Check out this link Lew:

[Beachcomber]

Very good observations Lew. I think the Japanese were far more wrapped up in "honor" and "ritual" than any other combatant force in the entire war. They in fact never intended Pearl Harbor to be a "sneak attack". They actually delivered a declaration of war the same morning, but didn't factor into it the time differences and actually attacked before delivering the declaration. And on a sidenote, FDR's Aunt Polly was romantically involved with the Japanese ambassador.

[Lew]

Even to this day, they've never apologized for Pearl Harbor (which, as we discussed on the other thread, I've never felt they owed us one anyway). But they did issue an apology for not delivering the message first. Which, even if the message had been delivered on time, it still would have been 5 minutes after (or, possibly, 55 minutes before) the first planes attacked.

You really do see the things you talked about reflected in their strategy. It cased them to be rigid and unflexible. They believed in offense, in striking and attacking. Conversely, they weren't as practiced in the areas of retreat and evacuation. And they were very narrow-minded in their philosophy. This is demonstrated at Midway- they had a plan of attack, the U.S. would react accordingly, and then the Japanese would follow-up with the death blow. The key to the whole thing working was the U.S reacting exactly as the Japanese believed they would. It never dawned on the IJN that the U.S might not react as planned, and they made no room for contingencies.

Fortunately, the U.S. at Midway (and in other battles as well) did not react the in the anticipated manner and this spelled doom for the IJN. Prior to the war, the U.S. was just as narrow-minded, but to their credit, U.S. naval strategists, once the war started, became far more open-minded when it came to strategy.

You also talked about Stalin in your other post, I wanted to add that it's always important to keep in mind that the Soviets were anything but "allied" with Britain in the 1930s. While England and France were about to go to war with Germany, the Soviets were signing non-aggression treaties with them. It was the Soviet plan all along to eventually invade Germany, but the Germans beat them to the punch and invaded first. Up until the German attack, the Soviets did nothing to help the situation in western Europe. Then one day here comes the Blitzkrieg, and it becomes Please help us, Mr. Churchill.

We're all "allies" for 3 1/2 years, then the Germans surrender and we go back to being enemies for the next 40-50 years.

And not to call out your boy, but as we've discussed before, maybe we wouldn't have had the Cold War had a certain French Emperor put them out of their misery about 130 years prior [img]wink.gif[/img]

[Beachcomber]

You are absolutely right Lew about the failings of Napoleon having a direct impact on the next century. The seeds of WWI and then WWII were really sown in Vienna in 1814-15. Napoleon was the voice of the future, the Allies were the voice of the past, of reactionary despotism. And they were not held together by common goals of European security, but by self interest and keeping the little people in line. I am reading currently (again I might add, probably my 4th run through this book) "Imperial Sunset" which focuses on the aftermath of the Russian retreat to Waterloo. I have been reading about Napoleon since 1992 and no matter how many books I read I cannot move past 1821. Not sure why, just an obsession.

[Lew]

And if I can play Soviet apologist for just a moment here...

I knew that the combined number of American deaths from the Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam totaled roughly 1.2M. Gae provided numbers on the Iraq thread for the other wars as well. Adding all those death counts, and heck let's throw in murders as well, and I doubt, since 1787, where we can find over 3 million Americans that have been intentionally killed. But, for our purposes here, let's go with that number. Let's assume that 3 million Americans have been killed in our nation's history either due to war or murder.

OK the Soviets lost between 20 and 30 million between 1941 and 1945. I'll average the two and go with 25 million. Basically, it would be like the entire state of California being killed over a four year period.

Let's put that number into perspective. Take the death toll on September 11 and multiply it by a factor of 6. Now, pretend that many died every day for four years.

Or an even happier thought- out of every 5 male baby boys born in Russia in the year 1923, only 1 made it to see his 22nd birthday and not be killed or wounded.

Americans have no concept of these numbers. I can calculate them, but I can't really conceive them.

Now, let's no kid ourselves here- you can probably attribute more of those deaths to Stalin than you can Hitler (I understand why history has been brutal on Hitler, but it amazes me at the free pass Stalin has gotten).

But my point is, look at the legacy 9/11 left in our lives. Look at how much change it brought. Now imagine if an enemy killed 25 million of us before we defeated it. Don't you think we would want to take some course of action?

Napoleon invaded them, the Kaiser invaded them, and Hitler invaded them. You look at the millions of lives it cost them, and I think by 1945 they'd had enough. I don't blame them for establishing their "iron curtain." I'm not saying it was the moral thing to do, I'm not saying I personally agree with it, but I can understand why they would have wanted it. Hell the Monroe Doctrine (and its legacy) was implemented precisely so we wouldn't have to worry about something like this happening to us.

Now should we have gone after them in the late 1940s? I don't know on what grounds. They hadn't really done anything to us (unlike when our troops fought as part of a coalition against them under the Wilson administration). And absent the use of nukes, I don't know what we would have done to them, considering they outnumbered and outgunned us 3 to 1 (and considering that our powerful navy is rather helpless to do anything in landlocked Eastern Europe). And it wasn't like we were overly worried about the situation in Poland and Czechoslovakia when Hitler was running over them, so why did we care if they were dominated by Moscow?

