In the
acknowledgements to his latest history, TheSecond World War, Antony Beevor says that he wrote this comprehensive tome
on one of the biggest events in human history because he wanted to fill in the gaps
to his own knowledge of the topic. But, he says, “above all it is an attempt to
understand how the whole complex jigsaw fits together, with the direct and
indirect effects of actions and decisions taking place in very different theatres
of war.” In this, Beevor succeeds where no other historian I have read has.
Weighing in at 833 pages (with notes), Beevor deftly describes and analyzes the
political and military strategic events, people, and decisions that started,
fought, and ended World War II. Potentially more importantly, he debunks one
myth after another surrounding this war.
Geographically
and politically, the European and Pacific Theaters were fairly cordoned off
from each other, outside of the involvement of the United States and the
British, but not entirely. Beevor pulls the thread to examine how the Soviet
victory at Khalkhin Gol in eastern Mongolia in the summer of 1939 ensured that
the Soviets stayed out of the eastern war (Beevor is not, of course, the only
historian to make this important point) and how that affected both theaters. As
he pulls the thread further, the interactions of east and west, Axis and
Allies, become more acute. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan have almost no
strategic interaction (there are a handful of exceptions), but their actions on
three or four fronts each create a strategic graph theory problem of biblical
proportions for the Allies. As a big-picture example, the United States did not
just face a Pacific versus Europe resource competition. The United States faced
resource competition between Stillwell’s command supporting the Chinese
Nationalists, MacArthur’s forces, Halsey’s forces, the preparation for an
invasion of western France, operations in North Africa and then Italy,
strategic bombing campaigns on both sides, and Lend-Lease to many a slew of
locations. To compound this, American leaders needed to maintain support for the
war at home and keep the Alliance together while trying to shape the post-war
world through a political minefield of communists, socialists, fascists,
colonialists, revolutionaries, and democratists. All while trying to actually
win the war. If you consider the number of facets and decisions required in
this complex world, multiply these considerations by the same problems with
which all of the other Allies (and enemies) were forced to contend. The result
is an exponentially large equation to determine the outcomes of a world in flux
moving at the speed of a tank. Beevor is at his best in this work when he
examines these interdependencies of these fronts, the Allies’ force structure
to address them, and the inter- and intra-national political
considerations. For students of
strategy, this alone makes The Second
World War worth reading.
Beevor is
equally as good at myth-busting the saintliness of the war’s heroes, the
competence of its tragic warriors, and the general sense that it was, in fact,
a “good war.” Almost none of the major players of the war get a pass (more on
an exception below). Montgomery was “egotistic, ambitious and ruthless,
possessing a boundless self-confidence which occasionally bordered on the
fatuous.” MacArthur receives even harsher treatment that includes accusations
of gross corruption. Roosevelt, Churchill, Eisenhower, Patton, Brooke, Bradley,
Stalin, Zhukov, Clark, Stillwell, Halsey, et al, are all described by their
weaknesses and mistakes as much as they are by their strengths and failures.
The sheer volume of egomania among these great captains significantly exceeded
their capabilities, as Beevor explicitly demonstrates. That is not to suggest
that these were not extraordinary men in extraordinary times - on the contrary.
But none of these men were as idyllically competent as many histories would
have us believe. The Axis powers are given the same treatment, if not more with
rightful criticism focused on their general inhumanity. As a young Armor
officer undergoing basic maneuver traing, a number of German officers were still
considered gods of mechanized warfare: Rommel, Peiper, Guderian, von Rundstedt,
etc. Further analysis, as done in this book, shows that these men were not
nearly as good as I was taught. And those that were actually tactically or
operationally superior, such as Peiper, were so ruthless with their own men and
civilians that their tactics should hardly be extolled, never mind exemplified,
by modern Western armies. It is well past time to end this infatuation with German
maneuver exceptionalism as it never really existed. (As an aside, my experience
has been that those who believe in this exceptionalism also believe,
incorrectly in my opinion, in Israeli maneuver exceptionalism. The sooner we
end these fantasies, the better for the education of the coming generations of
maneuver leaders.)
