DOCSLIB.ORG

Conclusionconclusion 389 Conclusion

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Conclusionconclusion 389 Conclusion ConclusionConclusion 389 Conclusion The combat/military effectiveness of an army can be described as the capabil- ity of that institution to sustain itself in the battlefield against hostile forces and to inflict casualties on the opponent by adapting to changing conditions and adopting certain techniques. Combat effectiveness depends on several factors, like recruitment, the combat motivation/loyalty mechanism (an amal- gam of morale and discipline), tactical procedures, the training system, the hardware at the disposal of the military machine, the logistical infrastructure, etc. Let us evaluate these elements in the Indian Army, especially for the period between 1941 and 1945. First, let us analyze the combat contribution of the Indian Army. Winston Churchill and Orde Wingate both had a very low opinion of the Indian Army.1 How far their assessments hold water needs to be evaluated. British India cov- ered 1,630,000 square miles. As a point of comparison, the European part of the USSR extended over 2,110,000 square miles with another 6,460,000 square miles in Asia. In September 1939, Germany had a population of 80 million, the USSR 171 million, Italy 43 million2 and Japan 100 million.3 The Indian Army was not only the largest volunteer force but also the biggest colonial force. But its size pales in comparison with the armies raised by the first class powers during World War II. Malnourishment in the rural sector, political demands (the British could not dare to impose conscription in India for fear of adverse politi- cal repercussions) and imperial prejudice (the Martial Race theory) prevented massive expansion of the Indian Army. During World War II, India, from a pop- ulation of roughly 350 million, raised a 2.5 million-strong armed forces whose total casualties came to about 179,935 (including 24,438 KIA, 64,354 WIA, 11,574 missing and 79,489 POWs).4 So the expansion of the Indian Army during the era of Total War was not total. About 4,000 Indian soldiers were captured at 1 Raymond Callahan, ‘Did Winston Matter? Churchill and the Indian Army, 1940 –45’, in Alan Jeffreys and Patrick Rose (eds.), The Indian Army, 1939 –47: Experience and Development (Surrey: Ashgate, 2012), p. 65. 2 Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War 1941 –45 (2005, reprint, London: Hodder Arnold, 2007), p. 45. 3 Geoffrey Evans, Slim as Military Commander (1969, reprint, Dehra Dun: Natraj, 1977), p. 153. 4 Pradeep Barua, The Army Officer Corps and Military Modernization in Later Colonial India (Hull: University of Hull Press, 1999), p. 137. Lieutenant-General S.L. Menezes writes that the strength of the Indian Army during World War II consisted of two million men and another half a million non-combatants. See his Fidelity & Honour: The Indian Army from the Seventeenth to the Twenty-First Century (New Delhi: Viking, 1993), p. 367. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004306783_014 390 Conclusion Hong Kong. Another 32,000 Indian soldiers became POWs in Singapore. In addition, some 11,000 Indian troops became casualties during the Malaya- Singapore Campaign.5 The total casualties suffered by the Indian Army in World War II were less than the casualties suffered by the Red Army and the Wehrmacht in a single decisive campaign. For instance, the Red Army’s losses during Operation BARBAROSSA and the Wehrmacht’s casualties during Operation BLAU exceeded the total number of casualties suffered by the Indian Army on all the fronts between 1939 and 1945. The Soviet military losses during World War II came to about 10 million (including 3 million POWs). British and American military losses were about 350,000 and 300,000 respectively.6 The Indian Army dominated the Burma theatre by its sheer numbers. The biggest service/branch of the Indian armed forces was the Indian Army. And the bulk of the Indian Army personnel were in the 14th Army, which at its height comprised some one million men, and of them about 700,000 were Indians. When the war ended there were some 13,000 IECOs and some of them had experienced command at brigade and battalion levels.7 By 1945, there were 7,546 Indian officers in the combat arms. Including the medical services, the total number of Indian officers came to about 16,000.8 Between 1941 and 1943, around 75 per cent of the German land and air units were deployed on the Eastern Front. During 1942, only six German divisions were in North Africa.9 In World War II, only four British infantry divisions fought in South-East Asia: the 18th surrendered at Singapore, the 70th was used as Special Force under Orde Wingate, the 2nd was at Kohima and, finally, the 36th was under the SEAC.10 Some 303,501 Japanese soldiers served in Burma between 1941 and 1945 and of them, 118,352 returned to Japan after the war. About 185,149 Japanese died in Burma and 241,000 were killed by US bombing raids in Japan. Louis Allen estimates that British and Commonwealth casual- ties in Burma numbered 73,909. Of them, 38,803 casualties (or 52.6 per cent of 5 India’s Part in the Third Year of War (New Delhi: GoI, n.d.), p. 1. 