suspended indefinitely".
As regards to "Apprehensive of a possible war with Hitler while the Western powers remained neutral or tacitly favorable to Hitler", it is an almost direct quite from Carr. This quote tells nothing about Chamberlain's real intentions, it just describe the Soviet's vision. To my opinion, it should remain in the article, because many other sources agree that Stalin had many reasons to think so.
Dear Nick-D, I wouldn't agree with your statement: "Despite Munich, there was little good will towards the Nazis in the French and British governments by 1939 and the current text needs to be fixed". Munich related to the Sudetes only. However, after that the Western democracies did nothing to prevent a full occupation of Czechoslovakia. Once again, these two events are absolute different things. No matter what real Chamberlain's intentions were, the western power's actions really created an impression summarized by Carr.
In addition, let me reproduce the quote from Taylor: "If British diplomacy seriously aspired to alliance with Soviet Russia in 1939, then the negotiations towards this end were the most incompetent transactions since Lord North lost the American colonies ...". No matter how little good will Chamberlain had towards the Nazis, his strategy during the triple alliance negotiations was one of the major reasons for signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.
Summarizing all said above I strongly oppose to the proposed changes, although I agree that the paragraph can be improved. Let's discuss possible changes taking into account all said above.
Regards,
--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:53, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
PS. To my opinion, there are no pro-Soviet and anti-Soviet historians, like there are no pro-Soviet or anti-Soviet chemists. Like chemists, historians can be good (in that case they try to reveal truth and treat the facts in a logically consistent way) and bad (in that case they interpret facts in a wrong way in attempt to push their POV). Since a huge amount of books and peer-reviewed articles has been written about WWII, we can afford to choose only those written by good historians. In that case we have to leave accusations in pro- or anti- position.
To my opinion, the good way to determine if some book is good or bad is to look for a review of this book in peer-reviewed historical journals. (BTW, it is close to what WP gudelines propose).--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:21, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
I can't even believe this is a topic of discussion after the Molotov-Ribbentrop article. The paragraph as it stands now is simply ridiculous from a neutral historical perspective, not that any of this detail need be in this summary article:
1. First, regarding the chronology, the allied negotiations had not failed before Germany and the Soviets began talks. The entire sentence is currently absurd. The reason they didn't yet do a deal yet on their last round (July) of face-to-face talks was that they currently had disagreed on language in a supplemental Molotov's letter (one of many proposals and counter-proposals that had been made since March), but they actually had sent military negotiators to Moscow to continue those talks.
2. In fact, not only had Berlin and Moscow been quietly discussing a deal potential since at least May (and perhaps even April 17), but they were discussing it at the highest levels in late July and early August. The unilateral "hints" you referred to were in the months before.
3. Allied military negotiators were literally sitting in Moscow face-to-face with Russian negotiators discussing the Sviets' demand to put military troops in Poland (about which the sides disagreed) for a week as Hitler, Ribbentrop, Stalin and Molotov were finalizing both the non-aggression pact and secret protocols from August 15-19, along with a commercial agreement of aid and support. In fact, even as that had occurred, the Russians didn't even suspend the Allied talks until August 21, but even then this was just a suspension and the Allied negotiators remained in Moscow for that round of talks to potentially continue them while Poland was being pressured more.
4. The Allied negotiators learned like everyone else about the deal when it was publicly announced, shocking almost everyone on the planet, who had no idea discussions with Hitler were taking place, much less that Stalin would actually join a Pact with Hitler.
Re: "PS. To my opinion, there are no pro-Soviet and anti-Soviet historians,"
->To highlight the particularly glaring nature of E.H. Carr, he is so pro-Soviet that that's literally almost what he's best known for. In fact, not only is it littered throughout his Wikipedia article, but the first known for clause in E.H. Carr's actual info box on him states "Known for: For pro-Soviet studies in Soviet history . . . "
->There are literally hundreds of opinions on why Stalin entered the Pact, to select merely one -- especially with that one being from one of the most noted pro-Soviet historians in history -- is about as far as possible from Wikipedia WP:NPOV. That's that's even there as we're discussing it is somewhat embarrassing.
-> Even more silly, this is actual quote from the article (with the Carr cite): "Apprehensive of a possible war with Hitler while the Western powers remained neutral or tacitly favorable to Hitler"
->Rather than replace it with one, or -- as Wikipedia policy says regarding including such opinions, including them all -- no historian's speculation on Stalin's motive should be included in the sentence.
->Especially in a summary article like this. Even were it within Wikipedia policy to include merely one POV historian speculation, there would really no need for it in a summary anyway.
I agree with NickD. And there's no way it can stand remotely close to the way it is now and pass muster under Wikipedia policy. Mosedschurte (talk) 00:15, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Dear Mosedschurte. First of all, I will appreciate if you avoid using the word "silly" on WP talk pages. There are not many silly persons among Wikipedians and they do silly statements very unfrequently. Otherwise, WP would make no sense.
Re: "I can't even believe this is a topic of discussion" I am not completely satisfied with the MRP article either (although generally your contribution is positive), so my comments have a relation to both articles.
Re: 1. If my entire sentence is currently absurd feel free to write your own article and send it to the Europe-Asia Studies journal. In your article you may criticise the Derek Watson's vision of the Triple Alliance negotiation's history. I think, you should know that the sentence you so brilliantly criticised was a brief summary of the Watson's article.
Re: 2. When the first highest level meeting took place and who were the negotiators?
Re: 3. Fully agree. The only thing that remains unclear for me is: what relation does your statement have to the subject of our discussion? The fact (not historians' interpretations) is that military agreement couldn't be signed before the political one. Political negotiation stalled indefinitely, Strang left, and no one knew when these talks would continue (this is also a fact). Therefore, even the achievement of military agreement would mean nothing. You didn't refute that, and I don't understand how could you do that.
Re: 4. This is pure emotions. In addition, no one knew about Hitler's cannibalic nature bythat moment. Auschwitz had not been built yet. Mass murders didn't start. Hitler's plans were unknown, even for Hitler himself. Moreover, few years before that many sportsmen (including those from the US) came to the Berlin Olympiad, and people enjoyed the "Triumph of the Will" movies. To many people, Gremany was a normal European country, although somewhat ambitious and more aggressive. I am not sure who was considered as more terrible dictator in 1939: Hitler or Stalin (the Poles, the Hungarians and the Baltic nations definitely knew the answer). Your emotions seems to be a projection of your present day's knowledge on past.
--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:27, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
I have nothing against removal of all historian speculations, provided that the fact are presented in a proper way. Unfortunatelly, in some cases it seems problematic, because it may lead to inflation of the article, in that case historian speculations, or, more correctly a summary made by a professional historian are preferrable. However, if you can propose a version that allowed us to avoid such speculations and created a correst picture, it would be great.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:07, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

If you're not

Re: "I think, you should know that the sentence you so brilliantly criticised was a brief summary of the Watson's article."

->Here is a word-for-word quote from Derek Watson (the historian you keep quoting) on the reasons that the Soviets suspended the military talks on August 21:

When it became clear that the British and French could not solve this problem, Voroshilov (note: the chief Soviet negotiator) proposed adjournment on the excuse that the absence of the senior Soviet personnel at the talks was interfering with the autumn manoeuvres of the Soviet forces. In fact it was because of the progress being made in the USSR–German negotiations: the talks with Britain and France were overtaken by the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact. (Watson, 715)

Re: "Re: 4. This is pure emotions."

->No it wasn't. As stated, the Allied parties learned about the Pact through the media, like everyone else. Here's again in fact the one historian you keep quoting, Derek Watson, on the topic:

On 22 August, however, the British government learned from the German press that Germany and the USSR proposed to conclude a non-aggression pact. (Watson, page 715)

Re: "The fact (not historians' interpretations) is that military agreement couldn't be signed before the political one."

->No one has said that both weren't necessary, and this is a complete red herring you keep throwing out on this WP:Fringe argument that no concurrent talks were taking place.
->You seem to be hanging part of your entire theory (not that this part matters) on some fiction that because they didn't do the deal while disagreeing on the Molotov supplement letter in the first week of August, that all negotiations had failed such that a deal could never be done -- a notion so preposterous, I'm not even sure what to say.
->It was Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov that demanded on August 2 that a military deal be struck first before political talks could continue.

