Talk:World War II/Archive 62

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The Big Three

I think this is quite constructive edit. It is in accordance with the recent changes in the Allies of World War II article, and the arguments presented at that talk page are equally applicable to the WWII article. In connection to that, I propose to bring the leaders order in accordance with the order of the Big Three, and make it chronological: Churchill goes first, Stalin the second, Roosevelt - the third. --Paul Siebert (talk) 20:24, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Agree the Main Allied leaders in the Infobox should be the Big Three, per World History, Duiker and Spielvogel (2018). But I think the current order is best left as is, Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill in the Infobox for this article. There's no requirement to be consistent with the Allies of World War II article, which is discussing the development and composition of the Allies, for which chronological order makes sense as discussed at Talk:Allies of World War II#Big Three / Big Four in the infobox. Whizz40 (talk) 20:38, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

I concur with the consensus at Talk:Allies of World War II#Big Three / Big Four in the infobox of listing Stalin then FDR, then Churchill, and Chiang Kai-shek does not belong on the list of the "Main Allied leaders". DavidMCEddy (talk) 21:34, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

@DavidMCEddy my proposal is for 1) the Infobox of the World War II article to retain the current order for the Main Allied leaders (Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill) and restrict the list to the Big Three leaders; and 2) the Infobox of the Allies of World War II article to retain its current order for the Big Three allied countries (UK, Soviet Union, US) in chronological order because that article is about the development and composition of the allied nations (and the ordering of these two components of the two Infoboxes on separate articles does not need to be consistent). Whizz40 (talk) 22:07, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:25, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Ditto. I'm not an expert on World War II, and I don't have a strong opinion, except that I'm strongly opposed to bashing the USSR and denigrating their contributions to the Allied victory in that war. DavidMCEddy (talk) 23:09, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

• If we are going to go with such a drastic change, then I think that Roosevelt should also be first, up to this point no one was able to produce a reliable reference source that said that Stalin was the leader of the alliance (just SYNTH). Here are sources which directly say Roosevelt was the main allied leader: 1.) Encyclopedia Britannica: "From the start of American involvement in World War II, Roosevelt took the lead in establishing a grand alliance among all countries fighting the Axis powers." 2.) Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum: "He [FDR] moved to create a "grand alliance" against the Axis powers through "The Declaration of the United Nations," January 1, 1942." What sources directly state and call Stalin by name as the leader the grand alliance? --E-960 (talk) 11:10, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Also, I can't help but noticed that the source cited by Whizz40 is called — full title: The Allies: Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, and the Unlikely Alliance That Won World War II . How does that even work? You cite a reference source that lists Roosevelt first, but based on an opinion you put Stalin in the lead? --E-960 (talk) 11:41, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Peacemaker67 look here, and pls see the above title — first cited as reference. Opinions is not how you create a Wikipedia article, you should know that. --E-960 (talk) 11:56, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

The CLEAR consensus in the above discussion is for Stalin first, not FDR. I concur, BTW. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 12:02, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Do you not understand that Wikipedia is based on RELIABLE REFERENCE SOURCES not OPINIONS, so just stop with your blatant POV pushing and policing. That's not how Wikipedia works! You can't push unsourced facts just cause you build a false "consensus" based on arbitrary opinions, consensus can only be build if you present reliable sources to back your position. --E-960 (talk) 12:09, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

E-960 The change in the order of the main Allied Leaders is not supported by consensus in the discussions on this Talk page in the sections above. Further, the title of a book is for marketing purposes. We have to reference the contents of the source. Please find below a survey the literature:

Quoting from How the War Was Won by Phillips Payson O'Brien (2015), pages 6-7:

• Paul Kennedy ... ranges widely over the global war, but it is obvious what he considers to be crucial. He describes the Eastern Front war between Germany and the USSR as "clearly the campaign of all the major struggles of the 1939-45 war."
• The best overall military history of World War II published recently is Williamson Murray and Allan Millett's A War to be Won: Fighting the Second World War, released in 2000. Though Murray and Millett see regular improvements in the fighting qualities of all the Allies in the war, it is particularly the USSR that develops the fighting power needed to destroy Nazi Germany.
• Andrew Roberts ... when writing a book devoted to British and American grand strategy, he feels it necessary to mention the supremacy of the Eastern Front. Roberts echoes one of the most important groups of American foreign policy scholars of the past fifty years, the "Revisionists", on the origins of the Cold War. This group partly base their arguments on the understanding that the USSR contributed far more to the destruction of Germany than did the USA and UK.