6 Mawdsley, Thunder in the East, p. 404. 7 Barua, The Army Officer Corps and Military Modernization in Later Colonial India, pp. 138, 149, 152. 8 Daniel P. Marston, Phoenix from the Ashes: The Indian Army in the Burma Campaign (Westport, Connecticut/London: Praeger, 2003), p. 227. According to another count, at the end of the Second World War, there were 32,750 British officers and some 14,000 Indian officers in the Indian Army. Menezes, Fidelity & Honour, p. 367. 9 David M. Glantz and Jonathan House, When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1995), p. 149. 10 Callahan, ‘Did Winston Matter? Churchill and the Indian Army, 1940 –45’, in Jeffreys and Rose (eds.), The Indian Army, 1939 –47, p. 63..
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Howard Grier on When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army
    David Glantz, Jonathan House. When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995. xiii + 414 pp. $29.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-7006-0717-4. Reviewed by Howard D. Grier Published on H-German (April, 1996) David Glantz, America's foremost Soviet mili‐ grad in November 1942. Here the authors depict a tary historian, joins with Jonathan House, Asso‐ Red Army fghting two vicious foes -- the Nazi jug‐ ciate Professor of History at Gordon College in gernaut and Joseph Stalin himself. As German Georgia, to bring us an important and long-need‐ armies swept ever deeper into Soviet territory, ed study. When Titans Clashed: How the Red Stalin repeatedly refused to heed his military ad‐ Army Stopped Hitler demolishes several myths visers, usually with disastrous results. The third and clarifies dozens of unanswered questions. section deals with the turn of the tide from No‐ The book is divided into four sections. In the vember 1942 to December 1943. Glantz and House first part, the authors examine the Red Army from show how the Red Army effectively responded to 1918 to 1941, and set forth their thesis that the the Nazi threat as skilled commanders like Mar‐ Red Army did not achieve victory in the East sim‐ shal Georgi Zhukov, Marshal Aleksandr ply by copying German tactics. In fact, Blitzkrieg- Vasilevsky, and General Alexei Antonov planned style, mobile tactics had been devised and em‐ and executed effective offensive operations of ployed by Russian troops during the Russian Civil their own. Stalin began to show faith in his subor‐ War, decades prior to World War II.
    [Show full text]
  • A War of Reputation and Pride
    A War of reputation and pride - An examination of the memoirs of German generals after the Second World War. HIS 4090 Peter Jørgen Sager Fosse Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History University of Oslo Spring 2019 1 “For the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest -- but the myth -- persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.” – John F. Kennedy, 19621 1John F. Kennedy, Yale University Commencement Address, https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkyalecommencement.htm, [01.05.2019]. 2 Acknowledgments This master would not have been written without the help and support of my mother, father, friends and my better half, thank you all for your support. I would like to thank the University Library of Oslo and the British Library in London for providing me with abundant books and articles. I also want to give huge thanks to the Military Archive in Freiburg and their employees, who helped me find the relevant materials for this master. Finally, I would like to thank my supervisor at the University of Oslo, Professor Kim Christian Priemel, who has guided me through the entire writing process from Autumn 2017. Peter Jørgen Sager Fosse, Oslo, 01.05.2019 3 Contents: Introduction………………………………………………………………………...………... 7 Chapter 1, Theory and background………………………………………………..………17 1.1 German Military Tactics…………………………………………………..………. 17 1.1.1 Blitzkrieg, Kesselschlacht and Schwerpunkt…………………………………..……. 17 1.1.2 Examples from early campaigns……………………………………………..……… 20 1.2 The German attack on the USSR (1941)……………………………..…………… 24 1.2.1 ‘Vernichtungskrieg’, war of annihilation………………………………...………….. 24 1.2.2 Operation Barbarossa………………………………………………..……………… 28 1.2.3 Operation Typhoon…………………………………………………..………………. 35 1.2.4 The strategic situation, December 1941…………………………….……………….
