12:29 The Somme. Indy_Neidell.exe, tired after another six years of war, has stopped working. Would you like to try throwing hundreds of thousands of dead men into the trenches? This is Modern War! Foch you Hitler!
Can you make a special episode about how the Germans were able to hold until May 1945 despite they are heavily outnumbered and their industry destroyed.
Can we just acknowledge the sequel to Stalingrad, the reconstituted 6th army is now surround as the Soviet break through the satelite armies on the rear
I really do not get point of rebuilding destroyed formation, specially in same war. Simple put, let ti die in peace man. You can always use different number for "reformed" destroyed army.
The details of King Michael's Coup are legitimately hilarious. He invited Ion Antonescu to the palace and after pressing him again to withdraw Romania from the Axis, Antonescu refused. Michael then asked, almost as if he was changing the subject, "Are you armed right now?" Antonescu replied something along the lines of, "Why would I need to be armed? No man in Romania would dare try to harm me!" Michael then called in the guards and had Antonescu arrested. Pure comedy from start-to-finish.
@@dragosstanciu9866 If Wikipedia is correct, the "unpolitical" Sanatescu handed Antonescu over to the Communists and they handed him over to the Soviets.
@@stevekaczynski3793 It is correct, and it's not like Romanians resisted. If an Eastern European country were a person, then imagine Germany invited most to wine and dine, but Germany knew they will not be willing to pay the tabs of all. Once Romania got sobered up and recognized they're stuck with washing dishes, of course they kicked the guy out who promised them the silverware. Unfortunately this is what many in various nationalist camps forget, trust a fascist to "remove undesirables for unimaginable rewards" only for those rewards to never come. In Hungary's case the opposite happened the whole irredentist ideology (because yes I am saying this is why Romania joined the Axis) was built upon keeping rewards from the Vienna Accords against insurmountable odds, even though by mid-September keeping Transylvania was unfeasible.
I honestly believe that this is the week that German has now visibly lost the war. Romania has switched sides and with it the oilfields are no longer in German hands. Finland is participating in peace talks. Paris has been liberated and the Germans are retreating to the Rhine
And yet it lasts 9 more months. What lessons can we learn from that? What motivates Hitler, or the German people to continue? How could that motivation be curtailed?
@@ltdannichols either the high command genuinely believed that it was better to die fighting or they knew that they were going to be executed if they surrendered
@@st54nanolea68I think that what motivated Hitler was survival. He knew he wouldn't survive if Germany lost. What motivated the generals is more difficult to answer, but there's a good presentation by Robert Citino about it here on TH-cam entitled "Why did the German army fight to the end?" which considers various options.
Wow. Just wow, I've been watching this channel since just before the fall of France, and now to see Paris liberated is a moment that felt like it would never come. I cant imagine the relief and joy the citizens of Paris and the rest of France must have felt. Thank you Indy and team for this truly amazing series. Seriously the best history documentary ever created bar none.
America took a while to begin producing war arms The first couple of years' production went to the USSR as it moved east to preserve their war output. Two things happened about the same time; USA and USSR got the supplies to make war. Two huge countries with massive populations and raw materials turned on lethal factories. How Germany and Japan didn't realize their war was done still baffles me.
Is it just me or is there a continuity gap in the storycraft between last week's episode and this one? I remember things being pretty sloggy and slow in Normandy last week, and while I (obviously) understand that the channel isn't in charge of the pacing of the thing, it still felt like a bigger surprise to see Paris falling so abruptly after western commanders were looking so hamstrung near Falaise.
The only reason they didn't end the war in 44 was because they literally couldn't get enough supplies in. There's basically no significant German resistance facing the allies right now. The army is in full flight and will only stop when they reach the Rhine
that is just bad generalship. Right now they are trouncing the germans on overstretched lines with problems to reenforce their troops or resupply them... every mile retreat though brings them into more favorable constelations of the remaining troops (shorten the front lengths, allowing higher concentration of firepower) and once they are on homesoil, the resistance will be even bitterer. Seriously, they had lots of experience by now with defenders clinging desperately to long lost ground, they should have known better.
@@lovablesnowman We are actually getting towards the rather thin historical basis to the 1970 film "Kelly's Heroes", which mixed comedy/adventure with a somewhat realistic view of the fighting in eastern France during the German retreat of 1944. (OK, it was actually filmed in Yugoslavia.)The rather demoralised German troops retreating during a thunderstorm at night at the start of the film are probably much like the historical reality. The film didn't entirely succeed in blending the comedy with more realistic elements, in my view. But it is entertaining.
The Germans took around 400,000 total casualties over 5 months in the Battle of Stalingrad, one of the most horrific grinding battles in human history that ended with their encirclement and destruction. The Germans took around half that number in a single *week* in Northeastern Romania. Really puts into perspective how different the war is now.
The whole summer of 1944 contained a series of disasters for the Wehrmacht. Bagration, Falaise, and then Romania. What's surprising isn't merely how well the Germans continued to fight, but that they were able to continue fighting at all.
They would not have kept fighting if they weren't led by a madman. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that if their leadership was capable of rationality, they would have surrendered after the fall of Romania. They could not possibly continue without Romanian oil. And who knows what the post war world would have looked like if the Soviets had not been allowed to occupy the Balkans? But Hitler was so toxic from the drugs he was taking, and probably his own apparently natural mental illness, that he was totally irrational at this point. And the end result was the ceding of Eastern Europe to the Communists. @@gardener68
Interesting seeing Truscott show up to the actual battlefield intent on releiving his subordinate, and then going "oh wait no, actually not your fault, carry on."
What intrigues me is that the subordinate is John Dalquist, which was a name that would appear a few years later in Robert Heinlein's "The Long Watch".
Truscott was one of the best generals in U.S. service during the war. Eisenhower rated him as his most capable army commander during the war. That he did not go through with relieving Dalquist after seeing first hand the difficulties he'd been faced with, partly illustrates why he was so well regarded.
@@ahorsewithnoname773 But he did not serve under Eisenhower as an army commander. As CO of 5th Army he served under Mark Clark and Alexander in the Mediterranean theater. His stint in the European theater as CO of VI Corps was only a brief one. As for Ike's army commanders I probably rate Simpson the highest. He wasn't a glory hound like Patton, his performance was solid, his staff performed impeccably and he could work well with Monty. Which considering how many Americans saw Monty by that point in time was probably a godsent for Ike. The last thing he needed was yet another American prima donna general complaining about Monty.
@@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623 He served under Eisenhower in the sense that he was the supreme Allied commander. Ike did remark that he was his most competent army commander, in any event. Simpson is another however that was very good but is sort of forgotten, because he wasn't as colorful or bombastic as Patton.
It is interesting how often in history the same clay gets fought over. The Metauro river that was mentioned in regards to the Allied offensive plans for Italy was the site of one history's most decisive battles. On it's banks (though it was then called the Metaurus) in June of 207 BC, a Roman army commanded by the consuls Marcus Livius Salinator and Gaius Cladius Nero defeated Carthaginian troops commanded by Hasdrubal Barca, one of Hannibal Barca's brothers. Hasdrubal was attempting to get his army to Umbria to link up with his brother's forces there, but the messengers sent to Hannibal were captured by the Romans, revealing his plans. Cornered by a larger Roman army and betrayed by his guides that deserted him without revealing a safe ford across the Metauro, Hasrubal was decisively defeated and killed in the resulting battle. Hannibal famously leanred of the defeat when a Roman soldier threw a sack containing his brother's severed head into his camp, supposedly prompting Hannibal to remark with a sigh that, "Rome would now be mistress of the world." Zama might have eclipsed it in fame but the battle of the Metaurus was *the* decisive battle of the 2nd Punic War, guaranteeing that Hannibal would be left stranded without reinforcements.
Fun fact about those French soldiers liberating Paris, many of them were Spanish. Republican Veterans of the Spanish Civil War who went into exile after the defeat, they rode into Paris on tanks that bore names like ‘Madrid’ ‘Gandesa’ ‘Brunete’ ‘Teruel’ ‘Ebro’ and ‘Don Quixote’
@@EllieMaes-Grandad De Gaulle was a general before being a politician (especially then). I think he would have respected the fighters and their loyaulty before anything else, but I have no source about the guy's actual reaction to them
He was a capable soldier and fought well in the summer of 1940. He was very politically aware after the fall of France and more political than martial during the war. A devout RC he would be wary of republicans / communists but, yes, appreciate their fight for liberation. He made sure they had no role in government post liberation. @@Cancoillotteman
Pero cogen y no mencionan nuestra historia, ocultando a héroes de la democracia. No deberíamos de ser nosotros los que educamos desde los comentarios, tendrían que ser Indy y Spartacus los que tendrían que haberlo dicho. Bien que se han explayado con otras cosas, pero que poquita mención a los españoles que siguieron luchando contra el fascismo...
I wish you had mentioned the first company of Allied troupes to enter Paris were the Spanish Republican veterans of the Spanish Civil War. They encountered some veterans of the International Brigades in the allied army on their route to Paris, and carried republican flags with their civil war battle honors written on their trucks. For many of them, it was a symbolic moment of victory after years of defeat.
The men from La Nueve went into Parish on 24th of August 1944. None of them is alive nowadays. Rollo was the last one to die 5 years ago. Thanks for saying it was the Spanish who first went into Parish.
No it isn't. It's a different story which has relevant end scenes. There are the original and a re-make - watch the older one. @@azimisyauqieabdulwahab9401
At 7:22 there is a little error, there was no armistice signed by Romanian representatives at Cairo, because the Allies demanded unconditional surrender. The Soviets signed the armistice with Romania later in September 1944.
@@DrJones20 it was really importantto not fully mobilize. They needed to keep the home front calm as long aspossible. Shortages in Germany proper were uncommon until late in the war because the nazis made every effort to make it so. They needed to keep the morale up to keep the war going. But now, things are getting real bad and soon the "let's use child soldiers and geriatric tank busters" deal will come up, among many others, causing serious issues in the population and how they perceive the nazis.
I am not sure, but I think this is the last major action for Canadians in Italy. In February of the next year they were in Holland. "Operation Goldflake" was a successful ruse to hide the Canadian and British movement of forces from northern Italy, back to Naples, across the sea to Marseille, then all the way through France to the front then in Belgium. The Germans never suspected. I seem to recall my father (Ist RCR) saying they took trains through France, but I could be wrong.
@@iamnolegend2519 The Canadian military has a reputation for "punching above it's weight." It was a reputation earned in the South African War, which for reasons isn't a history much discussed. I think budgetary restraints demands innovation, and that's always handy because nothing goes right in war. Being a junior partner with allies, while it brings some constraints, also allows some freer thinking with field commanders and Generals. Also a factor with the Canadian military is that anyone who serves over seas is a volunteer as opposed to a conscript. That makes a difference.
These past **2** months we've seen a truly astounding amount of change. The Allied breakout, Dragoon, Bagration and related operations, Rome and Paris freed, partisans playing their card and throwing back enemy forces, Japan's Burmese campaign halted, the Marianas Turkey Shoot and so many more events. At this point, one wonders if we'll see the whole Axis disintegrate by Thanksgiving.
@azimisyauqieabdulwahab9401 Market Garden was actually the fastest allied advance against German opposition in the entire September 1944 to February 1945 period. 100km of German held ground in just 3 days. The Hurtgen Forest and Lorraine were the real big failures of autumn 1944. Then came the retreat in the Ardennes. So why single out Market Garden?
This week may be a good week to watch the short historical documentary film *La Libération de Paris* (The Liberation of Paris), which was a black and white film shot in secret by small units of the French Resistance during the Battle for Paris in August 1944. It offers an interesting insight into events that happened during the uprising in Paris by the French Forces of the Interior (FFI).
I did read a very informative book on this. The political situation was fraught and de Gaulle made certain the communists were not allowed to gain control.
@@azimisyauqieabdulwahab9401 it is a great and well researched movie ! Also one small anecdote about it : the entire movie is shot in black and white because the production crew were forbidden to use the actual colours of red and black on Nazi flags in order "not to alarm the population". Toavoid the jarring effect of grey-white-black flags, the movie was filmed in black-and-white to also give it a "historical epic" feel
If I had a cent for everytime that the German 6th Army was encircled and destroyed by the Soviets, while having it's flanks covered by Romanians, I'd have 2 cents. This isn't much, but it's wierd that it happened twice.
"Over one hundred THOUSAND Germans have been killed this week". Let that sink in for a moment. One hundred thousand dead in one week. Goes to show what an enormous struggle this war was.
The Germans issued monthly estimates for their killed and missing, certainly for the Feldheer (Field Army). After November 1944 they stopped issuing estimates. Sometimes it is clear they had had a disaster, like the 37,000 dead and 127,600 missing for January 1943 almost certainly reflects Stalingrad.
We have to clarify this because I heard it a lot, but the so called Antonescu "brothers", Mihai Antonescu and Ion Antonescu, the last one being Romania's "conducator"(leader) were not brothers. Sure it's not important in the grand history of WW2, but nevertheless, I think it's worth knowing.
@@akosbarati2239 Ion Antonescu wasn't a fascist, he didn't even had a party. He was named by the previous king Carol II to restore order, after the lost territories in 1940. He was just caught between the nazis and the soviets and had to choose what he saw as the best option for his county. He was a big anglophile and his hope was that the Germans would beat the soviets, while the western allies would beat the Germans.
@@fockewulf190d9 letter addressed to Mihai Antonescu, 6 September 1941) "We must all understand that this is not a fight against Slavs, but against the Jews. It's a battle for life and death. Either we win and the world will purify, or they'll win and we'll become their slaves. Both the war in general and the battles at Odessa, especially, have made the proof that the Jew is Satan." Reevaluate that previous statement.
