To start comparing quotes and simplify insurance-buying, check out Policygenius: policygenius.com/armchairhistorian. Thanks to Policygenius for sponsoring this video! MISTAKES: -4:01 Timoshenko is mentioned, but the portrait shown is Budyonny by mistake.
I prefer the US's "annihilate from orbit" strategy. Japanese want to make you fight for every inch? Just reduce the entire battlefield to dust, then send in men to secure the dust. The only time it's really failed was in Vietnam when they blew up empty jungles while leaving actual military bases and population centers alone for the most part.
@@arthas640 It wasn't really a war so much as it was France invoking NATO rules to try to keep their colonial holdings in Vietnam using American forces. Ho Chi Minh knew this which is why he used attrition tactics to win.
@@arthas640 lol exactelly. vietnam didnot attack usa, that was bogus war with little domestic support.they could oblitared vietnam if wanted,but than SU and China would get involved.
@@BurntPlaydoh the fighting in Iwo Jima was intense for a couple reasons: 1. the majority of the fighting on land the US had done in the Pacific Theater had been in jungles or on fairly flat sandy islands, Iwo Jima was very rocky and had some pretty steep cliffs. This allowed the Japanese to build strong, reinforced bunkers, hard points, and other defenses that could withstand a bombardment and bombing. There were also plenty of natural and man made caves to hide in and store weaponry in. 2. Most of the islands the US had fought on were almost always recently conquered territory but Iwo Jima was part of Japanese territory. This meant that not only were there more soldiers but there were also civilians and unlike some random useless island where the Japanese might be willing to retreat, on Iwo Jima they would fight to the last man, woman, and child. Since the Japanese expected an attack there they were dug in far more then anywhere else the Americans had gone before and they didnt have the benefit of locals to offer intel or support, and there werent really any pre-war records to fall back on either. 3. there were civlians there and while the US didnt exactly shy away from bombing civilians they tried to avoid it so they wouldnt quit go as heavy as they probably should have since they'd assume a shorter bombardment might be enough to soften things up while still leaving some survivors for the infantry to pick up. 4. the biggest reason for the bloodbath though was that the US _NEEDED_ that island. Iwo Jima's biggest use was as an air base to attack Japan with since their longest range fighters could still make it to Japan from Iwo Jima along with most of their bombers. Heavy bombardment would mean the air fields would be ruined and that would require tons of patching which would cost weeks or even months of work and render the whole attack largely useless. They could either go light like they did and let the infantry do the leg work. or they could level the island and take another island closer to Japan (where they'd face all the same issues mentioned above, perhaps even worse since that would give Japan more time to dig in and possibly have more soldiers and civilians to deal with). There was a major argument over the best course of action but they decided to try and take Iwo Jima intact and took heavy losses as a result. No matter what the US knew they'd take heavy losses, whether at Iwo Jima or any other major island close to Japan, but they judged it to be worth getting bombers close enough to strike the home islands without needing to take them the long way from Europe to India to China. The losses werent as heavy as you might think though, they had around 6000 deaths and that included pilots and the hits allied ships took, and for a frame of reference the allies took 7,000 deaths just to take Anzio in Italy and that was just 1 battle on their way to Rome. Iwo Jima was needed to drop the bombs on Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and for the bombings of Tokyo so 6000 men was a small price to pay to break the back of the Empire of Japan.
@@arthas640 Plus compared to other campaigns and battles fought, the Japanese were commanded by General Kuribayashi who like Admiral Yamamoto was opposed to war with the US because they both had lived in the US for some time prior to the war and were aware of the industrial might the US wielded. As a result, he was instrumental in ensuring that while victory was impossible for Japan, they would hold out as long as possible. As such the troops under his command made a battle for the island that the Marines predicted to take within a week last for over a month.
