Whatever success nazi germany achieved was despite, not due to Shitler's leadership

>>17839197 (OP)
Both Napoleon and natsoc generals are kinda overrated.
The actual good, impactful generals are people like Caesar, Hannibal, Philipp II, Alexander. People that excelled in strategic and tactical thought. After modern times too much is dependant on artillery or air dominance or industrial output. Generals are there.. they take some decisions... But the tank/artillery quality is indipendent from the general.

>>17839202
Napoleon wasn't just a general, he was a head of the state too. I wouldn't say that the matters of logistics and equipment were not his affair. He was partially responsible for all of it, including the blunders, like those made in development of the French fleet for example

>>17839197 (OP)
>Poland
Germany was in Warsaw by the time Soviets joined the war
>France
Cope, stop coming up with excuses like thats not their fault
>Greeks
Annihilated as soon as Germany joined
>Yugoslavia
??? They were conquered in a week

>>17839226
>Germany was in Warsaw by the time Soviets joined the war
No, stop lying.
Warsaw surrendered on 27 September
Soviets attackted on 17 September, while Hitler's Warsaw military parade took place on 5 October.

>??? They were conquered in a week
Not this Yugoslavia, notice that there's a little red star on the flag

>>17839235
Soviets joined the war to get a piece after it had become apparent that Poland wasn't going to exist anymore, their intervention had no meaningful impact whatsoever
>Not this Yugoslavia, notice that there's a little red star on the flag
Partisans are overrated by commie propaganda, and they were a guerrilla force not a conventional military

>>17839197 (OP)
Napoleon’s opponents were inbred old retards who constantly made over complicated and ambitious plans which inevitably blew up in their faces.

>>17839226
>Germany was in Warsaw by the time Soviets joined
Following calendar isn't your stringest suit, huh? Soviets join - 17th Sept, fall of Warsaw - 28th Sept.
>stop coming up with excuses like thats not their fault
It is, they were just kinda shit though, far less powerful than are made to be.
>Annihilated as soon as Germany joined
Operation Marita went on for 3 weeks, but Greeks have been at war with Italy since October 1940. Greece was a country with population of mere 7M citizens, smaller than countries like Belgium (8.4 M), or Czechia (without Slovakia - 10M), and considerably poorer than each of those.
>??? They were conquered in a week
While Kingdom of Yugoslavia did in fact fall apart in less than a week, the bulk of their forces simply retreated into the mountains and reamained in control of much of Bosnia and Serbia for pretty much the rest of the war, their main problem and concern were internal divions and infightings between commies and chetniks. Croatia also pretty much just joined Axis on their own accord like Slovakia. Germany were more of a side in the local civil war rather than the sole overlord and conqueror of these lands, and ultimately lost when communists gathered enough forces to overrun Serb loyalists and could focus most of their attention on Germans.

>>17839250
>Soviets joined the war to get a piece after it had become apparent that Poland wasn't going to exist anymore
You're just quoting soviet propagnda leaflets dude, maybe leftypol is more of your speed.

>>17839197 (OP)
Why do Napoleon fans act like he was a wholesome dictatorino?
He was a warmonger and a butcher who only loved personal glory

>>17839283
>>17839235
>>17839277
The Soviet declaration of war and the Soviet invasion took place at two different times, Warsaw was over before the first Red Army division was in Poland proper.

>>17839267
>Napoleon was just vastly superior to all of his rivals
Oh was that it

>>17839289
Human beings are inherently savage, we don't need Hollywood to glorify violence for us we've been doing it since Day 1. Warriors and conquerors are heroes, maybe not of their time but they will be remembered. Peacemakers don't get remembered.

>>17839501
>The Soviet declaration of war
The what? You have 0 clue what you're talking about, stfu

>>17839197 (OP)
>Take that nazis! You only won because your enemies had weaker and smaller armies than you

Obvious bait thread yet so many taking the bait.

