> some historians, and many politicians, have simplified world war two into a few stupid statements. the war in the west was won on the russian steps is one that springs to mind. they usually base such statements on traditional political incompetence  bad use of statistics. > during the war the smaller campaigns tended to get less credit - though it is sometimes suspicious that numbers are valued in some circumstances, and area in others. the mediterranean front against the axis was an extraordinarily long campaign over an extremely large area, yet many  particularly americans who often fail to understand the mediterraneans importance to intercontinental strategy  discount its scale and significance. (a british general visiting the soviets responded to toasts about the battles of stalingrad and moscow by offering a toast to el alemein. the bemused soviets asked how big the battle was, and then commented we would call that a skirmish  a point which emphasises the fact that the hundreds of soviet divisions embraced by historians of the eastern front were rarely as big as a british brigade or american regimental combat team. to get a real comparison all western divisions should be compared to soviet corps.)  > similarly the burmese and new guinea theatres are incredibly undervalued in their role against japan. there were more japanese divisions fighting longer and harder in either place than everywhere that american troops fought the japanese put together. (the fact that in new guinea it was australians rather than americans who did most of the successful fighting  the american troops first assigned disappointed their vainglorious fuhrer macarthur enormously at first  might have had an influence on this ranking.)
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