Book Review - Poland 1939 by Roger Moorhouse

 Poland 1939: the Outbreak of World War II by Roger Moorhouse

New York: Basic Books, 2020 (originally published as First to fight: The Polish War 1939 in 2019)

ISBN 9780465095384

We all know that World War II started when Germany invaded Poland on the first of September 1939. We also know that Poland was overrun in a matter of a month, and we may have heard stories of Polish cavalry charging at Panzers with horse and lance. Beyond that, what is known in the West of the Polish campaign? Moorhouse argues in the preface to this book that the attack on Poland that precipitated a World War needs to be given more than the couple of paragraphs and the well-worn clichés that many English-language histories of World War II give it. It's hard to argue against that.

In this well-written book, Moorhouse covers not only the fighting in detail, but also the machinations of the Nazi attack, the Russian intervention, and the atrocities committed mostly by the Germans (but also Soviets and civilians). The plight of the civilians is not overlooked by this book, but is more an underlying theme rather than a specific highlight.

While the German campaign against Poland was successfully completed in only 35 days, that doesn't mean that the Poles did not fight, and fight hard, or that the Germans didn't have setbacks and failures. As is usually the case in warfare, the protagonist with the greatest economic heft wins in any protracted campaign. Moorhouse states a "rather telling statistic...is that the entire Polish defense budget for the five years to 1939 amounted to only 10 percent of the Luftwaffe's budget for 1939 alone." That is probably all that needs to be said about the equipment disparity between Poland and Germany.

Another truism is that warfare is an extension of politics. No political or diplomatic manoeuvres by Poland would have forestalled Hitler's invasion, but politics did cruel Poland's chances of victory over and above their economic (in)capabilities. The pact with Britain and France was meant to be a deterrent: Britain and France thought that the threat of their intervention would be enough to stop Hitler, and never developed any serious plans to attack Germany if an invasion of Poland took place. Poland on the other hand thought that they needed to show Britain and France that they were serious and so placed most of their armies on the borders with Germany and Slovakia. This made political sense, but it didn't make military sense especially knowing that if war came they would need to hold on for as long as possible to allow their allies time to assist. Setting up at the borders meant that Poland's armies were on ideal campaigning territory, ideally suited for quick moving mechanized troops to drive through any holes in the front and encircle their enemies. Poland's army was not highly mechanized, so this was no advantage to them. Add to that the obsessive secrecy of the Polish armed forces, not sharing plans and not even allowing neighbouring armies to communicate with each other directly, and defeat was almost assured.

Moorhouse covers the military aspect well. Despite being out-gunned, the Polish forces gave the Wehrmacht some severe checks during the campaign. When they were able to be entrenched well with artillery, or when they had the element of surprise, the Polish army could inflict localized defeats on the Germans (and, later on, the Soviets). The cavalry too could be effective in dispersing infantry and allowing freedom of movement for Polish troops, until German or Soviet armour could arrive on the scene. Moorhouse points out that the famous image we have in our heads of Lancers charging tanks was a fiction created by an Italian correspondent, but they did on several occasions charge groups of infantry with success.

The military story is one of soldiers grimly holding on until their ammunition and food ran low, or of fighting retreats to try and join comrades, and at the end a fight to reach the borders. There were some occasions when the troops were routed, mostly it seems due to the bombing from the Luftwaffe rather than infantry attack. The Luftwaffe was also responsible for destroying many Polish cities and towns, in particular Warsaw, which was bombed incessantly throughout the campaign for terror more than for military reasons. 

The Nazi ideology of racial superiority was well-entrenched within the German military, and this meant from the first that atrocities were committed on both Polish military and civilian victims. Mass shootings were common, the shooting of hostages was policy, and when the SS and Einsatzgruppen arrived in numbers, Jews and Polish "intelligentsia" were in mortal danger.