->Moreover, the notion that that UK-France deal couldn't be done is completely obliterated yet again by the historian you yourself continue to bring up (Watson). Not in July, but EVEN AS LATE AS AUGUST 20, Molotov still thought they could do the deal with the UK & Britain:

"As late as 20 August he (note: Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov) spoke enthusiastically to the new Turkish ambassador about a positive and speedy result, and his stalling on the date of Ribbentrop’s visit to Moscow indicates that there were still hopes of a successful outcome of the Triple Alliance negotiations." (Watson, 715)

Here is the briefest of chronologies (sources all in Molotov-Ribbentrop article (and its obviously not complete as that would take up 3 pages):

  • Mid-March of 1939 - UK-France trade flurry of proposals and counters with USSR
  • Months before - Germany and the Soviet Union had been discussing a potential broad economic aid agreement, with Germany hinting that it could offer a better political deal than UK-France
  • April 17 - Soviet ambassador tells the German German Deputy Foreign Minister"there exists for Russia no reason why she should not live with us on a normal footing" and "from normal, the relations might become better and better"
  • April 17 - Soviets outline a proposal for a UK-France-USSR alliance. It was turned down.
  • May 3 - Litvnionv (Jewish-Pro-Western) making negotiations with Germany easier
  • Mid-May - Allies make counter-proposals
  • May 20 - Soviet Foreign Minsiter Molotov tells the German ambassador je no longer wanted to discuss only economic matters, and that it was necessary to establish a "political basis."
  • May 30 - Germany directed its diplomats in Moscow that "we have now decided to undertake definite negotiations with the Soviet Union."
  • May 31 - Soviets criticize UK-France counterproposals on numerous sticking points.
  • Early June - Molotov told a an unofficial intermediary to Germany that a deal with Germany was a better than a UK-France deal
  • June 2 - Soviets make a counterproposal, which the Allies have problems with
  • July 8 - In face to face talks, Allies make a proposal which the Germans have problems with
  • mid-July - Soviets give a counterproposal with a supplementary letter on Baltic States indirect aggression, with which the Allies disagree
  • July 23 - the parties agree to conduct military talks in August in Moscow
  • July 26 - (actually this began on July 25) - German-Soviet talks of political rapproachment, including a key Schnurre-Astakhov meeting
  • August 2 - Molotov demands that a military deal must first be reached before political talks can continue
  • August 3 - German Foreign Minister tells Soviets that "there was no problem between the Baltic and the Black Sea that could not be solved between the two of us."
  • August 12 - Soviets tell Germany that Foreign Minister wants talks on issues, including Poland, to start in Moscow
  • August 12 - UK-France-USSR face-to-face military talks begin in Moscow, including Soviets demand to station troops in Poland, with the Poles disagreeing, and waiting for Polish foreign office answer
  • August 15-16 - Germany and the USSR come close to finalizing a complete 25 year non-aggression Pact deal
  • August 18 - Poles won't bow to UK-France pressure to put Soviet troops in Poland as part of deal
  • August 19 - Hitler becomes nervous that Stalin won't approve the deal and telegrams him that he must received Molotov by August 23 because Poland is becoming "intolerable".
  • August 21 - Soviets suspend talks with UK-France while Poland won't come to the table (real reason to come that same day)
  • August 21 - Stalin confirms to Hitler they'll do a deal, including secret protocols diving up Poland and Eastern Europe. Hitler & Ribbentrop ecstatic.
  • August 22 - Revealed in press that a deal is about to be done.
  • August 23 - Absolutely shocked Allies beg for meeting with Soviet negotiators
  • August 23-24 (night) - Deal inked in Moscow while Stalin makes a toast to Hitler with Ribbentrop, joking about "British shopkeepers"
  • August 25 - Allies get their meeting. They are told "[i]n view of the changed political situation, no useful purpose can be served in continuing the conversation."

Again, none of this need go in this World War II summary article. But the WP:Fringe theory that there weren't concurrent talks and that the German talks/deal weren't the reason no UK-France deal was struck can't remain in a Wikipedia article. Mosedschurte (talk) 06:31, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Um guys, I think that WP:TLDR applies to this discussion! Nick-D (talk) 06:37, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Sorry about that. I got dragged into minutiae on what should be a summary issue for this article because the idea that there weren't concurrent negotiations and that Allied Talks had failed before the Germa talks began was just ridiculous.Mosedschurte (talk) 07:15, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

MRP continued

Dear Mosedschurte. Since both you and I read the same sources, could you please avoid taking small pieces of the text out of context. I believe that it is clear for everyone who read the Watson's article that the piece reproduced by you described a technical end of the already stalled negotiations. As regards to the comprehensive summary of the triple negotiations' time course (thanks for presenting them, by the way), it is also clear for everyone that no serious contacts took place between Germany and the USSR before the sticking point has been achieved on the triple negotiations (mid July). This has been summarized by Michael Jabara Carley (you read this source): "The key issues were over guarantees of the Baltic states, a definition of 'indirect aggression', and negotiations for a military convention tied to the political agreement."
--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:56, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

German-Soviet Commercial Agreement (1940)

I noticed that the German-Soviet Commercial Agreement (1940) was not in the article. This was much larger than the 1939 deal and allowed the Germans to circumvent the British blockade for millions of tons of vital raw materials and food (which happened) while (according to the agreement anyway) the Germans would provide the Soviets with much needed German military and industrial equipment, including ME-109s and 110s, Ju-88s, naval guns, a cruiser and plans for the Bismarck.

While the details are interesting, they probably have no place in a summary article like this. I suggest the following short sentence for the "War breaks out in Europe" section.

The Soviet Union and Germany also entered a trade pact, pursuant to which the Soviets received German military and industrial equipment in exchange for supplying raw materials to Germany to help circumvent a British blockade.[126]

Mosedschurte (talk) 07:09, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Agree. It definitely has place even in such a summary article.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:54, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
I also support including this, though the wording could be changed to 'The Soviet Union and Germany also entered a trade pact, in which the Germans exchanged military and industrial equipment for Soviet raw materials needed to circumvent the Allied blockade.' - this is a bit clearer and the French were also enforcing the blockade at the time the agreement was signed (not to mention the British Commonwealth countries, which accounted for quite a few German blockade runners during the war). Nick-D (talk) 22:15, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
Support.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:17, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. Less awkward, more clear and others were supporting the British blockade.Mosedschurte (talk) 00:18, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
What's the process under the mediation/arbitration/whatever settlement happened for this being entered into the article now that it's been discussed? Can anyone do it, or does it require some approval?Mosedschurte (talk) 10:50, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
There isn't a formal/agreed process. I'd say that we give this another 24 hours (so that it's been available for comment for about 48 hours) and then anyone can add it. OTOH, I see no reason why anyone would object to including it now. Nick-D (talk) 11:06, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Molotov-Robbentrop pact-II

Thanks to Mosedschurte I read a lot of sources related to MRP and triple alliance. As a result, I think that the para can and should be improved. Here is my version.