Quoting from The Western Allies and Soviet Potential in World War II by Martin Khan (2017), pages 1-2:

• Most American and British government observers predicted, when Germany attacked the USSR, that the Red Army shortly would suffer a decisive defeat. If the war had developed in accordance with these pessimistic predictions the British, and - in the long run - the US strategic situation would have been worsened very seriously. There would have been no credible enemy, in terms of military strength, opposing Germany on the European continent, and the overall Japanese strategic situation in the Far East would have improved. The final outcome, however, was different. Since the Red Army defeated the bulk of Germany's military might, the United States and Great Britain were able to fight the war with more flexibility and without sustaining the huge losses suffered by the Soviet and German Armed Forces. The major Soviet effort against Germany limited the Anglo-American need to commit large ground forces, as the British was forced to do in World War I. Averell Harriman, an adviser and personal friend to President Roosevelt, believed that the president had it in his mind "that if the great armies of Russia could stand up to the Germans, this might well make it possible for us to limit our participation largely to naval and air power".

As discussed at Talk:Allies of World War II#Big Three / Big Four in the infobox:

1. Wikipedia should be consistent with reliable secondary and tertiary sources;
2. sources attribute the decisive strategic decisions and outcomes to the "Big Three" rather than the "Big Four";
3. however, sources do not support calling out the US/FDR above the USSR/Stalin, we should be consistent with this on Wikipedia.

-- Whizz40 (talk) 13:11, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

I support mentioning Stalin first. World War II casualties reports between 8.7 and 11.4 million Soviet soldiers killed in World War II vs. approximately 410,000 and 380,000 for the US and the UK, respectively. These numbers suggest that World War II was primarily a Russian-German war.

By the way, Russia withdrew from World War I. The Russian language article on World War II lists the USSR first followed by the UK, then the US. The German language article does not include an infobox like this. DavidMCEddy (talk) 15:01, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

E-960, you clearly need to revert yourself here. This has been discussed ad nauseum over many months now and you have repeatedly failed to get consensus for FDR first. There have been dozens of reliable sources produced that support Stalin first, and all we’re getting from you is IDHT. You need to drop the stick, this is getting really tendentious. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 16:24, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

E-960's edit warring is a leading contender for being worst edit warring I've seen in 15 years on Wikipedia. Re: the proposal to exclude China for some reason, I've reverted to the previous version of the infobox until there is a consensus to do so. What sources support this? What do other sources say? Nick-D (talk) 06:58, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

O'Brien (2015) provides a survey of the literature in the introduction (pages 6-8) that discusses only the Big Three, selected quotes provided above. Khan (2017) also provides a summary (pgs 1-2), quoted above, which does the same, along with Groom (2017), and Duiker and Spielvogel (2018) pg 755. The Four Powers/Four Policemen was FDR's idea for maintaining peace after the war, per Gaddis (1972), pgs 24-27, to precede the formation of a new international organization which, at the time, FDR envisaged would happen several years after the war. Whizz40 (talk) 09:18, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Those links don't work I'm afraid - Google Books links often don't translate across countries - please provide quotes. I've started a sub-thread below. Nick-D (talk) 10:10, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Get of your high horse Nick-D, TheTimesAreAChanging and Peacemaker67. The reason no admin up to this points closed the RfC is because it's so obvious your "rationales" for Stalin first are nothing more than opinions and synthesis. How would an admin summarize that conclusion — a few sources presented by Nick-D talk about the Soviet Unions on the Eastern Front these statements are then equated with Stalin and the wider war. Also, several editors voiced their personal opinion that Stalin should be first. However, no source was ever presented that actually says Stalin lead the alliance. --E-960 (talk) 16:49, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

What's the rationale for the order? Who led the alliance or who made the biggest contribution to the victory?

The Wikipedia article giving a "List of Allied World War II conferences" says, "In total Churchill attended 16.5 meetings, Roosevelt 12, Stalin 7." This includes two attended by all three: The Tehran Conference in 1943 and the Yalta Conference in February 1945. The "0.5" for Churchill was the Potsdam Conference in July and August of 1945 between Stalin, Truman and Churchill until Churchill's electoral defeat on July 28; after that Churchill was replaced by Clement Attlee. One meeting on this list included Chiang Kai-shek.