@@johnpalmer7263 it was more of poor unhinged leadership. Germans are known for their organization and their war machine was really powerful. Edit: idk why I’m defending Nazi Germany, bad look, it’s good they got shwacked but it was leadership issues, kinda like Russia now lul
Its sad that a content creator as high quality and dedicated as AH can't make a profit to continue sustaining themselves because youtube doesn't understand what history is
@@shibavekreal Stalin more so. Truly a despicable human, but still not held to such a standard by the population at large. Never forget, he helped start that war.
Timochenko: But comrade Stalin, if we dont retreat, they are going to encircle us Stalin: No retreat and fight to the last man Timochenko: We are surrounded Stalin: 😮😮😮😮
German soldier: Sir, good news we have successfully encircled the four Soviet armies in Kiev German Commander: Ok, I knew it would not be as simple as...Wait, we did WHAT?!?
@ Scorpo Not really. It wasn't a crucial defeat. The claims of prisoners have been widely exaggerated. The Germans never actually counted; Glantz pits the figure as low as 300,000, far less than the actual Stalingrad.
@@DannyBoy777777 They were counted. The soviet soldiers captured were 665,000 plus 163,600 killed or injured. At Stalingrad around 90,000 German soldiers were captured, 200,000 killed. Stalingrad was only so decisive, as the Germans could not afford these casualties. The soviets easily could...
The Soviet strategy towards personnel was the same as their tanks - they were EXPENDABLE. No other nation could take such huge losses and still field an effective army as rapidly as they did. Of course, blame also Nazi arrogance, which re: Slavic peoples they didn't invent, either. Their atrocities did what not even the most inspiring officers or soldiers or airmen, nor any propagandist or political officer, could ever do...MOTIVATE the Soviet peoples to FIGHT for STALIN. Had the Germans held their bigotry in abeyance, they could have raised legions of "volunteers" to fight alongside them or at least "helpers" to do the scut work, and more than likely the "Cold War" of the latter part of the 20th century is between the USA and Nazi Germany.
It’s funny how the mass encirclements of the germans resemble the mass encirclements of Hannibal in the second Punic war. And in both cases their early victories didn’t stop them from getting utterly annihilated at the end of the war. I’m not saying history repeats itself, but...
Also in both cases their opponent was much larger and you can defeat them once, then couple more times, but when it comes to war of attrition... It's only matter of time before you loose. And you can't afford loosing. Same for germans, same for Hannibal
Hannibal was a great war lords, unfortunately for him, His brothers and other commander weren't match for the romans, Hannibal's brother was defeated and the Iberian was taken, he couldn't siege Rome as it was too late, he wanted to wait until renforcement came, if hannibal rushed to rome right after winning one of Rome's greatest lose in history It was estimated that 20 percent of Roman fighting men between the ages of 18 and 50 died at Cannae. Only 14,000 Roman soldiers escaped, and 10,000 more were captured; the rest were killed. The Carthaginians lost about 6,000 men.
@@filthycasual8074 I doubt it was "poor strategic decisions". Germans knew they can't win war of attricion an tried to win in a quick campaign before Soviets could even turn it into total war. I can't think of a better strategy for them, especially considering previous succeses in blitzkrieg (other than not attacking at all)
Kirponos was one of the best generals the Red Army had, what a tragedy that he died so early into the conflict. He had actually been a thorn in the side of the Germans since the outset of Operation Barbarossa, primarily due to him having disobeyed Stalin by making defensive preparations before the conflict started. This led to substantial losses on the german side and was the main reason why they had to divert troops from Army Group Centre to break his defensive line.
At 4:01 you mention that the Soviet forces in Kiev are under general command of general Timoshenko, but the portrait given shows Budyonny instead :^), just thought it'd let you know
Budyonny, Stalin's mate in a way, the man who is said to have had brilliant officers killed because they believed tank warfare was more effective than Budyonny's outdated cavarly charges. He was Stalin's dear, that's why he wasn't killed but instead given a remote command.