    [Show full text]
  • German Defeat/Red Victory: Change and Continuity in Western and Russian Accounts of June-December 1941
    University of Wollongong Research Online University of Wollongong Thesis Collection 2017+ University of Wollongong Thesis Collections 2018 German Defeat/Red Victory: Change and Continuity in Western and Russian Accounts of June-December 1941 David Sutton University of Wollongong Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/theses1 University of Wollongong Copyright Warning You may print or download ONE copy of this document for the purpose of your own research or study. The University does not authorise you to copy, communicate or otherwise make available electronically to any other person any copyright material contained on this site. You are reminded of the following: This work is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this work may be reproduced by any process, nor may any other exclusive right be exercised, without the permission of the author. Copyright owners are entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. A reproduction of material that is protected by copyright may be a copyright infringement. A court may impose penalties and award damages in relation to offences and infringements relating to copyright material. Higher penalties may apply, and higher damages may be awarded, for offences and infringements involving the conversion of material into digital or electronic form. Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the University of Wollongong. Recommended Citation Sutton, David, German Defeat/Red Victory: Change and Continuity in Western and Russian Accounts of June-December 1941, Doctor of Philosophy thesis, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong, 2018.
    [Show full text]
  • Empirical Approaches to Military History
    Karl-Heinz Frieser. The Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign in the West. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2005. xx + 507 pp. $47.50, cloth, ISBN 978-1-59114-294-2. Evan Mawdsley. Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War 1941-1945. London: Hodder, 2005. xxvi + 502 pp. $35.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-340-80808-5. Reviewed by James V. Koch Published on H-German (June, 2006) The world does not lack for military histories are written about in the historical surveys that of World War II, general or specific. Hence, when college students and others read. They appeal pri‐ new ones appear, it is legitimate to ask, do they marily to specialists who continue to dissect these really provide new information, insights or inter‐ campaigns, both of which are classics in the realm pretations? Both Frieser's look at the astonishing of conventional land warfare. six-week 1940 German campaign in the West that Frieser argues persuasively that Germany drove France out of the war and Mawdsley's ex‐ took several huge risks by attacking France, amination of the titanic 1941-45 German/Soviet Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands (the West‐ battle on the Eastern front meet that test. Both ern Allies) on May 10, 1940. Germany was unpre‐ provide new data, or at least bring together in one pared for anything more than a very short war book data that have been dispersed over many lo‐ and chose a strategy (thrusting through the sup‐ cations. Further, both authors look at these cam‐ posedly impenetrable Ardennes, crossing the paigns a bit differently than previous researchers Meuse, and driving to the Atlantic Coast) that and prod us to reformulate our understanding of could have been frustrated in a half-dozen ways critical aspects of these battles.
