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So I am a big fan of history and I love to read about wars as they are quite often the way in which history has been shaped. Hence, my question to you is what war do you enjoy reading about the most? (I wonder how long it takes before someone brings up the emu war. 
)
For me the most intriguing war is the Winter War, which was a war between Finland and the Soviet Union between 1939 and 1940. This seemed like a very one sided war, the Soviet Union marched in with an army of over 1 million soldiers against Finlands army consisting of 250,000 men not to mention that the Soviet Union had tanks and airplanes far outnumbering that of Finland. Yet Finland had one big advantage, Josef Stalin. Josef was the leader of the Soviet Union at the time and militarily speaking a massively incompitent leader. Following the great purge Josef had appointed military officers based on political ideology rather than talent and the downsides of this method would become painfully obvious during the war with tiny Finland.
The general in charge of defeating Finland had promised to completly conquer Finland before Josefs birthday which was three weeks away, which more experienced officers considered impossible. None the less the Soviet army went ahead, determined to capture Finland within three weeks. At the start of the war the Soviet army decided to bomb transportation routes, to deny Finish soldiers of supplies, which certainly would seem like a smart move. However, Finnish supply lines consisted of rail roads which are remarkably easy to rebuild, and a few hours after each bombing said supply lines would be up and fully functioning again. This meant that air raids carried out against Finland at most did next to nothing to help the Soviet Union.
But on the front lines the Soviet tanks must certainly have worked wonders and decimated Finland... No not really on the southern front, south of lake Ladoga the Soviet Union repeatedly attempted to pierce the Mannerheim line (Finlands defensive line) but little succes was made, even though the tanks at first did a lot to pierce the Mannerheim line, the Soviet army had not sent any infantry to accompany the tanks which meant the Soviet tanks were on their own. The defenceless tanks were swiftly swarmed by Finnish troops, armed with Molotov cocktails and bombs, hundreds of tanks were destroyed and Finland held strong.
On the northern front, north of lake Ladoga things somehow went even worse for the Soviet Union, you see the winter of 1939-40 happened to be one of the coldest winters in recourder history and the snow in central and northern Finland had aledgedly pilled up as high as 2 meters (6 feet and 7 inches). On top of this the Soviet army did not have apropriate winter equipment which meant that their soldiers got stuck and either froze or starved to death.
To summarize the Winter War could not possibly have gone worse for the USSR (the Soviet Union) and this incompetance led all other European powers to see the USSR as a weakling, and led Adolf Hitler to believe that he could defeat the USSR.
The Winter War also saw the rise of many big names in military history, such as Simo Häyhä, known to the Russians as "the White Death". Simo to this day remains the most succesful sniper of all times, racking up over 600 confirmed kills in 100 days of action. He even managed to beat out the previous record holder, Francis Pegahmagabow, a native American from Canada who fought in the first World War.
)For me the most intriguing war is the Winter War, which was a war between Finland and the Soviet Union between 1939 and 1940. This seemed like a very one sided war, the Soviet Union marched in with an army of over 1 million soldiers against Finlands army consisting of 250,000 men not to mention that the Soviet Union had tanks and airplanes far outnumbering that of Finland. Yet Finland had one big advantage, Josef Stalin. Josef was the leader of the Soviet Union at the time and militarily speaking a massively incompitent leader. Following the great purge Josef had appointed military officers based on political ideology rather than talent and the downsides of this method would become painfully obvious during the war with tiny Finland.
The general in charge of defeating Finland had promised to completly conquer Finland before Josefs birthday which was three weeks away, which more experienced officers considered impossible. None the less the Soviet army went ahead, determined to capture Finland within three weeks. At the start of the war the Soviet army decided to bomb transportation routes, to deny Finish soldiers of supplies, which certainly would seem like a smart move. However, Finnish supply lines consisted of rail roads which are remarkably easy to rebuild, and a few hours after each bombing said supply lines would be up and fully functioning again. This meant that air raids carried out against Finland at most did next to nothing to help the Soviet Union.
But on the front lines the Soviet tanks must certainly have worked wonders and decimated Finland... No not really on the southern front, south of lake Ladoga the Soviet Union repeatedly attempted to pierce the Mannerheim line (Finlands defensive line) but little succes was made, even though the tanks at first did a lot to pierce the Mannerheim line, the Soviet army had not sent any infantry to accompany the tanks which meant the Soviet tanks were on their own. The defenceless tanks were swiftly swarmed by Finnish troops, armed with Molotov cocktails and bombs, hundreds of tanks were destroyed and Finland held strong.
On the northern front, north of lake Ladoga things somehow went even worse for the Soviet Union, you see the winter of 1939-40 happened to be one of the coldest winters in recourder history and the snow in central and northern Finland had aledgedly pilled up as high as 2 meters (6 feet and 7 inches). On top of this the Soviet army did not have apropriate winter equipment which meant that their soldiers got stuck and either froze or starved to death.
To summarize the Winter War could not possibly have gone worse for the USSR (the Soviet Union) and this incompetance led all other European powers to see the USSR as a weakling, and led Adolf Hitler to believe that he could defeat the USSR.
The Winter War also saw the rise of many big names in military history, such as Simo Häyhä, known to the Russians as "the White Death". Simo to this day remains the most succesful sniper of all times, racking up over 600 confirmed kills in 100 days of action. He even managed to beat out the previous record holder, Francis Pegahmagabow, a native American from Canada who fought in the first World War.
