David M. Glantz

When considering this examination of Soviet military operations in late 1943/early 1944 the word to be applied is perhaps not "forgotten," but "suppressed," as the Soviet military high command convinced itself that with just a little more pressure the German Army Group Center would collapse; an event that didn't happen until Operation Bagration in 1944. Glantz's conclusion is that this suppression is more than just trying to brush the deaths of thousands of soldiers in successive show more unimaginative operations accomplishing nothing into darkness; reputations are at stake. The particular reputation being that of Vasily Sokolovsky, protege of Georgii Zhukov and a senior commander of the Cold War Soviet military. Apart from that Glantz also makes the useful point of how the argument that Moscow had left its addiction to broad-front operations in the past by 1943 was not the case, as illustrated by the failures in Belorussia. All that said this is even more of a reference work than a narrative even as compared to some of Glantz's other studies. show less

This is the classic deep operational analysis of the battle that permanently put the Germans back on their heels on the Eastern Front for the rest of World War II. Of particular importance is Glantz's revisionist point that, for all the Cold War excuses from German historians, there was nothing to suggest that the Germans would not tear another deep hole in Soviet defenses the way they did in 1941 and 1942; making the Soviet achievement even more impressive,

Volume 2 of 'Barbarossa Derailed' picks up pretty much where the first volume left off. Throughout both volumes Glantz's goals have been the following: to show that the Wehrmacht was suffering before the beginning of Operation Typhoon and the defeat it experienced at the gates of Moscow could be seen written on the wall throughout the Smolensk engagement Army Group Center found itself suffering through; the Red Army, while taking grievous losses throughout its multiple counteroffensives show more against Army Group Center, performed better than previously thought and consistently bloodied numerous German infantry, motorized, and panzer divisions; finally, the German (more so Hitler's) decision to continue battling Soviet forces on the flanks of Army Group Center - eventually leading to the encirclement at Kiev - was consistent with Hitler's initial orders for Operation Barbarossa and eliminated close to 1 million Red Army men from Army Group Center's front and flanks that might have done a great deal more damage if left in place with an early German offensive toward Moscow.

The book itself contains dozens of maps and battle orders and reports, same as the first volume. And just as in the first volume, while many of the documentation is dry and repetitive there are always some interesting facts that come out. For instance, every now and then there are reported losses from various units, yet more interesting is what these reports don't say - a lot of the time the 'missing' are themselves missing. The majority of reports only mention dead and wounded. The numbers themselves are interestingly but offer only a glimpse into Soviet losses, which Glantz details himself quite well throughout the book and in the concluding chapter. In truth Glantz's commentary is often the most interesting as many will have a hard time following the action on the maps included or through the orders and reports as the numerous locations mentioned (from groves, to hills, rivers, villages, towns, cities, etc.) will make little sense even if you are familiar with Soviet geography.

Overall, Glantz's mission with these two volumes is readily accomplished. Repeatedly it is evident that the Red Army was put in an unenviable position as Stalin and STAVKA sent out orders that most of the units in the field could not fully accomplish. The cream of the pre-war Red Army facing Army Group Center was lost during the first two weeks of the war in the Minsk encirclement and follow-up operation(s) and the armies that took the field in their wake were made up mainly of reservists and/or conscripts with little training compared to the soldiers they faced in Army Group Center. Thus, the stop-gap measures consistently employed by Stalin and his commanders became part of an attrition strategy that bloodied dozens of German divisions and forestalled another complete encirclement at Smolensk. With Panzer troops leaving behind their infantry counterparts, the encirclement at Smolensk was weakened by Red Army troops attempting to break out and in simultaneously. Some 50,000 escaped to fight another day and Army Group Center's panzer forces needed time for rest and refit, yet were continually denied it as Soviet counteroffensives against Army Group Center grew in intensity. Here is where volume 2 continues the story with offensives launched by three fronts under the command of Timoshenko, Zhukov, and Eremenko. The majority of readers familiar with the Eastern Front will have heard of Yelnia (El'nia) and the success Zhukov's troops enjoyed. But as Glantz shows, this was less of a victory than Timoshenko's troops experienced. The latter inflicted greater casualties on the Germans and captured more territory than Zhukov's Yelnia operation, yet it has been overshadowed by the moral victory that was the Yelnia offensive (most likely because of Zhukov's presence and the propaganda that the victory generated). Today even Russian historians can see that Yelnia, while a moral victory, did little to hinder future German action in Operation Typhoon. It seems the worst performance was that of Eremenko's front. In part it was the fault of the commanding officer, but it seems more so that STAVKA and Stalin continually pushed Eremenko who in turn pushed his army commanders to needlessly waste lives in operations that were doomed from the start because of numerous reasons (including lack of logistics, tanks, artillery, aircraft, surprise, etc.).

The concluding chapter is in many ways the most interesting as Glantz ties up various loose ends. It's true that there are still many 'white spots' in the history of the Eastern Front, and unlike the latter years of the war, 1941 was riddled with chaos, defeat, retreat, and propagandized heroism. That propagandized heroism all too often has eclipsed the actual history of 1941 and more so the tangible victories that Red Army forces achieved, although too often by paying a high price in blood. Thus Glantz has shown how the encirclement of Smolensk, which is usually seem as a 'bump in the road' to the encirclements at Kiev and Operation Typhoon, was in fact a prelude to Germany's defeat at the gates of Moscow. The casualties sustained by the Wehrmacht were not made good by the time Operation Typhoon was launched and while the Red Army suffered more than their German counterparts, and in some ways allowed for a weakening of the forces that would face Army Group Center in October, the end result was the buying of time for more forces and material to make it to the west to face the Germans. The victory that awaited the Soviets outside Moscow, that much, at least, the Red Army was able to achieve in part thanks to the sacrifices of hundreds of thousands around Smolensk in July, August, and September. show less

So, here we come to what might be the author's last great contribution to military history, as he contemplates the Soviet effort to retake Rostov while the battle of Stalingrad was in its endgame, and bag another German army as the thrust into the Caucuses came undone. Why did this Soviet effort fail? In some ways, the answer is easy, as the Soviets were too optimistic about what they could accomplish, their logistics weren't in order, and as always, the enemy gets a vote. The Germans were show more fighting on internal lines and could always come up with more armored vehicles to counter the Soviet forces at this point in time.

One thing that is a little problematic about this book is that Glantz incorporates big hunks of primary documentary material. Partly this is to let the record speak for itself. Partly, one suspects, this is due to Glantz being quite an elderly man at this point, and this is probably the only way this work was going to see the light of day. I'm glad to have a new book from Glantz, but it is to be admitted that it's not quite up the the standard of Glantz's masterpiece, the "Stalingrad Trilogy."

Further, I'm quite sad to learn that that the Kansas University Press might be shuttered. Without them it's hard to imagine the works of Col. Glantz being published, and that would have been a great loss to the field. show less