The ‘Winter War’ was famously a disaster for Soviet forces. […] The Finns […] faced an enemy whose war effort was so clumsy and disorganized, with inadequately clothed and armed troops forced to march in line abreast against fixed Finnish defences, that the failings encouraged confidence in German army circles that a future war with the Soviet Union was winnable. […] The Red Army losses have never been confirmed but are estimated at something between 230,000 and 270,000; Finnish losses amounted to some 24,923.¹⁹

[…]

Norwegian resistance was sustained and on 15 April was joined by a British–French–Polish force which landed in northern Norway in an attempt to seize the port of Narvik. Despite difficulties of supply and severe losses of naval shipping, German forces succeeded in consolidating their position in Norway and after the outbreak of the campaign in the West on 10 May, the Allies gradually withdrew from Scandinavia, one of many British retreats over the next 2 years.³³

(Source.)

Notice how this writer, Richard Overy, shifts his tone when talking about Soviet losses and then the Western Allies’. He overstates the importance of Soviet losses and setbacks, probably overestimates them (I suspect), and ultimately suggests that they are both supremely shameful and consequential. Now look at how he talks about the Western Allies’ losses: ‘no biggie. Next!’

Indeed, as far as I can tell, nobody seems particularly embarrassed about all of the liberal régimes’ risibly brief, piss-poor resistance to the Fascist invasions. Nobody attaches any special significance to the Luftwaffe’s bombing of the United Kingdom, or the fact that the Fascists seized one of its islands. And nobody would even dare joke about how maybe the liberal régimes’ weakness had something to do with their ideology. Do we get the same privileges when it comes to any of our imperfections…? I don’t think that I need to answer that question.

It is hard to take Richard Overy’s writing on Scandinavia seriously when he still writes like a stereotypical Cold Warrior, which only makes me reluctant to cite him and writers like him: they constantly bury truths under layers of nonsense.