As I watch the litany of Axis defeats unfold I find myself muttering, "Just give up, you bastards, you're beaten!" But of course, the bastards didn't give up. They never do. It's one of the reasons they're bastards.
Probably for the better. Them giving up the last time, before the Allies had invaded Germany, was what allowed the Germans to create the myth of the stab in the back. That there armies weren't defeated except by feckless politicians back home. This time Germany's defeat was so total there was no denying they had lost. Which probably helped greatly for Germany to resign to its fate after the war.
@@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623 agreed. It is sad to say bu in another world Foche, Pershing, Haig, Clémenceau, Lloyd George and Wilson agree to really finish Germany off, dismantle the Frei Korps and who's to say what might have happened next ? The good point is that it showed how crazy and selfish they were, wanting to burn down everything with them, and except for a few lunatics calling them "true men" showed how actually cowards these people were : asking everyone else to fight to the last to avoid facing consequences for their own actions.
@crazysarge9765 instead they sent old men and boys to die for a lost cause. Yup, real men, those guys. Btw, I am sure the majority of German soldiers would have gladly surrendered if allowed to.
Amongst the 2nd Armoured Division led by Leclerc there was an unit famous for the fact that it was formed almost entirely by Spanish volunteers: it was the 9th Company of the Chad Motorised Regiment, nicknamed 'La Nueve' (The Ninth in Spanish), and those men were veterans whom had fought in the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War. After the Republican defeat, they had been given asylum in France as political refugees, and in WW2 they enlisted on the French Army. Their vehicles carried both the French flag and the Spanish Republican flag.
It’s not surprising to see when you strong arm countries into being your allies they’re going to leave your ass in the dust first chance they can. Go Romania!
The Romanians weren't that unwilling. And they had been promised land in the Ukraine for their participation. SInce its capture Odessa had been Ukrainian until the Red Army returned in early 1944.
@@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623we weren't unwilling? We literally wanted to side with France and England before the war even started. We asked for guarantees and were told to take care of ourselves so we did. What other option did we have? Be another Poland? Refuse to ally with Germany and get split between Hungary and Russia?
For purposes of comparison, there were four Red Army 6th Armies in WW2. The first one was formed in summer 1939, and destroyed in the Uman encirclement in 1941. It was reconstituted, trapped in another German encirclement and destroyed again. Again reconstituted, it was not trapped in an encirclement but it suffered such heavy losses that it was disbanded. SPOILER The fourth reconstitution of the 6th Army will advance into Silesia in early 1945 and lay siege to Breslau. Breslau will hold out as one of Hitler's "fortresses" and surrender in May 1945.
Crazy watching the map change so rapidly now... What's next 3-4 more episodes until Allied paratroopers drop over the Netherlands? Nah, that's just crazy talk...
Hearing the Saar mentioned a few times here means the war is now closing in on my home. I've seen photos of the last bullet holes from the Allied advance through my tiny little village - afaik, it was an American unit, but that might just be people conflating all Allies into Americans. Anyway, those last bullet holes only disappeared after I was born in '92 when the building they were in was demolished. Just goes to show again that this was not so long ago and that the traces, big and small, are still around and affect us today, even in the tiniest villages at the ass-end of nowhere.
ironic is that a king with german origins gave the blow to germans, while the marechal Ion Antonescu , a romanian, refused to switch sides , he was arrested ...by the King Michael I of Hohenzollern...this is why when he returned in 1990 to retake his throne back, after his abdication in 30 january 1947 , was refused ...
@@dand7763 The commander of the Dutch forces in exile, Prince Bernhardt, was German born and German until 1938, when he married the Dutch heir to the throne. So only 2 years of being Dutch. He seems to have passed all British investigations to vet his loyalty though as he was firmly committed to the Netherlands and given access to classified intelligence. So some people do take their responsibilities to their new counties very seriously.
I don't laugh at Italy for switching sides. The country paid a heavy price for it. The Germans expected it to happen and took the country and its army over in record time, waging a costly war in it for the rest of the war. Romania was more fortunate that it really came unexpected for the Germans and the Soviets were ready and able to take advantage of it in record time, allowing the country to escape most of the fighting. Of course their new Soviet allies did require them to fight along the Red Army and after the war installed a Soviet regime that turned out to be absolutely brutal. So fortunate is relative.
@@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623 what happened in 23 august 1944 in Bucharest it is on debate even now between historians , some said the king was right on making that "coup" regarding the situation on the front , switching sides ,Romania under King Michael I *"shortened WW2 at least with 3 months"* said specialists... the war was lost and he tried to ease the damages...while others blame him for arresting Ion Antonescu and gave him in russian hands... in my opinion , nothing could be done more in august 1944, in any other way, if was a coup or not , the country was lost to fall under soviet occupation...
I suppose that what happens army group South Ukraine is the answer to the question "What happens to the Germans if the Soviet use a Blitzkrieg like strategy against them?" Maybe the Wehrmacht should have considered how to respond to counter-Blitzkrieg before they started the war. PS: Yes, I know that the Soviet method of deep battle was different from Blitzkrieg, but it was close enough, especially with the pincer movements to surround the enemy, to make the point.
Fun fact : the first Free French troops to enter Paris were actually Spanish Republican volunteers from "La Nueve", 9th company. Today a public park near the Hôtel de Ville bears their name.
By the way, soldiers in history are known for their creativity, and ruthlessness in some cases, in the realm of getting food. I tried making hardtack this week, just flour, salt, and water and a couple hours in an oven. It is exactly as dense and difficult to eat as it is reputed for. Steve1989 managed to get his hands on hardtack made in the 1860s and ate it in the middle of the 2010s. He was actually just fine from that, its long shelf life being no joke, it was improperly stored food from only a year before that ever made him sick.
I've hard negative things all around on hardtack, never seen it in person but know a friend who ate some and said it was horrible. Suppose the longevity of it is what makes it popular though. Thanks for sharing and thanks for watching! - Jake
@@richardstephens5570 A US Civil War joke had a Union sergeant saying to his men, "Boys, I was eating hardtack and I bit into something soft. What do you think it was?" Soldier: "A mealworm?" Sergeant: "No, by God. It was a tenpenny nail."
i can just imagine how happy the residents of paris felt that warm sunny summer's evening seeing the americans and de gaulle march down the streets of paris
And imagine how mortified De Gaulle is when he found out how many Parisians were cool working with the Germans and getting administered by them. Same with the rest of France. Dude didn't create the "Fighting Frenchmen" myth later on just for himself...
@@theotherohlourdespadua1131You know, during those times most people tried to survive by keeping a low profile. Also many german soldiers were respectful of France contrary to eastern Europe where nazis daily tried to kill everyone. Fighting frenchmen is no myth, many of them fought and died alongside the allies. Just less people actively resisted because they had other choices.
@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 At the end of June, when the Resistance killed leading Vichy minister and propagandist Philippe Henriot, thousands attended his funeral in Paris, and a French cardinal gave the funeral sermon. How many of these thousands are now cheering on de Gaulle? The Resistance itself talked of the "Resisters of the last moment", people who suddenly came forward when the Germans were either gone or leaving.
The French reform a large army that is attached to either the American 3rd Army or the Big Red One I believe. My great great uncle served in it cuz he spoke french and relayed messages for things like supplies. His stories are crazy, that french attachment suffered insane casualties because everybody was trying to prove they were not a collaborator
The 2nd French Armored division served under Patton's 3rd Army during the Normandy campaign and later passed on to Patch's 7th Army. But that was the only large French force in the Normandy/Western France theater. The bulk of French Forces landed in the south during Operation Dragoon, forming the 1st French Army that would fight as part of Devers' 6th Army Group, along the Lorraine Alsace front. Interestingly the 2nd French Armored division under LeClerk was not part of that army, as its commander, who was Free French from the start, detested the former Vichy France officers and forces that made up the bulk of the 1st French Army. Which was why his division fought under US command.
@@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623 I forget all the specifics but I know that they captured a bunch of German cities at the end of the war and the Americans were telling them slow down there's no point in moving that fast and the french officers just didn't listen and kept moving despite suffering crazy casualties
@@voiceofreason2674 I reckon the French government was eager to be taken serious again after 4 years of occupation, so that France would be granted a seat on the victor's table as one of the Big Four. And not be relegated to the sideline by the Big Three. As Moscow and Washington probably wanted. That France was to be granted an occupation zone was not a certainty. And the Soviets weren't going to give them one. You want the French to have one, give the French some of yours was their reply to the US and UK.
He'd get more credit if he'd done this back in 1942-43 after poor German planning got most of his armies wiped out in the USSR. Would have been risky, but public displeasure at how the war was going might have been enough to stave off a German attempt at a Hungary-style coup.
@@Raskolnikov70 That's in your imagination! the Romanians had even started the negotiations at that time and the allies had told them that only the Soviets were deciding in that area, or the Romanians wanted to avoid at all costs the penetration of the Soviet troops, who had already annexed Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina and knew too well what they were capable of (they had discovered the pits communes they left behind, as well as the civilians deported to Siberia!). The misery that the Soviets were capable of was also seen in 1944 when they took prisoners hundreds of thousands of Romanian soldiers who had stopped fighting, on the order of the king and of whom the Russians were aware that they were no longer fighting against them. BTW, most of the German prisoners were taken by the Romanians, who captured 60,000 Germans before the advance of the Soviets, who were more busy capturing the Romanians than supporting them in fighting the Germans-so on September 15th, the Soviets announced that they had "liberated" Bucharest, when in fact the Romanians had liberated the area a few days ago!
It did hurt. But then again, even with the Romanian oilfields, the Hungarian one and synthetic oil the Germans had been running a fuel deficit since the war started. There's a reason why during Barbarossa the German advance stalled several times. There was just never enough fuel to meet the demands.
Eisenhower says this on Battle of Falaise Pocket : With the great bulk of all the Allied forces attacking from the perimeter of a great half-circle toward a common center, the determination of the exact points on which each element should halt, in order not to become involved against friendly units coming from the opposite direction, was a tricky problem. In this instance Bradley’s troops, marching in the great wheel, had much farther to go to close the trap than did the British and Canadian troops. On the other hand, the latter were still faced up against prepared defenses and their movement was limited to the advances they could make through heavily defended areas. Montgomery kept in close touch with the situation but so rapid was the movement of the Americans that it was almost impossible to achieve the hour-by-hour co-ordination that might have won us a complete battle of annihilation. Mix-ups on the front occurred, and there was no way to halt them except by stopping troops in place, even at the cost of allowing some Germans to escape. In the aggregate considerable numbers of Germans succeeded in getting away. Their escape, however, meant an almost complete abandonment of their heavy guns , tanks , motorised vehicles supplies and was accomplished only by terrific sacrifices. I was in Bradley’s headquarters when messages began to arrive from commanders of the advancing American columns, complaining that the limits placed upon them by their orders were allowing Germans to escape. I completely supported Bradley in his decision that it was necessary to obey the orders, prescribing the boundary between the army groups, exactly as written; otherwise a calamitous battle between friends could have resulted. In the face of complete disaster the enemy fought desperately to hold open the mouth of the closing pocket so as to save as much as he could from the debacle. German commanders concentrated particularly on saving armored elements, and while a disappointing portion of their Panzer divisions did get back across the Seine, they did so at the cost of a great proportion of their equipment. Eight infantry divisions and two Panzer divisions were captured almost in their entirety in the pocket. The battlefield at Falaise was unquestionably one of the greatest “killing grounds” of any of the war areas. Roads, highways, and fields were so choked with destroyed equipment and with dead men and animals that passage through the area was extremely difficult. Forty-eight hours after the closing of the gap I was conducted through it on foot, to encounter scenes that could be described only by Dante. It was literally possible to walk for hundreds of yards at a time, stepping on nothing but dead and decaying flesh. In the wider sweep directed against the crossings of the Seine behind the German Army, the rapidly advancing Americans were also forced to halt to avoid overrunning their objectives and firing into friendly troops. The German again seized the opportunity to escape with a greater portion of his strength than would have been the case if the exact situation could have been completely foreseen. When the Allied armies finally completed their envelopment of the German forces west of the Seine the eventual defeat of the German in western Europe was a certainty. The question of time alone remained. A danger, however, that immediately presented itself was that our own populations and their governments might underrate the task still to be accomplished, and so might slacken the home-front effort, which could have the gravest consequences. I not only brought this danger to the attention of my superiors, but as early as August 15 held a press conference, predicting that there was one more critical task remaining to the Allied forces-the destruction of the German armies along the general line of the Siegfried and the Rhine. This word of caution was swept away in the general rejoicing over the great victory, and even among the professional leaders of the fighting forces there grew an optimism, almost a lightheartedness, that failed to look squarely in the face such factors as the fanaticism of great portions of the German Army and the remaining strength of a nation that was inspired to desperate action, if by no other means than the Gestapo and Storm Troopers, who were completely loyal to their master, Hitler. (Victory Disease in making) Crusade in Europe - Dwight Eisenhower
Canadian historian David O'Keefe produced a documentary about the closing of the Falaise Gap, and noted a few shortfalls of the Allied forces opposing the Germans there. A large number from the Polish armoured divisions were chosen to have the honour to seal the gap and deal the final death blow to the Nazi forces. The majority of the Poles carried out their task magnificently and fought the Germans to a standstill at the Battle of the Mace. A minority of this armoured force, however, did not obey their orders and split themselves off and did not take up their assigned positions but rather decided to chase off after a German unit that had taken part in the invasion of their homeland in 1939. This caused problems for the Allied command in Normandy as their supposed position was left open and a number of the Nazi forces thereby escaped. A number of the Free French forces fighting alongside the Americans also decided doing what they were ordered was not to their taste and headed off to Paris to take part in its liberation march and ceremonies. I don't know what the repercussions were for this disobedience to orders but there is no doubt this let many of the Nazis' forces escape the Falaise Gap that would otherwise have been captured or destroyed. Paul Woodage's WW2TV TH-cam channel has a number of programs dedicated to the Falaise Gap and its victories and its problems. I can recommend Paul's programs wholeheartedly as he is a very good historian of the Normandy campaign, and gets the very best current historians to explain this campaign, and many others, in excellent detail.