In April, 1938, the USSR launched the tripartite alliance negotiations with the UK and France in an attempt to contain Germany[127] and to revive a collecitve security system undermined by preceeding events.[128] In July, these negotiations stalled over guarantees of the Baltic states. The negotiations for a military convention, that were tied to the political agreement, were terminated in August when the Soviet Union agreed to enter a non-aggression pact with Germany[129] that included a secret agreement to split Poland and Eastern Europe onto spheres of influence.[130][131]


--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:19, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Given the very high level nature of this article it both shouldn't cover disputed versions of events and doesn't need to go into that much detail. Can't this be summarised as 'In August 1939 Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact.[132] This treaty included a secret protocol to split Poland and Eastern Europe into separate spheres of influence.[133] which this being placed at the end of the para which begins 'Alarmed, and with Hitler making further demands...'. The article generally doesn't include other things which didn't happen, so there's no real need to include the failed Allied negotiations. Nick-D (talk) 06:47, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Totally agree with Nick D, with maybe the only change to use the word "protocols" instead of "agreement" (it was actually part of the M-R agreement). Regardless of terminology, your simplified sentence is, by far, the best way to deal with it and solves the problems in a summary article like this. Better than my proposal and the above text.
In addition, the above paragraph had numerous other huge problems (wrong year, wasn't just to revive a collective security system, left out that little matter of the German-USSR talks, didn't just stall over the Baltic states, "spheres of influence" language used without explaining that this was to split those countries, etc.). In short, it was a factual disaster.
Accordingly, that's two agreeing on your simplified summary sentence, NickD:

"In August 1939 Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact. This treaty included secret protocols to split Poland and Eastern Europe into separate spheres of influence. (cite Oxford Companion)"

Mosedschurte (talk) 07:12, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

'Protocols' is definetly an improvement, and I've just made this change to the above text. Nick-D (talk) 07:15, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Dear Nick-D, you probably are right. Since many sources directly state that there were no reason to charge any party in playing a double game in 1939, the best way would be just to leave this question beyond the scope.
One more comment. Only one secret protocol had been signed that defined the spheres of influence. I fixed it.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:21, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
PS. To my opinion, the references to Carley's and Watson's articles should be included. The dictionary is too general, whereas the articles, to my opinion, give a detailed explanation of the events.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:31, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
I used the Oxford Companion because it's widely available (both in hardcopy form and online via the Oxford databases which many public libraries make available to all their borrowers via the internet) and is a very highly regarded reference directed at a general audience. I think that it's better to use these kinds of sources for this article than specialist papers which aren't easily accessible (it's almost impossible for people without access to university libraries and the like to access these kind of journals) and may not be suitable for general readers. The Oxford Companion devotes a bit more than a page to this treaty, provides references for further reading and can be assumed to cover the most common views (it acknowledges that historians views on the treaty differ and not all records from the Soviet Achieves have been released to historians) so it's a high-quality source, especially as it's only being used to verify a bland statement of fact. Nick-D (talk) 10:40, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
I didn't propose to use the specialist papers instead of the Companion. All three references complement each other. The Watson's article is focused on the curcumstances that lead to signing the pact, Carley is more general, whereas the Companion seems to be more tertiary than a secondary source. Both articles can be purchased by anyone and contain nothing that the person with a high school level of historical education couldn't understand.--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:48, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
I don't think that more than one general reference is needed to verify that this very well-known treaty existed and its key features, which is all that this article covers. Alternate references to highly regarded and commonplace secondary sources are: Keegan, John. The Second World War, pg 33 or Weinberg, Gerhard L. A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II, pg. 34–35. Links to specialised articles would be better placed in the article on the treaty and I don't think that I could purchase either article without first spending hundreds of dollars on a subscription to an academic journal service. Nick-D (talk) 07:39, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
Generally speaking, it is not correct. Journals used to sell articles separately. For instance, you can buy a separate article from the Journal of modern history for $10 per article, or get an electronic subscription for $44.
As regards to the books you recommended, I don't think they are completely satisfactory. Keegan wrote his book before several interesting Soviet archival documents had been de-classified. Weinberg pays not much attention to the MRP, and, to my opinion, gives oversimplified and inaccurate picture. Therefore I would propose a reference to another book: (Zachary Shore. What Hitler Knew: The Battle for Information in Nazi Foreign Policy. Published by Oxford University Press US, 2005 ISBN 0195182618, 9780195182613, p. 108) that gives more detailed and correct description of the events. I already introduced this reference instead of Carley and Watson, so, if no one mind, we can introduce this piece of the text into the article.
Regards,
--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:52, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
You just edited Nick-D's Talk page comments, replacing the source. That's a Wikipedia no-no, to put it mildly.
That said, with the actual two sentences agreed upon by all now for several days, it can be added, and the non-visible ref cite for the first sentence can be replace with Shore if that's determined to be a better source for the sentence. Mosedschurte (talk) 02:28, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm a bit disappointed that you added that ref Paul despite there not being an agreement on this. I'm not about to die in the ditch or revert you though, but it seems to be bad form. Given that the article is presenting a very simple and high-level summary of the war for general readers, I think that we should only use highly accessible references to verify the straightforward statements the article makes. Nick-D (talk) 07:15, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
Dear Nick-D,
Frankly, I cannot understand the reason for your disappointment. I proposed to include two specialized articles and added them to the draft, you argued that the references to more general books should be included instead (although, if I understood correctly, you didn't insist on these two concrete books). I found your rationale to be reasonabe, however, I proposed another book, and I explained the reasons for that.
I was waiting for the response from you when I found that, to my big surprise, the changes had been already made in the article, and the piece of the text, along with the refs to Carley and Watson, was moved there. Since these two refs have been proposed by me, and since there were no response from you, I decided to replace them with the reference to the book (that, to my and, I hope, to your understanding, better fits accessibility criteria than scholarly articles do). I see no problem to replace it with another ref. Let's discuss what book it could be.
As regards to "straightforward statements the article makes", I fully agree with that. Unfortunately, the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact doesn't belong to simple and straightforward things (I can provide detailed explanations, but I don't think they are needed on that talk page). Therefore, although generally you are right, in this concrete case a reference to a more specialized (although widely available) book is desirable.
Best regards,
--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:53, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
I didn't agree with the Shore replacement for the high level soruce either, but I'm not going to get draw into an edit war with you about it. Editinh Nick-D's Talk page comments, replacing the source in his own suggested quote was particularly odd. Mosedschurte (talk) 18:10, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

article needs to be downsized

I would take some of the "fat" out.

Fat? Which are the fat parts?   Will Beback  talk  08:08, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The Soviet Union expressed interest in joining the Tripartite Pact?

The sentence "The Soviet Union expressed interest in joining the Tripartite Pact, sending a modified draft to Germany in November and offering a very German-favourable economic deal" is controversal. Roberts (Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939-1953 By Geoffrey Roberts Published by Yale University Press, 2006 ISBN 0300112041, 9780300112047) states (pp 57-59) directly opposite, namely, that Hitler instructed Ribbentrop "to try to involve Soviet Union in a 'continental bloc' " against Britain and the USA. Although Stalin's preliminary answer was positive, he utilised the negotiations mostly to "probe German intentions", and finally the negotiation stalled. Therefore, the sentence should be either re-written, or removed. Since the question is controversal the latter option seems more reasonable. In addition, we cannot afford discussion of the events that never happened in such a high level article...--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:49, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Removal sounds good to me on the grounds of low importance. I just checked my copy of Weinberg, and the book does contain this material and I've seen it elsewhere. Nick-D (talk) 21:57, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
I certainly don't think a sentence about something would have (had it happened) surely meant an Allied (UK-Britain-France-Western Europe, everyone else) loss in Europe is that out of wack, but it's certainly rock solid and it's been reported many places, including Roberts 2006, who goes so far as to say that Stalin hadn't even given up as late as the November 25 letter (which was, by the way, never returned):

Roberts 2006:

"Stalin's instructions to Molotov indicate that he was prepared to negotiate a wide-ranging deal with the Germans and still thought a partnership with Hitler was possible. Molotov arrived in Berlin on 12 November and attempted to fulfil Stalin's brief. But he found himself faced not with negotiations about a new spheres of influence deal but with the offer of a junior partnership in a German-led global alliance, in which Soviet expansion was to be directed towards India and a clash with Britain." (page 58}

"According to Yakov Chadaev, a senior administrator in the Council of People's Commissars, when Molotov gave his report to the Politburo on the discussions in Berlin, Stalin was convinced that Hitler was intent on war. However, the formal Soviet response to the Berlin negotiations suggests that Stalin had not given up completely on a deal with Hitler. On 25 November Molotov presented Schulenburg with a memorandum setting out the conditions of Soviet adherence to the tripartite pact: ( I) the withdrawal of German troops from Finland; (2) a Soviet-Bulgarian mutual assistance pact, including the establishment of Soviet military bases; (3) recognition of Soviet aspirations in the direction of the Persian Gulf; (4) an agreement with Turkey providing for Soviet military bases on the Black Sea Strait5; and (5) Japanese renunciation of rights 10 coal and oil concessions in North Sakhalin."