1941: kiev is encircled. 2022: kiev is once again maybe going to be encircled (hopefully not) . But seriously i hope the Ukrainians can hold and see an end to this conflict. God bless the people of Ukraine 🇺🇦
@@britsboy2967 the EU is to scared to do anything, I'm sorry for this, I feel ashamed. I hope Ukraine can forgive us. Many of us are serving on the Ukraine front now, even some of my friends. I pray to God the EU will see reason and if not may God have mercy on there souls
It's kinda surreal that there are Ukrainians, many in fact, that lived through both battles of Kyiv. Early 40s German invasion and now 2022 Russian invasion...
The Soviet Union had a _massive_ population while Germany was rather small by comparison. The Soviets had a population roughly double that of Germany's and Germany was also busy in Western Europe, the Balkans, and North Africa. The Germans also sent their best men to begin with while Russia had endless conscript, as the conscripts die one who survive get better and better as they gain experience while Germany couldnt cycle men out so they just lost their best and had to start send their worst. Basically Germany's quality dropped as the Soviets increased, partially because the Germans just started running out of military aged men and refused to use women until it was too late. Russia also had the benefit of drawing in supplies and equipment from the Allies so they didnt need to focus on manufacturing precision equipment or on R&D which left more men available for combat as you could make due with old people or children in factories and farms, and factories could focus on easier to manufacture goods while they imported precision equipment like radios.
@@hayk2792 USSR casualties:27.5 mln, 10.8 mln soldiers among them. Nazi casualties on Eastern Front:6.5 mln,5.5 mln soldiers among them. No they different.
@@arthas640 Only you do not take into account that the Germans occupied the territories of the USSR with a population of 50-60 million people and held them for several years. And the whole of occupied Europe worked for Germany. So there was no such preponderance in numbers, at least not exactly twice.
I've been reading this book I got from a friend who moved away, called Babi Yar. It was written by Anatoli Kuznetsov, who grew up in Kiev when this encirclement happened. He lived near the gorge in the center of town where citizens were executed once the Nazis occupied the city, but didn't see any fighting in his neighbourhood when the Germans came, just looting once the newspapers announced the takeover. And bombs falling before that. He describes the Red Army retreating on horse-drawn carts, looking exhausted, and the desperate pleas to be hidden and dressed as civilians. It mentions the mining of the main buildings on the main street of Kreschatik by the NKVD. edit: I have read farther and his house was in the "forbidden zone" where the German military said fighting would be taking place once the Red Army counterattacked. Bombs landed right beside his house.
The Soviets and Chinese are the only 2 people who'd pull that sort of thing off on such a scale. Most people dont have the stomach to plant bombs in their own citizens homes and also shift the blame onto said civilians. Sort of a "if i cant have them, nobody can!" sort of thing with the homes/people, just like when Peter the Great burned his peasants homes and farms to prevent Charles the Great from using them in his invasion, or when the Russians did the same to Napoleon, or China destroying their own dams and killing 900,000 of their own people to inconvenience the Japanese.
Kiev, the biggest encirclement in history and yet not many really know much about, until now Edit: 10 months later, why did this get so many likes? Lmao Edit 2: well this aged well lmao
@@vicenteasaro1823 Kiev is a russian version of transliteration of the city name. Which was formed during long years of Ukrainian territory occupation by ussr after WW2. They suppressed Ukrainian identity including language so if you are not one of the supporters of this ideology please prefer the second version.
The eastern front of WW2 had many records. Most casualties, must casualties at a battle, largest tank battle, most brutal siege and many more. This front was brutal, and 4/5 of the Germans who died were on this front.
As a history enthusiast from Eastern Europe I must admit that I'm impressed by your pronounciation of Russian names. It's almost perfect (certainly better than that of other RU-vidrs):-) What's more, I appreciate your animations for their accuracy. Everything, from the details of the uniforms through the armament to the physiognomy of Russian and German military commanders is accurate and realistic. Very professional video - respect!
His Russian pronunciation was spot on, as Russian was spoken in the Ukraine at that time. Locations and people's real names were not said, but that's only to be expected in an apolitical historical context.