    [Show full text]
  • Leadership at the Operational Level: Canadian Doctrine and a Soviet
    LEADERSHIP AT THE OPERATIONAL LEVEL:CANADIAN MILITARY HISTORY DOCTRINE ANDASOVIET CASESTUDY Associated Press 9504220378 Muscovites are dwarfed by this giant image of Marshal Zhukov hanging from the Lenin Library, 22 April 1995. by Hugues Canuel Introduction upon the post-Cold-War experience, but they equally reflect the long tradition of Canadian military service in the ore than 15 years have passed since the fall of the framework of the major conflicts of the 20th Century.3 MBerlin Wall. The Canadian Forces (CF) is continuing Furthermore, and given the fundamental nature of the to adapt to the complexities of the post-Cold-War era. underlying principles, the authors of the new leadership As much in Canada as in the rest of the Western world, doctrine have accepted the challenge of elaborating the ‘peace dividends’ were achieved at the same time as the upon a theory applicable to all levels of command – strategic, ‘New World Order’ sank into instability. The 1990s were operational, and tactical – for all ongoing operations difficult years for Canadian military personnel. While conducted by units deployed overseas, as well as for those suffering stringent reductions to their budgets, as well tasked with the smooth running of activities at home, in as to their actual numbers, there was a concurrent and both line and staff positions.4 unexpected increase in overseas military operations. The difficulties that were encountered during some of these deployments, as well as several disciplinary incidents that took place in Canada, attained such notoriety that Commander Hugues Canuel is the Executive Assistant to the Chief Canadian authorities saw fit to effect a robust turnaround.1 of the Maritime Staff at National Defence Headquarters, Ottawa.
    [Show full text]
  • The Round Tablette Founding Editor: James W
    The Round Tablette Founding Editor: James W. Gerber, MD (1951–2009) Thursday, 11 Jan. 2018 grad on the Volga which was to be the anchor 31:06 Volume 31 Number 6 of the line protecting the exposed northern Published by WW II History Round Table flank of Army Group (A) moving deeper into Written by Drs. Connie Harris & Christopher Simer the Caucasus. Thus, the two parts of Army www.mn-ww2roundtable.org Group South would not be able to support each Happy New Year and Welcome to the Jan- other as they each advanced in different direc- tions, one south and one east. Russian leaders uary meeting of the Dr. Harold C. Deutsch realized that the Germans would try and take World War II History Round Table. Once Stalingrad, a city 12 miles long on the western again this year we return to the Russian Front shore of the Volga, and began (by late July) and a chilly topic, the Battle of Stalingrad. reinforcing the city. The defense of the city was Tonight’s speaker is Jonathan House who, with entrusted to Vasily Chuikov, leader of the 62nd David Glantz, coauthored Stalingrad. He will be Army. joined by veterans from the Eastern Front. German forces reached the outskirts of the The Second World War in Europe was won city after intense battles north of town and by and lost on the Eastern Front. The sheer scale August the two sides were engaged in a fero- and intensity of the fight to the death between cious struggle in the devastated urban center.
    [Show full text]
  • The Battle of Stalingrad
    The Battle of Stalingrad: The Turning Point on the Eastern Front in WWII F. Courtney Lockwood Senior Thesis 1 Contents List of Maps 3 Introduction: Setting The Stage 5 The Battle Part 1: September-November 1942 13 The Battle Part 2: November 1942-late January 1943 21 Surrender and the March into Captivity 42 National Myth: Propaganda, Vergeltung, Total War 50 The Shockwave of Stalingrad: Psychological Shift, German Morale, Shortcomings of German High Command 60 Conclusion: Russian Agency and the Legacy of Stalingrad 74 2 List of Maps German Invasion of Soviet Union 1941-1942 4 Operation Blau 9 German Advance on Stalingrad, Autumn 1942 14 Operation Uranus 21 Manstein’s Breakout Attempt/Operation Winter Storm 31 Operation Ring 38 3 ‘German Invasion of Soviet Union 1941-1942’ Source: after map in Showalter, D. (2009) Hitler’s Panzers, p. 2 4 Introduction: Setting the Stage The rise and fall of the Third Reich continues to fascinate and confuse historians today. In particular the war against Russia not only was a monumental undertaking for the Nazi State in terms of economic and military resources, but also the invasion included an inherent all or nothing attitude for the future of National Socialism. Russia tempted Germany with land, natural resources, and possibly an end to Bolshevism and Judaism. Southern Russia looked particularly ripe for Hitler as he focused on gaining control of the lucrative grain and oilfields in the Caucuses. A total victory in Russia also spelled out the demise of the Jews and Communists, as Hitler believed Judaism and Bolshevism were intertwined and the extermination of both would allow the Aryan race and ethnic Germans to assert their supremacy.