I'm telling you, I believe the Cold War was inevitable and I never got into blaming one side or another. It never became a hot war (try telling that to the families of the 53,000 dead in Korea and 58,000 in Vietnam)and it finally ended. The west prevailed. And no I wasn't the biggest Reagan fan in the world, but you have to give credit where credit is due.

[Beachcomber]

All good points Lew. You know Stalin was absolutely every bit as much of a psychopath as Hitler was, yet not villified by history in the same manner at all. He used to get bored at the opera and go to the state prison and execute prisoners himself with his sidearm and then go back to his box and watch the rest of the show. He had Ukranians killed by the millions by starvation, he killed returning soldiers lest they contaminate Soviet idealism with Western debauchery. Yeah he was a real sweetheart. Started adult life as a seminary student. But so did Napoleon's police minister Fouche and he was a real teddybear too...

[Lew]

The Stalin thing amazes me. I would be willing to bet that if you polled the world as to who was the worst person ever, Hitler would win in a landslide. And don't get me wrong, I'm not about to exonerate him by any means, but as far as I'm concerned Stalin has to rank as bad (if not far worse). And I say that for two simple reasons- one, Stalin killed more people, and two, he did it over a longer period of time. Hitler was basically in power for 12 years (1933-1945). And, at least he saw his empire defeated before he took his own life.

Stalin was in power for roughly 30 years or so, and he died peacefully in his sleep. And like you said, the horror stories of him seem endless. The reason I said in my post yesterday that I blame him for more deaths than Hitler...in the 1930s, due to his paranoia, Stalin began a massive purge of his high command. Men who had served with him for many years were killed or sent to salt mines in Siberia. There was no coup, just Stalin's fear that there would be one. It's estimated that he purged 2/3 of his high-ranking officers.

While the rest of the world was paying attention to western Europe in 1940, the Soviets launched an invasion of Finland. On paper, the Soviets should have rolled them in about a month. As it turns out, the Finns beat the crap out of them, and they had to agree to a cease-fire (Finland did lose some real estate out of the deal, but at least they weren't conquered). This exposed to the Germans just how weak the Soviet military really was, and a year later here came the German invasion.

Well, when that happens, Stalin brings back all these officers he sent to Siberia and re-ups them to help save the Motherland. But their military was in such poor shape, it took 12-18 months to get things righted. ANd during that time, the Germans absolutely feasted on them, and were it not for the Russian winter, the Germans would surely have seized everything up to and including Moscow.

Then, after the glorious defeat of the Germans, Stalin rewards a lot of his high-ranking officers by forcing them back into "retirement." Why? Because Stalin didn't want to share the glory with anyone else. It was his blundering that almost cost them defeat in the first place, and it's not like any great strategy on his part led to victory. But, the winner gets to write history and so for many years, the official Soviet position was that they survived and conquered the Germans only because of the great leadership of Uncle Joe. And that neither the U.S. nor the Brits helped out, the Soviets basically defeated the Germans on their own.

But again, if Marge Schott had a picture of Stalin on her wall, no one would have cared (probably because no one would even know). I'd love to go to a high school history class and hold up pictures of Hitler, Stalin and Chairman Mao. I suspect everyone would know Hitler. But I really wonder how many would even be able to identify Joe and Mao, let alone tell us anything about them.

And as far as I'm concerned, they all three deserve at least equal billing. But, history disagrees with me, although I will admit that I once went carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, and I didn't make it with anyone anyhow...

[Lew]

GL-

I know only of the name, what have you got on Minister of Police Fouche?

[Beachcomber]

As an example of how Fouche operated, he voted for the execution of Louis XVI in the Assembly and then was instrumental in the Bourbon Restoration under Louis XVIII in 1814 and again in 1815. Ofcourse he wanted him propped up on his throne with himself as Prime Minister and the Bourbons had little use for him. Upon Napoleon's return from Elba he convinced the current police minister to issue warrants for his arrest and is said to have stated "You save the king, I'll save the monarchy", escaped thru his garden borrowing a ladder from Napoleon's step daughter Hortense whose house shared a garden with her and offered his services to Napoleon. He also sent all of Napoleon's war plans to the Allies as quickly as he could get his hands on them. He died an exile in Trieste and his friends/neighbors included some of Napoleon's brothers and sisters.

[LAKE]

So that's where cruise ships go to die. Depressing. [img]frown.gif[/img]

[Beachcomber]

Fouche was a hard-core Jacobin, or Revolutionary who served Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety and was ruthless. He maintained "order" by his network of spies during Napoleon's reign, and as Talleyrand once observed when mass arrests were issued, 'To his credit as many of his friends were on the list as his enemies..." But I have several books on the man and he is a real puzzle. Faithful husband and good father, led an exemplary personal life. He saved as many people as he caused to go to prison or have executed, was not vindictive, preferred to coerce offenders back into line rather than punish them. In the end he was a traitor and basically sat on the fence and waited to see who would win before declaring himself. And then continued to work with the losers in secret. No Stalin or Hitler by any means, but also not the kind of person you would want on your Christmas card list either...