(Page 59

Brackman:

"In September 1940 the Tripartite Pact of Germany, Italy and Japan was signed. Stalin intended to join this victorious coalition in order to participate in the distribution of the spoils. The purpose of Molotov's visit to Berlin in November 1940 was to reach an agreement with Hitler on the conditions under which the Soviet Union would join the Berlin-Rome- Tokyo 'Axis'. Hitler greeted Molotov warmly on his arrival in Berlin on 12 November 1940. After a few words of welcome, he went into a long presentation of his grandiose plans for the division of the world between Germany and its allies. Molotov listened with great attention and replied that he agreed in principle, though some terns would have to be clarified.· On the same day Ribbentrop told Molotov what he thought were Hitler's terns for the division of the world." (Page 341)

Ribbentrop asked Molotov to sign another secret protocol with the statement: 'The focal point of the territorial aspirations of the Soviet Union would presumably be centered south of the territory of the Soviet Union in the direction of the Indian Ocean." Molotov said that he could not take a 'definite stand on this without Stalin's agreement."

. . .

On 25 November 1940 Stalin sent Hitler a note stating that 'The Soviet Union is prepared to accept the dntt of the Four Powers Pact' with a modification (the Four Powers being Gernany, Italy, Japan. and the Soviet Union). The main modification was the point that 'the area south of Batum and Baku in the general direction of the Persian Gulf is recognized as the center of aspirations of the Soviet Union'. In his note, Stalin repeated this idea twice. He also demanded the establishment of a Soviet rural bast' on the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, and stated that, in the case of Turkish resistance, 'the Soviet Union agrees to work out and carry through the required military and diplomatic measures'."

(page 343)

By the way, the old line that Stalin wasn't really serious with all of that while probing Hitler & the Nazis about Axis entry, humorously, originates with Stalin's desperate response to the documents being release on the matter Falsifiers of History. That whole line was actually taught in Soviet schools right up until 1990 and, I don't think has been repeated since, except on this Talk Page.
Roberts -- the same guy you see quoted above (that Paul claimed didn't say this) also wrote an article on Stalin's claims in Falsifiers, specifically breaking down Stalin's statements that he was never really going to join the Axis, and Stalin's claim that his offers to join the Axis (his "probing tactics") were never serious regarding Axis membership:

Roberts 2002, breaking down Falsifiers of History:
Although it is true that these Soviet proposals can be interpreted as an extension of the probing tactic, it was Molotov, not von Ribbentrop, who took the initiative to reach some kind of agreement after he returned to Moscow. Crucially, had these terms been acceptable to the Germans—admittedly a very big if—there is no reason to suppose that Stalin would have refused to sign the four-power pact proposed by Hitler (involving Germany, Italy, Japan, and the Soviet Union).

Mosedschurte (talk) 22:51, 12 February 2009 (UTC)


Same sentence, different issue. I noticed that the sentence also referred to an "economic deal", with no link. I wikilinked that clause to the deal to which it referred. Didn't change the sentence. I assume that just the wikilink (no text change) was minor enough to do without opening up a vote about it. Mosedschurte (talk) 23:29, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

How many people participated in World War II?

Just curious. All I see is the number of people the war killed - at least 62 million, a good-sized country's worth. 204.52.215.107 (talk) 05:27, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Look in the lede. "Over 100 million military personnel" - which doesn't include civilians and others who might've contributed to war shenanigans. Easily history's biggest war by far. — Rickyrab | Talk 05:31, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

The Soviet Union expressed interest in joining the Tripartite Pact? II.

Mosedschurte provided detailed arguments that proved Stalin's intentions to discuss a possibility of joining the Axis. However, those evidences are quite irrelevant to the subject of the discussion. No one can question that some negotiations, or, at least, some discussion took place between Ribbentrop and Molotov regarding joining the Axis. However, my point was quite different.
The sentence: "The Soviet Union expressed interest in joining the Tripartite Pact, sending a modified draft to Germany in November and offering a very German-favourable economic deal; while Germany remained silent on the former, they accepted the latter." is false for three reasons:

  1. It states that the initiative to start the negotiations belonged to the USSR
  2. It states that the USSR was more interested in the success of the negotiations than Germany did.
  3. It states that the decision to break negotiations was made by Germany.

All three statements are false. This reference[134] contains a full fragment of the Roberts' book Mosedschurte so arbitrarily cited. On these two pages Roberts describes the events as follows:

  1. Hitler "gave the go-ahead to Ribbentrop to try to involve the Soviet Union in a 'continental bloc' of Germany, Italy, Japan and the USSR that would range itself against the United States as well as Britain." (page 57)
  2. "On 13 October Ribbentrop wrote to Stalin, inviting Molotov to Berlin for negotiations" (page 58)
  3. On 22 October, after 9 days (sic!) Stalin sent a positive response (page 58)
  4. The tensions in Soviet-German relations started to rise immediately after that

On the second half of the page 58, as well as on pages 59-60 Roberts describes deterioration of Soviet-German relations. According to him, the possibility of Stalin's joining the Axis could not be ruled out completely in 1940. However, Stalin didn't agree with the role the USSR was proposed to play in that prospective alliance. Therefore, despite attempts to join the alliance had definitely been made by Stalin, two things are obvious:
1. Roberts never stated that the initiative to start negotiations belonged to Stalin. Moreover, he directly states the opposite.
2. Roberts never stated that the decision to stop negotiations was made by Hitler. Rather, both sides were disappointed with each other. The USSR was not ready to accept a role of a junior partner (Roberts writes on that account (p. 58):"Stalin had no interest in such an arrangement and an impasse was quickly reached"), whereas Germany didn't want to see the USSR as another senior member of the coalition .
In addition, according to many sources (e.g.[135]), Germany was much more interested in Soviet-German economic collaboration than the USSR did.
Therefore, the statement "The Soviet Union expressed interest in joining the Tripartite Pact, sending a modified draft to Germany in November and offering a very German-favourable economic deal; while Germany remained silent on the former, they accepted the latter." tells only a small part of true, and, therefore, is false. It must be removed as soon as possible, and I'll do that. (I fully realize that such a behaviour is against the previously achieved consensus, however, one of major WP rules states that any rule can be ignored if it is necessary to improve WP).
After that, we can discuss a possibility to introduce a corrected version of that sentence into the article, although I personally think that such a sentence is not more relevant than the sentence about failed tripatrite Alliance talks (already removed from the article).--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:03, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

First, I didn't add anything to the page (besides wikilinking text).
You just deleted an already existing sentence dealing with the Axis pact talks and more without first discussing it, which is not the policy of this page:

(From the top of the edit page)

As this is a high-profile and high-traffic article, all significant changes should be discussed on the article's talk page BEFORE they are made. Changes which are not supported by a consensus on the talk page will probably be removed until there is a consensus to include them. Please note that this article describes the war at a very high level, and there will probably not be support to include detailed information on individual elements of the war (eg, battles, individual countries experiences and notable people) in the article.

