Wich was the worst nation in the war?

[GrauGeist]

Stalin really hampered any qualified military leadership during mobilization because of his earlier purges of the experienced general staff and then purged it again after Finland gave the Soviet Union a black eye...

China, which could have been a powerhouse with it's manpower and raw material potential, was torn apart by fuedal warlords and lack of a cohesive government.

Most of the countries (large and small) were still dealing with poor economies that had been recovering from the 20's and 30's. This meant a shortage of modern equipment, or equipment that was still woefully out of date.

 

[Marcel]

After a night sleep I thought up a "worst". I nominate the Japanese military and political leaders. Any authority who sends it's boys to desolate places like New Guinea without any supplies whatsoever, let them fight a brutal war and then when things turn nasty just abandon them to their faith is a good contender. Especially since they brainwashed the boys so they would not have the escape route to be POW. It's the only way I can see anything to be 'worst'.

@vicereeves, chill out. You made some comments on which many here don't agree. It's actually an interesting theory. I did counter it with my ideas and instead of ignoring that, why not try to prove it wrong with facts? It surely is much better than calling names, which seems to be the habit on internet these days. That's usually how we do things here.

 

[parsifal]

China, which could have been a powerhouse with it's manpower and raw material potential, was torn apart by fuedal warlords and lack of a cohesive government.

Id have to add, its near total lack of access to weapons and trained manpower, "lack of coherent government" just doesnt cut it for me.....rampant our of control corruption is probably a better way to describe the situation in China

 

[GrauGeist]

The comment about "lack of coherent goverment" is a huge understatement, actually...it was simply condensed, but the long version is a completely corrupt and out of touch Imperial government that allowed poverty to grip it's realm and warlords to run rampant, virtually unchecked. At a time when the rest of the world was passing into a mature industrial age, it was slipping backwards.

The chaos was so bad, that I doubt seriously that had they heeded the early warning signs of Japan's intentions and tried to mobilize, it would have done any good.

 

[Readie]

Well if you go and read the thread you woukd see thst it is based solely off of military, not ideology or whether a country was "bad" or "evil". It was about military ability, might, capability and strategy...

Fair comment Chris.
I did realise that and there are, and usual, some good points raised.
Perhaps the 'worse' may be a peception depending upon experiances.
I'm sure the Burma Star boys would only have one candidate !
Cheers
John

 

[Tante Ju]

Its got nothing to do with race or even the individuals when it comes to determining if the Axis were guilty of crimes against humanity and waging unlawful aggressive wars. We are not passing judgement on the people as a whole, which kinda neatly explains why only the Nazi ringleaders (or what was considefred the ringleaders) were ever put on trial after the war (there were other resons as well, like the political fallout arising from the question of unrestrictedwere submarine warfare, or the vexing question of Soviet collaboration pre-June 1941).

Nope, essentially everyone in German political or economical life prosecuted after the war by the Allies, regardless of being a 'nazi ringleader' or no. The Krupp trials were the most infamous, and quite typical. Many though not all were simply showcase trials in Soviet fashion. They were sentenced to long imprisonment after the war, and released very soon after things went sour with the Soviets. Former 'nazi' industrialists went back to business and former 'nazi' officiers went back to command NATO troops (and I am not saying all, because quite a number of those guys sentenced truely deserved to hang).

This is the deal. The difference between the allied nations and the Germans (and Japanese) is that the allies did not systematize racial or military abuse (well, provided you dont includde a few misdemeanours like incarceration without trial of ethnic Japanese Americans).

Well unless you consider the systematic murder of apprx. 1 million German and Japanese civilians (and many more wounded) by aerial bombings of course a bit more than some sort misdemeanors....

There were numerous examples of allied attrocities, but inherently therse were criminal acts. If you were caught shooting a prisoner, or raping a civilian, you were, at least in theory, guilty of a crime, and should, in theory face the courts martial that your military system entailed.

In theory yes, but practice Allies just tended to look the other way when PoWs were shot or civillians were raped. There were several high profile cases, apart from the regular rapes and pillage that came with any army. Unfortunately, if you implement a system only in theory and do not enforce it in practice to prevent soldiers running amok is not a very good defense and may be very well a basis of criminal neglect for those responsible making the soldiers behave more or less in civilized manner.

There were some pretty close exceptions to that, such as the Russian Army's behaviour immediately after the war, but even here there was a system in place to theoretically prevent that....what attrocities that did occur were officially denied by the Red Army 9of course they lied a lot i know).

The Russian Army raped and pillaged millions. It would be unfair to say that even the Red Army completely tolerated these, but as a routine they tolerated it to some extent. Order was sooner or later restored after a while (sometimes rather brutally).

But contrasting to this was the outrightly criminal behaviour of the Germans and the Japanese. There was no statutory crime in killing a Russian POW, or an Allied prisoner in Changi Gaol. Thats the difference in the criminality of the Axis on one hand, and the individual actts of bastardry by the allies on the other.

Unfortunately for your thesis, this is incorrect. The German army at least had military tribunals who have sentenced a lot of their own soldiers to imprisonment or death for war crimes. I can't comment on the Japanese Armies code of conduct except that it doesn't strike me in particular that US forces in the PTO were particularly bound by humatarian considerations gainst the enemy which American propaganda and indeed much of the US considered similarly sub-human as the Germans considered the "bolsheviks". Their habit of collecting Japanese solider's heads as souvenirs tells me that there may have been other issues with humanitarian conduct of war on both sides in the PTO...

And this has nothing to do with whether the axis were worse or better in their military and strategic operations. It is merely a question of which nation was acting criminally, and which nations were operating within the parameters of the law.

None operated within the parameters of the law, period.

and before we even go there, bombing of civilan enemy targets despite all the hype, was not a crime against humanity in 1945.

Given that most Axis war criminals were sentenced by Allied courts based on crimes which weren't even a crime before 1945, applying a very controversial legal practice of creating a crime after someone has committed it, I am not sure how much that that arguement would help Harris and other Allied war criminals. None of them were ever even tried, of course.

 

[parsifal]

There is a thead for discussion of war crimes and the war crimes trials. this is not the place to discuss this. you should show some resepect to the thread by not discussing issues that are off topic. I know I made some comments, and I know you dont agree with them. But I was trying to get the discussion back onto the topic of "worst nation militarily". What the heck are you doing?

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/ww2-general/war-crimes-trials-effective-23907-2.html

 

[Tante Ju]

I agree this thread is not the thread to discuss war crimes. Because of that, I wonder why you brought up it in the first place in a very provocative manner, and second, why you are blaming it on others and claiming that you were "just trying to get back to the core of the discussion" which is blatantly untrue?!

Take your own advice and do not start sidetracking threads with your usual war crimes and guilty nations theories.

 

[parsifal]

I didnt bring it up . Someone else did. Read the post I made, you will see I am exhorting people to get back on topic.

Here is another link to another thread that you could have a read of
http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/ww2-general/ordinary-germans-responsibility-holocaust-18540-10.html



This is another

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/ww2-general/battle-nanking-26567-9.html
As for me starting this side debate, what a load of cobblers....its been an issue in this thread for quite a whiile, and culminated in Buffnuts comments, which preceded my own. Not that he was trying to inflame anything, in fact he agereed with me that the national criminality of Germany had nothing to do with its battlefield performance.

I dont make any apologies to you or anyone for holding those responsible for war crimes to account. Im no angel and I ive done my fair share of head kicking for my country in my time. But there is a fine line of difference between lawful violence and cold blooded murder and national genocide. If you read the link I posted, you will see a wide range of differing views on this very subject. I dont think you are going to enjoy my comments, but then, ther is always the ignore button if you feel that way

 

[GrauGeist]

Come on guys, don't eff up a good thread by pointing out ho someone else is getting off topoc and then slipping in the same stuff...

Ignore the war crime, racial, political point of views or counter-views (God knows I've been tempted) and get back into the spirit of the discussion

 

[Readie]

I have been wondering whether Britain's policy of appeasement and America's standing by while Hitler over ran large parts of Europe would qualify both countries as a candidate?
Bearing in mind that a lot of American's were closely linked to Europe at the time and both countries leaders must have known that Hitler would never stop.
I know about 'buying time' but, that came at a cost.

What do you think?

Cheers
John

 

[cherry blossom]

I think that I should start by apologising if my mention of Iraq in http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/polls/wich-worst-nation-war-277-38.html#post991672 set off an avalanche. I was trying to make a case that the French fought fairly well. However, I do understand Shortround6's idea

Perhaps a better question would be which nation ( or leaders?) achieved the least military result with most military resources?

Lets all the small nations (like the bottom eight on the list) off the hook which is as it should be.

...snip...

and judged on that criteria, perhaps the senior French generals were the worse. Certainly they were impressively bad. However, the equipment and the first line units were not bad. Unfortunately, the generals placed reservists at the decisive point.

 

[Matt308]

Gents, don't eff up this thread. Parsifal and Tante Ju, end it now. You know the next moderator action. 'Nuff said.

 

[Njaco]

Sorry Matt but I'm closing this before this gets any worse and people start being forcefully told to leave. It was a bad question in the first place and just opened up alot of worms. Its closed.

 

[Matt308]

No problems from me. Right decision.