While the Nazis were imposing their racial war on Poland, the Soviets, once they arrived to "liberate" the "suppressed" Ukrainians and Byelorussians (Stalin's cover for his land-grab) began their class war. Quite often in the early days of their occupation of Eastern Poland, just having soft hands was enough to see a person sent to a prison camp, or worse. While the Katyn massacres are outside the scope of this book, Moorhouse lets the reader know where most of the Polish officers captured by the Soviets ended up and sets the scene for the about-to-unfold tragedy that was Poland's fate until (and after) 1945.

In his conclusion, Moorhouse notes that the invasion of Poland by Germany and the USSR was far from a minor event in human terms - 60,000 Polish troops, 20,000 German and perhaps 18,000 Soviets died in those 35 days, and about 100,000 Polish civilians, which includes 16,000 "falling victim to extrajudicial killing by German military and security forces during the period of the military campaign." That's about five and a half thousand deaths per day during the fighting.

Moorhouse in this history doesn't really go into the question of whether this tragedy was avoidable (probably not in my opinion), but does give the reader a good insight into both the immediate background to, and the progress of, this tragic month of history. If you want to flesh out those few paragraphs in any omnibus history of World War II that you might have read, I can recommend this book (apparatus is a mixed bag - good bibliography and notes, OK index, poor maps).

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - Campaign in Russia by Leon Degrelle

 Campaign in Russia: the Waffen SS on the Eastern Front by Leon Degrelle

Torrance, California: Institute for Historical Review, 1985 (originally published in French as Front de l'est 1941-1945)                                                                       ISBN 0939484188

A fascinating and interesting insight into one of the lesser-known facets of World War II. Thousands of non-Germans fought in the German Army. In the case of Leon Degrelle, one of the founders of the Rexist movement in Belgium, he was instrumental in forming the Walloon Legion of French-speaking Belgians, that became part of the Waffen SS and spent much of the war fighting in Russia.

Degrelle was an interesting character. The introduction to this book gives some background to the man, even if it is coloured by the obvious ideological bent of this whole publication. He was very active in Belgian politics, and formed the Rexist movement out his initial involvement with Catholic politics in Belgium. Initially the Rexist party was a nationalist movment, but gradually moved to the right and became influenced by fascism. While initially supporting Belgium's neutrality, once Germay had invaded Rexists generally supported the occupation. Degrelle had the idea of forming a battalion of Rexist volunteers for the German army, with the thought that if Belgians fought well during the War, they could carve out a better accommodation with Germany in the peace that would follow. Degrelle backed the wrong side...

...however, he, and most of the troops under his command, backed it to the hilt. Campaign in Russia is a catalogue of Degrelle's time in the SS, from where he rose from Corporal, through to General of the Walloon Legion (called so even though it never grew much beyond Brigade strength). Like most personal descriptions of fighting in Russia, it lays bare the lack of preparedness of the Germans, their struggles even while "winning", the horrifying privations that the troops suffered because of the weather, and the horror of the final collapse in 1945.

Where Degrelle's memoir differs from others that I have read is in the macabre descriptions of death, the dead, and the wounded. One description struck me as particularly callous and vicious: "I had picked up an Estonian officer. I would have liked to use him to command his compatriots scattered among my troops, but he was consumed by panicky fear. He turned green hearing the bullets whistle past, and lay down flat against my boots, as stiff as a board. One bullet, instead of hitting me in the foot, struck him full in the face, went through him from one end to the other, and came out between his buttocks. He twisted about like a worm, spat, cried, defecated. It was too late. He had digested the bullet too quickly. Ten minutes later he was dead." As you can see, he almost seems to revel in describing the carnage, to the extent that I am left wondering whether he suffered some sort of PTSD: given the amount of fighting and death he saw, it's almost certain that he did suffer mentally from his actions. He himself was wounded several times, and was no doubt a brave soldier.

