Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #150188 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-01
• Binding: Hardcover
• 368 pages

Synopsis
The battle for Moscow, which took place from September 1941 to April 1942, was the biggest battle of World War II - indeed, the biggest battle of all time. Seven million troops were involved. The combined losses of both sides amounted to 2.5 million men - 2 million on the Russian side. Even Stalingrad, immortalised in Antony Beevor's classic work, involved half as many troops and less than half as many losses. But most of all, this battle turned the course of the whole war. Hitler had declared war on the Soviet Union, and hoped for a swift victory. Had Moscow fallen, Hitler might have won the war - but in the bitter winter the Soviet army held the Germans back. But Stalin committed huge strategic blunders - initially refusing to arm his troops after Hitler sent his troops east without winter clothing - and his reign of terror caused mass looting in Moscow and the flight of half its citizens. As a result the Soviets suppressed the full story of the battle, and only now have the secret archives been declassified for Andrew Nagorski to tell the full story. Anyone gripped and astounded by Stalingrad will find this an amazing account of privation and attrition on an unimaginable scale.

This title draws on previously secret Russian documents - suppressed by Stalin - and eyewitness testimony. It is written by an award-winning "Newsweek" foreign correspondent. It continues Aurum's distinguished military history record after "The Most Dangerous Enemy" and "The Winter War". This is the story of the biggest battle of all time - involving 7 million troops. Even Stalingrad involved half the number of troops and less than half the number of losses. This is the battle that marked Hitler's first reverse and the turning point of WW2.

Customer Reviews

"Moscow is a city that has much suffering ahead of it"
Anton Chekhov was certainly prophetic when he wrote that line, perhaps no more so than in connection with the titanic clash between the USSR's Red Army and Germany's Wehrmacht in the opening months of the war on the east front in 1941/1942. Andrew Nagorski's "The Greatest Battle: Stalin, Hitler, and the Desperate Struggle for Moscow that Changed the Course of World War II" is a compelling, well-written examination of an epic and bloody battle for survival.

Winston Churchill once wrote that "history is written by the victors". Nagorski takes the view here that sometimes history also is not written by the victors when that history doesn't serve the victor's purposes. At the outset of the "Greatest Battle" Nagorski points out that while much has been written of the battles of Leningrad, Stalingrad, and Kursk for example the battle that ended on the outskirts of Moscow has been subjected to far less scrutiny by historians. Nagorski suggests that a primary reason why Moscow has received less historical scrutiny is the fact that the victor, in this case Stalin's USSR, had little to gain by promoting a battle that would cast Stalin in a less favorable light than Stalingrad or Kursk. Documents locked in NKVD/KGB archives stayed locked well past Stalin's regime. However, since the fall of the USSR a great amount of previously uncovered records has led both Russian and western historians to take a new look at the battle for Moscow.

Nagorski has done an excellent job here in amassing a tremendous amount of research material and presenting it in a way that can be appreciated by readers with either a general or specific interest in the subject matter. One of the great strengths of the book is Nagorski's wide-ranging approach to the battle. He does not rely on the old chestnut that it was simply the winter that stopped Hitler's armies. Rather, Nagorski spends a good deal of time (productively) setting out a whole range of interconnected decisions that had an impact of the course of the battle. For example, we see how Stalin's horrific purge of the Red Army in 1937 and the army's disastrous campaign in the Russo-Finnish war helped lead Hitler to conclude that a war in the east would be nasty, brutal, short and victorious. At the same time Nagorski points out how a good showing by the USSR's soldiers against Japan in Mongolia in 1939, led by Georgy Zhukov, was most likely a factor in Japan's decision support the German invasion by attacking Russia in the east. This decision allowed the USSR to rush 250,000 Red Army soldiers from Siberia, equipped with winter clothing, to join in the defense of Moscow. As Nagorski points out their arrival was critical to successful defense of Moscow.

Nagorski also does a good job of weaving individual stories into his `big-picture' narrative. This adds a bit of real flavor to the story he is telling and also avoids the trap of writing solely from the actions of the large players on the stage. I would note, however, that "Greatest Battle" is not really what I would call a military history. You won't see an order of battle or a narrative detailing military strategy. This is not a criticism as much as it is a notice to readers that this is an excellent general overview of the first seven months of the war in the east and was not intended to be a military treatise in the style of the incomparable David Glantz.

Highly recommended. L. Fleisig