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I hear on the Weather subforum, that Russia is not that cold. If this is true, then what beat Hitler and Napoleon? In history class, they tell you it is the cold weather that beat them.
apples and oranges... Napoleon took Moscow but it was
the retreat back which hurt the grand armee most.. and the mud season,
we're talking infantry and horseback. The scorched-earth policy of Russia
also left his army with precious little supplies.. really there is no comparison
between the mechanized army of Hitler and the flesh powered army of Big N
except that Russia is so vast.
I hear on the Weather subforum, that Russia is not that cold. If this is true, then what beat Hitler and Napoleon? In history class, they tell you it is the cold weather that beat them.
Russia IS "that cold", especially back before global warming had taken off. Anyone who says it isn't hasn't been there in winter. In WWII, Russia even brought in troops from the vicinity of Mongolia, who were used to even colder conditions than around Western Russia.
The German timetable for Barbarossa was upset more by the 1941 autumn rains than the winter snow. The space was immense, the roads few and not well constructed. When the seasonal rains began, everything turned to mud and the Nazi advance became a crawl. The arrival of the colder weather actually helped the Germans in that it froze the mud and made it possible to resume the advance. The chief problem then became one of not having the right uniforms for winter and not having their motor vehicles and equipment prepared for frozen conditions. This all helped to slow the Germans, but what eventually defeated them was space and numbers. That and the incredible capacity of the Russian people to endure just about anything.
As the Germans advanced east, their supply lines got longer as the Soviet ones grew shorter. Each time the Nazis swallowed up a new territory, a portion of their invading army would have to be left to garrison it against partisans, weakening the advance. With so much territory to guard, the forward thrusts had fewer and fewer troops available. The huge amount of territory also meant that Stalin could trade space for time. That time was used in disassembling vital industry in the western portion, and relocating it behind the Volga.
At the same time, the Reds seemed to have unlimited manpower. The Soviets ultimately were able to field more than twice as many divisions as the Germans thought them capable of doing.
That is a quick overview. There are others here with far greater expertise than mine who will probably be along to provide details and specifics.
You know I have an illustration of a statistical graph made by a Frenchman, Charles Joseph Minard, which plots the size of Napoleon's army with other variables such as temperature, location, dates and direction of the army. What it shows is that Napoleon had about 422,000 men as it invaded Russia in June 1812. In Sept, they reached Moscow, which was then sacked and deserted, with 100,000 men. The march out of Moscow was bitterly cold. The crossing of the Berezina River was a 'disaster': 50,000 before.....10,000 after going into Poland.
I know this much: when I was a kid back in the late 50s we had a visitor from Austria who had fought for the Nazis in the war. He described what it was like in Russia--he was there-- and said that was why they lost. Frost bite with men's fingers and toes coming off, maybe legs and arms too. It's pretty tough to survive in sub freezing cold for any amount of time unless you have some very unusual or specialized survival gear. I would trust what this man told us because he had no reason at all to make up a story.
Apart from weather, the USSR and in the earlier war against Napoleon the Russian Empire had simple geogtaphy and demographics on its side. It had more territory than all of non Russian Europe (a factor or about 5)(in fact the Russian part of Europe is bigger than non-Russian Europe combined), it had large reserves of industrial commodities including most importantly oil, didn't have to run them over a oceanic gauntlet like the British or the USA and it had far more people than the 3rd Reich (remeber most of the population under Hitler's yoke was not as me say well motivated or enthusiastic supporters of Nazi Germany. I don't think the Germans would really trust former French, Dutch, Norwegian, Pole, Yugoslav ,Greek or Czech soldiers to hold the line against Soviet forces. German allies like Romania, Hungary, Italy, Spain Vichy France, and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem weren't exactly the A-team!
Also after 3 5 year plans concentrating on heavy industry especially in the Trans Urals region of western Siberia Russia had about as much of an industrial base as Hitler and Stalin used it. Finally the USSR had made a major effort to train scientists and Engineers. American and British lend lease gave the Soviets a free hand in making what Russians actually do very well i.e. makeing guns and artillery and as it turned out Tanks (T-34) a lot of Tanks and a superb air borne close support aircraft the Sturmovik or Il-3. By 1943 the Soviets out gunned the Wehrmacht and it didn't matter if the Germans had better military minds the result was Red Army troops possing for pictures at the Brandenberg Gate in May 1945.
My answer to the original poster is that it was a combination of factors. Not any one factor. Grandstander did a great job explaining it. I would add that the entire German invasion of Russia was delayed numerous times due to events in Greece and elsewhere. Had the invasion commenced a month or two earlier, perhaps more success would have occurred.
I would also challenge the notion of Hitler's armies being "motorized". Only aboput 30% of the army was motorized. Many units were foot infantry and supplies were pulled by horse-drawn carriages. The German Army is WW2 was actually poorly equipped compared to the German Army in WW1.
In my view, the Germans ultimately were relying on a quick victory in 1941. Once a quick victory was denied, the Germans essentially lost. They were not equipped to fight a protracted war against such a large enemy.
The German timetable for Barbarossa was upset more by the 1941 autumn rains than the winter snow. The space was immense, the roads few and not well constructed. When the seasonal rains began, everything turned to mud and the Nazi advance became a crawl. The arrival of the colder weather actually helped the Germans in that it froze the mud and made it possible to resume the advance. The chief problem then became one of not having the right uniforms for winter and not having their motor vehicles and equipment prepared for frozen conditions. This all helped to slow the Germans, but what eventually defeated them was space and numbers. That and the incredible capacity of the Russian people to endure just about anything.
As the Germans advanced east, their supply lines got longer as the Soviet ones grew shorter. Each time the Nazis swallowed up a new territory, a portion of their invading army would have to be left to garrison it against partisans, weakening the advance. With so much territory to guard, the forward thrusts had fewer and fewer troops available. The huge amount of territory also meant that Stalin could trade space for time. That time was used in disassembling vital industry in the western portion, and relocating it behind the Volga.
At the same time, the Reds seemed to have unlimited manpower. The Soviets ultimately were able to field more than twice as many divisions as the Germans thought them capable of doing.
That is a quick overview. There are others here with far greater expertise than mine who will probably be along to provide details and specifics.
Poor roads are a testiment to Soviet Central planners who relied on Railroads for internal transport in the USSR. The Soviets used the American guage on Soviet Railways which made German locomotives rolling stock useless since it was significantly larger. The Soviets rolled most if not all Soviet locomotives and railcars to the East and destroyed Switches, signals, bridges etc to make them unavailable to the Nazis! When the Soviest came west in 1944 into Poland and the Balkans they needed to use smaller guage RRs it should be noted it is far easier to put smaller boggies on larger rolling stock to send supply trains on their way and the Russians actually built special locomotives to run on small er European guage RRs or had mechanics patch up damaged locomotives that were salvagable.
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