While the introduction would have us believe that he thought the Russians just as brave as the Germans, - and he does mention that several times during the text - there is no doubt that Degrelle was a committed anti-communist and Nazi. He never fails to make racial slurs about the Russian soldiers he encounters, to emphasise their stupidity, and to glorify the Germans, the Nazi State, and Adolf Hitler himself. In fact he met Hitler on more than one occasion (Degrelle was the only non-German to receive the Knights Cross with Oak Leaves) and comes away convinced of the man's genius, even though intellectually he knows the War will be lost.

The Wallonian troops, if Degrelle is to be believed, were often used a shock troops, which Degrelle put down to their ideological ardour. They were certainly sent to undertake impossible tasks again and again, with ever decreasing levels of support from air, artillery and tanks. Degrelle continues to praise the "calmness" of the German General Staff, even when they were transmitting impossible orders to hold on to him and his units.

In fact Degrelle's lack of insight is a theme that runs through this book. He lambasts the Soviets for their poor equipment but continually describes the lack of such equipment for his troops. He lampoons the Russian command for their crude tactics, and yet is continually describing lunacy coming from his own superiors. He reviles the brutality of the Russians, and yet calmly describes the execution of German deserters in the last days of the War.

Perhaps his biggest self-delusion was the one that led him to form the Walloon Legion itself - that 8,000 or so Belgian troops fighting for Germany would somehow mean that Hitler would give their country some sort of self-determination. He must have been very blind to all that the Nazis did everywhere in Europe to continue to believe that. He makes much of fighting for European civilization against the communist Slav, and yet who was it that began the conflagration; who was it that invaded Russia? He has nothing to say about the treatment of the Jews or the Russian population more generally, and I suppose it may have been that he did not know too much, given where he was posted and the times he was posted there, although he does write, when searching a Russian that he had killed "He had on his person a last will in which he had sworn that, as a Jew, he was resolved to do everything to avenge the Jews." Which does at least imply that he knew something of their fate. More self-delusion in the sentence he wrote following the one just quoted - "Men's fanaticism has no limits." That actually took my breath away.

The Wallonians had a small part to play in the Ardennes offensive (Battle of the Bulge), as they were coming in behind the attacking troops to take control of Belgian territory, but when that assault failed they were sent back to the East to face their final martyrdom. Degrelle describes the final carnage and confusion well, including his own flight to Oslo and eventually to Spain, where he lived in exile until his death in 1994. His Legionnaires went on to various fates, but most ended up back in Belgium to ponder what they had done.

Campaign in Russia is a racy description of the life of one unit on the Eastern Front in World War II. It is also an interesting psychological study into how someone can fall in with evil from what they consider high ideals, and how the brutality of war leaves a stain on everyone involved.

A few words now about the physical book itself. The copy I read is a handsome hardback volume, with a nice black-and-white dustjacket. It's printed, for an American book, on lower quality paper (although still better than the trash used by most Australian publishers), has only one black-and-white photograph (of Degrelle), and has no maps and virtually no other apparatus, apart from some laughable "notes", and a Glossary of terms. There are noticeable printing errors, spelling mistakes and mis-translations throughout the book. The Introduction, by Ted O'Keefe, which is basically a short hagiographic piece on Degrelle, rang alarm bells for me immediately. Who was Ted O'Keefe, what was the Institute for Historical Review, and why would they publish this particular work?

A little bit of fishing around on the Internet confirmed that the Institute is in fact some sort of anti-Semitic group that operates in California, so basically a bunch of nut-jobs. I picked this book up second-hand because I hadn't seen it before, so I know it's relatively scarce. While reading it it's impossible not to notice that it is a pro-Nazi work, so it's not surprising that Nazi sympathisers published it - a quick trip to their website store shows exactly what type of operation it is - and where you can find an "updated" edition of the work under review, which I note has an index - I wonder if there are any maps? Both are sorely lacking in the edition which I have read.

If you are a serious student of World War II, and in particular the Eastern Front, this book would be worth hunting out. If you can stand the pro-Nazi flavour, there is much good writing on what the life of the soldiery was like during nearly four years of hell.