    [Show full text]
  • Koch on Frieser, 'The Blitzkrieg Legend: the 1940 Campaign in the West' and Mawdsley, 'Thunder in the East: the Nazi- Soviet War 1941-1945'
    H-German Koch on Frieser, 'The Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign in the West' and Mawdsley, 'Thunder in the East: The Nazi- Soviet War 1941-1945' Review published on Thursday, June 1, 2006 Karl-Heinz Frieser. The Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign in the West. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2005. xx + 507 pp. $47.50 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-59114-294-2.Evan Mawdsley. Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War 1941-1945. London: Hodder, 2005. xxvi + 502 pp. $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-340-80808-5. Reviewed by James V. Koch (Old Dominion University) Published on H-German (June, 2006) Empirical Approaches to Military History The world does not lack for military histories of World War II, general or specific. Hence, when new ones appear, it is legitimate to ask, do they really provide new information, insights or interpretations? Both Frieser's look at the astonishing six-week 1940 German campaign in the West that drove France out of the war and Mawdsley's examination of the titanic 1941-45 German/Soviet battle on the Eastern front meet that test. Both provide new data, or at least bring together in one book data that have been dispersed over many locations. Further, both authors look at these campaigns a bit differently than previous researchers and prod us to reformulate our understanding of critical aspects of these battles. Even so, neither is likely to have much effect on how these battles are written about in the historical surveys that college students and others read. They appeal primarily to specialists who continue to dissect these campaigns, both of which are classics in the realm of conventional land warfare.
    [Show full text]
  • Moscow&Stalingrad
    MOSCOW&STALINGRAD 1 Page Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa Part of the Eastern Front of World War II Clockwise from top left: German soldiers advance through Northern Russia, German flamethrower team in the Soviet Union, Soviet planes flying over German positions near Moscow, Soviet prisoners of war on the way to German prison camps, Soviet soldiers fire at German positions. Date 22 June – 5 December 1941 (5 months, 1 week and 6 days) Location Eastern and Northern Europe Result See Aftermath Belligerents • Germany Soviet Union • Romania • Finland • Italy • Hungary 2 • Slovakia Page • Croatia Commanders and leaders • Adolf Hitler • Joseph Stalin • Walther von Brauchitsch • Georgy Zhukov • Franz Halder • Aleksandr Vasilyevskiy • Fedor von Bock • Semyon Budyonny • Gerd von Rundstedt • Kliment Voroshilov • Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb • Semyon Timoshenko • Ion Antonescu • Markian Popov • Gustaf Mannerheim • Fyodor Kuznetsov • Dmitry Pavlov • Ivan Tyulenev • Mikhail Kirponos † Units involved Axis armies Soviet armies Strength Frontline strength Frontline strength • 3.8 million personne • 2.6–2.9 million personnel • 3,350–3,795 tanks • 11,000 tanks • 3,030–3,072 other AFVs • 7,133–9,100 military aircraft • 2,770–5,369 aircraft • 7,200–23,435 artillery pieces • 17,081 mortars Casualties and losses Total military casualties: Total military casualties: 1,000,000+ 4,973,820 Operation Barbarossa (German: Unternehmen Barbarossa) was the code name for the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, starting Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. The operation stemmed from Nazi Germany's ideological aims to conquer the western Soviet Union so that it could be repopulated by Germans, to use Slavs as a slave-labour force for the Axis war-effort, and to seize the oil reserves of the Caucasus and the agricultural resources of Soviet territories.
