...it's not dark yet, but it's gettin' there...

October 25, 2005

If WWII Had Had A Chat Room

On this blog, i once lamented the way we teach history in this country. i haven't figured out a solution, but i think it should probably include a chat room.

Click on the link, it's funny. Here's an excerpt, which explains the origins of the Cold War in teen friendly language:

*tru_m4n has joined the game.*
tru_m4n: hi all
T0J0: hey
Stalin: sup
Churchill: hi
tru_m4n: OMG OMG OMG i got all his stuff!
tru_m4n: NUKES! HOLY **** I GOT NUKES
Stalin: d00d gimmie some plz
tru_m4n: no way i only got like a couple
Stalin: omg dont be gay gimmie nuculer secrets
T0J0: wtf is nukes?
T0J0: holy ****holy****hoyl****!
*T0J0 has been eliminated.*
*The Allied team has won the game!*
Eisenhower: awesome!
Churchill: gg noobs no re
T0J0: thats bull**** u fockin suck
*T0J0 has left the game.*
*Eisenhower has left the game.*
Stalin: next game im not going to be on ur team, u guys didnt help me for ****
Churchill: wutever, we didnt need ur help neway dumbarss
tru_m4n: l8r all
benny~tow: bye
Churchill: l8r
Stalin: fock u all
tru_m4n: shut up commie lol
Isn't that pretty close to the way it happened?

Via Rocket Jones &c.

Posted by annika, Oct. 25, 2005 | TrackBack (0)
Rubric: History



Comments

Close, but Stalin forgot that he started out on the other side.

Posted by: Casca on Oct. 25, 2005

Casca is right. Our fearless leader has this to add:

http://poland.ytmnd.com/


This post makes me crave some online gaming now. Battlefield 2, anyone?

Posted by: reagan80 on Oct. 25, 2005

Haha, very funny R. Dammit, we keep doing that.

Posted by: Casca on Oct. 25, 2005

Damm, I wasted a mouthload of good scotch!! !!!!!lolo!!!RFLMAO

Posted by: Kyle N on Oct. 26, 2005

You asked "isn't that how it happened?". Not really, especially the comment about the western Allies not needing the Soviets' help...
Even a cursory look at World War II would reveal that the war was won on the Eastern Front (that's the Soviets), every other front being a mere sideshow in comparison. There is no way the Allies could have beaten Germany without the Soviet Union, it would have been IMPOSSIBLE. No other country in the world could have suffered the losses the Soviets did and even survived, let alone come back and won. Could you imagine America suffering millions of military dead and many millions more civilian dead and still hanging on? Hell no. Could you imagine Chicago being beseiged like Leningrad was and holding out for over 900 days until relieved, being shelled and bombed every day, much of the time with the only food and medical supplies coming into the city having to be carried in trucks over the ice of Lake Ladoga (while being bombed), people living on starvation rations, eating sawdust bread and rancid meant, dying in droves, pulling their little dead babies on sleds through the streets to bury them in the frozen ground, all of this and still holding out for over 900 days until relieved? Hell no. The Soviet and western Allied contributions to Allied victory are not even worth comparing it is so lopsided but I will compare them just for levity's sake. While the Soviets were encircling the German Sixth Army and part of Fourth Panzer Army in the Stalingrad pocket in the most important battle of the war, the best America could do against the Nazis was to play a supporting role to the British in an invasion of Vichy French Morocco. While the Soviets were crushing Germany's last hope of regaining the strategic initiative on the Eastern Front in the Kursk salient, including the largest tank battle in history at Prokhorovka, the best America could do was to again be assigned a supporting role to the British in an invasion of Sicily. When the Americans and their more-skilled ally the British were desperately clawing out a foothold in northern France against mostly third-rate German reserve units, having finally gotten around to opening the long-promised "Second Front" (once the eventual outcome of the war had been long-since decided), the Soviets were crushing the German Army Group Center in Germany's most catastrophic loss of units in any campaign in the war. From 22 June 1941 when the Axis invaded the Soviet Union to 8 May 1945, the end in Europe, for most of that time the Soviets faced over three-fourths of Germany's total combat power, and even after the belated Normandy invasion until the end of the war they faced no less than two-thirds of Germany's total combat power. They destroyed vastly more German units than all the other Allies put together. Over 80% of all German military deaths happened against the Soviets. The war on the Eastern Front greatly dwarfs all the other fronts and relegates them to profoundly less significance. Germany lost the war because it lost on the Eastern Front, period. To put it in your boorish terms, the Soviets didn't really need the western Allies' help anyway, and won without much of it.

Posted by: Allen on Oct. 27, 2005

"From 22 June 1941 when the Axis invaded the Soviet Union to 8 May 1945, the end in Europe, for most of that time the Soviets faced over three-fourths of Germany's total combat power, and even after the belated Normandy invasion until the end of the war they faced no less than two-thirds of Germany's total combat power"

Wikipedia says:

[German armies pursued a three-pronged advance against Leningrad (modern-day St Petersburg), Moscow, and the Caucasus. Having pushed to occupy Moscow before winter, German forces were delayed into the Soviet Winter. Soviet counter-attacks defeated them within sight of Moscow's spires, and a rout was only NARROWLY avoided.]


You said it yourself, we tied up 25 percent of Germany's military strength from joining the Eastern Front. If the Germans went in with full strength, Moscow would have probably been occupied before winter.


"To put it in your boorish terms, the Soviets didn't really need the western Allies' help anyway, and won without much of it."

You're forgetting one thing in your little moment of Soviet-philia: Japan.

One reason Germany was defeated by the Allies was because of their foolishness to open up a multi-front war, right? Well, the Japanese could have invaded the eastern half of the USSR, but they made the blunder of declaring war on us first. Hence, we single-handedly distracted the Japanese throughout the war while the Russians only had to deal with the Germans. Stalin had the luxury of Japanese neutrality during the war, we didn't.

Churchill was right. In the minds of all freedom-loving Europeans at the time, the epic battle of Hitler vs. Stalin shared the same tagline as "Aliens vs. Predator": whoever wins, we lose. In the grand scheme of things, we didn't want Stalin to "save" the free world.

BTW, Annika didn't write that stuff you quoted since it was from her link, douche.

Posted by: reagan80 on Oct. 27, 2005

lighten up Allen. it's called a humorous post. you wingnuts have no sense of humor.

Posted by: annika on Oct. 27, 2005