Germany defeating France and Britain in 1940 shocked everyone, including the Germans themselves.
That victory can be directly attributed to Hitler since the German command insisted on repeating the 1914 strategy (which is what the allies prepared for) until Hitler literally veto the Ardennes plan.
Not because Hitler was a strategic mastermind, but because he was a gambler. The vast majority of German generals believed the plan would fail and even Hitler was close to losing his nerve and call off the offensive because of the huge risk of catastrophic failure if the allies detected the maneuver or place any real resistance at Sedan.

>>17839197 (OP)
Better question is why Russians and Poles love Napoleon so much. Even the French don't simp for him that much anymore

>>17839197 (OP)
Napoleon successfully fought off several coalitions put together specifically to take him out. Hitler basically just zerg rushed a weak Europe recovering from an economic slump and then ran on fumes until the meat grinder in the east wore then down.

>>17840093
Napoleon destroyed the HRE, liberated the Jews, and spread French revolutionary ideology. He's more responsible than anyone for the modern world

>>17840105
Anon the HRE was essentially in early 19th century just a proto-EU for central Europe and Northern Italy of smaller states that were mostly tied in some sort of overlordship to other larger european powers (Hannover tied to Britain, Lorraine tied to France, Schleswig tied to Denmark, Bavaria tied to Austria, Saxony tied to Poland/Russia). By removing HRE it paved the way for German and Italian nationalism.

>>17840123
>By removing HRE it paved the way for German and Italian nationalism.
Yeah but it took 50 years, during which time the French, Russians, and Americans expanded their own influence. And Bismarck's reunification was incomplete as it didn't include Austria

>>17839197 (OP)
The French were just extremely unlucky but they weren't as poorly prepared as your shitty pop history tells you.

Their defeat goes down to literal dozens factors that could've been easily prevented and a kind of 4d chess move that didn't work.
In December 1939 a plane carrying German war plans was captured by the Belgians after it had to land there on emergency. The plan showed an invasion through the Gembloux gap, which is something the French expected anyway but it was just a confirmation of it. There were 6 divisions held in reserve by the French at the time - 3 motorized and 3 armoured(4th was being formed) - the capture of these plans convinced Gamelin that the Germans won't endanger Ardennes because the German staff evidently thought it's too risky and moved the motorized divisions to link up with any Dutch unit that escapes. The German staff meanwhile insists not to change the plan(as Gamelin predicted) and there's a multi-month back and forth between them and Hitler and eventually Hitler gets his way.

There are more detailed issues like the French retreating from Sedan too quickly or the French reserve cavalry divisions retreating in the wrong direction to be used as reinforcements for the breach in a pinch.

>>17840153
Had Belgium not canceled her alliance with France right before ww2 or the allies merely scouting the Ardennes, the entire plan would not have worked.

The maginot line was built under the premise that Belgium was a French ally so it would link with Belgian fortifications and rivers.
Because Belgium voided her alliance with France, the allied plan was forced to improvised into something similar; the allies would simply rush into Belgium once Germany invaded, and try to take up the defensive positions which they were supposed to have had. This tunnelvision of strategy caused them to neglect any defensive attention towards Sedan and the Ardennes, and it created chaos in Belgium (especially when german paratroopers managed to capture belgian fortifications at ligning speed) which contributed to the successful encirclement by the Germans.

On paper Germany was horribly outmatched by the allies. France alone began outproducing Germany in aircrafts, and Germany was already facing a resource crisis because Romania was still a French ally in 1940, and the Germans failed to secure narvik (and this the iron) even with most of Norway occupied.
French and British armament, especially tanks, were superior to Germany in both armor and firepower. The only saving grace for Germany was her doctrine and tactics, which were yet untested (only against second-rate polish military) si neither the French nor the Germans themselves were sure how they would stand against the western armies. The German generals were extremely pessimistic about Case Yellow, and it's a core reason why Hitler insisted on the high-risk-high-reward Ardennes offensive, because it was germanys only real chance of any victory.