Re: 1. It states that the initiative to start the negotiations belonged to the USSR .2 It states that the USSR was more interested in the success of the negotiations than Germany did. 3. It states that the decision to break negotiations was made by Germany."
->The sentence actually doesn't state any of that. It just said the Soviets had interest in joining the Pact, which they of course did, without referring to which party initiated talks. And by the way, not that it matters because the sentence doesn't even get into this, but it was Stalin that first requested that Molotov go to Berlin.
->Perhaps this is an English issue (not faulting anyone), but it states absolutely nothing about the Soviets being more interested in the Four Power Pact. It just says Germany remained silent about the November offer, which is exactly what happened.
->Regarding the decision to break, it doesn't even discuss any decision to break. It actually says EXACTLY what happened re the negotiations "Germany remained silent". I.e., they never responded to the November 25 Soviet Four Power Pact offer.
By the way, all of this is actually described in great detail in the article link that you deleted German–Soviet Axis talks. You are raising two pages in a Roberts book (or article), but I don't even think that's the source this article cites, so I'm not sure what your point is.
In short, if you don't like an existing sentence, discuss it rather than deleting it. Mosedschurte (talk) 22:39, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
First. I already discussed the sentence, and another editor agreed that the sentence should be removed at least for two reasons. If you want to re-insert the modified version of the sentence, feel free to discuss it. The sentence in its present form cannot be in the article.
Second. The sentence is relevant for longer article specially dealing with the subject. In the present article the sentence is a phrase taken out of context and therefore is simply false.
Third. The policy you refer to is relevant to the normal editing procedure. It doesn't work for extraordinary cases (for instance, false statements should be removed immediately).--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:13, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Re: "The policy you refer to is relevant to the normal editing procedure. It doesn't work for extraordinary cases (for instance, false statements should be removed immediately)"
->That's pretty much it. There is ZERO extraordinary about this situation, and that sentence has probably been in the article for a year or more.
->One more time brazen violation of page policy, by changing the article without a discussion and consensus, and we're going to ANI, and the rest of your threats and Wikipedia policy violations on a variety of pages are coming into it, as well. At some point, this has got to stop.
If you think it's wrong, per the rules for this article, JUST PROPOSE SOME CHANGES on the talk page. It's that simple. I followed the rules and did it. Others follow the rules. Just follow the rules and discuss it first so a consensus can be reached.Mosedschurte (talk) 00:24, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Two kinds of lie are possible: direct lie and telling only a part of truth. This sentence is lie of the second type, and that is absolutely obvious thing for any honest and unbiased editor.
I am sorry that I didn't found this false statement before. Now, when I've done that, it should be removed. If you want to introduce a correct version of Germano-Soviet talks (1940), feel free to discuss changes.
Re: "I followed the rules and did it". I have a long history of participation in polite and correct discussions, so your comment seems redundant. I would say, the WWII article is the only article where you follow rules.
You supported blatantly incorrect and badly sourced statement, and you couldn't refute none of my arguments. You provided no reasonable explanation why this false and redundant statement should be in the article. You restored this false statement twice, under a pretext of alleged violation of the editing strategy. I see no other explanation for that behaviour (as well as for your editing strategy as whole) than your extreme bias. However, I would be happy if this my conclusion appeared to be wrong, so I will appreciate your comments on that account.
I wait until tomorrow.
Cheers, --Paul Siebert (talk) 00:59, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Are you going to propose a change? I still haven't read one.
Re:"You supported blatantly incorrect and badly sourced statement"
1. As an initial matter, before even "supporting" anything, I oppose blatantly violating the article rules -- i.e., deleting a sentence from the article without discussing it first.
2. You deleted both the 1941 border and commercial agreement and Axis Power negotiation sentence without providing a single reason why they were incorrect. In fact, you claimed that they stated three things they don't even say.
3. As it turns out, not only was your editing procedure a blatant violation of page rules, but you were wrong: the statement was correct, and your own sources listed above even confirm it.
I actually don't even know what the one source listed in this article states (probably exactly what's in the article), but the statement is CLEARLY correct, per nearly every other sources listed in other articles -- like German–Soviet Axis talks -- directly addressing the topic in great detail. The last thing between the two was the Soviets' November 25 written proposed agreement, and the Germans never answered it.
Read these, come back and propose a change under the rules, as everyone else does, and maybe you'll actually get the change you want playing by the rules.Mosedschurte (talk) 01:03, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Please, don't teach me how to achieve a consensus. For weeks I have been trying to convince you to follow this way on other talk pages, and it is the first time when you accepted that.
Re: "the many many sources in the other article clearly point out that the Soviets made the November offer, the Germans never answered it, and that they did eventually agree on the 1941 economic deal". You never answered why these facts deserve mentioning, whereas Hitler's initiatives do not. This is your style of writing: to tell truth, but only a part of it. This your manner, in combination with your impressive productivity, poses a severe threat for Wikipedia.
My proposal was to remove the sentence.
However, now I started to think that it may deserve to be in the article along with description of other failed talks, especially Anglo-Franko-Soviet negotiations (1939). Let's discuss that possibility. --Paul Siebert (talk) 01:28, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Re:""the many many sources in the other article clearly point out that the Soviets made the November offer, the Germans never answered it, and that they did eventually agree on the 1941 economic deal". You never answered why these facts deserve mentioning, whereas Hitler's initiatives do not.'""

1. You never asked, but instead before claimed they were false.
2. Now that that's out of the way, I didn't write the sentence. But I assume that the writer didn't want to go into the various letters, visit to Berlin (with four rounds of conversation thereat) and oounter-letters, and just left it with the famous last offer (November 25) to form a Four Power Pact and the Germans' refusal to respond. This is a summary article only. As for the 1941 border and commercial deal, it obviously stands on its own as just one thing it did was ramp up the oil production, without which, Germany was dead in the water by October of 1941 (the downside being this would be a much shorter article) and solved the parties dispute over Lithuania.
3. If you wanted to change it to just say something like "Germany and the Soviet Union negotiated and traded proposed written agreements for a Soviet entry as a fourth power in the Axis Pact but never reached an agreement, while they later entered an economic and border agreement" that would be fine with me. Mosedschurte (talk) 01:45, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Re: 1. Definitely false. For instance, the statement "The Americans killed hundreds thousand civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is false (although factually correct) if you take it out of the WWII context. Similarly, the sentence we discuss is equally false. After reading the quotes I provided any unbiased editor would come to that conclusion. I didn't explain it in more details because I thought it was obvious.
Re: 2. I didn't blame you in writing this sentence. I just was surprised with the enthusiasm you supported it with. That means that you see no problem in telling only a minor part of truth if it would support your concept (although you refuse to acknowledge you have a concept, it is quite easy to formulate it based on your editor's style).
Re: Anyway, the sentence can be present in the article only if triple talks are there, because the importance of triple talks was greater. In that case I see no problem to re-insert the sentence, although this version: "Germany made an attempt to try to involve the Soviet Union in the Axis Pact but an agreement had never been reached, while the economic and border agreement was signed later between these two powers" would be more correct.
I see no problem to re-insert triple talks, because I just realized that chronology was broken in the Czech crisis description. There was a gap between Munich (1938) and dissolution of Czechoslovakia. The latter caused immediate start of triple talks.
By the way, one the oil issue is one more exaggeration you made. Germany had extremely developed synthetic oil industry, so even the loss of Ploesti oil fields in 1944 had no significant impact on the course of the war...--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:32, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Re: "Anyway, the sentence can be present in the article only if triple talks are there,"
This is so bizarre, I'm not even sure what to think of it. The triple alliance talks involving different parties two years before were discussed above last month, with a resolution then implemented after a consensus was reached.
Re "what can be present in the article", if that's another threat, it's not working. I'm not linking some threat to delete portions based on some other section of the article.
Just so we're clear, because you never came up with a proposal, but you wanted to de-emphasize that the Soviets made the final proposal and the Germans didn't respond -- which by the way is 100% correct -- so this is what I proposed not emphasizing either party's proposed written agreements, along with the 1941 agreement:

Current (which you claim wrongly emphasizes the the lat offer):"The Soviet Union expressed interest in joining the Tripartite Pact, sending a modified draft to Germany in November and offering a very German-favourable economic deal while Germany remained silent on the former, they accepted the latter."

Proposed (to address that concern):"Germany and the Soviet Union negotiated and traded proposed written agreements regarding Soviet entry as a fourth Axis member but never reached an agreement, while they later entered an economic and border agreement."