Recommended, with reservations.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - Soldat by Siegfried Knappe and Ted Brusaw

 Soldat: Reflections of a German Soldier 1936-1949 by Siegfried Knappe and Ted Brusaw

New York: Orion Books, 1992                                                ISBN 0517588951

This is a very interesting book. The story of Siegfried Knappe, who finished his war in Hitler's bunker as an officer of the General Staff, is in some ways a typical one of that time and place, but striking and interesting in its own way.

Knappe came of age in the late 30s in Germany, and his service began in the Labour Corps, before entering the Army in the artillery. We follow his journey through training, the Sudetenland, France and Russia, his journey through officer training, and his personal life - marriage, the death of his brother in Russia, and his travails as a prisoner of the Russians after the war.

Knappe comes across as an intelligent young man, good at his job, and an efficient and effective officer. He (as many others) did not question what his country was doing until it was far too late. He was at General Staff training during the July plot, and saw at first hand the fear of the officers, and the rage and revenge of the Nazis.

In many ways he had a :lucky" war. Being posted to Stalingrad, he never got there as he was unable to get a flight in. Sent to Breslau to organise its defence, he was airlifted out before the final battle. He was either wounded or in training when his regiments suffered their greatest casualties.

He became a staff officer for General Weidling in the final weeks of the war, and regularly visited the Bunker before the end, before spending three years as a prisoner of the Russians, where he was regularly interrogated (his description of how to counter the pressure of the Russian interrogations is interesting and instructive. He was clever enough to realise that he needed to keep his story the same every time, and never admit to stealing Russian items or abusing Russian people. He realised that he didn't actually have to profess Communist sympathies to remain safe).

What can we learn from this book? Well, that the German army was not very mechanised (Knappe spent most of his war riding and using horses to move his guns), that the average soldier did not necessarily see atrocities, and that toward the end of the War the country and the military were a shambles - Knappe knew the War was lost more than a year from the time it did end, but kept fighting.

That the War was a great tragedy is well known, and we on the winning side don't often think of the tragedies that happened in Germany to Germans. In many ways Knappe was lucky, but this book still underlines the truth that war is hell, and there is little noble about being a soldier in World War II. If you are interested in the history of that time, this is worth reading.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - Soldiers of Destruction by Charles W. Sydnor Jr.

 Soldiers of Destruction: the SS Death's Head Division, 1933-1945 by Charles W. Sydnor Jr.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977                  ISBN 0691052557

So, here is the book that I should have read - rather than the sensationalized Curse of the Death's Head - to learn more about the SS Totenkopf Division and it's role in the fighting and killing of Nazi Germany and World War II. Whereas Rupert Butler went for the Hollywood angle of the story, Charles Sydnor has produced a meticulously researched, factual but very readable account, which Butler has obviously used as the basis for his airport non-fiction.

Soldiers of Destruction catalogues the shaky beginnings of the Totenkopf organisation - Theodor Eicke being the driving force behind not only the re-organization of the concentration camp system, but really the progenitor of the military arm of the SS. Sydnor shows us in Eicke a man who was in turn brutal, bullying, racist and yet in some ways very particular and prissy.

Through his vigour and chivvying Eicke managed to set up a national concentration camp system, which eliminated the personal sadism of previous commanders, and imposed not only a set of instructions which institutionalized brutality against those incarcerated, but also engendered within his SS cadres a feeling of being special and superior to those whom they opposed.

With his organizational ability and thrusting personality, Eicke was a natural choice to be the leader to initiate the armed wing of the SS. It also helped that the Totenkopfverbande was really the only source of combat-capable SS troops to create an armed division. Eicke's bullying blustering nature, and his ability to claim to be fulfilling the will of not only Himmler, but Hitler himself, initially didn't get him far in his battle with the German Army to get equipment and arms for his division. The Army did not like competition, did not like the overt ideological nature of the training of the SS troops, and frankly thought that the SS would not be able to fight.

