"Brave" is a word we stamp on men who stand up to instead of kneel before danger. Bravery
is courage. Bravery is valour. Bravery is, to be honest, more difficult to define than
I thought. Is a man fighting for his life brave, or is that just instinct?
When he fixes a knife to his rifle and pumps his legs right at an enemy machine-gun pit, is he
brave? Stupid? Maybe he'd just rather do that than sit in his own pit next to his nerves. Are the
soldiers of a fighting nation brave because they suffered a great many deaths and went on fighting?
Are the dead brave simply because we'd rather remember them as brave instead of dead?
I urge you to ponder these questions and others just like them as we progress through this video,
in which we're going to discuss seven minor countries which fielded the bravest soldiers
of the Second World War. While it is a futile pursuit subjectively,
we're also going to give you our opinion on which country had the bravest soldiers of all.
The Fins fought for their very existence in World War II, first alone against the
territory-hungry Soviet Union, then against the Soviets with the Germans at their side,
and then against the Germans. While they were brave, capable warriors who never entirely
surrendered their country's independence, their bravery shone brightest in that first
conflict with the USSR, the Winter War. While the disparity in troop numbers was not immense,
the disparity in tanks and aircraft was. The Fins had just 0.5% of the tanks the Soviets had,
and their air force accounted for just 2.9% of the Soviet's. Yet despite this,
the Fins inflicted up to 380,000 casualties on the Soviets for a payment of just 70,000 casualties.
The whole world watched the Winter War,
jaws slackened by the bravery — the Sisu — of the Fins, and Churchill famously said,
"Finland alone — in danger of death. Superb sublime Finland — shows what free men can do."
"In the period known as the Interim Peace, between the Winter War and Continuation War,
Baron Mannerheim, Finnish Commander-in-Chief, addressed his troops:
"You did not want war [...] but you were forced into [it]. [...] You dealt hard blows to the
invader and if two million of our enemies now lie on the snowdrifts and in the forests, [...] the
fault is not yours. [...] You merely followed the stern law of war: kill or be killed."
As the Fins were outnumbered and outgunned in the Winter War, so too were the Greeks
in the Greco-Italian War and the German invasion and occupation that followed.
Before the Greco-Italian War, Axis had yet to suffer a defeat, and it did not expect to suffer
one on Greek spears. Fighting with lionlike ferocity for their homes, wives, and children,
the Greeks sent the Italians back into Albania, shaming Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.
Then, however, the Germans stepped in, taking all of Greece.
This is when Greek bravery shone brightest. While wrestling for the Greek island of Crete,
Cretan civilians took up sticks and stones and stabbed and bashed armed German soldiers to death.
When Greece was lost, both soldiers and civilians fought against their
Axis occupiers in resistance groups accounting for more than a quarter of Greece's population,
and this was all while between 7 and 11% of that population perished in the occupation.
Hitler said it himself: "[...] The Greeks, of all the adversaries who confronted us,
fought with bold courage and highest disregard of death."
As with the example of the Greeks, Polish bravery cannot be attributed solely to the
country's soldiers. Poland suffered more, perhaps, than any other country in the Second World War,
enduring an invasion by both the Nazis and Soviets and taking the brunt of the Holocaust.
Like Finland, landlocked Poland's existence as at stake, and its soldiers and civilians fought
with desperation and bravery, refusing to surrender. During enemy occupation,
the Polish soldiers of the defeated Polish military, as well as civilians, regrouped in
a number of resistance forces and fought superior enemies. Through all of this, and throughout all
the war, between 16 and 22% of Poland's population perished, yet Polish bravery did not falter. After
the Invasion of Poland, Polish soldiers even went on to fight for the Polish government-in-exile
and the Allies in the Fall of France. Of the 80,000 Poles in this fight, only 19,000 survived,
and instead of tapping out after being evacuated to Britain, they got straight back into the fight,
forming the foundation of what would become the Polished Armed Forces in the West. Other soldiers
deported from Poland into the Soviet Union in the original September 1939 ultimately formed
the backbone of the Polish Armed Forces in the East. Theirs was a bravery fuelled by a seething
hatred for their enemies, and you need look no further than men like Witold Pilecki, the
Auschwitz volunteer, if you think Polish soldiers weren't deserving of a place in this video.