And some better cites for the proposed (Nekrich, Ericson, etc.). That's about as factual and neutral as it gets.Mosedschurte (talk) 03:00, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
1 Failed Soviet-German negotiations deserve no more attention than failed Aglo-Franco-Soviet talks. Period.
2 As regards to the neutrality, my version is equally neutral and correct. Did Germany invited Molotov for negotiations? Yes she did. Did the talks stalled due to disagreements on the parties' roles in the prospective alliance? Yes, they did. Was the economic treaty signed? Yes, it was. By the way, since the economic agreement has been mentioned once in the article, one more reference to the Nazi-Soviet economic collaboration seems redundant in such a high level article. In any case, the item 2 can be discussed only after the consensus has been achieved on item 1.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:59, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
I've just posted a notification of this discussion and a request for other editors' views at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/World War II task force. As a comment, it seems highly unproductive and uncivil to use language such as 'lies' and 'bizarre' about other editors' views. Nick-D (talk) 07:27, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, Nick. I would add that Paul's charge about the "lies" turned out to be inaccurate and he's since just claims that it emphasizes that the Soviets made the last offer (with the Germsns never responding) instead of that both sides made offers. My statement about "bizarre" arguments wasn't about the view on the article, but the demand to go back to overturn old resolved dispute after a consensus was reached.
Regarding, the current sentence, which just mentions and links the the German–Soviet Axis talks and the German–Soviet Border and Commercial Agreement‎, it's been in the article for at least 1,000 edits since early last year. Note: I didn't add it.
I see zero reason to delete it now. In terms of importance:
1. It goes without saying that a Soviet entry as a fourth power into the Axis would have meant an Axis victory (I'm not even sure the US/UK would have even tried an amphibious landing in Europe). The list of more important happenings in terms of overall outcome is not long and certainly includes many other items in the article.
2.It is covered extensively by numerous sources describing the events (probably 100+), and this is a tiny number of them:
  • Shirer, William L. (1990), The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany, Simon and Schuster, ISBN 0671728687 - over 10 pages
  • Nekrich, Aleksandr Moiseevich; Ulam, Adam Bruno; Freeze, Gregory L. (1997), Pariahs, Partners, Predators: German–Soviet Relations, 1922–1941, Columbia University Press, ISBN 0231106769 - 10 pages
  • The source quoted in the article now: Weinberg, Gerhard L. (1995), A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521558794 - 2-3 pages
  • Gorodetsky, Gabriel (2001), Grand Delusion: Stalin and the German Invasion of Russia, Yale University Press, ISBN 030008459 {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: length (help) - 20 pages - Moreover just to show the extensive detail to which this has been covered, Gorodetsky notes regarding just one part of it that: "Molotov's forty-eight-hour stay in Berlin has been reconstructed by historians in minute detail, and there is little need to recapitulate it here."
  • Berthon, Simon; Potts, Joanna (2007), Warlords: An Extraordinary Re-creation of World War II Through the Eyes and Minds of Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin, Da Capo Press, ISBN 0306815389 - several pages
3. In terms of length, it is one clause of one sentence right now -- with potentially 100+ sources if one wanted to hunt them down -- and I see no reason to delete it.
4. The German–Soviet Border and Commercial Agreement differs from the 1940 agreement (mentioned above), settled border and other disputes and was key in the larger Nazi–Soviet economic relations that were vital to giving Germany the raw materials (in particuolar, oil, food and rubber) to even start Barbarossa.
5. Without getting too far into recriminations, the above editor deleted the existing sentence without consensus violating the article rules. Moreover, the reason he gave for the edit was "False statement removed", which was clearly inaccurate per every source. He's made threats on other pages promising to vandalize the page if statements he did not like were not deleted and repeatedly complained of articles being "anti-Soviet".
6. I actually proposed an alternative sentence (see block quote above) that doesn't emphasize that the Soviets were the last ones to offer an Axis Pact deal and Germany was silent. Mosedschurte (talk) 11:38, 16 February 2009 (UTC)


The Soviet Union expressed interest in joining the Tripartite Pact? III.

Dear Nick-D, I fully realise that the use of the word lie is unproductive and uncivil. It is easy to establish that I never used it before on the WP pages. However, this word seems appropriate in some specific cases, for instance, when the sources are systematically being used to extract information that support only one point of view. That poses a severe threat to WP as whole, so ignoring all rules is justifiable in that case.
Briefly, I would say that Mosedschurte's concept coincides with that of Nekrich, and, therefore, belongs to the 'German school' of thought on Nazi-Soviet relations (a Roberts' definition[136]). According to Roberts, "This is the view that, despite appearances to the contrary, Soviet foreign policy remained oriented to an alliance with Germany even after Hitler came to power." However, the actual spectrum of historical judgments on that account "have ranged from seeing the Soviets as far-sighted anti-Nazis (e.g. Beloff, Carr), to seeing them as reluctant appeasers (e.g. Bianka Pietrow, Geoffry Roberts), as cautious expansionists (e.g. James McSherry, Gerhard Weinberg) or as active aggressors and blackmailers (Viktor Suvorov)."[137]
I have nothing against Mosedschurte's adherence to the 'German school' tradition, provided that he tried to represent other points of view equally, or, at least respected the point of view of others. Instead of that, Mosedschurte uses a wide range of sources (written by scholars belonging to all four schools), but he extracts only those facts from these sources that support his ideas. Although I warned him many times about the mistakes he is doing, he continues to do that. Moreover, he deliberately removes or rephrases statements that contradict to his vision, thereby eliminating or understating other points of view. I see no other explanation for that than a direct attempt of falsification, therefore I know no other word than lie that would describe a situation better. I would be happy if someone provided other explanation for that and, therefore, allowed the discussion to return to the realm of politeness and mutual respect.
To demonstrate my point let me analyze the Mosedschurte's statement #1 ("It goes without saying that a Soviet entry..." etc): Although the statement itself is quite correct, the same argument can be applied to the triple talks equally. Moreover, had triple talks been successful the WWII would probably never started. In that sense I cannot understand why did Mosedschurte supported removal of triple talks and opposed to do the same in that case. I see no other explanations for that than his extreme bias.
Going back to the topic, I already wrote that I have nothing against telling about both those talks in the article, because both of them pre-determined a fate of the world as whole.
--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:34, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Re: "I would say that Mosedschurte's concept coincides with . . . I have nothing against Mosedschurte's adherence to the 'German school' tradition."
--I have no personal view on the talks. You characterizing me as having a view is improper.
--Every single source that has covered this simply cites the conversations and trading of proposals. Talks about entering the Axis occurred. It's that simple.
Re:"therefore, belongs to the 'German school' of thought on Nazi-Soviet relations"
--To show you how far off base this is, EVERY source states what the proposed sentence states about the November 25 offer and silence -- Roberts, Shirer, every general World War II book, everyone. Without exception.
--There is no "school of thought" on whether the trading of proposals occurred. It happened.
--You may be wondering why is there agreement by every historian on the existence on the meetings occurring and the trading of proposals. Answer: It's because Historians (all of them) actually have all of the written proposals (recovered), the German notes of the meetings (recovered from Foreign ministry), as well as the Soviet telegrams from Stalin to Molotov (released after the dissolution). And photos of Molotov in Berlin Nov. 12-14 talking about it taken by a bevy of photographers. Most of them are actually on-line. This is why every single source agrees on their occurrence.
Re:"Mosedschurte uses a wide range of sources (written by scholars belonging to all four schools), but he extracts only those facts from these sources that support his ideas. . . . Moreover, he deliberately removes or rephrases statements that contradict to his vision, thereby eliminating or understating other points of view. I see no other explanation for that than a direct attempt of falsification, therefore I know no other word than lie that would describe a situation better "
--And that ridiculous personal attack pretty much does it on the Wikipedia violations front between us.
--Next time you violate Wikipedia policy, I'm going straight to ANI, probably with no warning. You've probably had 20+ over the last two months. This has become RIDICULOUS to put up with personal attacks like this. Simply beyond the pale, especially after you deleted the existing sentence without consensus violating the article rules and gave the reason "False statement removed", which was clearly inaccurate per every source. Including the source properly cited in the ref you unilaterally deleted.Mosedschurte (talk) 19:07, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Re: "I have no personal view on the talks." By systematical removal of all facts demonstrating anti-Nazism of the Soviet leadership and by overemphasising even faint signs of Nazi-Soviet rapprochement you have already written several articles that are perfectly consonant with the German school's views. Your refusal to accept any major modifications tells about your strong adherence to this school.
  • Re: "November 25 offer etc." It is a straw man fallacy. I didn't state that the exchange with proposals never took place. Another question is how this fact has to be represented. For instance, you may tell about this fact alone throwing away both pre-history of that and the subsequent events. In that case it will look like the mutual sides' desire to make a deal with subsequent German refusal. This would be only a small part of truth and, therefore it is an indirect lie (although, once again, the fact itself is unquestionable). For some reason, that is the way you propose (if I understand you correct).
    Another option would be to tell a full story, namely, that (i) Hitler instructed Ribbentrop to initiate the talks; (ii) Stalin send a counter-proposal, in which he requested four concessions from Germany (Finland, Bulgaria, Turkey and Persian Guls) PLUS one more concession from Japan; (iii) Hitler ignored it; (iv) talks stalled. This story wouldn't take much space, something like: "Germany tried to involve the Soviet Union in the Axis Pact, but the USSR requested concessions neither Germany nor Japan could agree with, so the talks stalled in November 1940." In contrast to economic talks, that was really important. In addition, as I already pointed out, since the major Soviet-German economic agreement is already mentioned in the article, additional mentioning of other economic deals are definitely redundant.
  • Interestingly, you seem to avoid the discussion of the most important point, namely, why these talks deserve more attention than the triple talks do. Comment, please...
  • Re: "I'm going straight to ANI". Good idea. I fully support it. I also came to the conclusion that all articles and all editings you have made has to be carefully checked for neutrality and factual accuracy. Feel free to consider that as one more threat and, please, do go to ANI, because I have no time to do such an analysis alone.
    Of course, if you propose another satisfactory way to resolve a problem, I will gladly accept them, because between a cold collaboration and a hot edit war I always choose the former...--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:04, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Re: "By systematical removal of all facts demonstrating anti-Nazism of the Soviet leadership"
I didn't even change the article regarding the Axis talks. You did, and without consensus.
Re: "Your refusal to accept any major modifications tells about your strong adherence to this school."
Let me get this straight: by opposing your deletion of material from a Wikipedia article violating article rules -- material which is also covered in probably 100+ sources -- I am now "adhering to the German school of thought"?
Re: "November 25 offer etc." It is a straw man fallacy. I didn't state that the exchange with proposals never took place. "
Actually, before the discussion of the historical reality on the Talk page, you deleted the reference referring precisely to the November 25 Soviet offer and German silence with the edit summary "False statement removed".
Re:" In that case it will look like the mutual sides' desire to make a deal with subsequent German refusal. This would be only a small part of truth and, therefore it is an indirect lie (although, once again, the fact itself is unquestionable). For some reason, that is the way you propose (if I understand you correct)."
Actually, not even close. This was my proposed change, which gave no preference to either side:

Current:"The Soviet Union expressed interest in joining the Tripartite Pact, sending a modified draft to Germany in November and offering a very German-favourable economic deal while Germany remained silent on the former, they accepted the latter."

Proposed change to address your concern of weight on the November Soviet Axis Pact offer and silence (it's also shorter):

"Germany and the Soviet Union negotiated and traded proposed written agreements regarding Soviet entry as a fourth Axis member but never reached an agreement, while they later entered an economic and border agreement."

Re: "Feel free to consider that as one more threat and, please, do go to ANI, "
Believe me, you're not going to like that.Mosedschurte (talk) 22:56, 16 February 2009 (UTC)


Instead of discussing the modified version you re-inserted the old (wrong) version demonstrating that it was your first choice. Under my pressure, you proposed the modified version, however, you seem to refuse to discuss neither my last counter-proposal nor the re-insertion of the triple talk. Your comments are welcome...--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:04, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Re: "Under my pressure, you proposed"
Reality: I'm under absolutely zero pressure from you to do anything. You deleted the existing sentence without consensus violating the article rules, falsely claiming "false statement removed"}.
I actually proposed the new sentence myself -- as the first person to do so -- in order to suggest some potential change to the article addressing your concern. Actually, you should have first done this under thearticle rules, but did not. Unlike the existing article or the change you later proposed, this one makes no implication regarding one side or other wanting the deal done.
If you want to get the article changed, discussing the proposal would be the way to do it. Attacking me personally and making hilarious claims of others bending to your "pressure" isn't going to get anything beyond belly laughs, and is not the way to go about a discussion.
Re: "nor the re-insertion of the triple talk"
This was resolved after a long discussion and has nothing to do with the topic.Mosedschurte (talk) 00:16, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
That is funny. The discussion you refer to took place between you, me and Nick-D. We agreed that the unsuccessful talks do not deserve mentioning in the article. Now you disagreed with that decision, so our previous agreement is void now.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:24, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Re:"Now you disagreed with that decision, so our previous agreement is void now."
It used to be when a statement regarding a prior agreement that perplexing was made, I made the mistake of inquiring further. I no longer care enough to waste time on it.
If you want to discuss the proposed change to the Axis-'41 deal sentence, great. If not, great.Mosedschurte (talk) 00:35, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Well. I propose following changes:
  1. If you disagree to re-insert triple negotiations, the German-Soviet talks sentence should be removed.
  2. If you agree, your comments on the last version I proposed are welcome.
    --Paul Siebert (talk) 00:40, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
    PS. You probably meant "the Axis-'40 deal"...--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:40, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
No, I meant the 1941 deal, the one that is linked.
The other issue is already resolved]. If you want to discuss the proposed change to the Axis-'41 deal sentence to get a consensus for change, great. If not, great.Mosedschurte (talk) 00:51, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
  1. Since the 1940 deal is already in the article, the 1941 deal is redundant.
  2. It was resolved. Since you disagree with the general rule (failed talks should not be in the article), the problem re-appeared. Let's wait what other editors say.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:56, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Re:"the problem re-appeared"
Reality: that sentence has been in the article for at least 1,000 edits since early last year and there is no "general rule".
If you want to discuss the proposed change to the Axis-'41 deal sentence to get a consensus for change, great. If not, great.Mosedschurte (talk) 02:01, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Nick-D' noticed: "The article generally doesn't include other things which didn't happen, so there's no real need to include the failed Allied negotiations." That was one of key things we agreed about. If you refuse to discuss removal of the Axis-Soviet negotiation, we probably can request for a formal mediation. And to restore the old version of the triple talks for a while...--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:57, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Re:"If you refuse to discuss removal of the Axis-Soviet negotiation"
--"Refuse to discuss?" I haven't refused to discuss anything. The only that occurred so far is that you deleted the existing sentence without consensus violating the article rules, complaining that the sentence that existed in the article was "false" re the November Soviet Axis Pact offer, so I actually proposed a modification. For doing merely this -- without making a single change in the article -- I was falsely called someone who spreads lies and purposefully manipulated articles.
--99% of the rest of Wikipedia would be done with you right there and at ANI. I've grown so used to to this brand of commentary from you, I actually somehow tolerate it, and I can usually work out some kind of compromise that avoids the hassle of getting you blocked at ANI.
--I already elaborated extensively above on the importance and numerous sources for Nazi-Soviet Axis Power talks. In fact, you didn't even deny their importance, but instead claimed (inaccurately) that the statement about them "false" The other issue has been resolved.Mosedschurte (talk) 03:09, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
I would be happy if someone proved my accusations to be false. In that case I will gladly beg your pardon. Unfortunately, I have no reason for that so far, because I see no flaw in my arguments.
However, we can try to demonstrate that I was wrong. The first step to do that would be the following: if you really never refused to discuss anything, could you please do the thing I already asked about:
1. Comment on the reasons why the Nazi-Soviet talks deserve mentioning in the article, whereas the triple talks do not?
2. Comment on my version of the Nazi-Soviet talks:"Germany tried to involve the Soviet Union in the Axis Pact, however the the sides failed to come to agreement upon the conditions for the Soviet adherence to the pact, so the talks stalled in November 1940."
Thank you in advance,--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:23, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
I've also just posted a notification at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators. I don't see any need for mediation yet; it would be better to seek other editors' views (you both may with to post neutrally-worded notifications elsewhere) and take a break before going into a process which takes a long time and a fair amount of resources over a single fairly uncontroversial and cited sentence. Nick-D (talk) 07:12, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Thank you Nick-D. I am really interested to involve as many editors as possible into that discussion, because I see no other possibility to resolve the issue. I see no significant difference between mediation and third opinion so far, therefore both are ok with me.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:49, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
PS. Could you please advise me on the other appropriate WP pages where the notification on this dispute may be posted? --Paul Siebert (talk) 15:56, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

The Soviet Union expressed interest in joining the Tripartite Pact? IV (and hopefully final)

Re:"Comment on the reasons why the Nazi-Soviet talks deserve mentioning in the article, whereas the triple talks do not?"

