The Russians refer to WWII as "the Great Patriotic War", and Georgy Zhukov (the Marshal of the Red Army in WWII who oversaw some of their most important victories) is still considered to be a national hero.
Only by the crudest measures of other nations, in fact. Hell, I'd even go so far as to say some Western C-grade commanders like Mark Clark were probably better generals than Zhukov, and Mark Clark was atrocious. Zhukov had blunt tools and used them--bluntly--at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives.
With all competent junior officers dead--from the purges first and the opening campaigns of Barbarossa second--blunt and costly was the single page in his playbook, and so they played it, over and over, with American and British supplies fueling the endeavor and Russian farmer blood drenching the entire affair.
If that's brilliant, then I guess he (and Timoshenko) were Albert fuckin' Einstein.
The Russians refer to WWII as "the Great Patriotic War", and Georgy Zhukov (the Marshal of the Red Army in WWII who oversaw some of their most important victories) is still considered to be a national hero.
I've seen Russians denounce him as a traitor. I don't understand it. He was a good General.
Only by the crudest measures of other nations, in fact. Hell, I'd even go so far as to say some Western C-grade commanders like Mark Clark were probably better generals than Zhukov, and Mark Clark was atrocious. Zhukov had blunt tools and used them--bluntly--at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives.
With all competent junior officers dead--from the purges first and the opening campaigns of Barbarossa second--blunt and costly was the single page in his playbook, and so they played it, over and over, with American and British supplies fueling the endeavor and Russian farmer blood drenching the entire affair.
If that's brilliant, then I guess he (and Timoshenko) were Albert fuckin' Einstein.
Marshal Zhukovs orders: "Serve me Berlin on a plate" Disregard the losses, the city is ours to take