@@commandercorl1544 I'm pretty sure Ukrainian was the official language of the Ukrainian SSR, altough many did speak Russian there (Russian was the language of the state)
@@raketny_hvost wahh? Why would country that defends itself try to 'justify' its actions? What are you up to? Let me guess: youre gonna try to tell me they are nazis? Well, ive heard from your propaganda that in my country we teach kids how to masturbate, that we demolish red army monuments, beat up people for speaking Russian etc. I wonder if you really believe in that bs xd... I mean, i guess thats a form of defense mechanism: you dont want to believe you live in a terrorist country so much that you start to believe in the most silly piece of propaganda. And tbh i dont get you guys... You dont mind spending billions of public money on senseless war while earning 400 or 500 dollars a month... This is just grotesque.
@@jackyback2578 have you read about Crimean operation? 30000 men died just because Kirponos ignored the data of intelligence, the info about geolocation of his forces, weather info, and data about the skills of his army. In one day the entire Corp was destroyed because his commands were changing every 10 minutes, and he, himself, was running around the battlefield in delusion, stopping soldiers and asking them, why are they running, and when they answered that Germans are attacking, he yelled that this is not happening, and soldier is a traitor. And, yes, this data is written in Russian, so, you didn’t. And I don’t need to be a general to know what does imbecile look like
My great grandparents didn't get out of Donetsk when they had the chance before the Kiev encirlcement and were executed along with their toddler son about a month later. My grandmother - not even 13 at the time - was the only one to escape.
Thanks for making these! The amount of detailed videos about the Eastern front (other than about the battle of Berlin or Stalingrad) are pretty few and far between! This was excellent!
13:20 People tend to only talk about the Nazi's atrocities towards Jews but they were by far not the only ones, Slavic people were seen as lower beings just as well and were killed in even bigger numbers.
@@mralbert6983 also people tend to ignore the fact that the atrocities committed by the Soviets in Berlin were largely due to the cruelty of the nazis in the early stages of the war, they ignore that violence only calls more violence
@@jaif7327 Yeah I wonder why people would be unwilling to harbour citizens of a country who has slaughtered millions of their ethnicity. I truly wonder.
@@jaif7327 Germans: kill 27 million russian people, 6 million jews, 2 million jypsies, millions of poles, and etc. etc. etc... All those guys enter the Germany and have their revenge: "REEEE GERMAN CIVILIANS ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE REEE"
4:01 I think the General's portrait that pops up here is Bodyonny, not Timoshenko. He wasn't a great general, but he had the greatest mustache of the war!
@@milotura6828 one week passed and they are nowhere near encircling the city. Considering the Germans occupied the quasi-totality of Poland in 21 days and now it is the 17th day of the war in Ukraine, I think it is safe to say that Putin’s blitzkrieg has failed and now the Ukrainians have all chances of winning this war of attrition (if the support of the West continues, that is)
Yes but Putin invaded the whole country with a mere 200,000 men thinking he’d win the peoples support and wanting to keep the country intact because he needs the vital resources. He underestimated the tenacity of the Ukrainian people something hitler understand which is why hitler leveled entire cities and invaded with millions. Putin will fail to hold Ukrainian if he can even manage to take it at all
Correct me if I am wrong but at 4:01 that doesn't look like Timoshenko, but Budyonny. Or maybe he grew a mustache that looks just like it, idk Also great episode, I like how you are focusing more on the eastern front of WW2 which is either under represented, or misrepresented
My great grandfather served in the Battle of Kiev, he was a Soviet soldier that after the encirclement he went rogue and disguised himself as a civilian who took a boat to Spain and then to Brazil. He died at the age of 82 of natural causes.
It’s sad how much of Eastern Front World War 2 history is overlooked in the West. Many Americans still think that Normandy was the turning point of the war, while the real shift had already happened in the East in places like Stalingrad, Kursk, and Operation Bagration and how 80% of German casualties were sustained on the Eastern Front.