--Hey, a request for discussion, as opposed to a falsely claiming lies baseless personal attack on another editor. Now we're getting somewhere.

RESOLVED 1939 DEAL ISSUE
--As mentioned before, the 1939 Deal Issue was resolved and I hestitate to even get back into resolved issues given the long irrelevant meandering discussion preceding its resolution.
--The prior discussion was whether to modify a large three sentence paragraph including the lead-up to the 1939 deal. The paragraph itself wasn't particularly well-written, and included a lengthy analysis of why deals were struck or not struck, "mistrust", "apprehension", "collective security", etc. But getting beyond that, the discussion included whether to address earlier both (i) the 1939 Soviet-German talks and (ii) 1939 UK-France-USSR talks, along with the final deal. The decision was made that, because this is a very high level summary for which limited space is available, only the final deal, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, would be mentioned in a two sentence description stating the both a deal was reached and its secret protocols, with a link to the article on the deal which includes a description of the negotiations.
--Not only was this two-sentence description including only the final deal far shorter, but the the reader could examine the discussions of all parties in the linked Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact article.
--Incidentally, even after this deal was reached, you improperly unilaterally changed the sources without obtaining Talk page consensus and also improperly edited another editors' talk page comments on the matter, for which you drew negative commentary, and still haven't fixed it, much less apologized.

1940 POTENTIAL SOVIET AXIS ENTRY ISSUE
--The issue now regards one sentence in a different section of the article involving two separate issues that occurred over a year later, the October-November 1940 Potential Soviet Axis Power Entry and a separate Commercial and Border Agreement signed six weeks later. This differs in a wide variety of regards, including, just to begin with:

1. foremost in this high level summary article, it is only one sentence. Far shorter than the three sentence full paragraph of the 1939 deal leadup and descriptions before.
2. Moreover, as no final deal was struck, there is no way to direct the reader with a link to an article describing the potential Soviet Axis Pact entry without a short linked mention. In addition, the sentence also describes the separate Commercial and Border Agreement signed six weeks later, and links to that article.
3. Perhaps more importantly, it does not contain a lengthy analysis of why deals were struck or not struck, "mistrust", "apprehension", "collective security", etc. like the long old 1939 deal paragraph did. Rather, it just mentions the potential Soviet Axis Power entry in one sentence.
4. Finally, with regard to the obvious importance, as discussed above, the potential Soviet Axis Pact entry has probably been addressed in virtually every source on World War II, many in very lengthy fashion, and no one disputes that it clearly would have meant an Axis victory in World War II had it been inked. It doesn't get much more important than that, while it only is addressed in one half of one sentence now, with a link to the article.
Re: "Comment on my version of the Nazi-Soviet talks"

--Your version actually suffers from the same narrow focus problem as the sentence in the article, but in an even greater regard.

--The article sentence focuses on the fact that the Soviets presented the last draft proposal for Axis Power entry with no response for the Germans, while the sentence you later proposed focuses on the fact that "Germany tried to involve the Soviet Union in the Axis Pact." I'll refrain from a long retort regarding you making the argument against the narrow original sentence focus while simultaneously actually presenting something even more slanted, and just get to the bottom line: I actually presented a shorter proposal than any of them that addresses both issues (Soviet Axis entry and B-C deal):

Current (stresses Soviet last offer and silence):"The Soviet Union expressed interest in joining the Tripartite Pact, sending a modified draft to Germany in November and offering a very German-favourable economic deal while Germany remained silent on the former, they accepted the latter." (36 words)

Your proposal (stresses initial German offer, with some humorously biased language to boot):"Germany tried to involve the Soviet Union in the Axis Pact, however the the sides failed to come to agreement upon the conditions for the Soviet adherence to the pact, so the talks stalled in November 1940." (37 words)

My proposal stressing neither:"Germany and the Soviet Union negotiated and traded proposed written agreements regarding Soviet entry as a fourth Axis member but never reached an agreement, while they later entered an economic and border agreement." (33 words)

Both the potential Soviet Axis Power entry and B-C Agreement definitely deserve mention and a link for the reader to learn more, but I don't see more than half a sentence each in a high level summary article like this.Mosedschurte (talk) 17:18, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Repeated boxes

{{editsemiprotected}} I think the pre-written boxes just below the Table of contents should be removed. These boxes are already present at the end of the page; putting them in the middle of the article is distracting (breaking the flow of the article) and is apparently non-standard. I am talking about the "History of World War II by region or sovereign state" and "World War II" boxes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Magic.Wiki (talk • contribs) 16:55, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I think only one of the templates (World War II) is repeated. I don't view it as problematic because they appear off to the right (at least in my browser, Firefox). In a very high level summary article like this, it is convenient to have the boxes accessible at the top. For me, the boxes appearing off to the right don't break up the article flow.Mosedschurte (talk) 22:02, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
That's weird, I only see the "Campaigns of World War II" box as repeated. Since it's repeated right below itself, I think it's safe to remove. --Zarel (talk) 08:21, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
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  134. ^ On the page 57 Roberts writes
    "While German war planners began mapping out an invasion of Russia, Hitler gave the go-ahead to Ribbentrop to try to involve the Soviet Union in a 'continental bloc' of Germany, Italy, Japan and the USSR that would range itself against the United States as well as Britain. It is difficult to judge how seriously Hitler hook this pet project of the anti-British Ribbentrop, but he seems to have been prepared to give it a chance. Certainly, it was only after the collapse of the proposed continental bloc that Hitler issued a formal directive to prepare for an invasion of Russia.
    Ribbentrop's continental bloc required Russia to join the three-power pact signed by Germany, Italy and Japan on 27 september 1940. Under the terms of this tripartite pact the signatories pledged to assist one another should they be attacked by the power not involved in the war. In addition, Ribbentrop envisaged the signing of a secret protocol in which each state would specify the direction of their future expansion.    "
    The page 57 ends, and the page 58 starts with the words:
    "On 13 October Ribbentrop wrote to Stalin, inviting Molotov to Berlin for negotiations:
    I should like to state that in the opinion of the Fuhrer ... it appears to be the historic mission of the four powers - the Soviet Union, Italy, Japan and Germany - to adopt a long-range policy and to direct the future development of their peoples into right channels by delimitation of their interests on world-wide scale.

    Stalin replied positively on 22 October: I agree with you that a further improvement in the relations between our two countries is entirely possible on the permanent basis of long-range delimitation of mutual interests.

    But behind the friendly tones the tension in Soviet-German relations was rising. On 31 August
  135. ^ "For if Germany was dependent on the USSR by 1939, the Soviets merely preferred working with Germany. The result was an economic relationship in which Stalin was in the driver's seat and drew out the negotiations to make sure he got a good deal. Before Prague and after the fall of France, the dynamic changed somewhat, but the Soviets still usually held the better cards. And if the course of the war or the course of German policy had played out according to the common wisdom of the day, Stalin's cautious, logical policy would have succeeded. Then again, Stalin should have realized that Hitler was neither cautious nor logical and that there is no honor among thieves."Author(s): Edward E. Ericson, III Source: German Studies Review, Vol. 21, No. 2 (May, 1998), pp. 263-283
  136. ^ Review: On Soviet-German Relations: The Debate Continues. A Review Article. Author(s): Geoffrey Roberts Reviewed work(s): Pariahs, Partners, Predators: German-Soviet Relations, 1922-1941 by Aleksandr M. Nekrich Source: Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 50, No. 8 (Dec., 1998), pp. 1471-1475
  137. ^ Edward E. Ericson, III Source: German Studies Review, Vol. 21, No. 2 (May, 1998), pp. 263-283
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