Most Victorious Nation Ever? ( Since Roman Split ) - Page 5 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14596903
You're not actually offering any counter-argument regarding my numbers and conclusions I drew from them, nor are you offering any stats to the contrary. You are just asserting your position, I think this conversation is pointless. What I cited already accounts for POWs using estimates, the kill count is still overwhelmingly skewed towards the red army, naturally because it was the only land army to stand toe to toe with the Germans in continental total war. Further, the red army had conventional superiority over the Western Allies and this defined the early cold war era. Also, lend lease aid didn't peak until after the battle of stalingrad, by which point more avenues of shipment were available and aid in tonnage more than doubled:

https://books.google.com/books?id=kJCRA ... &q&f=false

Also:

It would be difficult and unconvincing to argue that 'Lend-Lease' aid saved the Soviet Union during 1941 or, indeed, at any point in the war. Axis forces were halted before Moscow with Soviet blood, and to a large extent with Soviet-manufactured arms and equipment. Soviet troops continued to fight largely with Soviet-produced arms, even if they were increasingly frequently ferried into battle, resupplied, and mounted on US-supplied lorries


Britain, on the other hand, was far more reliant on Lend-Lease.
#14597724
Conscript wrote:You're not actually offering any counter-argument regarding my numbers and conclusions I drew from them, nor are you offering any stats to the contrary. You are just asserting your position, I think this conversation is pointless. What I cited already accounts for POWs using estimates, the kill count is still overwhelmingly skewed towards the red army, naturally because it was the only land army to stand toe to toe with the Germans in continental total war. Further, the red army had conventional superiority over the Western Allies and this defined the early cold war era. Also, lend lease aid didn't peak until after the battle of stalingrad, by which point more avenues of shipment were available and aid in tonnage more than doubled:

https://books.google.com/books?id=kJCRA ... &q&f=false


Nah, that's just the old Soviet propaganda line Stalin dreamed up in 1947. The Soviets wouldn't have been able to launch offensives at all without western aid, period, and the Allied armies did a much better job at killing and neutralizing Germans per soldier than the Soviets did. As for the weird argument re how much Lend-Lease arrived when, the early shipments were the most critical, even in the battles for Moscow Lend-Lease armor and equipment made the difference between stopping the Germans and defeat, and also in replacing the massive losses the Soviets took in retreating. The massive minefields certainly played a big role in the center and the Soviet anti-tank guns and bunkers as well in shutting down the German drives, but the Kursk pocket wouldn't have held without Lend-Lease munitions and the some 600 Lend-Lease armor units and trucks, and fuel, along with engineering supplies and trainers, Lend-Lease aircraft, etc. They certainly would never have been within 600 miles of Berlin by 1945 without it. The Germans also had to concede almost total air superiority on the Eastern front to the Soviets in order to attempt the Allied bombing campaigns over Germany.

Just because Stalin didn't give a crap about how many of his soldiers died throwing them against German weapons, resulting in truly massive casualties, doesn't make them grand winners; they weren't in the war without western supplies keeping them moving, much less winning.

Also:

It would be difficult and unconvincing to argue that 'Lend-Lease' aid saved the Soviet Union during 1941 or, indeed, at any point in the war. Axis forces were halted before Moscow with Soviet blood, and to a large extent with Soviet-manufactured arms and equipment. Soviet troops continued to fight largely with Soviet-produced arms, even if they were increasingly frequently ferried into battle, resupplied, and mounted on US-supplied lorries


Britain, on the other hand, was far more reliant on Lend-Lease.[/quote]

Utter gibberish, and again just old Soviet propaganda. Zhukov is on record himself, recorded in private, admitting how critical the western aid was. They were able to devote so much of their industry to producing arms because of the steel machine tools, technical advisers, locomotives and rail cars to move it all around on, special alloys, aviation imported along with thousands of aircraft to keep them in the war while they developed and modernized their own factories and steel making plants and techniques. Even the vaunted T-34 didn't become a great tank until after the Soviets began implementing the improvements suggested by American and British engineers in 1943, that didn't go online until the next winter and coming off the lines the following Spring.

Of course Hitler had been on the defensive since early 1943 anyway by that time, thanks to the Brits and Operation Torch leaving the entire underside of Europe exposed. The Soviets hadn't launched a single offensive by then; they were late to the game, and had to be carried by everybody else to stay in it.

