Customer Reviews

Brute Force: Allied Strategy and Tactics in the Second World War

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Remember all the World War II movies where a handful of American or British soldiers mow down scores of German soldiers because the Allies are smarter? Ellis' argument here is that the Allies won the war not by being smarter that than the Germans but by outproducing them in war material by a huge margin. Ellis produces a substantial amount of evidence to support his claims. For example, the famous Luftwaffe bombing of London in 1940 cannot compare to the tremendous number of bombs dropped by the Allies on Berlin. Part of the reason for discrepancy in production is that the Allies, as stable democracies, were quicker to put their economies on a war footing. Unfortunately, the innovations they used to increase production beyond levels previously believed possible did not extend to military tactics. The result were higher casualties and a longer war than might have othewise been the case.

I just finished reading Brute Force by John Ellis. His thesis is that of the title i.e. the war was won largely by the overwhelming productive capacity of the allies. He backs this up with clear and ample statistics. But his book is by no means dry. In fact it was very engrossing for he delves deeply into the causes and implications of the production dissimilarities. While praising the heroics and sacrifices of allied soldiers, he doesn't spare their leadership for succumbing to the temptation of brute force. Numerous quotations and stories make the book an enjoyable read. One story is of a German lieutenant who told his captors how the American tanks kept coming and he kept shooting them. "Unfortunately, we ran out of bullets before you ran out of tanks." If you are not aware of the economic aspects of the war, this book can certainly change your perspective. Definitely a well researched and well written book. But, you may also wish to read "Why the Allies Won" by R. Overy. His thesis (in one sentence), is that WWII was really won in 1942 when the Axis still had parity.

John Ellis wrote an important book in 1990, the title of which is rarely spoken in 2007 without derision or anger. But he was mostly correct. The Allies did win WWII largely because of what Churchill rightly described as "the application of overwhelming force." Sure, German and Japanese strategy were both flawed. But how were they ever going to compete against Soviet, American, British, Commonwealth, and Empire resources? Axis confusion, dithering, and demoralization were not the cause of their defeat--they were symptoms of being overmatched and knowing it. Everyone today from Overy on down the academic food chain wants to attribute Allied victory to their own inherent strengths and abilities, nay, overall superiority in virtually all things military, rather than to German, Italian, and Japanese weaknesses. So be it. They have the more flattering answer that the Anglo-American world wants to hear. But the truth of the matter lies much more in the "brute force" arguments of Ellis. Perhaps when the post-Cold War self-congratulatory chest-thumping and anti-German pile-on (ain't it interesting that once we didn't need their million men to buttress the NATO position in Central Europe, all benefits of the doubt were removed and the "they were all Nazis" perspect reemerged as common wisdom?) that marks so much of contemporary historiography dies down Ellis will be rediscovered as a valuable contributor and this book's reputation redeemed.

Like Ellis'THE SHARP END OF WAR this books is easy to read and provides a lot of incite in what I would call the "historical variation of WW2" which is the Germans didn't have a chance of winning. The book also points out this fact didn't lead to a quick or painless end of the war but to a long road to Berlin and Tokyo despite the Allies overwhelming material and manpower superiority over the Axis, and our ability to read the German and Japanese codes (ULTRA vs. Germany) so in many case we knew exactly what the Germans were doing and what their forces were and how they were deployed. Despite this the Allies made many mistakes that in the author's view extended the war and Allied lives. Highly Recommended.

I just finished John Ellis' magnificent Brute Force. Ellis' thesis is that the key factor in the Allies victory over the Axis powers was primarily the result of overwhelming economic power which they were able to apply to the battlefield with their immense industrial potential.

Ellis' book is replete with examples and statistics that prove his point, including a fairly comprehensive set of charts and table in the appendices that are worth the price of admission all by themselves. The result of all this is, to this reader at least, utterly convincing.

In addition to proving his central thesis, Ellis provides several interesting insights in the balance of his work, not the least of which was that the average rate of mortality among Bomber Command aircrew actually exceeded the mortality rate of Kamikaze pilots! Another interesting finding is that the level of motor transport necessary to fully supply Rommel's Afrika Korps at the end of its 900 mile supply line from Tripoli would have required the Wehrmacht to commit roughly 75% of all the trucks it possessed, leaving the forces on the Eastern front more or less immobile.

I recommend it very highly to pretty much anyone who wants to gain some insight into the results of WWI. If you're interesting in WWII, you've pretty much got to read this book.

This account of how World War Two was won is so different than the common conception in the western world. The author gets some of the minutia wrong, i.e no version of the JU 88 was slower than the HE 111, but overall he makes a very believable argument that without overwhelming numbers of men and material the Allies would never have won World War Two. The amount of blood spilled is scarey.