Cause it was irrelevant in grand scheme of things. Germany was going to lose war regardless due to Allied material advantage, all while Overlord and Bagration to lesser extend were the offensives to completely disintegrate German capabilities of mounting front size effective resistance. Afterwards it was Allied supply lines and weather rather German defences which were slowing down advance.
@@ReichLife I think the sudden loss of Romanian oil is a huge disadvantage for the Germans. Relative ignorance in the West of the Eastern Front events is the main reason it gets overlooked.
@@stevekaczynski3793 If you ignore the fact we're talking about latter half of 1944. By then Western Allies alone brought Romanian oil industry to it's breaking point. By the time Romanians went Italians, Ploesti and other oil fields were bringing several times lower amount of oil than at maximum capacity, exactly due to Western bombing campaign, campaign which would only further intensify. Even if Romanian magically wasn't touched by Soviets and didn't switch side till 1945, nothing of value would have changed. Germany couldn't efficiently supply troops in the West due to Allied air supremacy, supremacy which Romanian oil had no way to diminish. Eastern front? There Führer Directive No. 51 and Lend Lease meant that Soviets had assured enormous advantage over Axis. Which further cement, that said Romania offensive was irrelevant in grand scheme of things.
It was not only very successful, but also, by Eastern Front standards, quite cheaply won by the Soviets. The ten-day battle cost the Soviets 67,130 men, of whom 13,197 were KIA or MIA. The Germans in KIA and PoW alone, probably lost at least 200,000 men. There was no battle on the Eastern Front up to that time, and possibly through the entire war, that saw such a high ratio in favor of the Soviets.
Well, this is the second offensive. The first Iasi-Chisinau offensive from april-may ended badly for the russians. You can check the previous episodes as Indi covered it
Most problematic is that many Axis doctors (incl. Unit 731) received pardons in return for their reports, from which real scientists found out that pseudoscientific beliefs were so ingrained into the research, and experimental control so sloppy, that most of it was useless.
A book by Tom Bower "Blind Eye to Murder" exposed the cover-up in post-war Europe of widespread, generalised atrocities, done mostly by Nazis. Another book of his, "Paperclip Conspiracy" examined the selection of those guilty of war crimes but useful to the USA.
The (second) encirclement of 6th Army, the Romanian coup, the liberation of Paris, and that ending message really does bring a tear to the eye after so many years of bloodshed and misery, hats off to the entire crew at TimeGhost for this amazing series!
Love to hear your enjoying the series so much, it's nice to see some hope from what is truly a terrible time in history. Thank you so much for watching!
Indy I am really impressed by your Slovak pronounciation. And do not worry about that German lieutant colonel and his buddies, I am sure they will be fine in the end...
Imagine Hitler tearing his hair out from 2 consecutive weeks of bad news! Week 260: Army Group B surrounded in Falaise + Allies landing in Southern France Week 261: Romania switched sides + Paris liberated
Von Choltitz deciding to spare the city was what he claimed after the war, and for decades it was acknowledged as fact. Further research in the 2000s showed he intended to carry out the order of destroying the city, but due to how fragile his control of the city was, the order could not be executed. The Resistance and the Allies saved the city by allowing it to be quickly liberated, not von Choltitz.
So......, not the first time a German general would present a distorted picture of the war to serve his own interest it would seem. It almost hints at a pattern,
The two are not mutually exclusive. The futility of trying to organise the destruction amidst the chaos may have joined with personal distate at such orders, leading to him not even trying to carry them out.
Hello Indy ! One first mistake i can recognise : Ion Antonescu and Mihai Antonescu were not brothers , it's just a coincidence of sir names. They actually met in 1938
This week on August 26th 1944, the following missions in the Call of Duty series will begin: *August 20 1944* Hostage! (Call of Duty 3) - As Sergeant James Doyle in Les Ormes, France, you will need to rescue Major Ingram, as well as rescue the Marquis fighters from captivity. This level is noted as the longest Call of Duty 3 level. The Corridor of Death (Call of Duty 3) - As Private Joe Cole in St. Lamber-sur-Dives, France, you are to rescue the tankers and hold the tavern so you can send reinforcements to the Poles at Hill 262. The Mace (Call of Duty 3) - As Corporal Bohater Wojciech in Mont Ormel (Hill 262), France, you are to hold Hill 262 against waves of enemy Germans under Canadian air support arrives. Chambois (Call of Duty 3) - As Private Nichols in Chambois, France, you are to hold off and defend Chambois against the enemy Germans who are trying to take the town and are trying to escape encirclement in the Falaise Gap. S.O.E. (Call of Duty: World War II) - As Private First Class Ronald "Red" Daniels in Argentan, France, you are to intercept and stop a train containing V-2 rockets before they reach the launch site. *August 25 1944* Liberation (Call of Duty: World War II) - As Camille "Rousseau" Denis in Paris, France, you will infiltrate the Police Prefecture (acting as a Gestapo headquarters) under disguise to make a briefcase swap with S.O.E. contact Fischer. Later as Private First Class Ronald "Red" Daniels, you will clear the Police Prefecture building and defend it against a German counterattack.
As a Yank with some Canadian ancestry (like many New Englanders, in my case French Canadians from the Maritimes), I just want to give a shout out and a thank you to Canada and their courageous armed forces. They don't get nearly the credit they deserve, but here they are, fighting in Normandy, fighting in Italy. The best damn allies and friends the US has ever had. (Well, except for that 1812 thing - hey, brothers fight sometimes.)
There have been a few other scraps, the Patriot War in 1837 or so and the Fenian raids after the US Civil War. But those were pretty minor compared with 1812. Still interesting to read about how things haven't always been peaceful between the US and Canada.
My great-uncle, Lieut Harvey Burnard in the Canadian Army, wrote this in a letter home during a break in action in Normandy on 21 July 1944: “It rained for almost 24 hrs here the day the Unit went in and what with crawling and being drowned out of slit trenches they were quite a mess. But we'll soon be ready again and I feel sorry for the tank crews the S.S.R's meet in the future. Thinks look darn good at present and if we can only catch their tanks with ours we'll soon be in Paris. In fact I've started a moustache that I intend to let grow until we get to Paris.” Unfortunately it was his final letter home as he was killed in action on 25 July.
Regarding the coup in Romania: I'm not sure how a reigning monarch arresting and replacing the head of the government counts as coup. After all, it's his prerogative to choose the head of government even. I can see how it is a de facto coup, but it's really the king doing his job.
You don't see this happening in a Western monarchy. I'm sure there were times when Elizabeth II had to deal with prime ministers she loathed and would have loved to seen the back off, same with her counterparts in other constitutional monarchies. But its not the 17th century and divine rights of kings anymore. Kings are respected as heads of state because they do not interfere in elections and formations and runnings of the government. What the Romanian king did could be seen as theoretically part of his responsibilities and right (and duty) of a king, but it was also exceptional and shows how dire the situation was that the king had to do this.
@@stevekaczynski3793 It is theoretically possible, because the UK lacks a constitution and because of the strong ties between the monarchy and armed forces. Even then, you get the monarch involved in actual politics, it will undermine the position of the monarchy. It is his complete abstinence of political involvement which makes the monarch stand above it and popular with the general populace. Pick a side and half the country would turn against him. The government would have to be extremely unpopular, as in the high 80% unpopularity, with the situation both dire and seen as urgent. And once he does such a thing he would have to immediately call a new election and relinquish all power again.
@@stevekaczynski3793it would still be a Coup. Of course the British would call it a Glorious Revolution or something as they see themselves as different from other countries .
@@francesconicoletti2547 There was a TV show a long time ago, "A Very British Coup", in which an unacceptably left-wing Labour prime minister is removed from power.
You walked the fine line on Stalin and the Polish Uprising, VERY well, imho. Posting lots of data and letting us make up our minds about a very controversial event in the war. Well done. ☮
This week on August 26th 1944, the following levels in the fifth mission (Day of the Tiger) of the 2002 video game Medal of Honor: Allied Assault will begin: *August 20 1944* Sniper's Last Stand - As Lieutenant Mike Powell in Brittany, France, you will need to locate the bazooka team, destroy the enemy Panzer IV tank, and keep the tank crew alive until the King Tiger tank can be stolen. This level is notorious as one of the hardest levels in the game due to a significant number of snipers in the buildings. The Hunt for the King Tiger - As Lieutenant Mike Powell in Brittany, France, you will start out in the King Tiger tank, and will have use to use its 88mm tank cannon to fight your way out against enemy Panzer tanks and Panzerschreck crews. The Bridge - As Lieutenant Mike Powell in Brittany, France, you will need to find a high vantage point and snipe enemy German troops who are trying to blow up the bridge with explosives, as well as call in artillery strikes using the binoculars.
Paris is free! Some (relatively) good and happy news! I wish Spartacus could report on some happier tidings but am afraid a War Against Humanity doesn't offer much in the way of joy. 😢 The end of this insanity cannot come soon enough.
I fear for his sanity. Unlike Indy who gets to play with animated maps and report relatively nice things, he only gets to show a spotlight on the worst things that humanity has ever done. In no small part why I skip WAH episodes. It's like Schindler's list. One of the best movies ever, never want to see it again. So it is with WAH, I know it happened, no need to be reminded again of it.
I've just been on holiday in Riccione, on the adriatic coast and discovered an ellenic military cemetery there. Apparently with the canadians also greek troops were present and 114 of them lost their life to liberate Italy. I thought it was worth to mention them too and I was actually surprised that there were Greek soldiers in Italy in 1944
Had a thought in my head while watching the numbers come in for the destruction of the French pocket (I will not offend y’all with how badly I’d misspell that name), and it got me thinking. Imagine being a medic or attached to a unit taking care of these prisoners, taking in thousands of people, tens of thousands even, monthly or in some cases even weekly, the amount of logistics that has to go into that from organization to medical care. Absolutely astounded by the scale of this conflict, that astonishment of course is tempered by the horror of this war but still. Boggles my mind how much effort that may take to organize.
I experienced something similar back in 1991, serving in a US Army medical unit during the Gulf War. As soon as the Allied ground offensive started the entire Iraqi army minus a few elite units started surrendering en masse wherever and whenever they could; weeks of air strikes and zero logistics had pretty much wiped them out as an effective combat force. The frontline units bypassed most of them, we were in the rear in the main division support area but were still dealing with prisoners walking up to us, trying to figure out where to put hundreds of them while waiting for the MP's to get their act together and organize camps. Even if you have a plan for something like that, it's never enough.
Love this series! I do kind of wish that little notes would be dropped about the development of the atomic bomb as they happened. I also have a modest personal request; when the liberation of Dachau happens, there needs to be a "War Against Humanity" special about it. I've heard that some US soldiers went a bit nuts ( I might have too ) and committed war crimes. My interest in this specifically? My dad was in a US Heavy Machine Gun company, among the liberators. He had liberated some cameras as well, and had pictures. But he never talked about what happened there that day.
I read somewhere that the small french armored force that first entered Paris was a company of (mostly) Spaniards on half-tracks, veterans of the Spanish Civil War from the republican side who had fled Spain at the end of the war there. Many of them also fought in the allied North African campaign.
You guys are great! I am a MA student at LSE studying modern history and I am still amazed by how different it can be to interact with history with such a unique dedication to timeline. For example I had no idea that the liberation of Paris and the Collapse of Romania occurred at the same time! I am lucky enough to have access to some major archives and have studied sources on both events but the literature, while contemplative, is often written in geographic isolation. You all really build out the mosaic and let us feel the acceleration towards liberation and feel the attrition in ways that may even be lost on academia. I have been watching your documentaries since I was a teenager and now I have published research, graduated twice, and now I live in London. I feel this channel is really special in that through your timeline and scope of research I now have my own mental chronology of what was happening in the different periods of my personal life during of your depiction of the world wars. I also love the frequent referencing of James Holland's "Italy's Sorrow" --that book and Antony Beevor's 'Stalingrad' are what made me want to become a historian when I read them when I was thirteen. Appreciate the obvious dedication of Indy and the crew! You've made my historical passions just a little more real and exciting for me today. --Brandon
Hey Brandon, thank you so much for the high praise. We simply do our best, and we’re so happy you enjoy what we put together 😃 I’ll share this message with the whole team, they’ll greatly appreciate it I’m happy you love our chronological style as much as we do! Good luck with your studies, I’ll be starting at LSE myself next month! -Will
@@WorldWarTwo That's really exciting! LSE is a great school. There is a chance we are in the same program~ I do not think I can post contact information without it being taken down as spam on YT but feel free to reach out.
As a Coloradan, I hope for a future special on the history of mountain divisions from their inception in the late 19th century in Italy, France, Germany and Austria to their utilization in WWII (including our own beloved 10th Mountain Division, as well as the French North African divisions, etc).
Fun fact the first French troops who entered Paris were in fact Spanish republicans who joined the foreign legion after fleeing both the civil war in Spain and the interment camps in France after France fell to the Germans in 1940. In a way its kind of a ironic revenge the Germans helped the nationalist take their country from them and now the republicans are helping to take France away from the Germans
10:30 “Some of the allied armies are running out of men.” And here’s part of the downside of the plan of Overlord. While the British armored shield was effective in tying down German forces in June and July to give the American forces better operational maneuverability, it came at a high cost. The British and Canadian populations just don’t have the manpower to fill in for replacements quickly and lack the same organization for processing replacements as the U.S. Army.
