16. Did the Soviets Win Solely Because of the Weight of Numbers?
After the war, German generals penned memoirs to explain their defeat, by claiming that their professional and technical superiority was undone by the Soviets swamping them with numbers. Running counter to that perception, before the war was even a year old, is the often ignored Battle of Moscow in 1941 – history’s biggest battle when measured by number of participants. During most of that battle, the Germans outnumbered the Soviets’ 2 million men to 1.4 million, yet the Soviets not only halted their foes, but went on the counterattack and pushed the Germans back 100 miles.
During the war’s first year, Soviet performance, with some exceptions, was marked by incompetence and poor leadership. However, the Germans and bitter experience were good teachers, and by late 1942 Soviet commanders had become quite proficient. Indeed, many of the Soviets’ greatest victories resulted not from superior numbers, but from superior Soviet generalship.