>>17839197 (OP)
I think you have it wrong, most historians agree that WW1/2 Germany was great at war, what 15 year old kids do is open this kind of threads on /his/.

>>17840185
The Ardennes were considered major threat area(the reserves I've mentioned were stationed close to them), it's just that Gamelin believed that the Germans won't risk focusing on it even after their plans were captured, which was correct if the decisions were made solely by the German staff.

The scenario in which the plans were not captured basically end with the motorized divisions reinforcing Sedan, the bridgeheads over the river being either contained or pushed back and the Germans having to regroup(once the supplies they carried with them were out the entire force that crossed the ardennes couldn't have been supplied long term) at which point the war is on French terms. In reality these divisions were out while the armoured divisions weren't well prepared and had some teething issues(standard fare for early war armoured units, too many tanks too little infantry and artillery, just extra little infantry in this case) so the fallbacks were all about holding to Sedan at all costs and possibly the cavalry plugging the gap until some units can be pulled out of Belgium. Sedan was however given up and the cavalry retreated to the south-east instead of north-west and had no time to regroup.

>>17839197 (OP)
>french outdated command structure
>negligent strategy
can anyone elaborate in this?
i understand the poor leadership and political rot that had set in france
and their focus on "static defense", thinking they would be fighting a repeat of ww1? but germany did move primarily through the low countries just as before so what was the issue there?
one of the first things you learn about ww2 is the "panzers through the Ardennes" but was that really a huge deal?
what of this outdated command structure?
was it a communications issue?
the fall of france gets glossed over alot i feel

>>17840505
>one of the first things you learn about ww2 is the "panzers through the Ardennes" but was that really a huge deal?
Yes it was a huge deal. The army group that moved through the Ardenne had the largest concentration of tanks, it was the most powerful of the 3 army groups that attacked France.
The army group moving through the low countries was more of a diversion to draw out the French and British into the area, which created a window of opportunity to cut them off from the rest of the country and encircle them by the force coming from the Ardenne in the south.
In ww2 an entire campaign could be decided if an army was successfully encircled. Virtually every offensive was executed with that sole intention. During Poland and Barbarossa the Germans were openly attempting on encircle enemy armies, but against the western allies the Germans were the underdog (they would lose if they just attacked the allied armies directly) yet had to find a way to execute an encirclement anyway. The strike through the ardenne enabled it.

>>17839226
kek this btfo OP

>>17840624
so it really was just that?
the speed of the tank spearhead cut off the armies in the north and it was over?
i mean that is what they say
why was france so unable to deal with such a maneuver?
were the they and the brits really that unprepared?

>>17840721
ESL nigger go back

>>17839566
They literally gave a speech to their troops before invading, Pidor.

>>17840752
There are other post itt about it.

The French considered that possibility but reduced their reserves after capturing German war plans and predicting the German staff won't change them(which they wouldn't if it wasn't for Hitler). There were still some reserves left but they were recently formed units that had some issues in how they were organised.

Since the Germans had an advantage in the air for the foreseeable year or so the French didn't realise this was the main axis of attack until it was too late, at which point there wasn't really much that could've been done. The French mobile units were all on the frontline and would be for at least few days more until they got rotated out by foot infantry and that was all that was needed for the Germans to cut them off, especially since they just so happened to have a couple of extremely hot blooded generals given panzer divisions and relative autonomy to override their superiors, they saw a breach and they just charged in.

The campaign was really close it's just that if it went well for the Germans it would have to go disastrous for the French and that's what happened. If it didn't look like that the French would just absorb the German strike, take out enough armour for them to stop dreaming about breakthrough and start winning positional war for which they were very well prepared for - a lot of German NCO's and CO's at Gembloux were WW1 veterans and they thought that the French artillery was more deadly than back then, this was what was going to be the norm across the entirety of the front if the war descended into that.

>>17840858
what are you even babbling about you ESL retard