The allies did absolutely help massively, but it was more so through lend lease in Europe, the only reason they landed was so the soviets wouldn't have pushed to France and western Germany, but without the equipment the allies sent the soviets it would've been much much harder
The allies did much more work in the pacific themselves directly, and decimated the japanese navy, army, and culture at that time, the pacific is where the Allies really shined
Funny how Putin lost Kyiv while using the same strategy that his idol Hitler used to invade the city. The difference of course is that modern Ukraine actually cares about her existence while the Soviet Union viewed non-Russian territory as simply borderlands. It's worth remembering that Hitler at one point occupied 100% of Ukrainian territory. His prodigy never got to Odesa and already lost Kherson. Let's hope that Ukraine liberates Crimea and the Donbas from the Nazis as soon as possible.
You know that Putin is communist right and Ukraine uses SS symbols for their Soldiers and Zelensky even said on TV the US should send their Children to die there
Also funny how everyone cares about a country in Europe when it got invaded but no one cared about NATO Aggression in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam all the Children and Civillians murdered all the recources stolen and Ukraine helped in Afghanistan so that's karma
@@chirsonius462 He is he was a former KGB, told that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a tragedy and hates Gorbachev becouse he makes him responsable for the collapse also the invasion of Ukraine shows that he wants it back
@@tiagomonteiro130 Again, you don't know what you are talking about. He wants to retake the former lands of the USSR because that is when Russia was powerful, it has nothing to do with communism. He hates Lenin for example, and he presents himself as a defender of conservative orthodox values. He is an oligarch who only cares about his own power and has nothing to do with communism, socialism or workers rights.
@Fabian Kirchgessner By the time of Stalingrad, greater german reich population was about 110 million (+half of europe as allies). Soviet population, considering occupied territories by axis, was about 120 million. Literally Wikipedia stuff, and people still misunderstand eastern front.
@@МатвейМещеряков-ц7ф what?? Germanys population including Austria didnt get near 85 million. Thats at least 35 million less than the Soviet Union. Where are you getting 110 million from? If youre adding its allies, which is not the same as a single unified nation under a single unified government, then be fair and add the British Empire which had at least 500 million people and the US which had 140 million to the Soviet numbers. So going by your standard and numbers, Germany + allies is 110 million while Soviets + allies is 760 million. So the comment by the other poster still holds true, Germany could not afford such losses while the Soviet Union can. This is the problem i have with people and new age historians like the youtuber TIK that try to desperately reach and make arguments on why Germany wasnt as disadvantaged or more skillfull as its enemies. Theyll make up flawed arguments like including all of Europe in Germanys stats so that it will equal Soviets as if a bunch of countries that dont speak the same language with different leaderships, commitments and goals are the same as 1 single country. Or that Germany which singlehandidly gave US, SU, Britain the toughest fight in their history was somehow composed of bumbling, incompetent generals.
@@stuka80 As I said, literal Wikipedia stuff. It places population of Germany in 1940 at 110 million, including de-facto annexed territories (primarily Czech lands), and even if we consider that fewer people were mobilized there, the loss ratio of 1:1.3 (you have to include that half of europe i was talking about, and its losses) certainly shows that USSR's victory wasn't achieved by throwing countless bodies at the enemy, WW2 didnt occur during middle ages when that kind of a tactic could be useful.
@@stuka80 And by the way, the number of PoWs during the war is comparable, but more than half of soviet prisoners died in nazi camps, but about 1/6 or 1/7 axis prisoners died in soviet camps. This skews the data, the USSR did not commit genocides against its enemies and axis did. This was an intentional policy.
@@МатвейМещеряков-ц7ф my source states otherwise, but lets go with your numbers, it still doesnt answer for the other factors ive laid out like the problem of equating multiple states as the same as a single unified state nor the numbers that the British commonwealth or US brings to the table.
