Had he attempted to conquer Britan before turning to Russia?
Operation Sealion (the German invasion of Britain) was planned for September 1940[1]. The German invasion of Russia[2] commenced June 1941.
Note that Orwell was writing this in March 1940, before it was clear that Britain would win the Battle of Britain (the airwar that was supposed to destroy the British airforce in preparation for invasion) and Germany would be unable to invade. His whole quote is worth reading:
Probably, in Hitler’s own mind, the Russo-German Pact represents no more than an alteration of time-table. The plan laid down in Mein Kampf was to smash Russia first, with the implied intention of smashing England afterwards. Now, as it has turned out, England has got to be dealt with first, because Russia was the more easily bribed of the two. But Russia’s turn will come when England is out of the picture—that, no doubt, is how Hitler sees it. Whether it will turn out that way is of course a different question.
They war gamed Sea Lion with actual Nazis around at the time.
The hard-fought draw was just hard enough.
By its end, Russia was massing its troops at the border with Germany, by all appearances preparatory to its own invasion. That is why its cities were almost undefended when the German tanks rolled past them, cutting their supply lines.
What a weird take!
In what possible way is the stopping of the enemies goals interpreted as anything except a win?
That's like saying "X tried to invade Y, but Y threw than back. So it was a draw"
> By its end, Russia was massing its troops at the border with Germany, by all appearances preparatory to its own invasion.
It's almost certian that Stalin did not intend to attack Germany in 1941, and no evidence at all that Hitler thought he was planning to attack[1]. The opposing theory is based on Viktor Suvorov's book in the 1980s, but it isn't widely supported.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_offensive_plans_controv...
Much of the history of the war has had to be rewritten since Soviet records became available in the '90s. That has not penetrated far even yet.
"No Simple Victory" by Norman Davies goes some way in that direction. Aside from Atlantic naval operations, the western war was nearly a sideshow.
Russian mobile forces massed at the border needs explanation if not preparatory for invasion.
England was already beaten bloody before the Battle of Britain.
> Germany could have continued as long as they cared to, but England was much closer to its limit than is widely recognized
I think it's very widely recognized that England had been at the limit, but by the end of the Battle of Britain they had proven they could obtain resupply from the US and Germany couldn't stop enough convoys.
> Germany lost, in total, well under a month's later production of warplanes, remarkably few per sortie. Its capacity to wage war was wholly undiminished. Germany could have continued as long as they cared to
No one is arguing Britain won the war then, just that specific battle.
> Aside from Atlantic naval operations, the western war was nearly a sideshow.
I think most people who've read about the war in Europe would acknowledge this - at least between 1941 and 1944.
It's amazing how much Viktor Suvorov's completely discredited book and its arguments still carry weight with many people today. There was NO serious Soviet invasion plan of what Germany controlled in 1941, only hypothetical scenario planning and poorly designed plans for near future offensive power. The one thing the USSR was doing right however, as part of a more general strategy was gearing up a massive rearmament and war production program. This had been in progress since even before 1939 but only really picked up steam in the early 1940s.
So I am not sure it is really "out of the question".
Overall, the Orwell's sentence is not very insightful, imho.
Germany and Russia were in a military alliance and were dividing Poland between them when Orwell wrote that.
So yes, it was very prescient.
Russia was not in alliance with Germany. The Non-Aggression pact with Russia was similar to the pacts Germany had with other countries. For example, Germany had a Non-Agression pact with Poland, and Poland took pieces from Czechoslovakia when Hitler took Sudetenland in 1938. This didn't prevent Hitler from attacking Poland.
The Soviet-German pact was just buying time in preparation to the future war.
The Soviet Union had been seeking to create a collective security military alliance with France and Britan against Germany, because it considered the war with Germany inevitable. But after the negotiations failed, Soviets made the pact with Germany. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac...
We should remember, this Orwell's text is a newspaper article, so may be a propaganda to a degree. For example, Orwell himself multiple times called his work for BBC a propaganda - see his resignation letter to BBC and the famous quote from his diary:
> Our radio strategy is even more hopeless than our military strategy. Nevertheless one rapidly becomes propaganda-minded and develops a cunning one did not previously have. Eg. I am regularly alleging in my newsletters that the Japanese are plotting to attack Russia. I don’t believe this to be so, but the calculation is: ...
https://orwelldiaries.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/14-3-42/
In this article what is interesting to me is how he explains that Hitler poses as a Christ or Prometheus, a self-sacrificing heroic victim. (Because I am not familiar with Mein Kampf and Hitler's rhetoric in general).
The rest - not a revelation. BTW, he attributes the "Better an end with horror than a horror without end" to Hitler, but that's wrong, the phrase has a different author.