Despite such opposition, Eicke worked hard to get his division up and running - begging, borrowing and stealing equipment - on many occasions incurring the wrath of Himmler, and working his troops very hard to get them up to speed. Eicke was determined that his troops would not only be the most ruthless in their pursuit of victory, but be exemplary National Socialists as well. He regularly cashiered soldiers and officers who transgressed his rules - many to do with drunkenness and sexual crimes, or anything else he thought besmirched the honour of the division. By the time SS Totenkopf arrived in France, the division was itching to get into battle.

That happened soon enough in France, where the division suffered proportionally more casualties than other units, owing to both their vigour in prosecuting battle, and their commanders not yet fully grasping how to use troops in modern war. Once France was defeated, the division not only had more experience, but plenty of  captured equipment. They also had some grudging respect from the Army for their efforts. What we remember today from the Totenkopf's time in France is the Le Paradis massacre.

This was not the last war crime that the Totenkopf - or its members that moved onto other SS organizations - committed.

Soon enough the division was on its way to Russia, where it was part of Army Group North's push to Leningrad. While we now think of the German invasion of Russia as a bit of a walk-over up until Winter arrived, Sydnor makes clear that even the early advances came at the cost of huge casualties, especially for Totenkopf, for whom the Russian war was the apogee of their ideological world-view. The Division's high and low point came during the battle of the Demyansk Pocket where they proved that they were one of the best fighting units available to Germany, but where they had their heart torn out by the unremitting Russian assaults. By the time the Pocket was relieved, the Totenkopf had almost ceased to exist as a fighting unit.

They were sent to France to recover and refit, but found themselves instead part of the force who occupied Vichy France, before being sent back to Russia - this time the Ukraine. Here they were used as the "firemen" of the German forces, sent wherever the need was greatest. It was here that they lost their leader, with Eicke shot down and killed just before the Battle of Kursk. While the division made the most headway of any German unit during that battle, Russia defeated the Germans, and the remainder of the War saw Totenkopf continuing to fill holes in the German front, with less and less success, until they ceased to exist around Vienna at the end of the War.

Syndor has used the archives fully and well, which is why we find out much more about the Division before the death of Eicke, and not so much after, owing to the fact that the later records of the Division were destroyed at the end of the War. Syndor doesn't shy away from the criminality behind not only some of the actions undertaken by the Totenkopf, but behind its very basis. He shows through evidence that the idea espoused by some that the Waffen SS was merely another part of the Army and not tainted by all the evil undertaken by the rest of the SS is not near the truth. The Totenkopf Division in particular regularly cycled officers from combat, back to the camps and administration of Einsatzgruppen, and then back to the Division. He shows us that Hitler valued his SS Divisions, eventually giving them preference over his Army divisions when it came to equipment and manpower. He shows us that they were anything but another division in a normal army.

This book is a must-read for anyone who wishes to understand how the Waffen SS was born, how it grew, how it died, and how it was as much part of the SS as the Camp Guards and members of the Einsatzgruppen. A great piece of scholarship.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - Crimea by Orlando Figes

 Crimea: the Last Crusade by Orlando Figes

London: Penguin, 2011 (first published 2010)    ISBN 9780141013503

Within ten kilometres of my home I can travel down Raglan Street, Cardigan Street and Malakoff Street on my way to either Redan or Sebastopol. If I like, I can drive a couple of hours west to Panmure, or if I chose to drive north-west I can have a coffee in St. Arnaud. If I drive south-east for an hour or so to Melbourne I can travel down Inkerman Street and Alma Road to the suburb of Balaclava. That all these names are linked to the Crimean War tells me not only the time period when these suburbs and streets were coming into being, but what a huge effect this conflict had on the public opinion of Britain and her empire at the time.

And yet who has heard of that war these days? Given the current Russian invasion of Ukraine, it is timely to revisit this period in history, for it can inform the bystander of some of the issues that underlie today's conflict. Thankfully, we can read this well-written book by that great student and historian of recent Russian history, Orlando Figes.