British and Canadian replacement system was about providing better quality and trained active servicemen to replace losses albeit it had downside of slow and insufficient reserves to keep up manpower pool to provide them in first place. US had not only larger population than Britain and Canada , it also entered war later than them and their replacement sysatem was faster to bring full numbers in frontline units as soon as possible albeit thare is disadvantage , their replacements sometimes even lacking basic training , had physical defects from time to time (there were replacements in divisions from states who lacked fingers or myhophic sometimes) and low quality and did not always put the unit performance high.
This is why I keep saying that Monty claiming that had been his master plan all along was and is bogus. The UK could not afford to fight yet another war of attrition. It only had 1 army left in 1944, and once that was gone, that was it. Exit UK as a major power after the war. The real plan was to take Caen ASAP after the invasion, and THEN fight the Germans and hold there, in country better suited to British superior firepower and mobility then the Bocage had been. Not battle the Germans for 2 months to take Caen. By august 1944 the UK was running out of manpower, disbanding one division a month, either in the UK, Italy or Normandy to keep the remaining ones up to strength. There were just not enough men for 3 armies, in Normandy, Italy and Burma, AND to keep the massive RAF up to strength, AND the Royal Navy, the latter of which would start a massive campaign to create the British Pacific Fleet in the Far East. Something had to give. And the British at least had the advantage of conscription and in the case of its army in Burma, Indian manpower, Canada's army was all volunteer. Especially Quebec heavily resisted conscription. Once you ran out of volunteers its much harder to find new ones to replace them. Of course even the US did not have bottomless reserves of manpower. Fighting on 2 fronts, the massive naval and air force expansions and the underestimation how big a losses infantry units suffered in battle was felt even in the US Army. Which was why by 1945 the US was desperate to end the war in Europe so it could redeploy its European army to the Pacific and even have the USSR join in the Far East fun.
@@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623 People still love to mudsling Montgomery a lot , don't they ? I mean two months ago it was still questionable Allies could establish and hold a beachead in Normandy , but the thirsd week of August , he still as Land Forces Commander ,not only led crushing of German Army Group B at Falaise but also crossing the Seine and compensating the delay in Allied schedule (planned before D-Day) and next week 21st Army Group will go way beyond stage lines scheduled before D-Day , outrunning everyone and his own stage line schedule by liberating Northern France and Belgium Yes he had a master plan for Normandy Campaign but he had to improvise a lot once Hitler and OKW concentrated their entire panzer reserves around Caen against Second Army so he preferred to push them and grind them with firepower frontally since there were no open flanks or gaps to outflank them while First US Army secured Cotentin , Cherbourg and prepared breakout for Brittany . That was revised version of Master Plan and it worked. Casaulties were inevitable but there was no preplanned script that once Allies landed they would advance with minimal losses. Montgomery never had excessive losses in his offensive operations against German panzer divisions in frontal attacks since he knew the limits of manpower reserves.
@@merdiolu Great points. In the U.S. we tend to see Monty as “the British general” but during the Normandy campaign he was more than that: he was overall ground commander. So it was actually Dempsey’s job to take Caen ASAP.
You guys should do a special breaking down Hitlers views and thoughts on Romania, Hungary and Italy....The Germans I feel expected more from them and Id love to know Hitler reacted to their lackluster performances.
So basically, a 20 minute episode of ranting and screeching in German? Just replay the bunker scene from 'Downfall' a bunch of times, it's be the same thing.
I don't know about Hitler, but up until the overthrow of Mussolini and the Italian attempt to "turn" in 1943, officially the Italians were praised in official German statements and propaganda. Jokes were sometimes less respectful - there were claims that Italian medals were worn on the back of the uniform, for courage in advancing backwards. When the Italian government pulled out of the war, the official respect changed - German news statements wrote of the round-up of treacherous "Badoglio followers". Italian civilian workers in Germany had been reasonably equitably treated until the latter part of 1943, but that changed. Unless they could prove their commitment to fascism, they were seen as potential enemies and their conditions deteriorated - I think there was some evidence offered at Nuremberg of Italian workers being housed in dog kennels. There was some attempt to create official respect for the Italian Social Republic's armed forces as comrades-in-arms of the Germans. There was German awareness that the Romanians and Hungarians would rather have fought each other than the USSR, and for this reason their forces were kept apart from one another on the Eastern Front. Both were under-equipped - up to a point the Germans tried to re-equip them to stand up better to Soviet tank attacks, but there was concern that all this might do is make them more dangerous if they decided to change sides. A real concern of course. The Germans may have slightly preferred the Hungarians, as many Hungarian officers could speak German, but essentially they did not trust any of their allies.
Here's an interesting fact that took place this week. On August 23, 1944 Abdulmejid II died from a heart attack at the age of 76. He was the last Ottoman Caliph (1922 - 1924) before the Caliphate was abolished. He later moved to France and was living in Paris when the French Resistance launched their uprising against the German garrison.
I know everyone gives the credit to D-Day in the west and the British and the Americans liberating Paris etc but HOLY SHIT THE RUSSIANS HAVE PUSHED THEM BACK SO FAR ITS ABSURD! The greatest offensive in history surely? From Stalingrad to Berlin??!
26 August 1944. Sergeant John Evans of the 7th Armoured Division arrives in the valley of the Seine, intent on chasing the retreating Germans out of northern France and towards the Rhine. However, the Germans are not completely defenceless, and their rearguard is still capable of vicious attacks. The Siegfried Line campaign has begun.
maybe sounds bad but it makes you appreciate the German high command in WW1 when they were in this situation, they pulled the pin. whereas Hitler and co keep on fighting and millions more have to die
Soon, there will be five years since this series started. Next year, ten years since the Great War series started. But also, at this time of the year - SPOILER - it will be all over, basically. Man, time flies.
I'm Romanian and I want to explain the situation in 23 august 1944: After king Michael ' s pure betrayal, the Soviets dissarmed anyway 100.000 Romanian soldiers and sent them to Siberia.After that, the looting and murder continued.Some Romanian units meet retreating German units and didn't even looked at each other ( pure madness).The Romanian soldiers,workers and studends in Germany were arrested, some of them would join Waffen SS later ( a few thousands) .After the Bucharest was occupied, the Germans from the embassy were stormed [ about a month later].Some Romanian soldiers retreated with the Germans sesing Soviet reprisal ( even pilots defected), but very few of them.The occupation was more expensive in Romania and Bulgaria compared to the war costs.The Soviets deportes hundreds of thoudands of ethnic Hungarians and Germans ( civilians) in Siberia.After these episodes,they simply used the Romanian army as cannon fodder,like the "Oarba battle"
The "winner takes all" of unconditional surrender demands makes it all too probable that the side that is on the back foot will fight on, hoping for an improvement in the situation. The Germans will start hoping for tensions to develop between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, a hope not entirely misplaced.
The most human and courageous choice would be to never have started it in the first place. If we're talking about the moment the war was evidently over (to everyone with a sane bone in their body) it would probably be after the one-two punch of overlord-bagration.
There was never a struggle in all of human history more vicious and destructive than the Germanic Slavic race war of 1941-1945. Thank God Almighty that the Orthodox Christian Slavs won.
What was it about Germany's 6th Army and being surrounded? Hitler: "I Paris burning?" Dietrich von Choltitz: "Working on it boss, just got to find my matches." Can you imagine your whole life and legacy being defined by one decision? von Choltitz could have been remembered as the man who destroyed Paris but saved it instead.
INDY!! I need help!! In your dday hour by hour special you had a quote from one of the airbourne units that went “never have so few been less by so many.” Who said that quote, I can’t find it in the video.
@@dragosstanciu9866And he wouldn’t come back to Romania until the Late 1990s (I believe 1997) Give or Take, 50 years after his expulsion from his homeland by the Communists
And also Stalin had plans for the rest of Eastern Europe as well, Not just Romania, Things are about to heat up politically as more Axis countries are forced onto the firing line
@nicolaso.8666 The Soviet Union was not innocent either, after invading Finland and splitting Eastern Europe among them and Nazi Germany(Molotov-Ribentropp) and also supplying tons of raw materials for Nazi Germany between 1939-1941.
The City of Lights is free once more! At this rate the war should be over by Christmas, right?
12:29 The Somme. Indy_Neidell.exe, tired after another six years of war, has stopped working. Would you like to try throwing hundreds of thousands of dead men into the trenches? This is Modern War! Foch you Hitler!
Can you make a special episode about how the Germans were able to hold until May 1945 despite they are heavily outnumbered and their industry destroyed.
@WorldWarTwo will u show romanian general Petre Dumitrescu??
WorldWarTwo will u show romanian generals???
Nah, it's going to take time
Can we just acknowledge the sequel to Stalingrad, the reconstituted 6th army is now surround as the Soviet break through the satelite armies on the rear
Oh the irony!
I really do not get point of rebuilding destroyed formation, specially in same war. Simple put, let ti die in peace man. You can always use different number for "reformed" destroyed army.
@@aleksaradojicic8114 'Tis is tradition, mostly, if the banner survived
With the Romanians on their flanks.
Not a lucky number for the Germans.
The details of King Michael's Coup are legitimately hilarious. He invited Ion Antonescu to the palace and after pressing him again to withdraw Romania from the Axis, Antonescu refused.
Michael then asked, almost as if he was changing the subject, "Are you armed right now?"
Antonescu replied something along the lines of, "Why would I need to be armed? No man in Romania would dare try to harm me!"
Michael then called in the guards and had Antonescu arrested.
Pure comedy from start-to-finish.
then he had Antonescu flown to Moscow.
@@ericcarlson3746 Not quite. The Romanian communists took Antonescu into custody after the coup and they decided to give Antonescu to the Soviets.
I'm sure he'll be fine. When have the Soviets ever shot someone for political reasons?
@@dragosstanciu9866 If Wikipedia is correct, the "unpolitical" Sanatescu handed Antonescu over to the Communists and they handed him over to the Soviets.
@@stevekaczynski3793 It is correct, and it's not like Romanians resisted. If an Eastern European country were a person, then imagine Germany invited most to wine and dine, but Germany knew they will not be willing to pay the tabs of all. Once Romania got sobered up and recognized they're stuck with washing dishes, of course they kicked the guy out who promised them the silverware.
Unfortunately this is what many in various nationalist camps forget, trust a fascist to "remove undesirables for unimaginable rewards" only for those rewards to never come. In Hungary's case the opposite happened the whole irredentist ideology (because yes I am saying this is why Romania joined the Axis) was built upon keeping rewards from the Vienna Accords against insurmountable odds, even though by mid-September keeping Transylvania was unfeasible.
1941: there’s so much action this week, we had to split it into two 10 min videos
1944: lol here’s another regular 26 min weekly video
We'll be up to 30 minute vids by the time the Wehrmacht punches through the Ardennes.
@@Raskolnikov70its now over 40mins
@@tltlteeporkinal4948
Spoiler!...
(I found out about this series late so I watch it one year after the episode is published).
I honestly believe that this is the week that German has now visibly lost the war. Romania has switched sides and with it the oilfields are no longer in German hands. Finland is participating in peace talks. Paris has been liberated and the Germans are retreating to the Rhine
And yet it lasts 9 more months. What lessons can we learn from that? What motivates Hitler, or the German people to continue? How could that motivation be curtailed?
@@ltdannichols either the high command genuinely believed that it was better to die fighting or they knew that they were going to be executed if they surrendered
@@st54nanolea68a good soldier will fight until the Peace is signed, more so when the territorial borders of your own country are being pierced.
@@st54nanolea68I think that what motivated Hitler was survival. He knew he wouldn't survive if Germany lost.
What motivated the generals is more difficult to answer, but there's a good presentation by Robert Citino about it here on TH-cam entitled "Why did the German army fight to the end?" which considers various options.
@@diedertspijkerboer The post-July 20 crackdown in the German Army also played a role. Fanaticism and Nazification were encouraged.
Germany : the situation we are facing is dire!
Romania and Bulgaria : we?
Also Finland: That sounds like a you problem.
@@Lonovavir Finland : skill issue.
Wow. Just wow, I've been watching this channel since just before the fall of France, and now to see Paris liberated is a moment that felt like it would never come. I cant imagine the relief and joy the citizens of Paris and the rest of France must have felt. Thank you Indy and team for this truly amazing series. Seriously the best history documentary ever created bar none.
America took a while to begin producing war arms
The first couple of years' production went to the USSR as it moved east to preserve their war output.
Two things happened about the same time; USA and USSR got the supplies to make war.
Two huge countries with massive populations and raw materials turned on lethal factories.
How Germany and Japan didn't realize their war was done still baffles me.
Thank you very much for watching and thanks for the kind words we appreciate them!
Is it just me or is there a continuity gap in the storycraft between last week's episode and this one? I remember things being pretty sloggy and slow in Normandy last week, and while I (obviously) understand that the channel isn't in charge of the pacing of the thing, it still felt like a bigger surprise to see Paris falling so abruptly after western commanders were looking so hamstrung near Falaise.
If I had a nickel for every time German 6th army got encircled, I'll have two nickels, which isn't a lot but it's funny that it happened twice.
Both times because the Romanians on the flanks disintegrated
You may have three before the end of the war (if I recall right)
That offensive into Romania was savage. No wonder the Allies thought the war could be over by years end
I can't say I "like" or "prefer" an offensive, but August Storm was even more swift and more savage.