Before I
return to the myth-busting of the “good war” trope, I would be remiss if did
not discuss this book’s shortcomings, of which I found two. Anyone who has read
extensively on World War II, a population I consider myself a part of despite
my just now revisiting the topic after many years, has a pet rock about this
war: some issue or topic, preferably obscure and contrarian, which is used by
its holder to judge all writing and analysis of World War II. I have one of these and his name was Major General
Philippe Leclerc who commanded the French 2d Armored Division. Although Leclerc was a competent and brave
commander, he had absolutely no regard for the Allied chain of command or unity
of effort. He had a reputation for ignoring his orders and doing whatever he
pleased for the glory of France and/or himself. There was an obscure incident that
occurred in August 1944 towards the very end of Operation OVERLORD during the attempt
to trap hundreds of thousands of Germans in the Falaise Pocket. The battle to
close the gap and encircle the German forces inside the pocket was hard fought
and in the end a victory for the Allies. But at least one Panzer corps (and
most likely more) escaped. There were three reasons: Montgomery’s inability to
drive his forces south fast or hard enough, Bradley’s indecision, and Leclerc
disobeying orders. The really long-story-short is that Leclerc was so excited
to end the battle so that he could turn south and spearhead the liberation of
Paris that he exceeded his divisional boundary in the Foret d’Ecouves. This
caused a massive traffic jam with the U.S. 5th Armored Division and provided
the German Army defenders time and space to establish a defensive line that
allowed more German forces to escape encirclement (see page 416 at this link).
I find Leclerc’s actions unconscionable. In a book that aims to break down the
many cults of personality surrounding the key characters of this conflict,
Beevor misses this opportunity and gives Leclerc a pass. I will grant the
author some forgiveness in that if he picked on the foibles of every division
commander in the war (even if this particular one was a prominent player) then
this book would expand to be many volumes.
But this is my pet rock and I am miffed that Leclerc’s egomania likely
led to the deaths of many soldiers and Beevor did not take a written hammer to
him for it.
Some readers
will complain that the Pacific Theater receives short shrift in this book. Many
of the battles are not detailed, but that is true of most battles in both
theaters. This book was not intended to be a comprehensive analysis of the
fighting, but rather of the strategic decisions and actions that comprised the
whole of the war. Tactics are rarely
discussed anywhere unless they are needed for the larger analysis, such as in
Stalingrad where the type of fighting played a role in the Red Army’s ferocity
in the outbreak that in turn had a number of strategic implications through the
end of the war. So yes, Midway gets all of two pages, but that is all that
particular battle warrants when not examining the tactical situation of the
battle that was irrelevant to strategy in the Pacific. Rest assured that the
major strategic concerns of the Pacific are addressed in detail as well as
relevant tactical analysis.
No, the
second major issue with this book, besides some redundancies, is sloppiness in editing. There are too many
sentences that do not make sense because of various errors. Thankfully the
errors do not create ambiguity and thus confusion, but they are irritating and
interrupt the flow of the book. They also increase in number near the end. It
is a rather large book so some errors are expected, but the publisher would do
well to give it another scrub before a second printing. Related to this is the
index, which is a mess. For example, there you will find in order: Cholitz,
Chungking, Chou, Ciano. There is the obvious problem that Chou should precede
Chungking, but more importantly is that “Churchill” is not to be found between “Chungking”
and “Ciano”. Winston Churchill is not in
the index. That is a major mistake if I have ever seen one.
These
problems are overwhelmed by this book’s positive contribution to the study of
World War II and military history and strategy in general. Beevor attacks the “good
war” campaign and stops it dead in its tracks. The incomprehensible costs of
this war should cause anyone about to describe it as “good” to pause. Indeed,
fascist and imperialist aggressors and mass murderers were defeated and there
is no denying that was a good thing. However, the Western Allies were hardly
angels themselves if potentially lesser devils. Atrocities on the ground in the
Pacific and western European fronts are detailed and are comparatively benign.
But the strategic bombing campaign conducted against civilians on both sides of
the war with no tangible military objectives should be viewed through a realist
lens. If the Allies had lost the war, its leaders would have been tried for war
crimes. And these crimes pale in comparison not only with Nazi and Japanese
atrocities, but also with Soviet atrocities and later Chinese crimes. Beevor is
also quite harsh on the Western leaders for acquiescing to Stalin on Eastern
Europe, saying that they sold out half of Europe to save the other half. He is
not wrong in this. It is important to note that Beevor does not suggest that
World War II was an unjust war, he in fact says that is (from the Allied perspective,
naturally), but rather that we should remove our rosy glasses on the West’s activities
during the war and understand analysis of the war and its events for what they
are and why “good” is not a descriptor of this war. He describes the war as “so
rich a source for the study of dilemmas, individual and mass tragedy, the
corruption of power politics, ideological hypocrisy, the egomania of
commanders, betrayal, perversity, self-sacrifice, unbelievable sadism and
unpredictable compassion.” Indeed this is true. Beevor’s account of it sets a
high bar of scholarship and unprejudiced perspective for such study.