Figes not only writes about the tragedy of the fighting, but of the deeper religious, colonial and territorial claims that drove this war, as well as writing an interesting and useful chapter on the legacy of the war (and yes, a couple of the places listed above get a mention).

As Figes writes in his introduction "each power entered the Crimean War with its own motives." The Turks were fighting to hold on to their European empire. The British were fighting ostensibly to save the Turks from Russian aggression, but actually to try to contain Russia (whose expansion they feared), and garner more trade with Turkey. Napoleon III fought for the glory of France, and also perhaps to create a Europe of nation-states that would look to him as an elder statesman. 

And what of Russia? Well, as Figes states "As for the Tsar, Nicholas I, the man more than anyone responsible for the Crimean War, he was partly driven by inflated pride and arrogance, a result of having been tsar for twenty-seven years, partly by his sense of how a great power such as Russia should behave towards its weaker neighbours, and partly by a gross miscalculation about how the other powers would respond to his actions..." sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it...

Ostensibly the War began when Russia took umbrage at how the Turks were treating Christians in the Holy Land. This led the Tsar not only to bully Turkey, but to invade the Danubian delta, with an idea to "free" the Slav Christians from the Muslim yoke. His actions raised the ire of both Britain and France. Britain had long been concerned that Russia's access to the Black Sea was a strategic arrow pointed at the heart of British trade and power in the East. France was concerned not only for the continuation of Catholic Austria (with her quarrelsome Orthodox subjects), but also for the rights of Catholics in Palestine. Their concern for the plight of Turkey came a very poor last in this race of self-interest. And so both the British and the French sailed to the Crimea, where with their superior technology and better-trained armies they quickly put the port of Sevastopol to siege, and almost as quickly they began to lose huge amounts of soldiery to disease and cold. The viciousness of the fighting, both in the field at the Alma, Balaklava and Inkerman, and during the siege, is well-covered by Figes with apposite quotes from journals and newspaper reports from the time.

Figes also covers the politics of the War, especially in England, where newspaper reports for the first time played a big part in how the public reacted to and indeed shaped the policy of the Government. There were many aspects of the Crimean War that made it the first modern war - newspaper reporting, modern rifles (both the French and the English had them and the Russians did not, which turned the tide of many of the battles), and the development of modern logistics, which were needed for the British and French to continue the siege.

The siege of Sevastopol perhaps doesn't seem as present to English-speaking peoples who think about the Crimean War as the Charge of the Light Brigade or Florence Nightingale, but to the Russians, it is a sacred event and memory - similar in scope to the Australian view of Gallipoli. Figes points out in his epilogue how the partition of the USSR in 1991, which meant that the Crimea and Sevastopol were no longer part of Russia, was traumatic for the Russian people and for Putin, unbearable.

Yet for Alexander II, who succeeded his brother during the War, once Sevastopol had fallen there was little point in continuing a war he knew he could not win. While the English war party, led by Palmerston, wished not only to continue the War but to expand it, the English public, horrified at the loss of life, felt that the taking of Sevastopol meant victory was at hand and that the troops could come home. Napoleon similarly was looking for a way out, which the fall of Sevastopol gave him.

And so the peace conference, which included Austria as well as the four belligerents, tried to give something to everyone. Britain came out of it with a Black Sea that was Russian-fleet-free, France came out of it with the Austrian and Turkish empires intact, and a commitment to assistance in Italy, the Austrians  gained an assurance that their own Orthodox subjects would not be stirred to revolt by the Russians, and the Russians could save face through the assurance that Orthodox rights in the Holy Land would be upheld by the Ottoman Empire. For the Ottomans, despite being the victim of the Russian attack that began the war, very little good came from the "victory". Their territorial integrity was restored for the moment, but they were subject to many restrictions on how they could govern, mostly concerning giving freedoms to their Christian subjects. These freedoms, and the imposition of western "aid" and "trade", led to a backlash from more traditional parts of society, while the Christians continued to mobilize for independence, with the acquiescence, if not actual assistance, of most of Christian Europe

