History What are some of your most contraversial takes on history?

[Buba]

We tried, we lost.

Attacking Siberia to overthrow a regime dependent upon control of Sankt Peterburg and Moscow seems ... silly?
Like expecting to overthrow US Gov't/conquer USA by capturing the Aleutians (fantastic idea, oh Great Yamamoto).
A very British ankle biting, death by a thousand cuts approach.

 

[Free-Stater 101]

Attacking Siberia to overthrow a regime dependent upon control of Sankt Peterburg and Moscow seems ... silly?
Like expecting to overthrow US Gov't/conquer USA by capturing the Aleutians (fantastic idea, oh Great Yamamoto).
A very British ankle biting, death by a thousand cuts approach.

The reason the Siberian route was chosen was to facilitate the escape of the Czechoslovakian Legion which was heading east through the Trans-Siberian railway and to keep an eye on the Japanese who would have occupied or tried to completely annex it otherwise.

The reason the interventions failed was because of both a lack of manpower, public will to support more fighting and prime stagging grounds for an invasion into the heart of Russia.

The British seized Murmansk, but it wasn't a good stagging ground to build forces even if they could be spared and during their Baltic Campaign while they successfully managed to bottle up the Soviet Fleet, they lacked the forces to take Petrograd and then suffered a borderline mutiny from soldiers tired of spending seven plus years at war on ships.

 

[bintananth]

Attacking Siberia to overthrow a regime dependent upon control of Sankt Peterburg and Moscow seems ... silly?
Like expecting to overthrow US Gov't/conquer USA by capturing the Aleutians (fantastic idea, oh Great Yamamoto).
A very British ankle biting, death by a thousand cuts approach.

The only thing more difficult than invading Russia or China is invading the United States because you get to deal with Canada and Mexico (if only to keep them neutral and out of it) along with all of the shitty terrain and horrible weather we Americans call "Tuesday". You also get the special bonus prize of doing it by seaborn invasion across an ocean right into the teeth of an angry civilian population which has more guns than people.

 

[Scottty]

The only thing more difficult than invading Russia or China is invading the United States because you get to deal with Canada and Mexico (if only to keep them neutral and out of it) along with all of the shitty terrain and horrible weather we Americans call "Tuesday". You also get the special bonus prize of doing it by seaborn invasion across an ocean right into the teeth of an angry civilian population which has more guns than people.

Stage in Mexico, and drive your army north in delivery trucks. The border's wide open there. /s

 

[ATP]

Another Philippines related controversial take:

- The Philippines is doomed to be a colony of whichever nation wants it. China, Japan, Brunei (the Bolkiahs did rule parts of Luzon, including the city of Manila), Spain, Portugal, Britain, US, Netherlands.

Main reason being is that the Philippines straddles on a vital sea lane that is crucial to commercial trade on the seas. Heck, in any modern military operation, the Philippines would be high priority target. If held by the US, they can easily launch a naval blockade of China, with Japan and Taiwan's help. If held by China, they can easily attack Taiwan and Japan, making American resupply efforts more difficult. It explains why they're so gung ho on stealing all of the Spratly Islands.

Or Sea Empire.Imagine TL when somebody united most of islands till 1500,then welcomed portugals as friends.They were too weak to conqer him,but deliver best technology West had at that time.
Especially,if he becomed catholic King.
Then,take rest of the islands,take refugees from Japan,take Taiwan,Okinawa Kingdom and discover and colonize Australia till 1700.The same for Hawaii.
Take Aleutes and Northern shore of America,too,sending settlers there.

When Japan become isolationist,take Hokkaido,too - there were Ainu uprising there till 19th century.Kurile islands and Magadan region,local tribes knew that there was gold.

About 1850 you have Philippines,Taiwan,Okinawa,Australia,Hokkaido,Kuriles,Aleutes,Magadan,And part of North America.
Could use crimean war as pretext to take more Siberia.
Nobody invade you.
Could take Mapuche territories in current Chile,too.

Or,another possibility - carlists go there after loosing war in 1835,and create stronger state with better navy then OTL.
You stil could take Taiwan,Okinawa,Hokkaido,Kuriles,and Magadan.
Maybe Mexico,too.

Again,you are safe from anybody except USA.

 

[bintananth]

Stage in Mexico, and drive your army north in delivery trucks. The border's wide open there. /s

The US-Mexico border is 1954mi. There are 48 roads which cross it. Good luck with that and may God have mercy on your soul if you go off-road.

Yes, I did see the "/s". I thought it was bullshit.

 

[WolfBear]

Kerensky should have sued for peace with the Central Powers instead of pushing on with the war. That might make him unpopular, but at least it would deny the Bolsheviks a chance to launch their attempted coup.

Oh, certainly! That way, he'd get deposed by a broad socialist coalition rather than only by the totalitarian and tyrannical Bolsheviks.

 

[WolfBear]

Another unpopular take: Due to the Cold War and its legacy, the West has tended to downplay the Soviet Union's role in the Allied victory in World War II, thus resulting in huge changes in Western public opinion in regards to this since 1945:

 

[WolfBear]

The Germans appreciate the Russian role the most, perhaps due to how many casualties and rapes Soviet troops inflicted upon the Germans in World War II. Yet even among the Germans, more people think that the US was more responsible for the Allied WWII victory than the Russians were!

 

[Cherico]

To be fair the Soviet union started the war as a Nazi ally by attacking Poland at the same time Hitler did. You tend not to get as much credit when you're cleaning up a mess you helped create in the first place.

 

[WolfBear]

To be fair the Soviet union started the war as a Nazi ally by attacking Poland at the same time Hitler did. You tend not to get as much credit when you're cleaning up a mess you helped create in the first place.

Excellent point! The Soviet Union could have tried much harder to create an Anglo-French alliance at almost any cost or even to simply refuse to sign the M-R Pact with Hitler, and yet chose not to do so.

Interestingly enough, here's another unpopular historical take: The M-R Pact was great for Ukrainian nationalism because it placed a lot of hyper-nationalistic western Ukrainians into the Ukrainian SSR, thus ensuring that once Ukrainian independence eventually came, the odds of Ukraine eventually falling back into Russia's orbit would be much lower than they would have otherwise been.

 

[bintananth]

The Germans appreciate the Russian role the most, perhaps due to how many casualties and rapes Soviet troops inflicted upon the Germans in World War II. Yet even among the Germans, more people think that the US was more responsible for the Allied WWII victory than the Russians were!

The US was a botomless well of "we can provide that" during WWII. We gave the British fifty destroyers in 1940
that we weren't using and just had floating around in reserve.

Germany only built 38, total.

 

[Doomsought]

The Soviet efforts against the Nazis was bankrolled by the US, which also hurts their ability to claim credit.

 

[WolfBear]

The US was a botomless well of "we can provide that" during WWII. We gave the British fifty destroyers in 1940
that we weren't using and just had floating around in reserve.

Germany only built 38, total.

Yeah, FDR talked about this in one of his pre-Pearl Harbor speeches:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal_of_Democracy

"Arsenal of Democracy" Speech, Franklin Roosevelt, 29 December 1940

Becoming the Arsenal of Democracy | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

Early on in World War II, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, one of Adolf Hitler’s top lieutenants, said that Americans could only make refrigerators and razor blades—they would never be able to produce the military equipment and supplies necessary to defeat Nazi Germany. Hitler took the same view...

www.nationalww2museum.org

Arsenal of Democracy | Detroit Historical Society

It is generally agreed that no American city contributed more to the Allied powers during World War II than Detroit. Appropriately, Detroit grew to be known as "The Arsenal of Democracy," a term coined by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during one of his Fireside Chat radio broadcasts.In the...

detroithistorical.org

 

[WolfBear]

The Soviet efforts against the Nazis was bankrolled by the US, which also hurts their ability to claim credit.

The US fed them spam, gave them trucks and other equipment through Lend-Lease, eventually opened up a second front for them--what else?

 

[Cherico]

The US fed them spam, gave them trucks and other equipment through Lend-Lease, eventually opened up a second front for them--what else?

Tactics wins battles logistics wins wars

 

[WolfBear]

Tactics wins battles logistics wins wars

And also strategy wins wars as well. For instance, Vladimir Putin was hailed as a tactical genius after his victories at Ilovaisk in 2014 and Debaltseve in 2015, but he failed to translate these tactical victories into strategic victories since they failed to alter the course of Ukraine's pro-Western orientation. So, Putin felt compelled to launch a large-scale invasion of Ukraine earlier this year.

 

[Aldarion]

Ustashi movement did as much good as it did bad, and bad things they did were likely nowhere close to what they are officially ascribed.

 

[bintananth]

Tactics wins battles logistics wins wars

On this front you should compare a German Type VII (the terror of the Atlantic) to the American Gato-class.

The Gato's are roughly 90ft longer, 4kts faster when surfaced and 2kts faster when submerged. They also have 10 torpedo tubes and an 11,000nmi, 75 day range while a Type VII had 6 tubes and an 8,500nmi range.

US ASW during WWII didn't have to deal with stuff as capable as what they trained against.

 

[TheRomanSlayer]

Tito did much more to damage Serbia’s territorial integrity than Hitler and Mussolini combined by cleaving off Kosovo and Vojvodina and turning them into autonomous provinces.

Also, literally anything to do with the Chetnik movement in general.