They were caught in the classic Romanian Brap Trap.
The only reason they didn't end the war in 44 was because they literally couldn't get enough supplies in.
There's basically no significant German resistance facing the allies right now. The army is in full flight and will only stop when they reach the Rhine
that is just bad generalship. Right now they are trouncing the germans on overstretched lines with problems to reenforce their troops or resupply them... every mile retreat though brings them into more favorable constelations of the remaining troops (shorten the front lengths, allowing higher concentration of firepower) and once they are on homesoil, the resistance will be even bitterer. Seriously, they had lots of experience by now with defenders clinging desperately to long lost ground, they should have known better.
@@lovablesnowman We are actually getting towards the rather thin historical basis to the 1970 film "Kelly's Heroes", which mixed comedy/adventure with a somewhat realistic view of the fighting in eastern France during the German retreat of 1944. (OK, it was actually filmed in Yugoslavia.)The rather demoralised German troops retreating during a thunderstorm at night at the start of the film are probably much like the historical reality. The film didn't entirely succeed in blending the comedy with more realistic elements, in my view. But it is entertaining.
Incredible how just three weeks ago, the allies were stuck in Normandy. And now, Paris is liberated
Collapses don’t happen all at once, until they do.
That bocage though
@@obelix703exactly. All too often, a rapid advance like that is the result of grinding attrition until something finally breaks loose.
Poland Uprising ✅
Paris Liberation ✅
Penang Invasion by US & Allies ❎
@@kemarisite either the handle breaks or the gear
The Germans took around 400,000 total casualties over 5 months in the Battle of Stalingrad, one of the most horrific grinding battles in human history that ended with their encirclement and destruction.
The Germans took around half that number in a single *week* in Northeastern Romania. Really puts into perspective how different the war is now.
Taking Ploesti oilfields was one of the harderst blows to germany.
@@projectpitchfork860I do think the Russians rushed way too much selow Heights and berlin should not have been as bloody as it was
@@leaveme3559 i dont think they had much of a choice, as long as AH stayed in berlin he was always going to put up a fight
The whole summer of 1944 contained a series of disasters for the Wehrmacht. Bagration, Falaise, and then Romania. What's surprising isn't merely how well the Germans continued to fight, but that they were able to continue fighting at all.
They would not have kept fighting if they weren't led by a madman. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that if their leadership was capable of rationality, they would have surrendered after the fall of Romania. They could not possibly continue without Romanian oil. And who knows what the post war world would have looked like if the Soviets had not been allowed to occupy the Balkans? But Hitler was so toxic from the drugs he was taking, and probably his own apparently natural mental illness, that he was totally irrational at this point. And the end result was the ceding of Eastern Europe to the Communists. @@gardener68
Interesting seeing Truscott show up to the actual battlefield intent on releiving his subordinate, and then going "oh wait no, actually not your fault, carry on."
What intrigues me is that the subordinate is John Dalquist, which was a name that would appear a few years later in Robert Heinlein's "The Long Watch".
Truscott was one of the best generals in U.S. service during the war. Eisenhower rated him as his most capable army commander during the war. That he did not go through with relieving Dalquist after seeing first hand the difficulties he'd been faced with, partly illustrates why he was so well regarded.
@@ahorsewithnoname773 But he did not serve under Eisenhower as an army commander. As CO of 5th Army he served under Mark Clark and Alexander in the Mediterranean theater. His stint in the European theater as CO of VI Corps was only a brief one. As for Ike's army commanders I probably rate Simpson the highest. He wasn't a glory hound like Patton, his performance was solid, his staff performed impeccably and he could work well with Monty. Which considering how many Americans saw Monty by that point in time was probably a godsent for Ike. The last thing he needed was yet another American prima donna general complaining about Monty.
@@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623 He served under Eisenhower in the sense that he was the supreme Allied commander. Ike did remark that he was his most competent army commander, in any event. Simpson is another however that was very good but is sort of forgotten, because he wasn't as colorful or bombastic as Patton.
It was a happy surprise learning that after the amount of high ranking officers we see sacked week after week for bad reasons.
It is interesting how often in history the same clay gets fought over.
The Metauro river that was mentioned in regards to the Allied offensive plans for Italy was the site of one history's most decisive battles. On it's banks (though it was then called the Metaurus) in June of 207 BC, a Roman army commanded by the consuls Marcus Livius Salinator and Gaius Cladius Nero defeated Carthaginian troops commanded by Hasdrubal Barca, one of Hannibal Barca's brothers. Hasdrubal was attempting to get his army to Umbria to link up with his brother's forces there, but the messengers sent to Hannibal were captured by the Romans, revealing his plans. Cornered by a larger Roman army and betrayed by his guides that deserted him without revealing a safe ford across the Metauro, Hasrubal was decisively defeated and killed in the resulting battle. Hannibal famously leanred of the defeat when a Roman soldier threw a sack containing his brother's severed head into his camp, supposedly prompting Hannibal to remark with a sigh that, "Rome would now be mistress of the world." Zama might have eclipsed it in fame but the battle of the Metaurus was *the* decisive battle of the 2nd Punic War, guaranteeing that Hannibal would be left stranded without reinforcements.
Fun fact about those French soldiers liberating Paris, many of them were Spanish. Republican Veterans of the Spanish Civil War who went into exile after the defeat, they rode into Paris on tanks that bore names like ‘Madrid’ ‘Gandesa’ ‘Brunete’ ‘Teruel’ ‘Ebro’ and ‘Don Quixote’
What was de Gaulle's view on them? They were communists after all. The general was well aware of the politics of liberation . . .
@@EllieMaes-Grandad De Gaulle was a general before being a politician (especially then). I think he would have respected the fighters and their loyaulty before anything else, but I have no source about the guy's actual reaction to them
He was a capable soldier and fought well in the summer of 1940. He was very politically aware after the fall of France and more political than martial during the war. A devout RC he would be wary of republicans / communists but, yes, appreciate their fight for liberation. He made sure they had no role in government post liberation. @@Cancoillotteman
Pero cogen y no mencionan nuestra historia, ocultando a héroes de la democracia. No deberíamos de ser nosotros los que educamos desde los comentarios, tendrían que ser Indy y Spartacus los que tendrían que haberlo dicho. Bien que se han explayado con otras cosas, pero que poquita mención a los españoles que siguieron luchando contra el fascismo...
It's an English language site . . . @@alejandrator1
I wish you had mentioned the first company of Allied troupes to enter Paris were the Spanish Republican veterans of the Spanish Civil War. They encountered some veterans of the International Brigades in the allied army on their route to Paris, and carried republican flags with their civil war battle honors written on their trucks. For many of them, it was a symbolic moment of victory after years of defeat.
Indeed! la Nueve, 2nd Armored Division (Division Leclerc)
and it's an epic story... some of those soldiers had lived and fought through war since 1936.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Nueve
there's a lot more info out there...
@@olliestudio45p
The men from La Nueve went into Parish on 24th of August 1944. None of them is alive nowadays. Rollo was the last one to die 5 years ago. Thanks for saying it was the Spanish who first went into Parish.
"We've destroyed the first sixth army yes, but what about the second sixth army?"
The original 6th Army was the one that took Paris. This last one goes up in smoke when Paris is liberated. Coincidence?
As much as a coincidence as the Soviets once again smashing through the Romanian 3rd and 4th armies to surround the German 6th army
@@ericsommers7386 deja vu all over again.
@@ericsommers7386Red Army: Man I love Sequels!
Meet the third Sixth Army soon hereafter. Something something Budapest.
Just yesterday while wandering around Paris I ran into the ceremony to commemorate liberation. It was pretty cool to see
That is pretty cool, thanks for sharing and thanks for watching!
The first movie "Day of the Jackal" climaxes on that celebration.
@@EllieMaes-Grandad Is Paris Burning also this film
No it isn't. It's a different story which has relevant end scenes. There are the original and a re-make - watch the older one. @@azimisyauqieabdulwahab9401
At 7:22 there is a little error, there was no armistice signed by Romanian representatives at Cairo, because the Allies demanded unconditional surrender. The Soviets signed the armistice with Romania later in September 1944.
Also Antonescu brothers were not brothers...:D
On 24 August 1944 , Germany enacted full mobilization. Theaters were closed, holidays were cancelled and military leave was halted
Paris had been the favourite leave destination for German armed forces members. Now no longer available to them...
Not until now?
@@DrJones20 it was really importantto not fully mobilize. They needed to keep the home front calm as long aspossible. Shortages in Germany proper were uncommon until late in the war because the nazis made every effort to make it so. They needed to keep the morale up to keep the war going.
But now, things are getting real bad and soon the "let's use child soldiers and geriatric tank busters" deal will come up, among many others, causing serious issues in the population and how they perceive the nazis.
@@Blunderbussy There aren't much more people to mobilize though
@@DrJones20... except kids and old men.
I really appreciate all the mentions of the Canadian Corps, rather than just lumping us in with the British. So thanks for that!
I am not sure, but I think this is the last major action for Canadians in Italy. In February of the next year they were in Holland. "Operation Goldflake" was a successful ruse to hide the Canadian and British movement of forces from northern Italy, back to Naples, across the sea to Marseille, then all the way through France to the front then in Belgium. The Germans never suspected. I seem to recall my father (Ist RCR) saying they took trains through France, but I could be wrong.
Thanks for watching!
Your neighbor to the south fully recognizes what excellent soldiers the Canadians are.
"Vive le Québec libre !" Not entirely British...just saying!
@@iamnolegend2519 The Canadian military has a reputation for "punching above it's weight." It was a reputation earned in the South African War, which for reasons isn't a history much discussed. I think budgetary restraints demands innovation, and that's always handy because nothing goes right in war. Being a junior partner with allies, while it brings some constraints, also allows some freer thinking with field commanders and Generals. Also a factor with the Canadian military is that anyone who serves over seas is a volunteer as opposed to a conscript. That makes a difference.
These past **2** months we've seen a truly astounding amount of change. The Allied breakout, Dragoon, Bagration and related operations, Rome and Paris freed, partisans playing their card and throwing back enemy forces, Japan's Burmese campaign halted, the Marianas Turkey Shoot and so many more events. At this point, one wonders if we'll see the whole Axis disintegrate by Thanksgiving.
Operation Market Garden
@azimisyauqieabdulwahab9401
Market Garden was actually the fastest allied advance against German opposition in the entire September 1944 to February 1945 period. 100km of German held ground in just 3 days.
The Hurtgen Forest and Lorraine were the real big failures of autumn 1944. Then came the retreat in the Ardennes.
So why single out Market Garden?
This week may be a good week to watch the short historical documentary film *La Libération de Paris* (The Liberation of Paris), which was a black and white film shot in secret by small units of the French Resistance during the Battle for Paris in August 1944. It offers an interesting insight into events that happened during the uprising in Paris by the French Forces of the Interior (FFI).
Is Paris Burning
I did read a very informative book on this. The political situation was fraught and de Gaulle made certain the communists were not allowed to gain control.
@@azimisyauqieabdulwahab9401 it is a great and well researched movie !
Also one small anecdote about it : the entire movie is shot in black and white because the production crew were forbidden to use the actual colours of red and black on Nazi flags in order "not to alarm the population". Toavoid the jarring effect of grey-white-black flags, the movie was filmed in black-and-white to also give it a "historical epic" feel
@@Cancoillotteman Colour film existed in 1944 but was rather expensive and rare. Black and white was normal.
@@stevekaczynski3793 I am talking of the movie "is Paris Burning" (1966), not of the archives pictures ;)
If I had a cent for everytime that the German 6th Army was encircled and destroyed by the Soviets, while having it's flanks covered by Romanians, I'd have 2 cents. This isn't much, but it's wierd that it happened twice.
wow this is Hitlers worst week since last week … and the week before that
Just wait until April 1945.
"Over one hundred THOUSAND Germans have been killed this week". Let that sink in for a moment. One hundred thousand dead in one week. Goes to show what an enormous struggle this war was.
The Germans issued monthly estimates for their killed and missing, certainly for the Feldheer (Field Army). After November 1944 they stopped issuing estimates. Sometimes it is clear they had had a disaster, like the 37,000 dead and 127,600 missing for January 1943 almost certainly reflects Stalingrad.
We have to clarify this because I heard it a lot, but the so called Antonescu "brothers", Mihai Antonescu and Ion Antonescu, the last one being Romania's "conducator"(leader) were not brothers. Sure it's not important in the grand history of WW2, but nevertheless, I think it's worth knowing.
Fascism is quite big on men being blood brothers.
@@akosbarati2239 Ion Antonescu wasn't a fascist, he didn't even had a party. He was named by the previous king Carol II to restore order, after the lost territories in 1940. He was just caught between the nazis and the soviets and had to choose what he saw as the best option for his county. He was a big anglophile and his hope was that the Germans would beat the soviets, while the western allies would beat the Germans.
@@fockewulf190d9 letter addressed to Mihai Antonescu, 6 September 1941) "We must all understand that this is not a fight against Slavs, but against the Jews. It's a battle for life and death. Either we win and the world will purify, or they'll win and we'll become their slaves. Both the war in general and the battles at Odessa, especially, have made the proof that the Jew is Satan."
Reevaluate that previous statement.
poor knowledge here, in fact there was no relation of family between them at all.
A pity you did not mention 'La Nueve' liberating Paris. A unit made mainly of Spanish Anarchists and Republicans.
As I watch the litany of Axis defeats unfold I find myself muttering, "Just give up, you bastards, you're beaten!" But of course, the bastards didn't give up. They never do. It's one of the reasons they're bastards.