No-one knows how many died during the War, but estimates range up to 800,000 soldiers and civilians. Many of these people died horribly from wounds, disease or the cold. A lot of the deaths could have been prevented with proper hygiene and medical attention, which was sadly lacking in both the British and Russian armies. Figes records the advances made by those armies during the War, along with the quirks that siege warfare brought to the Crimea (if you had the money, you could buy French Champagne from Fortnum and Mason's at Balaklava, along with any other luxuries you might require).

That Figes manages to weave such stories through his narrative while still enlightening us about grand strategy and battles both on the field and back "home" is one of the strengths of this book. I can't think of a better way to get up to speed on a period of history that needs further exploration in these current times. Recommended.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - The Claws of the Bear by Brian Moynahan

The Claws of the Bear: a History of the Soviet Armed Forces from 1917 to the Present

by Brian Moynahan

London: Arrow Books, 1990 (first published 1989)        ISBN 0099682001

An interesting history not only capturing the past, but the moment in time in which it was written. Brian Moynahan has not only given us a history of the USSR through the lens of its armed forces, but also a "state of the union" of those same armed forces at the moment just prior to the collapse of the superpower.

He begins his history with World War I and the catastrophic failures of the Imperial Army, which became one of the driving forces of the Revolution. In fact during the Civil War, the Red Army was officered mostly by ex-Imperial Army men and it was they, along with the absolute ruthlessness of Trotsky, that helped the Bolsheviks claim victory over the disparate and badly organised "White" armies.

Stalin, after his rise was only too aware that whatever legitimacy his regime held, his ability to stay in power relied totally on the Army: which was one of the reasons that he purged it so heavily, not only of ex-Imperial troops, but others as well.

The Nazi attack on the USSR was initially the Red Army's greatest tragedy, but became over the course of the War its greatest triumph. By the time they had reached Berlin, the Red Army was the most powerful force in the World, backed by a huge industrial base. They had learnt from their defeats, and with Eastern Europe as a buffer, were determined that the Russian heartland would never again be invaded.

Moynahan describes the War years well, and the post-war maneuverings with a good journalistic precis, keeping the story moving with just enough detail, describing the Cuban Crisis and interventions in Russia's Eastern neighbours. The Russian's sense of being surrounded by hostile forces led to the Cuban adventure, with Russia's back-down due to both the unexpected (from the Soviet viewpoint) stiffness of spine of the US, and the lack of Soviet long-range military capability to support their transports. The back-down eventually led to the fall of Krushchev, who was the leader that more than anyone else brought forward the USSR's missile forces as the elite arm of Soviet power.

The interventions in Hungary, Poland, East Germany and Czechoslovakia were driven almost exclusively by Soviet strategic thinking: they could not allow any independence of thought or action to endanger the buffer and launching pad that those countries were for Soviet Russia. Dissent was dealt with in overwhelming force and much brutality. Moynahan does not cover Korea or Vietnam in much detail at all, given the limited active combat undertaken by members of the Soviet armed forces in these conflicts. The USSR's Afghanistan venture gets good treatment, and Moynahan is perceptive in deciphering what the outcomes would be from that minor (at the time) disaster.

The last section of the book covers the current (as at 1989) state of the armed forces - numbers, equipment, strategy, and the espionage undertaken to keep the Soviets in the hunt technologically. Moynahan points out that the Soviet forces were geared for an offensive war, not one of defence, and he spends some time pondering what the fall of the Berlin Wall meant for that strategy. Of course with the benefit of hindsight we can see that he was writing at the peak moment for Soviet forces, as not long after the publication of this book the whole thing fell apart, politically and militarily.

This is a book of its time, but even for the modern reader there is much in this of use, especially the sections dealing with World War II and the post-war conflicts.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell