I'm reading a book right now written by Rodric Braithwaite, English Ambassador to Russia from 1988-1992 about the Battle for Moscow during WW2. Absolutely a fascinating read about the advance of Hitlers "Wehrmacht" (War Machine) into Russia. What's fascinating is the sheer numbers of men that were involved. Russia was unprepared for the invasion mostly due to Stalins deluded belief that Hitler was bluffing...big mistake! But Russia still had 4 million men available to throw at the Wehrmacht. 4 million men! Wow! But get this... within the first 2 weeks, Germany had taken 2 million prisoners of war! I just can't imagine those kinds of numbers! I wonder what this would have looked like if you could get a satelite picture of the area in 1941. I'm sure it would have been clearly visible from space, just like Napolean's army of 2 million would also have been visible. It would have appeared as huge dark mass moving across the terrain like a storm cloud or something. Another interesting fact: the Germans had taken so many prisoners that it severely impeded their ability to fight. They had absolutely no plan to feed their prisoners which meant huge numbers simply died of starvation and disease. Nevertheless, Hitler repeats Napoleans mistake and underestimates the will of the Russians and the geography of Russia. If you were to compare the Russian Army with the German Army, clearly the Germans were superior. But, in this book one gets the impression that the "Rodina" or Mother Russia herself is the factor that both Hitler and Napolean underestimated and eventually led to the demise of their vast armies.
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