The sacrifices of British India in the Second World War are often forgotten, and this is
especially insane because Indian soldiers were some of the bravest on the battlefield.
The British Indian Army was a volunteer force, yet it grew to a strength of 2.5
million throughout the war. These soldiers fought everywhere, and they paid a blood price of around
87,000 toward the ultimate Allied victory. Without the bravery of British Indian soldiers
in the Battles of Imphal and Kohima, the Japanese U Go Offensive would likely have been successful,
and the Burma Campaign would have ended disastrously for the Allies. Such would have been
the case in the infamous Battle of Monte Cassino and many other battles too. There were countless
Indian war heroes, with Indian soldiers receiving 4,000 awards for gallantry, and the deeds of men
like Naik Fazal Din and Sepoy Namdeo Jadhav speak for Indian bravery overall. As British Major Tom
Conway put it, "Indian soldiers were the bravest of the brave. It was an honour to command them."
Ireland was officially neutral in the Second World War, so the brave Irish civilians and,
even more so, soldiers who fought alongside the British for the Allied cause were risking
more than just their lives. On the latter, some 5,000 Irish soldiers literally deserted
the Irish Army to serve in the British Army, and they did this even though they would basically
be disowned when they got home. Those who did get home lost their jobs and were denied
fruitful employment. Their family's quite literally starved to death.
The son of an Irish soldier who fought in the Battle of Kohima described his life after the war:
"My father was blacklisted and away all the time,
picking turnips or whatever work he could get. [...] We were treated as outcasts."
What we must also consider is that some 60% of Ireland was *pro-*German. Imagine leaving
your country to fight an enemy to which more than half of your country was sympathetic.
Randal Sadlier, on why he joined the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers in 1943,
said, "[...] It seemed obvious that if England lost the war,
the Germans would soon occupy Ireland and the dark ages would return."
It wasn't until 2013 that the Irish state acknowledged the Irish soldiers who gave
up more than their lives for the Allied cause, saying, "These individuals contributed in no
small part to the allied victory against tyranny and totalitarianism. [...] If the United Kingdom
had fallen to the forces of Nazi Germany, [Ireland would have suffered the same fate] [...]."
Canadians earnt a reputation as shock troopers in the Great War, and this carried over to
World War II, making for some of the absolute bravest soldiers on the battlefield. What we
must understand is that, of the 1,100,000 Canadians which fought for the Allies,
the majority were volunteers. These volunteers fought with distinction in almost every theatre,
but their bravery in the D-Day Normandy landings was indisputable. The task
that befell the Canadians was to take Juno Beach, the second most resisted beachhead.
Up against German artillery, machine guns, mines, and traps,
the Canadians grit their teeth and punched further inland than any other soldiers.
In Historian Mark Zuehlke's words, "[...] The 3rd Canadian Infantry Division ended the day
ahead of either the US or British divisions despite the facts that they landed last and
that only the Americans at Omaha faced more difficulty winning a toehold on the sand."
Of course, we can't speak of Canadian bravery without giving a mention to Leo Major,
the man who wore an eye patch and single-headedly took the entire city of Zwolle from its Nazi
occupiers in just one night. Actually, maybe this wasn't bravery but *madness.*
As is customary, we've saved who we believe were the bravest soldiers till last. Despite
losing the Emu War, the Aussies hit World War II hard, earning a reputation as brave, capable
soldiers and loyal friends. Australians fought in the Pacific, North Africa, the Mediterranean,
the Middle East, Europe, and at home with utmost distinction and, even in the darkest of times,
a smile, paying some 27,000 lives towards the price of the Allied victory.
On the Aussies, Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart said, "For dash and gallantry the
bloodthirsty Scots, Australians and Canadians led the way, with the impetuous Irish close behind.
The Australian to my mind were the most aggressive [...]. [...] They loved a
fight. They were a curious mixture of toughness and sentimentality [...]."
And on the morning of D-Day, Major General Freddie de Guingand said,
"My God, I "wish we had 9th Australian Division with us this morning."
If our bias towards the Aussies wasn't clear enough, German commander Erwin Rommel
described Australian soldiers as "immensely big and powerful men,
who without question represented an elite formation of the British Empire."
"immensely big and powerful men, who without question represented
an élite formation of the British Empire."
"immensely big and powerful
men, who without question represented an élite formation of the British Empire."