Re:Why did Japan surrender? (2011)
by frozenport on Sunday January 18, 2015 @05:40PM
(#8909267)
I think it was the large number of casualties the soviets were wiling to tolerate, I doubt the French would have encouraged the loss of a million as was incurred during Stalingrad. Consider also that the large land mass was a liability as it had to be defended, for example from Japan.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
The USSR had time, resources (human and material) and the land buffer to keep fighting. The farther Germany pressed into the USSR, the more Germany's resources and supply lines were stretched and the Soviets eventually realized that.
Similar reasons cost Napoleon dearly ~130 years before.
Also, Stalin's massive ego wouldn't allow a city named after himself to be taken by the Germans. That's the primary reason that particular city suffered the high casualties that it did. Stalin once told Churchill at the Tehran Conference that "when one man dies it is a tragedy, when thousands die it's statistics."[1]
[1] http://books.google.com/books?id=8fp1A2s6aQwC&pg=PA510&dq#v=...
Re:Why did Japan surrender? (2011)
by antientropic on Sunday January 18, 2015 @06:48PM
(#8909499)
Well, in World War I the French did have 1.3 millions casualties. But there the French leadership did not face a situation were the war seemed hopelessly lost in the face of rapid German advances.