This book is all about the last year or so of World War II in Europe. “Gasp and Shock” I can almost hear you say. Yes it’s another WWII book and the fact that it is another WWII book is one of the two problems I have with it.
The first problem is that in spite of the author finding plenty of new material on the conflict in the East which was full of brutality on a massive scale with no quarter given, a lot of the material told of events in the West I knew before.
Okay, so I suppose that one, is more my problem than the book’s, perhaps had I read it a couple of years ago I may now be calling it “The best book I’ve read”, (that title goes to "The Forgotten Soldier"), but I drift from the point.
The second problem is that although it’s an interesting book, its not a really an exciting read. More of an entertaining documentary, than a thrill a minute movie.
Now that I’ve broken Max’s heart with all this negativity, allow me to say a few words and prevent him from seeking a new career. This book has two purposes, the first describe famous actions in the West as well as lesser known Stalin sponsored bloodbaths on the East. The second is in posing the questions such as "Why didn't the Western Allies win the war in 1944 after the D-Day landings and why was the US so slow to realize that Stalin was waging a political war and not merely a military one, even through Churchill had been screaming rape?
Actually in hindsight this book now seems better than I first thought.
After D-Day Hitler was always going to lose and everyone knew it. The Americans knew it and were bloody sure that they weren’t going to throw their men away just to end the war a few months earlier, a war weary Britain no longer had the personnel and had to do what they were told, while Stalin truly didn’t care about anybody, casualties were irrelevant as long as the Red army got to Berlin first. Ironically had the western armies been more aggressive they would indeed have won the war earlier against a routed and not an organized retreating enemy and actually saved countless military and civilian lives.
Off course there was always the French and De Gaulle, but that a whole other story.
For those who are interested in trivia, this book was followed up by “Nemesis”, the last year of the Japanese war, which is actually a better read.
Rating 7 out of 10