Congratulations to Mr. Prewitt. It should be noted, however, that France’s highest order of merit is called the Legion of Honour (Légion d’honneur), not the Legion of Armour, and also that France doesn’t actually have knighthoods in the same sense as Britain does. “Chevalier” (knight) is indeed one of the Legion of Honour’s five levels, and the name is a holdover from the days when France still had an aristocracy, but the French nobility system went out the window with the French Revolution. I once saw a series of amusing cartoons depicting what life in France would be like today if the Bourbon monarchy hadn’t fallen, and one of them showed an irate air traveler standing at the ticket counter of “Royal Air France” and telling the ticket agent “But I’m a baron and I have a confirmed reservation!” The agent replies, “I’m sorry, sir, but the Duke of So-and-so has precedence over you, so we gave him your seat.” In fairness, the same sort of thing actually happens in real-life republican France. A few years ago, there was scandal involving one of the major D-Day anniversaries (I think it was the 50th one), when the French government contacted various hotels in Normany and appropriated some of their existing reservations so that various French officials could have rooms for the event. Some of those rooms, however, had been reserved by foreign veterans of the D-Day invasion. When the story broke on the front page of French newspapers (under such headlines as “Our Liberators Insulted!”), public opinion was outraged and the French government beat a hasty retreat. The prevailing editorial opinion over this affair was: Do this to our own citizens if you want, but don’t do this to the heroes who ended the occupation of France.
Favorite Defensive Line of WWII
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the moscow line was a combination of 3 lines, It think they where called
1. Rzhev-Vyazma defense setup
2. Mozhaisk defense line
3. Moscow Defense ZoneCombined the formed the 3 defencive lines around moscow.
Thought you might come up with this, lol.
But I think this Topic was or is more about the well (more or less) prepared Defensive line, not Frontlines.
By Leningrad you were thinking about the Ladogasee battles wich formed a Defensiv line (Frontline) arround Leningrad to the occuring Situation.The Atlantic wall i.e. was built to fight off a near by threat in the near future.(Defensiv line)
As far as for Moskau we should have also included Briansk and Orel, without that particular Traffic knot a further advance would have been not given. BUT it is not a specific Defensiv line rather an Important Frontline.
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these lines where prepared and, just not finished. The first one ran along the frontline and the preparation started after the battle of smolesk. so I would say it is as much of a line as the gothic line, gustav line or maybe even the voltran line.
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I always liked the Cherbourg “line”… because it was just a red lind on a Hitler’s Map…
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@ABWorsham:
the moscow line was a combination of 3 lines, It think they where called
1.� Rzhev-Vyazma defense setup
2. Mozhaisk defense line
3.� Moscow Defense ZoneCombined the formed the 3 defencive lines around moscow.
Had winter not been an issue how do you think the Germans would have faired in taking Moscow?
Depends on the morale of the Soviet army. Most likely scenario, the Germans get in a rough urban fight before getting encircled and annihilated by a counter attack due to insufficient reserves.
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@ABWorsham:
the moscow line was a combination of 3 lines, It think they where called
1.� Rzhev-Vyazma defense setup
2. Mozhaisk defense line
3.� Moscow Defense ZoneCombined the formed the 3 defencive lines around moscow.
Had winter not been an issue how do you think the Germans would have faired in taking Moscow?
Depends on the morale of the Soviet army. Most likely scenario, the Germans get in a rough urban fight before getting encircled and annihilated by a counter attack due to insufficient reserves.
I once met a German Lieutenant who was there at the time, and I asked him that same question.
His response as I recall…
‘We would have crushed those sub-human vermin like cockroaches in a blender.’
;)
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‘We would have crushed those sub-human vermin like cockroaches in a blender.’
I assume he was giving a modern metaphor rather than a contemporary one, since I don’t think they had blenders in 1941. At any rate, this one guy from whom I’d never accept a home-made milkshake.
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altho, I really like your source garg. It is not that much of a believable source, he would not have seen the big picture from his vantage point.
It guess military historians would be the best judges, however I can’t think of anyone who have gone into this subject.
I always find it perculiar that historians cant agree wheither if was a good or bad idea for hitler to send army group center south after smolesk, to get a huge kiev encirclement, and capture alot of unrailed factories, rather than to attack moscow imideatly
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altho, I really like your source garg. It is not that much of a believable source, he would not have seen the big picture from his vantage point.
It guess military historians would be the best judges, however I can’t think of anyone who have gone into this subject.
I always find it perculiar that historians cant agree wheither if was a good or bad idea for hitler to send army group center south after smolesk, to get a huge kiev encirclement, and capture alot of unrailed factories, rather than to attack moscow imideatly
because the historians think that the decission was made out of political reasons instead of a strategic view point of hitler.
If he would have gone for Moscow immediately then those four russian Army´s (5th, 21st,26th, and 37th) could have become quite a problem of his center Heeresgruppe. Nevertheless, consider that a problem of fuel supply was comming as well.
But you are right, it was this point we have to consider the most on any IF questions! -
It is amazing how much resources Hitler put into the defense of the British owned Channel Islands. He demanded between 10 to 25% of all Atlantic Wall material get dedicated to these Islands.
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It is amazing how much resources Hitler put into the defense of the British owned Channel Islands. He demanded between 10 to 25% of all Atlantic Wall material get dedicated to these Islands.
Lucky for us, Hitler was really dumb and was a terrible commander. He crippled his air force, threw away an army (6th), wasted his Kriegsmarine,he made Normandy an allied victory.
I believe that Germany would have won if they had been a competent military mind as head of state, or even if Hitler just didn’t interfere in military decision.