    [Show full text]
  • Revisiting a "Lost Victory" at Kursk Jonathan Page Klug Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected]
    Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Master's Theses Graduate School 2003 Revisiting a "Lost Victory" at Kursk Jonathan Page Klug Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons Recommended Citation Klug, Jonathan Page, "Revisiting a "Lost Victory" at Kursk" (2003). LSU Master's Theses. 3416. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses/3416 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Master's Theses by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. REVISITING A "LOST VICTORY" AT KURSK A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Liberal Arts in The Interdepartmental Program in Liberal Arts by Jonathan P. Klug B.S., United States Military Academy, 1995 August 2003 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would first like to thank my wife Toni for patiently tolerating the many cloistered hours of effort it took to complete this thesis. I would also like to thank all of the mentors who guided me over the years on this project - Dr. Stanley Hilton, Major Curtis King, Dr. Steve Waddell, and Dr. David Glantz. I would be remiss if I did not also thank Captain Franz Rademacher and Captain Michael Lee for proofreading this document with regards to grammar, usage, and coherency.
    [Show full text]
  • THE SURVIVAL of AUFTRAGSTAKTIK DURING the SOVIET COUNTERATTACK in the BATTLE for MOSCOW, DECEMBER 1941 to JANUARY 1942 a Thesis
    THE SURVIVAL OF AUFTRAGSTAKTIK DURING THE SOVIET COUNTERATTACK IN THE BATTLE FOR MOSCOW, DECEMBER 1941 TO JANUARY 1942 A Thesis Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF ARTS IN HISTORY by Miguel A. Lopez December 2015 Examining Committee Members: Jay Lockenour, Ph.D., Thesis Advisor, History Department Gregory J. W. Urwin, Ph.D., History Department ABSTRACT On 16 December 1941, Adolf Hitler issued his controversial Haltbefehl (halt order). As Germany’s Army Group Center reeled under the Soviet counterattack during the battle for Moscow, the Haltbefehl forbade the army to retreat. Scholars have argued that this order ended the Prussian-German method of command called Auftragstaktik. Under this concept, German field commanders enjoyed wide command discretion within the intent of their superiors. This thesis argues that Auftragstaktik did survive at and below the German Army’s divisional level during its defensive struggles in the battle for Moscow. The case studies illustrate that field commanders kept their command independence and withdrew their units against Hitler’s halt order. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank my advisor Dr. Jay Lockenour for his guidance and dedication. To Dr. Gregory Urwin for his comments and critiques that challenged me as a historian and writer. And to Villate McKitrick for editing the manuscript and my friend Richard Evans for his comments. Lastly to my wife Joni, I could not have done this without you…Love you. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT
    [Show full text]
  • The Distinguished Military Historians David Glantz and Jonathan House
    2019-007 25 Jan. 2019 Stalingrad by David M. Glantz and Jonathan M. House . Lawrence: Univ. Press of Kansas, 2017. Pp. xviii, 619. ISBN 978–0–7006–2382–2. Review by Carl Cavanagh Hodge, University of British Columbia ([email protected]). The distinguished military historians David Glantz and Jonathan House have now produced a welcome one-volume distillation of their multi-volume magnum opus 1 on the struggle between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in the Second World War. Their overarching thesis is that The original objective of Operation Blau , the Germans’ second major offensive in the conflict with the Soviet Union, was to seize the Caucasus oil fields, thereby obtaining essential fuel for them- selves while denying that fuel to the Soviets. This objective required the invaders to project combat power over vast and inhospitable terrain while protecting their ever-lengthening left flank against Soviet counter-attacks. Given the Wehrmacht ’s experienced commanders and the repeated blun- ders of their Red counterparts, … Germany might have achieved this goal. However, once the Ger- mans became involved in the additional mission of seizing Stalingrad—a diversion of resources that had not been included in the original plan—their chances of success became virtually nil. (490) Thus are we reminded of a common paradox of modern warfare. A titanic military struggle widely deemed to have been the turning point of World War II in Europe was in fact the product of considerations secondary to the principal strategic goal of the German Army in 1942. In this volume, the authors set out to balance Western perceptions of Stalingrad by comparing German with Soviet accounts of what happened and why.
    [Show full text]