@@asiankingsman3038 the only way the Russians are going to make progress on Kiev its if they just carpet bomb the whole city, because I don’t see them taking it with conventional methods, seeing their “stellar performance” on battle until now
I like this channel because it also talks about German victories in the war. I feel like many other history channels deliberately only tell allied stories somehow
@@itstime6974 >good guys -proceeds to commit rape and atrocities in the numbers of millions -firebombs literal civilian cities resulting in hundreds of thousands civilians dead -drops nuclear bombs on 2 cities used like rats in a lab for research -after the war has ended purposely starves to death up to 1.5 million German POWs in Eisenhower and Stalin camps Yes I can see the good guys won the war, that's precisely why Fascism is returning to the political scene today.
@@itstime6974 of course, and I totally agree. Nevertheless I think it's important to show both sides. In this video he talks about a German victory but still shows the brutal atrocities the Germans committed with it.
@Fabian Kirchgessner That's quite literally just a personal anecdote and it doesn't change the fact that millions of German prisoners of war were heavily mistreated or killed, like okay your grandfather may have survived but more than 1 million of his kameraden didn't share the same fate after the war.
"Declared Marshal Budjonyy as a scapegoat" --- to be fair. Budjonny WAS Unfit. He had experience with Cavalry Divisions, which where (mostly) obsolete and even as a Commander was so mindblowingly stupid, only getting though the ranks by being Stalins Buddy, that the officers and men of the red army called him "The men with the very big mustache and very tiny brain".
To give some context. The Kleist's Panzer Group 1 wasn't there when the battle of Kieve had begun. It was farther to the south. So when Guderian's 2nd Pz Group began pushing towards Lokhvitsa, South-Western Front's command, as well as Stalin, were sure they could trap him further down and exhaust. He wouldn't have made it further than Lokhvitsa. It was quite hard for Wermacht to complete any large encirclement with only 1 "claw" of the attack having a panzer group. They had only infantry to the south at that moment. A little earlier they managed to cross the Dnepr river and establish a foothold near the town of Kremenchuk. The Red Army tried to push them back, but they held it quite well. The ace in the sleeve of Army Group South was Kleist's Panzer Group. It was further to the south and they decided to move it to Kiev secretly, under the cover of the night. To cross the Dnepr, they gathered resources from all the AG South, and all the available engineers, and built what is now considered one of the largest pontoon bridges ever made. The Kleist's Pz Group drove a couple of hundreds of kilometers within one night (they used Pervitine - Methamphetamine to stay awake) and crossed the Dnepr undercover over that bridge concentrating on the Kremenchuk foothold. Kleist's attack from the south was a complete surprise for all the Red Army's command. By that moment Red Army didn't have an advanced radio technique for reconnaissance purposes as well as very limited air recon capabilities. Basically, they were never able to uncover Wermacht's Pz Groups movements at the beginning of 1941. So Kleist broke through the Russian defensive lines and attacked towards the Guderian's 2nd Pz Group. It was over earlier than the Russian command understood what had happened. It's also worth mentioning that the South-Western Front commander Kirponos wasn't quite experienced, he commanded only a division in 1939. He was still hesitating and when he finally got an order to retreat, he insisted that the order would be submitted in writing. It's worth mentioning that he died trying to break through the pocket with the other soldiers and officers. It's also worth mentioning that most of the Russian POWs were killed by Wermacht and SS throughout the winter of 1941-42. To sum it up. Wermacht was on top of their war game back in those days. They were the most advanced and well-disciplined army in the World.
@@Brexmachine Kiev it's better so it stays Kiev. English names for cities is always better otherwise good luck using the name of each city based on it's language.
@@0xCAFEF00D don't think so, Russia doesn't even use the same alphabet so why would they name it that? in Russia ends up like this Київ, so Kiev is pretty much english
At 4:00 you have drawn Marshall Budyonnyi, whom you can recognize by his huge hussar-style mustache. He was a commander of the cavalry forces. Timoshenko was accurately shown in the beginning of this video.
Man this is the definition of "winning a battle but losing the war", if the Fuhrer didn't diverted the Panzer that was meant to blitz through Moscow then they could've reach Moscow before the dire winter, thus gaining access to the networks of railways and making if easier to finish off the soviets. Even in HOI4 diverting your panzer groups will only lead to weaker spearhead.