Probably for the better. Them giving up the last time, before the Allies had invaded Germany, was what allowed the Germans to create the myth of the stab in the back. That there armies weren't defeated except by feckless politicians back home. This time Germany's defeat was so total there was no denying they had lost. Which probably helped greatly for Germany to resign to its fate after the war.
They were true men back then, so they didn't surrender like pigs.
@@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623 agreed. It is sad to say bu in another world Foche, Pershing, Haig, Clémenceau, Lloyd George and Wilson agree to really finish Germany off, dismantle the Frei Korps and who's to say what might have happened next ?
The good point is that it showed how crazy and selfish they were, wanting to burn down everything with them, and except for a few lunatics calling them "true men" showed how actually cowards these people were : asking everyone else to fight to the last to avoid facing consequences for their own actions.
@crazysarge9765 instead they sent old men and boys to die for a lost cause. Yup, real men, those guys. Btw, I am sure the majority of German soldiers would have gladly surrendered if allowed to.
Its over anakin...... I have the high ground...........
Amongst the 2nd Armoured Division led by Leclerc there was an unit famous for the fact that it was formed almost entirely by Spanish volunteers: it was the 9th Company of the Chad Motorised Regiment, nicknamed 'La Nueve' (The Ninth in Spanish), and those men were veterans whom had fought in the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War. After the Republican defeat, they had been given asylum in France as political refugees, and in WW2 they enlisted on the French Army. Their vehicles carried both the French flag and the Spanish Republican flag.
It’s not surprising to see when you strong arm countries into being your allies they’re going to leave your ass in the dust first chance they can. Go Romania!
@@projectpitchfork860 that and their oil fields.
The Romanians weren't that unwilling. And they had been promised land in the Ukraine for their participation. SInce its capture Odessa had been Ukrainian until the Red Army returned in early 1944.
@@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623we weren't unwilling? We literally wanted to side with France and England before the war even started. We asked for guarantees and were told to take care of ourselves so we did. What other option did we have? Be another Poland? Refuse to ally with Germany and get split between Hungary and Russia?
@@xKinjaxIn my opinion, Romania had no choice. Siding with the Brits didn't save the Poles
@@xKinjaxRomania had its revenge against the Germans at last when it switching to Allied side broke what remained of Nazi Germany's morale
Ah yes. German 6th army getting encircled. Somethings never change.
For purposes of comparison, there were four Red Army 6th Armies in WW2. The first one was formed in summer 1939, and destroyed in the Uman encirclement in 1941. It was reconstituted, trapped in another German encirclement and destroyed again. Again reconstituted, it was not trapped in an encirclement but it suffered such heavy losses that it was disbanded.
SPOILER
The fourth reconstitution of the 6th Army will advance into Silesia in early 1945 and lay siege to Breslau. Breslau will hold out as one of Hitler's "fortresses" and surrender in May 1945.
Crazy watching the map change so rapidly now... What's next 3-4 more episodes until Allied paratroopers drop over the Netherlands? Nah, that's just crazy talk...
Hearing the Saar mentioned a few times here means the war is now closing in on my home.
I've seen photos of the last bullet holes from the Allied advance through my tiny little village - afaik, it was an American unit, but that might just be people conflating all Allies into Americans. Anyway, those last bullet holes only disappeared after I was born in '92 when the building they were in was demolished. Just goes to show again that this was not so long ago and that the traces, big and small, are still around and affect us today, even in the tiniest villages at the ass-end of nowhere.
Everyone: laughs at italy for switching sides
Meanwhile Romania:
They did it in WW1 too lol
ironic is that a king with german origins gave the blow to germans, while the marechal Ion Antonescu , a romanian, refused to switch sides , he was arrested ...by the King Michael I of Hohenzollern...this is why when he returned in 1990 to retake his throne back, after his abdication in 30 january 1947 , was refused ...
@@dand7763 The commander of the Dutch forces in exile, Prince Bernhardt, was German born and German until 1938, when he married the Dutch heir to the throne. So only 2 years of being Dutch. He seems to have passed all British investigations to vet his loyalty though as he was firmly committed to the Netherlands and given access to classified intelligence. So some people do take their responsibilities to their new counties very seriously.
I don't laugh at Italy for switching sides. The country paid a heavy price for it. The Germans expected it to happen and took the country and its army over in record time, waging a costly war in it for the rest of the war. Romania was more fortunate that it really came unexpected for the Germans and the Soviets were ready and able to take advantage of it in record time, allowing the country to escape most of the fighting. Of course their new Soviet allies did require them to fight along the Red Army and after the war installed a Soviet regime that turned out to be absolutely brutal. So fortunate is relative.
@@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623 what happened in 23 august 1944 in Bucharest it is on debate even now between historians , some said the king was right on making that "coup" regarding the situation on the front , switching sides ,Romania under King Michael I *"shortened WW2 at least with 3 months"* said specialists... the war was lost and he tried to ease the damages...while others blame him for arresting Ion Antonescu and gave him in russian hands...
in my opinion , nothing could be done more in august 1944, in any other way, if was a coup or not , the country was lost to fall under soviet occupation...
Seeing Paris being spared and the inhabitants so happy, really is tearing me up, Vive la France!
I'll admit getting emotional to it. Even 80 years later it's still a relief to see the city liberated !
I suppose that what happens army group South Ukraine is the answer to the question "What happens to the Germans if the Soviet use a Blitzkrieg like strategy against them?"
Maybe the Wehrmacht should have considered how to respond to counter-Blitzkrieg before they started the war.
PS: Yes, I know that the Soviet method of deep battle was different from Blitzkrieg, but it was close enough, especially with the pincer movements to surround the enemy, to make the point.
Fun fact : the first Free French troops to enter Paris were actually Spanish Republican volunteers from "La Nueve", 9th company.
Today a public park near the Hôtel de Ville bears their name.
By the way, soldiers in history are known for their creativity, and ruthlessness in some cases, in the realm of getting food. I tried making hardtack this week, just flour, salt, and water and a couple hours in an oven. It is exactly as dense and difficult to eat as it is reputed for. Steve1989 managed to get his hands on hardtack made in the 1860s and ate it in the middle of the 2010s. He was actually just fine from that, its long shelf life being no joke, it was improperly stored food from only a year before that ever made him sick.
Soldiers usually soaked hardtack in water or coffee before eating to soften it.
@@richardstephens5570 It also removed the weevils. They'd float to the top of the coffee.
I've hard negative things all around on hardtack, never seen it in person but know a friend who ate some and said it was horrible. Suppose the longevity of it is what makes it popular though. Thanks for sharing and thanks for watching!
- Jake
@@WorldWarTwo Imagine trying to eat a salty cracker with the texture and hardness pottery roof tile...
@@richardstephens5570 A US Civil War joke had a Union sergeant saying to his men, "Boys, I was eating hardtack and I bit into something soft. What do you think it was?"
Soldier: "A mealworm?"
Sergeant: "No, by God. It was a tenpenny nail."
i can just imagine how happy the residents of paris felt that warm sunny summer's evening seeing the americans and de gaulle march down the streets of paris
Must have been quite the sight to see indeed, thanks for watching.
And imagine how mortified De Gaulle is when he found out how many Parisians were cool working with the Germans and getting administered by them. Same with the rest of France. Dude didn't create the "Fighting Frenchmen" myth later on just for himself...
@@theotherohlourdespadua1131You know, during those times most people tried to survive by keeping a low profile. Also many german soldiers were respectful of France contrary to eastern Europe where nazis daily tried to kill everyone. Fighting frenchmen is no myth, many of them fought and died alongside the allies. Just less people actively resisted because they had other choices.
@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 De Gaulle knew about the situation in the mainland before the landings, it was no surprise for him.
@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 At the end of June, when the Resistance killed leading Vichy minister and propagandist Philippe Henriot, thousands attended his funeral in Paris, and a French cardinal gave the funeral sermon. How many of these thousands are now cheering on de Gaulle?
The Resistance itself talked of the "Resisters of the last moment", people who suddenly came forward when the Germans were either gone or leaving.
While far from the most militarily significant event, the Liberation of Paris has been called the most romantic moment in the war.
The French reform a large army that is attached to either the American 3rd Army or the Big Red One I believe. My great great uncle served in it cuz he spoke french and relayed messages for things like supplies. His stories are crazy, that french attachment suffered insane casualties because everybody was trying to prove they were not a collaborator
The 2nd French Armored division served under Patton's 3rd Army during the Normandy campaign and later passed on to Patch's 7th Army. But that was the only large French force in the Normandy/Western France theater. The bulk of French Forces landed in the south during Operation Dragoon, forming the 1st French Army that would fight as part of Devers' 6th Army Group, along the Lorraine Alsace front. Interestingly the 2nd French Armored division under LeClerk was not part of that army, as its commander, who was Free French from the start, detested the former Vichy France officers and forces that made up the bulk of the 1st French Army. Which was why his division fought under US command.
@@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623 I forget all the specifics but I know that they captured a bunch of German cities at the end of the war and the Americans were telling them slow down there's no point in moving that fast and the french officers just didn't listen and kept moving despite suffering crazy casualties
@@voiceofreason2674 I reckon the French government was eager to be taken serious again after 4 years of occupation, so that France would be granted a seat on the victor's table as one of the Big Four. And not be relegated to the sideline by the Big Three. As Moscow and Washington probably wanted. That France was to be granted an occupation zone was not a certainty. And the Soviets weren't going to give them one. You want the French to have one, give the French some of yours was their reply to the US and UK.
The entire eastern front crumbled to pieces with just one move.
Props to Michael I of Romania for his decision.
He'd get more credit if he'd done this back in 1942-43 after poor German planning got most of his armies wiped out in the USSR. Would have been risky, but public displeasure at how the war was going might have been enough to stave off a German attempt at a Hungary-style coup.
@@Raskolnikov70 No, I'm sorry I don't think that's realistic, not in 42-43. Look what happened to Italy in 43.
@@Raskolnikov70 That's in your imagination! the Romanians had even started the negotiations at that time and the allies had told them that only the Soviets were deciding in that area, or the Romanians wanted to avoid at all costs the penetration of the Soviet troops, who had already annexed Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina and knew too well what they were capable of (they had discovered the pits communes they left behind, as well as the civilians deported to Siberia!). The misery that the Soviets were capable of was also seen in 1944 when they took prisoners hundreds of thousands of Romanian soldiers who had stopped fighting, on the order of the king and of whom the Russians were aware that they were no longer fighting against them. BTW, most of the German prisoners were taken by the Romanians, who captured 60,000 Germans before the advance of the Soviets, who were more busy capturing the Romanians than supporting them in fighting the Germans-so on September 15th, the Soviets announced that they had "liberated" Bucharest, when in fact the Romanians had liberated the area a few days ago!
Oof, losing the Romanian oilfields has got to hurt. C'mon Germany, we can all see it's over.
It did hurt. But then again, even with the Romanian oilfields, the Hungarian one and synthetic oil the Germans had been running a fuel deficit since the war started. There's a reason why during Barbarossa the German advance stalled several times. There was just never enough fuel to meet the demands.
@@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623 Sure, but you don't need much fuel when you're running out of planes and vehicles to put it in.....
Eisenhower says this on Battle of Falaise Pocket :
With the great bulk of all the Allied forces attacking from the perimeter of a great half-circle toward a common center, the determination of the exact points on which each element should halt, in order not to become involved against friendly units coming from the opposite direction, was a tricky problem.
In this instance Bradley’s troops, marching in the great wheel, had much farther to go to close the trap than did the British and Canadian troops. On the other hand, the latter were still faced up against prepared defenses and their movement was limited to the advances they could make through heavily defended areas. Montgomery kept in close touch with the situation but so rapid was the movement of the Americans that it was almost impossible to achieve the hour-by-hour co-ordination that might have won us a complete battle of annihilation.
Mix-ups on the front occurred, and there was no way to halt them except by stopping troops in place, even at the cost of allowing some Germans to escape. In the aggregate considerable numbers of Germans succeeded in getting away. Their escape, however, meant an almost complete abandonment of their heavy guns , tanks , motorised vehicles supplies and was accomplished only by terrific sacrifices.
I was in Bradley’s headquarters when messages began to arrive from commanders of the advancing American columns, complaining that the limits placed upon them by their orders were allowing Germans to escape. I completely supported Bradley in his decision that it was necessary to obey the orders, prescribing the boundary between the army groups, exactly as written; otherwise a calamitous battle between friends could have resulted.
In the face of complete disaster the enemy fought desperately to hold open the mouth of the closing pocket so as to save as much as he could from the debacle. German commanders concentrated particularly on saving armored elements, and while a disappointing portion of their Panzer divisions did get back across the Seine, they did so at the cost of a great proportion of their equipment. Eight infantry divisions and two Panzer divisions were captured almost in their entirety in the pocket.
The battlefield at Falaise was unquestionably one of the greatest “killing grounds” of any of the war areas. Roads, highways, and fields were so choked with destroyed equipment and with dead men and animals that passage through the area was extremely difficult. Forty-eight hours after the closing of the gap I was conducted through it on foot, to encounter scenes that could be described only by Dante. It was literally possible to walk for hundreds of yards at a time, stepping on nothing but dead and decaying flesh.
In the wider sweep directed against the crossings of the Seine behind the German Army, the rapidly advancing Americans were also forced to halt to avoid overrunning their objectives and firing into friendly troops. The German again seized the opportunity to escape with a greater portion of his strength than would have been the case if the exact situation could have been completely foreseen.
When the Allied armies finally completed their envelopment of the German forces west of the Seine the eventual defeat of the German in western Europe was a certainty. The question of time alone remained. A danger, however, that immediately presented itself was that our own populations and their governments might underrate the task still to be accomplished, and so might slacken the home-front effort, which could have the gravest consequences. I not only brought this danger to the attention of my superiors, but as early as August 15 held a press conference, predicting that there was one more critical task remaining to the Allied forces-the destruction of the German armies along the general line of the Siegfried and the Rhine.
