Posted on 02/28/2023 8:03:30 AM PST by SeekAndFind
General George Patton had a lot to say about Russians. None of it was nice. Much of what he said about their military ability appears to be true.
“ I have difficulty in understanding the Russian is that we do not take cognizance of the fact that he is not a European, but an Asiatic, and therefore thinks deviously. We can no more understand a Russian than a Chinaman or a Japanese, and from what I have seen of them, I have no particular desire to understand them, except to ascertain how much lead or iron it takes to kill them. In addition to his other Asiatic characteristics, the Russian has no regard for human life and is an all-out son of bitch, barbarian, and chronic drunk.”
“I understand the situation. Their [the Soviet] supply system is inadequate to maintain them in a serious action such as I could put to them. They have chickens in the coop and cattle on the hoof--that's their supply system. They could probably maintain themselves in the type of fighting I could give them for five days. After that it would make no difference how many million men they have, and if you wanted Moscow I could give it to you. They lived on the land coming down. There is insufficient left for them to maintain themselves going back. Let's not give them time to build up their supplies. If we do, then . . . we have had a victory over the Germans and disarmed them, but we have failed in the liberation of Europe; we have lost the war!”
“In my opinion, the American army as it now exists could beat the Russians with the greatest of ease, because, while the Russians have good infantry, they are lacking in artillery, air, tanks and the knowledge of the use of the combined arms, whereas we excel in all three of these. If it should be necessary to fight the Russians, the sooner we do it the better.”
“The Russians are mongols. They are Slavs and a lot of them used to be ruled by ancient Byzantium. From Genghis Kahn to Stalin. they have not changed. They never will and we will never learn, at least , not until it is too late.”
“If it should be necessary for us fight the Russians, the sooner we do it, the better. We could have arrived sooner but for the fact if one flies over Russian occupied territory they shoot at you .Nice friends.”
“If we have to fight them , now is the time. From now on , we will get weaker and they will get stronger.”
As I recall, he wanted to start a war between Russia and China, and make it look like each other’s fault . . .
Roughly 70% of the German army was in the east. The USSR beat them, and drove all the way to Berlin. Yes, American aid helped a lot. And yes, Hitler was incompetent. That helped too.
None of that should overshadow the fact that the Red Army of 1945 was a tough, experienced force that was very well led. Could we have beat them had we taken Patton’s advice? Probably, because of our air power. But it would have been a bloody mess. And folks at home would have been in rebellion. Your kid survives the war against the Nazis, only to die fighting a recent ally.
Bottom line: Patton was not just wrong here. He was dangerously wrong.
You could have chosen a better and more complete selection of quotes, and one that didn’t have a typing mistake in the first word.
If DJT were in uniform he would be Patton.
Patton spoke those words 78 years ago and not one word was in error. Patton was an outstanding general and understood war. Patton was an even better historian and understood the danger Russia presented to the world. We should have listened to him. When he spoke those words we had the atomic bomb, Russia did not. We would not have needed to fight them. We could have dictated the terms of their surrender. As mentioned above, we should have listened to Patton.
At the least we could have moved into the Central European countries occupied by the Soviet Union.
I don’t think invading the Soviet Union itself would have been wise.
They played along, then realized the game was corrupt/controlled, then they were removed.
And many of the troops in Europe were going to be sent to the Pacific for the anticipated invasion of Japan.
Patton wanted to go kill Japs but MacArthur didn’t want him.
So “Pushing to Moscow” was a pipe dream and he knew it.
Nuking the Kremlin in 1945 would have saved millions of lives in the second half of the 20th century. That would have ended the murderous gulags and Soviet genocides, no communist China supported by USSR, Korean War, etc.
That was the Soviet Union. He would probably be appalled at America now.
Problem is, it would have set a poor precedent, that eventually would have destroyed us down the road. Maybe not right away, but eventually.
If history has taught us anything, is that you get rid of one baddie, only to see another one rise up.
> So “Pushing to Moscow” was a pipe dream and he knew it. <
Yes, I agree. Patton was just thinking out loud, dreaming a bit. He was right of course about the Soviets. But moving against them was wildly impractical…just a dream.
"It's high time the Slavic race was in charge of Europe."
Putin is channeling Stalin, and desperately wants to succeed where Stalin failed
Absolutely true that modern-day Russian culture is largely derived from the Mongol hordes who over-ran the region in the 13th century. They never really left.
https://ricochet.com/1214468/finnish-intelligence-officer-explains-the-russian-mindset/
The Russian army was formidable only because we fed it. The book is "Feeding the Bear". Out of print now, and I curse the guy I lent my copy to. It never came back. Bottom line, if we had stopped our food shipments, the Red Army would have been starving in three months.
But Patton would never gotten traction with the FDR/Truman administration, because it was full of Stalinist fellow-travelers.
Of course in Stalin's mind, that didn't include Poles.
You are correct. The 1945 Red Army would have been a very tough fight. And with the war still going against Japan, and the looming prospect of a very costly invasion of the home islands, the American people were going to have a hard time accepting those losses.
Under those circumstances, there was absolutely no way the American people would have supported turning on a recent ally, and paying the costs necessary to defeat them.
Patton may have been correct in immediately recognizing that the USSR was an enemy. But for practical and political reasons, what he proposed was not possible.
Red Army sacrificed a lot of soldiers. They lost 100,000 just taking Berlin.
Of course one could understand their motivation, when it came to fighting Nazis, but would that same motivation extend when it came to fighting the Western Allies?
In a surge of enthusiasm, General Patton crossed the Rhine on March 22, 1945, getting the jump on Lord Montgomery of the British forces, and once across, he began what was meant to be the dash to Berlin. The Allied High Command got on the horn and said, “STOP! STOP!”, so Patton halted this swift advance, but he also vowed to smash all his radios and proceed unilaterally right into Berlin. This hesitation assured that the Soviet Army would reach Berlin first, but had Patton beaten their advance, East Germany never would have happened as a separate nation from West Germany,
Patton’s backup plan was to rearm the captured and surrendered German soldiers, and now supported with the US logistics, they would lead the march to Moscow.
It might have worked. The Soviet Union was never that much of an ally of the US anyway.
The first two words are wrong. “I have” should be “The.” Looked up the quote on another site.
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