Without western aid even Stalingrad wouldn't have been a decisive disaster; they could have easily held the Soviets inside the 1942 lines if it weren't for the massive western pressure from the Allies in the west and the Lend-Lease making the critical difference between launching offensives or merely holding on.
User avatar
By Crantag
#14597905
R_G wrote:I would put in these definitions:

How long did their power reign last and how vast was their empire, in land and in people under the empire.

Then you factor in cultural identity etc.

I mean, Alexander's Empire by all logic was the greatest in human history simply because he conquered all of the known world and promoted interracial marriages.

The Ottoman and Mongols had relatively vast empire, large influence and last for a while.

While era should also be factored in, I would put British up there, but their heyday was roughly a century, if that.

You can include the United States if you like with commercialism it has generated, I mean, you see Pepsi and Coke everywhere nowadays don't you?

But since the Cold War the United States does have a foot in most doors.


Good post and sort of takes the words out of my mouth, a bit.

I was going to say the British.

One point on the Turks. They are overrated.

Their heyday was less than a century.

They are considered by mainstream history the most powerful empire of the 14th century.

The fact that they besieged and very nearly conquered Vienna, and conquered all of Europe east of Vienna might make them be overrated by European historians.

They had a great empire. They are properly highly rated for their longevity. It took WW1 to finally finish them off.

The Ottoman Empire is in the conversation, but I don't think they are the greatest.

I'd rather say they were the greatest of their era, as were the British, the Mongols, and Alexander's empire.

Kind of like in boxing . You can't really compare Bernard Hopkins with Marvin Hagler. They were each the best of their respective era. Like Lewis vs Louis, etc.
User avatar
By Crantag
#14597910
noemon wrote:The most victorious nation ever are the Greeks. And not because of Alexander. But because in one way or another the Greeks have always had a statefull and respectable existence as a State even under the most notorious circumstances like the Mongol invasions which all found a wall right at the Byzantine borders just like the Normans and the Slavs and the Arabs and the Persians and the Khazars and countless versions of them and all of them at the extreme height of their power; and not merely as a "people". The Greeks have reached to "world empire"-"global player" more times than any other nation in history(Mycenea-Ionia-Alexander-Heraclius-Basil). Within 3 millenia Greek states have reached to global Empire 5 times, you wont find any nation with a similar success. They have annihilated numerous Empires, nations and you will find evil legends demonizing the Greeks in most religions(Islamic-Jewish-Catholic) and in terms of language they have disseminated their language and culture in the whole of the Globe. You cannot phrase one single sentence and not utilize Greek in one way or another, whether you are European, Arab, Slavic, Persian or Turk.

Ofc, am biased, but there you have it.


I think you have great points, and I enjoyed the read.

But the question in the OP was post-Rome. :-).

Or do you think Greece was the best post Rome as well?

I think that much is doubtful.

So who would be your post-Rome heavyweight contender among empires?
#14597919
The British Empire at its height held command over one in five humans. The English language, though ugly, is now the most widely spoken on earth, from the influence of its empire and its American offspring.

China, in its various iterations, has done the same for centuries, although it has never achieved the global reach of the anglophone world.

I'd probably give the award to China for its sheer longevity and cultural achievements.
#14649229
SD92 wrote: Singe Handedly defeated the Nazi Reich with a little help from their friends.


What? No.

Although I do agree that Britain can be the most or at least one of the most victorious nations ever.
#14657077
Britain was tenuous, all colonial empires were. One big war later it couldn't even keep its territories and some of the larger colonies it couldn't even keep at its height (eg 13 colonies) The institutions it used to keep the empire together were too vulnerable to disruption. China has existed for millennia in some form and will continue to do so because there is great value in gradual contiguous acquisition of territory. It is also the reason Russia still exists many centuries later.

If you want to keep your shit, make sure that shit has a direct road or rail line to your capital. People and materials can be pumped both ways continuously but more importantly you can build a town every few km's along the road or rail line. Ships are nice and all, but such sea lanes aren't always conductive to settlements near them, coastal settlements also tend to be vulnerable from land.
#14669297
The Papal States? In terms of direct power the Papacy of Rome at his best times only ruled over pretty much central Italy, but his influence was enormous in all Christian kingdoms. The Pope could make fall kings and emperors which on paper were more powerful as their sovereign spread over much larger territories and had bigger armies, yet the Pope could play the excommunication card against them. And it still is even though the actual Vatican territory has been reduced to a mere few hectares of territory after the Italian unification.
#14669300
Renato wrote:The Papal States? In terms of direct power the Papacy of Rome at his best times only ruled over pretty much central Italy, but his influence was enormous in all Christian kingdoms. The Pope could make fall kings and emperors which on paper were more powerful as their sovereign spread over much larger territories and had bigger armies, yet the Pope could play the excommunication card against them. And it still is even though the actual Vatican territory has been reduced to a mere few hectares of territory after the Italian unification.

