Historical Misconceptions - Where is "popular" history completely wrong?

[The Iceman of the North]

Iceland has had a functioning democracy since it was settled by the Norse. Well over a thousand years ago.

Not quite true. The Icelandic Commonwealth (if you could call that a modern democracy) fell apart during the 13th Century, ending with Iceland swearing fealty to Norway in 1262. The role of the parliament were rather limited in the following centuries.

[Stag Country]

Les Anglais did not speak English yet either. I am pretty sure they spoke Anglo-Saxon still. Richard would have been raised to speak French

It would have been toward the end of "Middle English" and the beginning of "Early Modern English". Middle English itself would probably be quite difficult for a modern speaker to understand and was definately more Germanic (or Saxon-esque as I call it), but early modern, I think would have been significantly more intelligible. Though maybe a linguistic expert can confirm that.

Edit: I'm thinking of the wrong Richard. For some reason I had Richard III the last York King, in lieu, of Richard I who lived mostly in France. You're correct, the natives of England would have spoken just Middle English during that period and it would be difficult for us to understand them today (if we could at all).

[Alester Florent]

Middle English is, I think, more inflected than modern English, and obviously some of the vocabulary is different. Spoken aloud, though, it is recognisable, and with a bit of effort, communication would be possible, just possibly not very sophisticated communication. Early modern English is the sort of stuff Shakespeare writes; it's functionally the same thing, and should be intelligible.

[Maithanet]

I'm resurrecting my own thread because I am debating something with myself and want to get other people's opinions about it. Apologies for the long post.

I came across a book a year or two ago that argued for a different interpretation of the War on the Eastern Front. I apologize, I don't remember his name or the name of the book, but he argued that the Russians won the war with Germany not because they "learned how to defeat" the Germans, nor because they simply outproduced the Nazis. Instead, he argued that it was the collective stress put on the Nazi empire that caused the 1943-45 collapse, and that without that the Germans would have been able to win the war outright in 1942, and fight to a standstill for 1943-45.

At the time of reading this, I scoffed. I didn't think that the tiny casualty figures inflicted by the Allied powers could possibly be significant before June 1944, and by then the war on the Eastern Front was already decided. But the more I think and read about it, the more it seems possible that the naval supremacy of the Allies, and the ability of the Allies to tie down huge quantities of men and aircraft to defend places like Italy, North Africa, Norway, Greece, the Balkans, France, Germany, etc, meant that not only was Germany fighting a much larger nation in Russia, but it was doing so with one hand tied. Sure, these front didn't result in anywhere near the casualties of the Eastern Front (except in aircraft and crews) but nonetheless, it meant that the Germans could never focus all its strength on the Soviets.

Here's why I'm coming around to the conclusion that "increasing Soviet competence was what overwhelmed Germany":

The Soviets population in 1940 170 million, Germany 70 million. Therefore, the Soviets had an advantage of slightly more than 2 to 1. Any battle with 2 to 1 losses could be considered a "success" from an attritional perspective for the Soviets, whereas losses of 3 to 1 or worse would be unsustainable.

Compare this with the great Eastern Front Battles of 1943-44, when the tide officially shifted against the Germans:

Battle of Kursk (July-Aug 1943): 200k axis casualties, 800k soviet casualties

Battle of Smolensk (Aug-Oct 1943): 70k axis casualties, 340k soviet casualties

Battle of Narva (Feb-Summer 1943): 70k axis casulaties, 480k soviet casualties

Operation Bagration (June-Aug 1944): 400k axis casualties, 800k soviet casualties

Lvov Offensive (June-Aug 1944): 140k axis casualties, 290k soviet casualties

Keeping in mind that all of these battles were fought with Soviet superiority in tanks, artillery and aircraft (typically 2 to 1 in the 1943 campaigns, approximately 4 to 1 by 1944), and it does not say to me that the Soviets "learned to win", but that they were able to simply wear down a German foe that was still consistently able to inflict crippling casualties. It looks to me that if the Germans hadn't been sending more and more of their troops to other fronts, that they would have had the men and materiel to destroy everything the Soviets could throw at them.

Thoughts? Am I simply restating historical orthodoxy? Perhaps the misconception is merely the school of thought that "by the end of the war, the Soviets were able to fight the Germans on an equal footing", which really doesn't look like the case to me.

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

Battle of Kursk (July-Aug 1943): 200k axis casualties, 800k soviet casualties

Battle of Smolensk (Aug-Oct 1943): 70k axis casualties, 340k soviet casualties

Battle of Narva (Feb-Summer 1943): 70k axis casulaties, 480k soviet casualties

Operation Bagration (June-Aug 1944): 400k axis casualties, 800k soviet casualties

Lvov Offensive (June-Aug 1944): 140k axis casualties, 290k soviet casualties

Keeping in mind that all of these battles were fought with Soviet superiority in tanks, artillery and aircraft (typically 2 to 1 in the 1943 campaigns, approximately 4 to 1 by 1944), and it does not say to me that the Soviets "learned to win", but that they were able to simply wear down a German foe that was still consistently able to inflict crippling casualties. It looks to me that if the Germans hadn't been sending more and more of their troops to other fronts, that they would have had the men and materiel to destroy everything the Soviets could throw at them.

Thoughts? Am I simply restating historical orthodoxy? Perhaps the misconception is merely the school of thought that "by the end of the war, the Soviets were able to fight the Germans on an equal footing", which really doesn't look like the case to me.

A nitpick would be that in all of those battles other than Kursk, the Germans were on the defensive, which should skew the casualty number in their favor. I had no idea that the casualty numbers at Kursk were that much in the Nazis favor though. I guess one advantage is that the Soviets held the field afterward and could therefore recover downed pilots and fix broken-down tanks.

[Maithanet]

A nitpick would be that in all of those battles other than Kursk, the Germans were on the defensive, which should skew the casualty number in their favor. I had no idea that the casualty numbers at Kursk were that much in the Nazis favor though. I guess one advantage is that the Soviets held the field afterward and could therefore recover downed pilots and fix broken-down tanks.

Well, I picked those battles because they are all called Soviet victories (save Narva). Certainly the biggest battles of 1941 all had horrible casualty rates for the Soviets, but that seems like an unfair comparison. The Soviets were obviously losing the war in the first few months, so it's no surprise that thier casualties were atrocious. Stalingrad had ~ 800k Axis casualties to 1 million Soviets, but that ratio is certainly the exception. For example, the Second battle of Kharkov (May 1942) was a German offensive with nearly 10 to 1 Soviet casualties.

The German ability to recover and repair their damaged tanks was what allowed the Kursk offensive to continue as long as it did. If damaged tanks had been irrecoverable, the Germans probably would have been defeated in the opening days.