Talk:Western Front (World War II)/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Second Front?

Wasn't Italy the second front in the European war, thus making the Normandy Landings the start of the third front? best, Sunil060902 (talk) 11:34, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Insufficiently large and important, I think. At least, neither Roosevelt nor Churchill considered it to be a reasonable equivalent of a Second Frond. I think, we should respect their opinion.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:07, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh I didn't mean altering this article in any way, just a comment on the historical use of the term (as in "Second Front now!" and all that). Italy was quite a large country, and knocking her out of the War tied up hundreds of thousands of German troops that could have faced the Soviets during 1943-44. best, Sunil060902 (talk) 17:36, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me that Italy and North Africa belonged to the same theatre, i.e. the Mediterranean theatre of war. It chronologically preceded the "First" (i.e. Eastern) front, therefore, it couldn't be considered the Second Front. The Second front was something that appeared in addition to those two theatres. That is my understanding of the origin of the "Second Front" name.
As regards to the number of German troops, this number in Italy was smaller than that in Yugoslavia. --Paul Siebert (talk) 00:56, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Reference to the Second Front was surely in relation the the Western Allies? I believe the term arose because the Russians wanted them to open a "second front" in the west in order to relieve pressure on the Eastern Front. Their First front was North Africa and then sequentially Italy, second was France. Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 07:34, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

You probably are right. I never heard of the use of the "First Front" name for the Eastern Front. --Paul Siebert (talk) 11:58, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Don't think this reasoning is correct. As it does not explain, the argument that the RAF Bomber command offensive was a second front which would help relive the pressure on the Soviet Union, and argument that Stalin seems to have found ineffectual, but that had an effect on Albert Speer (see RAF Bomber Command#The "balance sheet"). Stalin was asking for a Second Front before the invasion of Italy so that was not the Second Front. It seems to me that Second Front was used as a short hand for Second Major Front in Europe, ie the Western Front. -- Philip Baird Shearer 13:17, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Counties

There is a tendency for a me to attitude to the list of countries listed in battle boxes. We do no favours to our readers by including every country in the battle box that supplied a single driver to the Western Front. We need a list of countries that make a substantial contribution to the Western Front not to the European War in general.

There is no doubting the major contributors to the campaign but we need to establish what is needed for a country to appear in the box. I would suggest that it is done on unit size. For example I know that the Kiwis had major units in Italy but did they have any major units on the Western Front? The Poles clearly made a notable contribution to the Western Front, (particularly in the Battle of France) but what contribution did the Luxembourg and Czechoslovakia make? --PBS (talk) 18:53, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

The 1st Czechoslovak Armoured Brigade served in Normandy don't know of any Luxembourg units --Jim Sweeney (talk) 19:43, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Do you think a brigade enough to be in countries list battle box when some of the others are contributing 10 of thousands of men? -- PBS (talk) 20:42, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the first post, it almost looks ridiculous to list countries such as Norway (as Norway is included, I ask myself, where is Denmark?), Luxembourg and Czech Republic alongside USA, United Kingdom and France (with respect to those brave men who was willing to make resitance). Maybe a solution would be to list the countries ranked by the size of their contribution? USA, United Kingdom, Free French, Poland, etc. EriFr (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:42, 5 November 2009 (UTC).

What do you think if we'd split the allied nations in two groups, 1939-1940 - 1944-1945, and list them according to size inside each group?EriFr (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 08:47, 6 November 2009 (UTC).

"...thus the last fighting germans surrendered on june 9 1945 eaxctly a year after the D-Day landings finally ending the defence of german held areas in 1945....".

I reverted the last change ("thus the last fighting germans surrendered on june 9 1945 eaxctly a year after the D-Day landings finally ending the defence of german held areas in 1945.") that seems incorrect.
Firstly, I don't undedstand where the date June 9 came from.
Secondly, the Normandy Landings started on June 6, 1944, not June 9.
Thirdly, the attempt to overemphasize the connection between the D-Day landing and and German surrender is incorrect.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:42, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Casualty section

I suggest that the casualty section is removed. The figures do not provide much valuable information as they are today, mainly because they can not be compared, and obviously (with regard to the previous discussion) there are very few reliable sources for their replacement. Maybe the figures could be better included in the text, what do you think? /Erik EriFr (talk) 14:39, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Ok, once again, to be clear. The figures are not accurate, the Axis figure is far from complete and it is very uncertain if the figures cited cover all those campaigns and battles linked to the "Western front" as the term used in the article. I simply do not think that the figures provide the kind of useful information that one can require from an infobox and as long as no reliable replacements can be found, I suggest that the casualty section is deleted. /Erik EriFr (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 09:40, 9 March 2010 (UTC).

Listing of armies

The listing of armies in the data box is not an especially good idea -- too many units to list, for one thing. The field armies of 1940 are not listed, and the German listing for 1944-45 is incomplete. If any units are to be listed there, suggest it should only be the army groups as that will hold the list to a reasonable number of entries. W. B. Wilson (talk) 15:25, 15 June 2010 (UTC)