Did any king ever actually fall because of excommunication? The only king I know of that was excommunicated was King Henry the VIII of England. To him it was barely a nuisance.

Come to think of it his daughter Queen Elizabeth I was also excommunicated. She had a pretty long reign afterwards; she ruled another 33 years after excommunication.
#14669315
taxizen wrote:Did any king ever actually fall because of excommunication? The only king I know of that was excommunicated was King Henry the VIII of England. To him it was barely a nuisance.

Come to think of it his daughter Queen Elizabeth I was also excommunicated. She had a pretty long reign afterwards; she ruled another 33 years after excommunication.


German Emperor Henry IV for example. He managed to defeat Pope Gregory VII at first but eventually he was forced to abdicate in favor of his son who in turn incarcerated him for opposing the Pope. Relations between the Holly See and the Emperors of the Holly Roman-Germanic Empire were highly conflictive by that time. I wonder why a religious split between Northern and Southern Europe didn't happen back then . In the end Henry VIII broke up with Rome for similar reasons. I guess that the situation was not mature yet, also many cities in Italy alligned with the Emperor anyways. Don't focus on a concrete period of time, take the big picture: the Vatican , with quite limited material resources like territory and military power, has been decisive in European politics for around 2000 years. That is what I call a big success.
#14669386
In terms of territorial, economic and cultural permanence: China

In terms of territorial acquisition/core territorial growth: Russia

In terms of military Victories: France (Yes, learn your history 'mercians)

In terms of colonisation: Spain/Britain

In terms of post-industrial era achievements in terms of technology, economics, culture: Split between USA / Germany. Britain somewhere behind those two.

In terms of pre-industrial era achievement in terms of technology, economics, culture: split between India (various empires) / China and to a much lesser extent various middle eastern empires (Various Caliphates).

Overall: See you in 3,000 AD.
#14670051
Igor Antunov wrote:Britain was tenuous, all colonial empires were. One big war later it couldn't even keep its territories and some of the larger colonies it couldn't even keep at its height (eg 13 colonies) The institutions it used to keep the empire together were too vulnerable to disruption. China has existed for millennia in some form and will continue to do so because there is great value in gradual contiguous acquisition of territory. It is also the reason Russia still exists many centuries later.

If you want to keep your shit, make sure that shit has a direct road or rail line to your capital. People and materials can be pumped both ways continuously but more importantly you can build a town every few km's along the road or rail line. Ships are nice and all, but such sea lanes aren't always conductive to settlements near them, coastal settlements also tend to be vulnerable from land.


One big war? Two big wars: WWI and WWII.

But the British Empire was never made to last, the plan was always to withdraw once the colonies reached a certain level of development. The British Empire was created primarily to advance commercial interests, in particular creating markets for British goods. Sure, there were other reasons too and the scramble for Africa was obviously spurred as much by imperial rivalry as anything else. But on the whole, the idea was always to create markets, not to conquer the world.

If it hadn't been for the two world wars, I think we'd probably have seen several Dominions established in the Indian subcontinent with a similar status to Canada and Australia. No doubt in time we'd have seen the same happen in Africa and elsewhere too.

In a sense the British Empire remains a success, because even though Britain's power and wealth was diminished, it was able to achieve something important and lasting: the smooth transfer of power to the US. The US has essentially picked up and continued the broad thrust of the British imperial plan. It's not always been smooth, but generally speaking the Yanks have proven a worthy successor.
#14670061
Britain actually greatly benefited from ww1.

Ww2 smashed it completely.

And anything not predicated on brute force and total cultural conversion isn't made to last. British used puppets to acquire more puppets, and surgically applied force wherever they could. It was a delicate balancing act. Delicate empires don't last.

As for the Yanks, feeble relative to Britain. Afraid to even show their own system to their own population. It is an even more delicate empire, predicated on lies and propaganda. Won't last another decade. It has greatly exhausted itself since 2001 and is relying more and more on surgical interventionism wherever it can afford to intervene and maintain the status quo. But that has proven not only inadequate, but detrimental. The status quo is rolling down a hillside and at the bottom awaits a deep lake.

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