John Erickson's service in British Army Intelligence complements
his extensive academic experience to produce two highly regarded
volumes on the war that raged between Russia and Germany between
1941 and 1945. This, the first of those volumes, was originally
published in 1975, and almost three decades later manages to come
across as impressive and comprehensive as ever. Few encounters in
modern history can rival the 'unbridled and atavistic savagery' of
what Erickson refers to at one point as 'Stalin's war with
Germany'. As Operation Barbarossa unfolded and the ensuing battle
for the city of Stalingrad raged, the awful attrition would result
in a scale of suffering that is still difficult to comprehend. The
accompanying grainy black-and-white photos succeed in capturing the
bleak reality of the devastated streets of the city and the
gruelling guerrilla warfare that saw the combatants darting and
crawling from one gutted building to the next. Nothing is
dramatised for easy consumption. Erickson concentrates on the kind
and style of the war waged by the Soviet Union, and the sheer
immensity of the book means that it is incredibly detailed. He
reaches beyond military history into the realm of social history,
as he analyses and considers the vast Soviet system and how it
dealt with this 'Great Patriotic War'. He considers the roles of
many of the key individuals both during and after those years, the
mythology that has grown up around the events, and how the
disastrously out of step early days of the Russian fight against
Germany's 'modern war machine' would eventually give way to victory
and its accompanying 'unparalleled human losses'. Erickson took
into account some 15,000 existing Soviet volumes as well as a vast
amount of captured German military documentation to leave no stone
unturned in this erudite, exhaustive work. (Kirkus UK)
A new paperback version of the first volume in John Erickson's
monumental, critically acclaimed history of the Soviet-German
war.In fascinating detail, "The Road to Stalingrad" takes us from
the inept command structures and strategic delusions of the
pre-invasion Soviet Union through Russia's humiliation as her
armies fell back on all fronts, until the tide turned at last in
Stalingrad. The assessment of the generals and political leaders,
as well as of the wranglings within both the Allied and Axis
commands, is completely unsparing. The climactic battle, so vividly
described here, leaves the Red Army poised for the long fight
towards Berlin.
This is not to be missed by any military buff or student of World
War II.
General
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