Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

The sheer genius with which you so eloquently express your thoughts far outweighs any incidental spelling errors that might be contained therein, sir!

Yes I also believe their were a number of territorial tensions between the two great powers that neither felt inclined to give on.

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Marechal Knox

Prince d'Austerlitz et Comte d'Argentan
Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur

"What is history but a fable agreed upon"

to the OP, Hitler did not invade the USSR primarily for the oil fields - his motivation was lebensraum which would have involved the extermination through starvation of 75-80% of the slavic population and the enslavement of the rest

It hardly would have mattered to the average Russian peasant if Napoleon had won - his life would have not changed much. Not so for that peasant in 1941 - hard to imagine a worse alternative to Stalinism - but Hitler definitely was it

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2nd Lt

23rd Light Dragoons, 3rd Brigade, Cav Division, II corps (British/KGL)

Stalin killed far more people than Hitler. A bullet in both of them at the outset would have been a benefit to the human race.

Not to get into a bickering match, but Stalin was FAR worse of a human being and killed MILLIONS of more innocent lives that Hitler could have dreamed of (And Hitler was obviously )

No bickering for me, I believe Stalin was by far the worse of the two.

Are we in a Napoleonic forum?

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Général David Guegan

3ème Régiment de Grenadiers - Bataillon d'élite du 3ème Légère
2ème Brigade
Grenadiers de la Réserve
Réserve
La Grande Armée
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"From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step."
Napoléon Bonaparte

Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.
Groucho Marx

Well, sure we are! I know, because I recognize that fine uniform you are wearing in your signature image.

There is some controversy on Stalin's bodycount with one group in the 50 million range and another in the 10 million, with the differences largely due to estimates of famine deaths, which comprise the majority of the deaths. Stalin had 25 years or so to accomplish this, while Germany killed 11 million or so noncombatants over a five year period. What is certain is that had Germany won in the East the death toll would have surpassed the highest of these estimates.

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2nd Lt

23rd Light Dragoons, 3rd Brigade, Cav Division, II corps (British/KGL)

Stalin arrested, sent off and killed millions of his own people to Siberia for what reason?
Hitler killed to achieve his psychotic view of an Aryan race and it not only included Germans, but other as well Poles, Slavs, Jews, etc...

Stalin killed is own, pure stupidity in my opinion. Imagine if he used these people to fight Hitler, not that he needed them, but Imagine.....

It appears to be far too quiet in here. Let's have a minor holywar here, eh?

Not so long ago Bill Peters was making a post here telling that there were his fellow allied side members who were discussing the US in a somewhat offensive manner. His claim was to keep politics out of our games. But apparently and regretfully some presidents do understand such requests in a very specific way: as a ban on any critics of US only. All the other countries apparently may be covered with lies without any restrictions. If one makes a statement like that one must be able to prove it. Can you? Will you? I do not want to fight on this ground. And even less to do it here. But if needed I will. I would much more prefer that you kept your "opinion" with yourself.

The points are
1. LET'S KEEP POLITICS OUT OF OUR CLUB.
2. LET'S TREAT ALL THE PEOPLE EQUAL.

I can understand why a President of the Club may allow himself to act in such a way?!

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I hadn't actually read how far this had gotten and I agree with Anton, please no politics in the forum, especially of this nature. If this convo goes down hill further, I will lock the topic. You've all been warned.

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Generalfeldmarschall Scott Kronprinz "Vorwärts" Ludwig von Preußen
Kommandeur des Königlich-Preußischen Armee-Korps
Chief of Staff (CoS) of the Allied Coalition
Allied Coalition Webmaster & Club Website Support

Yeah, I agree also. My sincerest apologies, Anton. It was not my intention to criticize your country at all. I actually thought that the world had that same view of the Josef Stalin, including the Russian people. One of the very reasons that Stalingrad was renamed to Volgagrad after his passing. I did not consider it to be a political statement at all.


My comments on such matters are never global in nature, and you should never take them to infer that I have any animosity toward the Russian people. I don't at all. I am slightly younger than all of the Cold War, McCarthy era crap that went on here in the USA. My thinking is not in that vein in any manner. I assess individuals and never make global judgments. There are some cultural differences that we must overcome as well. I once had the privalege of talking to a Russian exchange student at length many years ago. Being a military history buff, we somehow entered into a discussion of World War I. It was magnificently enlightening to me as the student explained to me in detail how Russian had almost single handedly won the war and that the contributions of the Western powers were negligible. Now, I had always been taught exactly the opposite. It was an eye opening wake up call that we should all carefully guard our education to avoid the insertion of controlling propaganda by our own governments. Also, just the difference in perspective of people around the world. I thought it was a fascinating revelation and I never looked at a history lesson or the printed text in any history book the same after that conversation.

I thought my expressed view of Josef Stalin was commonly shared throughout the world and particularly so by the Russian people. Obviously, I was mistaken and I sincerely apologize for that oversight. I will be more careful of my posts in the future and avoid any controversial political issues or statements. Please accept my sincerest apology for my actions. I really like, and respect, you and all of the Russian officers in our club. That goes for every other country represented here as well. I am truly sorry for the offense. It was not intentional.

Stalin? Hitler? who are these people? Imaginary characters of the future?
The only Russians I know off are Kutusov, Bagration and other famous warriors of Holy mother Russia.
Or perhaps Blucher from the Prussians. But then it is 1809.

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Marechal Knox

Prince d'Austerlitz et Comte d'Argentan
Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur

"What is history but a fable agreed upon"

Well, Mark, simply you are wrong in your opinion of that era. And I perfectly understand that this fact is not in the least explained by your personal wickedness, but by the lack of information. Napoleonic era is a great example. Typical english-language publication does not take into account evidence from russian side. Even more, it often speculates on the lack of such material. To put it short there are three visions of the history of my country. 1. Internal official - it was a heavens on earth. 2. External official - it was an Empire of evil. 3. Realistic view that admits existance of both good and bad facets, events etc. BTW it applies to every single country. Such a view is only beign formed. Certain small pieces of such a view are formulated in writing, but they are quite so rare. In this aspect, comming back to Napoleonic era, such a realistic view was expressed in the marvelous book of Dr. Lieven.

In fact I do not mind anyone thinking whatever he finds proper. I just mind apparent lies being stated in public. Yet again it may be not because of your wickedness, but because of specific set of info available. But regardless of the cause to such cases I have zero tolerance. One life is too small to create a view no.3 and at the same time promote it. I can't possibly do that here and in two lines. All I can say, being acquainted with all three of them, the first two are not good enougs for an intelligent creature.

That said, the most simple solution is, as Colin points, to avoid references to so distant future.

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