This word of caution was swept away in the general rejoicing over the great victory, and even among the professional leaders of the fighting forces there grew an optimism, almost a lightheartedness, that failed to look squarely in the face such factors as the fanaticism of great portions of the German Army and the remaining strength of a nation that was inspired to desperate action, if by no other means than the Gestapo and Storm Troopers, who were completely loyal to their master, Hitler.
(Victory Disease in making)
Crusade in Europe - Dwight Eisenhower
Canadian historian David O'Keefe produced a documentary about the closing of the Falaise Gap, and noted a few shortfalls of the Allied forces opposing the Germans there. A large number from the Polish armoured divisions were chosen to have the honour to seal the gap and deal the final death blow to the Nazi forces. The majority of the Poles carried out their task magnificently and fought the Germans to a standstill at the Battle of the Mace. A minority of this armoured force, however, did not obey their orders and split themselves off and did not take up their assigned positions but rather decided to chase off after a German unit that had taken part in the invasion of their homeland in 1939. This caused problems for the Allied command in Normandy as their supposed position was left open and a number of the Nazi forces thereby escaped.
A number of the Free French forces fighting alongside the Americans also decided doing what they were ordered was not to their taste and headed off to Paris to take part in its liberation march and ceremonies.
I don't know what the repercussions were for this disobedience to orders but there is no doubt this let many of the Nazis' forces escape the Falaise Gap that would otherwise have been captured or destroyed.
Paul Woodage's WW2TV TH-cam channel has a number of programs dedicated to the Falaise Gap and its victories and its problems. I can recommend Paul's programs wholeheartedly as he is a very good historian of the Normandy campaign, and gets the very best current historians to explain this campaign, and many others, in excellent detail.
Hello. The two Antonescu were not brothers, just a coincidence of surname.
Marshall Ion Antonescu and Mihai Antonescu were not related. M. Antonescu was originally Ion Antonescu's lawyer.
True also sounds funny as hell
Can confirm.
Scary how fast that encirclement went.
Practically went through the entirety of east Romania.
IN ONE DAY
The Wehrmacht is a hollow force and the Romanians aren't even a factor. They know it's over for them, just a matter of how to surrender now.
surely the germans will see that this is hopeless, and surrender
Bruh that Romania offensive is so unknown for being so successful
Cause it was irrelevant in grand scheme of things. Germany was going to lose war regardless due to Allied material advantage, all while Overlord and Bagration to lesser extend were the offensives to completely disintegrate German capabilities of mounting front size effective resistance. Afterwards it was Allied supply lines and weather rather German defences which were slowing down advance.
@@ReichLife I think the sudden loss of Romanian oil is a huge disadvantage for the Germans. Relative ignorance in the West of the Eastern Front events is the main reason it gets overlooked.
@@stevekaczynski3793 If you ignore the fact we're talking about latter half of 1944. By then Western Allies alone brought Romanian oil industry to it's breaking point. By the time Romanians went Italians, Ploesti and other oil fields were bringing several times lower amount of oil than at maximum capacity, exactly due to Western bombing campaign, campaign which would only further intensify.
Even if Romanian magically wasn't touched by Soviets and didn't switch side till 1945, nothing of value would have changed. Germany couldn't efficiently supply troops in the West due to Allied air supremacy, supremacy which Romanian oil had no way to diminish. Eastern front? There Führer Directive No. 51 and Lend Lease meant that Soviets had assured enormous advantage over Axis.
Which further cement, that said Romania offensive was irrelevant in grand scheme of things.
It was not only very successful, but also, by Eastern Front standards, quite cheaply won by the Soviets. The ten-day battle cost the Soviets 67,130 men, of whom 13,197 were KIA or MIA. The Germans in KIA and PoW alone, probably lost at least 200,000 men. There was no battle on the Eastern Front up to that time, and possibly through the entire war, that saw such a high ratio in favor of the Soviets.
Well, this is the second offensive. The first Iasi-Chisinau offensive from april-may ended badly for the russians. You can check the previous episodes as Indi covered it
Your team is absolutely outstanding. Thank you for your ongoing contributions to our understanding of World War II. Blessings to you.
Thank very much for the kind words and thanks for watching!
Most problematic is that many Axis doctors (incl. Unit 731) received pardons in return for their reports, from which real scientists found out that pseudoscientific beliefs were so ingrained into the research, and experimental control so sloppy, that most of it was useless.
it was not useless not at all
@@yassinhafez1337Why do you say that? What scientific prowess do you have to make that assessment?
The U.S. halting the investigations and prosecution of japanese wat criminals was a heinous crime in itself
A book by Tom Bower "Blind Eye to Murder" exposed the cover-up in post-war Europe of widespread, generalised atrocities, done mostly by Nazis.
Another book of his, "Paperclip Conspiracy" examined the selection of those guilty of war crimes but useful to the USA.
Yet copied them
The (second) encirclement of 6th Army, the Romanian coup, the liberation of Paris, and that ending message really does bring a tear to the eye after so many years of bloodshed and misery, hats off to the entire crew at TimeGhost for this amazing series!
Love to hear your enjoying the series so much, it's nice to see some hope from what is truly a terrible time in history. Thank you so much for watching!
"Hitler was a wee bit surprised by all this, to put it mildly." I laughed out aloud at that. Priceless.
Indy I am really impressed by your Slovak pronounciation. And do not worry about that German lieutant colonel and his buddies, I am sure they will be fine in the end...
It's amazing how quickly the German forces fall apart after D-day on both fronts.
Imagine Hitler tearing his hair out from 2 consecutive weeks of bad news!
Week 260: Army Group B surrounded in Falaise + Allies landing in Southern France
Week 261: Romania switched sides + Paris liberated
Von Choltitz deciding to spare the city was what he claimed after the war, and for decades it was acknowledged as fact. Further research in the 2000s showed he intended to carry out the order of destroying the city, but due to how fragile his control of the city was, the order could not be executed.
The Resistance and the Allies saved the city by allowing it to be quickly liberated, not von Choltitz.
So......, not the first time a German general would present a distorted picture of the war to serve his own interest it would seem. It almost hints at a pattern,
The fact that he didn't carry it out, for whatever reason, probably spared him from the noose after the war.
@@Raskolnikov70 there were much bigger fishes to fry indeed.
The two are not mutually exclusive. The futility of trying to organise the destruction amidst the chaos may have joined with personal distate at such orders, leading to him not even trying to carry them out.
You know, the Germans should really have given up on having a "6th Army". It's bad luck. Move on.
5:00 Exactly the same situation at Stalingrad. The history repeated herself
But it’s like a speed run, Why wait for months to surround and destroy 6th Army when you can do it in one week?
Hello Indy ! One first mistake i can recognise : Ion Antonescu and Mihai Antonescu were not brothers , it's just a coincidence of sir names. They actually met in 1938
This week would be a good time to watch the 1966 film "Paris brûle-t-il ?", By René Clément, which is a dramatisation of the liberation of Paris.
Is Paris Burning is the greatest epic war of the all time featuring all stars cast
German 6. Army are like experts at getting encircled
This week so illustrates the immensity of the conflict.
One comes away feeling as but a mote of dust.
Thank You.
The scale can make you feel quite small indeed. Thanks for watching.
This week on August 26th 1944, the following missions in the Call of Duty series will begin:
*August 20 1944*
Hostage! (Call of Duty 3) - As Sergeant James Doyle in Les Ormes, France, you will need to rescue Major Ingram, as well as rescue the Marquis fighters from captivity. This level is noted as the longest Call of Duty 3 level.
The Corridor of Death (Call of Duty 3) - As Private Joe Cole in St. Lamber-sur-Dives, France, you are to rescue the tankers and hold the tavern so you can send reinforcements to the Poles at Hill 262.
The Mace (Call of Duty 3) - As Corporal Bohater Wojciech in Mont Ormel (Hill 262), France, you are to hold Hill 262 against waves of enemy Germans under Canadian air support arrives.
Chambois (Call of Duty 3) - As Private Nichols in Chambois, France, you are to hold off and defend Chambois against the enemy Germans who are trying to take the town and are trying to escape encirclement in the Falaise Gap.
S.O.E. (Call of Duty: World War II) - As Private First Class Ronald "Red" Daniels in Argentan, France, you are to intercept and stop a train containing V-2 rockets before they reach the launch site.
*August 25 1944*
Liberation (Call of Duty: World War II) - As Camille "Rousseau" Denis in Paris, France, you will infiltrate the Police Prefecture (acting as a Gestapo headquarters) under disguise to make a briefcase swap with S.O.E. contact Fischer. Later as Private First Class Ronald "Red" Daniels, you will clear the Police Prefecture building and defend it against a German counterattack.
Do you happen to have a full list of these that you can share?
As a Yank with some Canadian ancestry (like many New Englanders, in my case French Canadians from the Maritimes), I just want to give a shout out and a thank you to Canada and their courageous armed forces. They don't get nearly the credit they deserve, but here they are, fighting in Normandy, fighting in Italy. The best damn allies and friends the US has ever had. (Well, except for that 1812 thing - hey, brothers fight sometimes.)
There have been a few other scraps, the Patriot War in 1837 or so and the Fenian raids after the US Civil War. But those were pretty minor compared with 1812. Still interesting to read about how things haven't always been peaceful between the US and Canada.
Glad to fight with you! 🇨🇦 🤝🇺🇸
My great-uncle, Lieut Harvey Burnard in the Canadian Army, wrote this in a letter home during a break in action in Normandy on 21 July 1944: “It rained for almost 24 hrs here the day the Unit went in and what with crawling and being drowned out of slit trenches they were quite a mess. But we'll soon be ready again and I feel sorry for the tank crews the S.S.R's meet in the future.
Thinks look darn good at present and if we can only catch their tanks with ours we'll soon be in Paris. In fact I've started a moustache that I intend to let grow until we get to Paris.” Unfortunately it was his final letter home as he was killed in action on 25 July.
Nice Work as always TimeGhost... I hope, and plead, you'll do something on the years after the war, for each country involved...
Indy missed the joke on the German 6th Army being encircled for the SECOND time this war by the Soviets!
I know right, I was watching that part and saying
“Hmmmm… Where have I seen this before?”
Regarding the coup in Romania: I'm not sure how a reigning monarch arresting and replacing the head of the government counts as coup. After all, it's his prerogative to choose the head of government even. I can see how it is a de facto coup, but it's really the king doing his job.
You don't see this happening in a Western monarchy. I'm sure there were times when Elizabeth II had to deal with prime ministers she loathed and would have loved to seen the back off, same with her counterparts in other constitutional monarchies. But its not the 17th century and divine rights of kings anymore. Kings are respected as heads of state because they do not interfere in elections and formations and runnings of the government. What the Romanian king did could be seen as theoretically part of his responsibilities and right (and duty) of a king, but it was also exceptional and shows how dire the situation was that the king had to do this.
@@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623 I could see it happening in Britain, if the crisis is big enough.
@@stevekaczynski3793 It is theoretically possible, because the UK lacks a constitution and because of the strong ties between the monarchy and armed forces. Even then, you get the monarch involved in actual politics, it will undermine the position of the monarchy. It is his complete abstinence of political involvement which makes the monarch stand above it and popular with the general populace. Pick a side and half the country would turn against him. The government would have to be extremely unpopular, as in the high 80% unpopularity, with the situation both dire and seen as urgent. And once he does such a thing he would have to immediately call a new election and relinquish all power again.
@@stevekaczynski3793it would still be a Coup. Of course the British would call it a Glorious Revolution or something as they see themselves as different from other countries .
@@francesconicoletti2547 There was a TV show a long time ago, "A Very British Coup", in which an unacceptably left-wing Labour prime minister is removed from power.
You walked the fine line on Stalin and the Polish Uprising, VERY well, imho.
Posting lots of data and letting us make up our minds about a very controversial event in the war.
Well done.
☮
Let your enemies fight your future enemies till everyone's dead, then stroll on in
This week on August 26th 1944, the following levels in the fifth mission (Day of the Tiger) of the 2002 video game Medal of Honor: Allied Assault will begin:
*August 20 1944*
Sniper's Last Stand - As Lieutenant Mike Powell in Brittany, France, you will need to locate the bazooka team, destroy the enemy Panzer IV tank, and keep the tank crew alive until the King Tiger tank can be stolen. This level is notorious as one of the hardest levels in the game due to a significant number of snipers in the buildings.
The Hunt for the King Tiger - As Lieutenant Mike Powell in Brittany, France, you will start out in the King Tiger tank, and will have use to use its 88mm tank cannon to fight your way out against enemy Panzer tanks and Panzerschreck crews.
The Bridge - As Lieutenant Mike Powell in Brittany, France, you will need to find a high vantage point and snipe enemy German troops who are trying to blow up the bridge with explosives, as well as call in artillery strikes using the binoculars.
I can hear the rain and thunder with the chilling music as you creep around the ruins, wary of Snipers around every corner...
Its a shame that Roosevelt was such a sucker for Uncle Joe .
Paris is free! Some (relatively) good and happy news! I wish Spartacus could report on some happier tidings but am afraid a War Against Humanity doesn't offer much in the way of joy. 😢
The end of this insanity cannot come soon enough.
I fear for his sanity. Unlike Indy who gets to play with animated maps and report relatively nice things, he only gets to show a spotlight on the worst things that humanity has ever done. In no small part why I skip WAH episodes. It's like Schindler's list. One of the best movies ever, never want to see it again. So it is with WAH, I know it happened, no need to be reminded again of it.