This is consistent with my memory of that history: Churchill was for a time the primary effective leader opposing the Axis, when Stalin was till allied with the Nazis. However Churchill knew he didn't have the resources to defeat the Axis himself. He therefore worked very effectively to involve Franklin Roosevelt.

One reference on the largest contribution to the war effort is the Wikipedia article on "World War II casualties": Four countries had military death tolls over a million: The USSR had 9-11 million. Germany had 4-5 million. China 3-4 million and Japan 2.1-2.3 million. Total deaths have the USSR first and China second followed by Germany, then Poland, the Dutch East Indies, and Japan.

To me, this suggests that Stalin should go first, then Roosevelt, then Churchill, but to place Roosevelt before Churchill, you need also to agree that the US provided a substantial portion of the weapons used by Allies including the USSR and Britain. DavidMCEddy (talk) 17:55, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

The rationale for putting Stalin first seems to always rest more on Russia's suffering than on any argument that Stalin's was an especially astute and inspirational leader. Dhtwiki (talk) 22:42, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

I think the point that DavidMCEddy was making above is that the Soviet Union both suffered and inflicted the largest number of military casualties in the course of trapping the bulk of the German army in a war of attrition. China suffered about as many civilian casualties as the Soviet Union, possibly more, but DavidMCEddy was not factoring that into his analysis because China's military losses were comparatively small and the Chinese military was relatively ineffectual at inflicting casualties on the Japanese army.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 06:25, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Stalin and the USSR could have chosen not to fight and to sue for peace, as other countries did. The decision to fight and how that fighting was done and all the consequences that came with it are enormous. Whizz40 (talk) 07:33, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

DavidMCEddy and TheTimesAreAChanging stop and think for a minute before writing more pointless facts. What you wrote above is just YOUR opinion based on facts YOU chose for your rationale. That's not how Wikipedia articles are sources. Wikipedia guidelines state that you need to provide a reference source that exactly says what you want to put in the article, in other words you need to present a reliable reference source which says something to the effect that "STALIN WAS THE MAIN ALLIED LEADER", you saying: I think Stalin should be first because bla... bla... bla... is nothing more then your OPINION. Can you finally figure that out??? You along with Nick-D and Peacemaker67 (who should know this, after all Peacemaker67 displays all those ribbons on their user page) are injecting POV and your own personal opinions without providing a source that say what you are claiming. --E-960 (talk) 09:45, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

• EXAMPLE: Encyclopedia Britannica: "From the start of American involvement in World War II, Roosevelt took the lead in establishing a grand alliance among all countries fighting the Axis powers." Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum: "He [FDR] moved to create a "grand alliance" against the Axis powers through "The Declaration of the United Nations," January 1, 1942." That's why FDR should be first... my sources, what are your sources??? --E-960 (talk) 10:03, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

No, let's not endlessly rehash the RfC. I'd suggest sticking to a discussion on China given that there's an RfC up the page, and now partially in the archives, on the ordering of the Allied leaders - we don't need yet another thread on the same topic. Nick-D (talk) 10:11, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

• Hello, McFly!!! Figure it out already and stop guarding the POV, you did not provide any sources that address Stalin's leadership role, only stuff on the Soviet Union and the Eastern Front, that's SYNTH. Let me spell it out for you again: "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." --E-960 (talk) 14:16, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Sources on China

The sources I own on the significance of China's role in the war provide the following:

• The Oxford Companion to World War II states that the Grand Alliance's main members were "the UK, USA and USSR" (p. 390) but FDR saw China rather than the UK as being the main US ally in the Pacific (p. 392)
• Gerhard L. Weinberg's A World at Arms states that the US persuaded the UK and USSR to class China as "one of the major powers", though both did so reluctantly (pp. 620, 624)
• Anthony Beevor makes a similar argument in his The Second World War, nothing though that FDR was motivated more by China's likely position in the post-war world than its war effort, though China tied down 1 million Japanese troops (pp. 510-511)
• Max Hastings states in All Hell Let Loose that China's role in the war is under-appreciated in the west as by fighting on, albeit ineffectually, it doomed Japan: "China, and Tokyo's refusal to abandon its ambitions there, were central to Japan's ultimate failure" (p. 192)
• Rana Mitter argues that China was a major player in his book China's War with Japan 1937-1945, stating that it was "one of the four principle wartime Allies, alongside the US, Russia and Britain" (p. 13), though he notes that "China had less ability to make its own decisions than the other Allies because it was so much weaker than them, both economically and politically" (p. 5) - my understanding is that this is the current standard work on China's role in the war
• Ronald H. Spector states in Eagle Against the Sun that the US sent massive amounts of aid to China "in a vain effort to make China a major contributor to the war against Japan" (p. 325)

As a result, while there isn't a consensus in the sources, I favour continuing to include China as the sources generally note that it was one of the four main countries and made a major contribution to the war. Nick-D (talk) 10:10, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

• I OPPOSE including China. I'm not an expert on World War II, but I'm not a novice, either. During World War II, Chiang Kai-shek was fighting Japanese occupation while trying to maintain the power of the existing Chinese elite, whose treatment of the peasants made it relatively easy for (a) the Japanese to invade and control a substantial portion of the country, and (b) Mao Zedong to defeat him after the war. To my knowledge, there never was a meeting of "The Big Four", as previously noted.

Also, is there documentation that Chaing contributed substantively to defeating Japan OUTSIDE China in Korea, Burma, Vietnam, ...? DavidMCEddy (talk) 13:15, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Can you please provide reliable sources? Your personal views carry little weight in this context. Nick-D (talk) 09:48, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

• No to China. Even should China be considered the fourth biggest Allied power (despite virtually nil activity outside of China), there is far more discussion in the sources of the Big Three, who met and discussed strategy. China was not in that league. Binksternet (talk) 17:33, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Can you please provide reliable sources? Your personal views carry little weight in this context. Nick-D (talk) 09:48, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

• On balance, I support Paul Siebert's proposal below. The sources discussed above better support the Grand Alliance of the Big Three as the Main Allied leaders who made the strategic decisions of consequence. That is not to discount that China was significantly involved as a country, as well as France. China is listed first as a Main Ally on Pacific War and thus so is Chiang Kai-Shek listed first as a Main leader for that War but Chiang didn't control all Chinese military forces. China's great power status arose after the war when it became a permanent member of the UN Security Council (Great power#Great powers by date). This was a consequence of FDR's wartime Four Powers concept, but it did not become significant until after the war. Anecdotally, the NWWII Museum mentions China as one of the main allies but only the Big Three as the leaders "The main Allied powers were Great Britain, The United States, China, and the Soviet Union. The leaders of the Allies were Franklin Roosevelt (the United States), Winston Churchill (Great Britain), and Joseph Stalin (the Soviet Union)." The question posed below by ThoughtIdRetired does seem to be pertinent (are we including notable leaders, or the leaders of countries that made a notable contribution?) and is solved by the approach proposed by Paul Siebert. Whizz40 (talk) 07:58, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Yet several of the sources I noted, including standard works on this topic, state that China was one of the four main participants in the war. Can you please provide other sources? Nick-D (talk) 09:48, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
    • The sources provided (and others I provided above) don't refer to Chiang Kai-Shek as having the same status as the other three. Nonetheless, China was a significantly involved country. Updated my response above. Whizz40 (talk) 07:58, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Chiang with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in Cairo, Egypt, November 1943

• The picture might answer the question as to whether any "big three/four" meetings involving Chaing Kai-Shek. (Stalin wouldn't travel that far from Russia. Churchill and Roosevelt travelled on to Tehran.)

Also interesting to see Alan Brooke's comments on Chiang Kai-Shek in his war diaries (edited by Danchev and Todman, ISBN0-297-60731-6). (I am aware this is a primary source.) Several pages on this subject 477 - 480, at least. pg 479 "He was certainly very successful in leading the Americans down the garden path. He and his Chinese forces never did much against the Japs during the war....". Also, pg 477, referring to Chiang Kai-Shek again: "Evidently with no grasp of war in its larger aspects..." This raises for me again the issue: are we including notable leaders, or the leaders of countries that made a notable contribution?ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 19:52, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

I've replied to several editors above on the same theme: personal views simply aren't very relevant here. Given that the sources I found didn't indicate a consensus, it would be very helpful if other sources could be consulted to help guide this decision (per WP:V, WP:NPOV, etc). Nick-D (talk) 09:48, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Big Three in chronological order

The discussion progressed to consensus on Talk:Allies of World War II#Big Three / Four label and weight to present the Big Three in chronological order with a suggestion made to apply the same here for the list of Main Allied leaders. Whizz40 (talk) 15:14, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

I would support this approach, this solution is less contentious than comparing who did what. --E-960 (talk) 16:36, 15 January 2021 (UTC)