Adolph and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week... 😅
I've just been on holiday in Riccione, on the adriatic coast and discovered an ellenic military cemetery there. Apparently with the canadians also greek troops were present and 114 of them lost their life to liberate Italy. I thought it was worth to mention them too and I was actually surprised that there were Greek soldiers in Italy in 1944
Had a thought in my head while watching the numbers come in for the destruction of the French pocket (I will not offend y’all with how badly I’d misspell that name), and it got me thinking.
Imagine being a medic or attached to a unit taking care of these prisoners, taking in thousands of people, tens of thousands even, monthly or in some cases even weekly, the amount of logistics that has to go into that from organization to medical care. Absolutely astounded by the scale of this conflict, that astonishment of course is tempered by the horror of this war but still. Boggles my mind how much effort that may take to organize.
I experienced something similar back in 1991, serving in a US Army medical unit during the Gulf War. As soon as the Allied ground offensive started the entire Iraqi army minus a few elite units started surrendering en masse wherever and whenever they could; weeks of air strikes and zero logistics had pretty much wiped them out as an effective combat force. The frontline units bypassed most of them, we were in the rear in the main division support area but were still dealing with prisoners walking up to us, trying to figure out where to put hundreds of them while waiting for the MP's to get their act together and organize camps. Even if you have a plan for something like that, it's never enough.
Love this series! I do kind of wish that little notes would be dropped about the development of the atomic bomb as they happened. I also have a modest personal request; when the liberation of Dachau happens, there needs to be a "War Against Humanity" special about it. I've heard that some US soldiers went a bit nuts ( I might have too ) and committed war crimes. My interest in this specifically? My dad was in a US Heavy Machine Gun company, among the liberators. He had liberated some cameras as well, and had pictures. But he never talked about what happened there that day.
Soviets - surround 6th army
6th army - Ah shit here we go again
I read somewhere that the small french armored force that first entered Paris was a company of (mostly) Spaniards on half-tracks, veterans of the Spanish Civil War from the republican side who had fled Spain at the end of the war there. Many of them also fought in the allied North African campaign.
Apparently they did encounter some German resistance though when linking up with the partisans inside the city.
You guys are great! I am a MA student at LSE studying modern history and I am still amazed by how different it can be to interact with history with such a unique dedication to timeline. For example I had no idea that the liberation of Paris and the Collapse of Romania occurred at the same time! I am lucky enough to have access to some major archives and have studied sources on both events but the literature, while contemplative, is often written in geographic isolation. You all really build out the mosaic and let us feel the acceleration towards liberation and feel the attrition in ways that may even be lost on academia.
I have been watching your documentaries since I was a teenager and now I have published research, graduated twice, and now I live in London. I feel this channel is really special in that through your timeline and scope of research I now have my own mental chronology of what was happening in the different periods of my personal life during of your depiction of the world wars.
I also love the frequent referencing of James Holland's "Italy's Sorrow" --that book and Antony Beevor's 'Stalingrad' are what made me want to become a historian when I read them when I was thirteen.
Appreciate the obvious dedication of Indy and the crew! You've made my historical passions just a little more real and exciting for me today.
--Brandon
Hey Brandon, thank you so much for the high praise. We simply do our best, and we’re so happy you enjoy what we put together 😃 I’ll share this message with the whole team, they’ll greatly appreciate it
I’m happy you love our chronological style as much as we do!
Good luck with your studies, I’ll be starting at LSE myself next month!
-Will
@@WorldWarTwo That's really exciting! LSE is a great school.
There is a chance we are in the same program~
I do not think I can post contact information without it being taken down as spam on YT but feel free to reach out.
As a Coloradan, I hope for a future special on the history of mountain divisions from their inception in the late 19th century in Italy, France, Germany and Austria to their utilization in WWII (including our own beloved 10th Mountain Division, as well as the French North African divisions, etc).
Fun fact the first French troops who entered Paris were in fact Spanish republicans who joined the foreign legion after fleeing both the civil war in Spain and the interment camps in France after France fell to the Germans in 1940. In a way its kind of a ironic revenge the Germans helped the nationalist take their country from them and now the republicans are helping to take France away from the Germans
10:30 “Some of the allied armies are running out of men.” And here’s part of the downside of the plan of Overlord. While the British armored shield was effective in tying down German forces in June and July to give the American forces better operational maneuverability, it came at a high cost. The British and Canadian populations just don’t have the manpower to fill in for replacements quickly and lack the same organization for processing replacements as the U.S. Army.
British and Canadian replacement system was about providing better quality and trained active servicemen to replace losses albeit it had downside of slow and insufficient reserves to keep up manpower pool to provide them in first place.
US had not only larger population than Britain and Canada , it also entered war later than them and their replacement sysatem was faster to bring full numbers in frontline units as soon as possible albeit thare is disadvantage , their replacements sometimes even lacking basic training , had physical defects from time to time (there were replacements in divisions from states who lacked fingers or myhophic sometimes) and low quality and did not always put the unit performance high.
The British Army was quite a bit smaller than it had been in WW1. Even the Americans did not raise as many infantry divisions as they initially hoped.
This is why I keep saying that Monty claiming that had been his master plan all along was and is bogus. The UK could not afford to fight yet another war of attrition. It only had 1 army left in 1944, and once that was gone, that was it. Exit UK as a major power after the war. The real plan was to take Caen ASAP after the invasion, and THEN fight the Germans and hold there, in country better suited to British superior firepower and mobility then the Bocage had been. Not battle the Germans for 2 months to take Caen. By august 1944 the UK was running out of manpower, disbanding one division a month, either in the UK, Italy or Normandy to keep the remaining ones up to strength. There were just not enough men for 3 armies, in Normandy, Italy and Burma, AND to keep the massive RAF up to strength, AND the Royal Navy, the latter of which would start a massive campaign to create the British Pacific Fleet in the Far East. Something had to give. And the British at least had the advantage of conscription and in the case of its army in Burma, Indian manpower, Canada's army was all volunteer. Especially Quebec heavily resisted conscription. Once you ran out of volunteers its much harder to find new ones to replace them. Of course even the US did not have bottomless reserves of manpower. Fighting on 2 fronts, the massive naval and air force expansions and the underestimation how big a losses infantry units suffered in battle was felt even in the US Army. Which was why by 1945 the US was desperate to end the war in Europe so it could redeploy its European army to the Pacific and even have the USSR join in the Far East fun.
@@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623 People still love to mudsling Montgomery a lot , don't they ? I mean two months ago it was still questionable Allies could establish and hold a beachead in Normandy , but the thirsd week of August , he still as Land Forces Commander ,not only led crushing of German Army Group B at Falaise but also crossing the Seine and compensating the delay in Allied schedule (planned before D-Day) and next week 21st Army Group will go way beyond stage lines scheduled before D-Day , outrunning everyone and his own stage line schedule by liberating Northern France and Belgium
Yes he had a master plan for Normandy Campaign but he had to improvise a lot once Hitler and OKW concentrated their entire panzer reserves around Caen against Second Army so he preferred to push them and grind them with firepower frontally since there were no open flanks or gaps to outflank them while First US Army secured Cotentin , Cherbourg and prepared breakout for Brittany . That was revised version of Master Plan and it worked. Casaulties were inevitable but there was no preplanned script that once Allies landed they would advance with minimal losses. Montgomery never had excessive losses in his offensive operations against German panzer divisions in frontal attacks since he knew the limits of manpower reserves.
@@merdiolu Great points. In the U.S. we tend to see Monty as “the British general” but during the Normandy campaign he was more than that: he was overall ground commander. So it was actually Dempsey’s job to take Caen ASAP.
150 German bombers attacking Bucharest. When it wanted to, the Luftwaffe could still put on a reasonable-sized raid.
You guys should do a special breaking down Hitlers views and thoughts on Romania, Hungary and Italy....The Germans I feel expected more from them and Id love to know Hitler reacted to their lackluster performances.
You are speaking as if the Germans were very supportive of them.
So basically, a 20 minute episode of ranting and screeching in German? Just replay the bunker scene from 'Downfall' a bunch of times, it's be the same thing.
I don't know about Hitler, but up until the overthrow of Mussolini and the Italian attempt to "turn" in 1943, officially the Italians were praised in official German statements and propaganda. Jokes were sometimes less respectful - there were claims that Italian medals were worn on the back of the uniform, for courage in advancing backwards.
When the Italian government pulled out of the war, the official respect changed - German news statements wrote of the round-up of treacherous "Badoglio followers". Italian civilian workers in Germany had been reasonably equitably treated until the latter part of 1943, but that changed. Unless they could prove their commitment to fascism, they were seen as potential enemies and their conditions deteriorated - I think there was some evidence offered at Nuremberg of Italian workers being housed in dog kennels. There was some attempt to create official respect for the Italian Social Republic's armed forces as comrades-in-arms of the Germans.
There was German awareness that the Romanians and Hungarians would rather have fought each other than the USSR, and for this reason their forces were kept apart from one another on the Eastern Front. Both were under-equipped - up to a point the Germans tried to re-equip them to stand up better to Soviet tank attacks, but there was concern that all this might do is make them more dangerous if they decided to change sides. A real concern of course. The Germans may have slightly preferred the Hungarians, as many Hungarian officers could speak German, but essentially they did not trust any of their allies.
Here's an interesting fact that took place this week. On August 23, 1944 Abdulmejid II died from a heart attack at the age of 76. He was the last Ottoman Caliph (1922 - 1924) before the Caliphate was abolished. He later moved to France and was living in Paris when the French Resistance launched their uprising against the German garrison.
I wonder whether the stress of street combat in the vicinity triggered cardiac arrest?
6th Army encircled again?! Stalingrad flashbacks!
I know everyone gives the credit to D-Day in the west and the British and the Americans liberating Paris etc but HOLY SHIT THE RUSSIANS HAVE PUSHED THEM BACK SO FAR ITS ABSURD! The greatest offensive in history surely? From Stalingrad to Berlin??!
It would have been nice to have a small segment each week on the advance of the Manhattan project and B-29 development for the week.
It might just be me but I think Hitler is having a worse week this week than last
26 August 1944.
Sergeant John Evans of the 7th Armoured Division arrives in the valley of the Seine, intent on chasing the retreating Germans out of northern France and towards the Rhine. However, the Germans are not completely defenceless, and their rearguard is still capable of vicious attacks. The Siegfried Line campaign has begun.
maybe sounds bad but it makes you appreciate the German high command in WW1 when they were in this situation, they pulled the pin. whereas Hitler and co keep on fighting and millions more have to die
Soon, there will be five years since this series started. Next year, ten years since the Great War series started. But also, at this time of the year - SPOILER - it will be all over, basically.
Man, time flies.
I'm Romanian and I want to explain the situation in 23 august 1944: After king Michael ' s pure betrayal, the Soviets dissarmed anyway 100.000 Romanian soldiers and sent them to Siberia.After that, the looting and murder continued.Some Romanian units meet retreating German units and didn't even looked at each other ( pure madness).The Romanian soldiers,workers and studends in Germany were arrested, some of them would join Waffen SS later ( a few thousands) .After the Bucharest was occupied, the Germans from the embassy were stormed [ about a month later].Some Romanian soldiers retreated with the Germans sesing Soviet reprisal ( even pilots defected), but very few of them.The occupation was more expensive in Romania and Bulgaria compared to the war costs.The Soviets deportes hundreds of thoudands of ethnic Hungarians and Germans ( civilians) in Siberia.After these episodes,they simply used the Romanian army as cannon fodder,like the "Oarba battle"
This is the week during which the Axis powers should have surrendered unconditionally. That would have been the most human and courageous choice.
and by "Axis", in Europe they were now all puppet regimes: Slovakia, Salo Republic, Slovakia and Hungary
The "winner takes all" of unconditional surrender demands makes it all too probable that the side that is on the back foot will fight on, hoping for an improvement in the situation. The Germans will start hoping for tensions to develop between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, a hope not entirely misplaced.
The most human and courageous choice would be to never have started it in the first place. If we're talking about the moment the war was evidently over (to everyone with a sane bone in their body) it would probably be after the one-two punch of overlord-bagration.
There was never a struggle in all of human history more vicious and destructive than the Germanic Slavic race war of 1941-1945. Thank God Almighty that the Orthodox Christian Slavs won.
What was it about Germany's 6th Army and being surrounded?
Hitler: "I Paris burning?"
Dietrich von Choltitz: "Working on it boss, just got to find my matches."
Can you imagine your whole life and legacy being defined by one decision? von Choltitz could have been remembered as the man who destroyed Paris but saved it instead.
He was saving his own neck from a noose. I doubt he did it because he loved Paris so much.
INDY!! I need help!! In your dday hour by hour special you had a quote from one of the airbourne units that went “never have so few been less by so many.” Who said that quote, I can’t find it in the video.
King Michael of Romania saved his country from total disaster.
@nicolaso.8666 Indeed. Stalin had his nefarious plans for Romania's future.
@@dragosstanciu9866And he wouldn’t come back to Romania until the Late 1990s (I believe 1997) Give or Take, 50 years after his expulsion from his homeland by the Communists
And also Stalin had plans for the rest of Eastern Europe as well, Not just Romania, Things are about to heat up politically as more Axis countries are forced onto the firing line
@@thehistoryvideogameandgame4730 Yes, Stalin and the communists want total domination.
@nicolaso.8666 The Soviet Union was not innocent either, after invading Finland and splitting Eastern Europe among them and Nazi Germany(Molotov-Ribentropp) and also supplying tons of raw materials for Nazi Germany between 1939-1941.
Be very glad, France. We had to wait another 45 years