Customer Reviews

Moscow Option: An Alternative Second World War

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I found "The Moscow Option" in a used bookstore back in the late 1980s. David Downing's book is a deft blending of military insight and pop culture, entirely plausible and just plain fun. Seemingly forgotten, I'm glad to see it republished in a time where alternative history is much more popular.

By tinkering with two small "what-ifs," Downing examines what might have happened if the Germans had taken Moscow and Egypt and the Japanese had won the Battle of Midway. It is the aftermath of these successes that makes this book so memorable, with a timeline so believeable that one might almost think they've stumbled onto a real history book from a parallel universe. The book's main lesson is that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

One great touch is Downing's use of quotes by people like Dorothy Parker, Groucho Marx and Neil Young to open each chapter. Besides being a military historian (The Devil's Virtuosos: German Generals at War, 1940-5) Downing is also a respected rock writer, penning a recent biography of Young.

A great book, and a delight to read; a work many current alternative history writers would do well to emulate.

In this well-written book, Downing describes how World War Two might have gone if only a few events had been different. What if Adolf Hitler had been incapacitated when his aircraft crash-landed in 1941? German generals might have pursued their preferred option on the Eastern Front, concentrating their advance on the capture of Moscow. Downing goes on from there, describing alternate outcomes in other theaters. What if Rommel had received the reinforcements he needed to defeat the British in the Egyptian desert? What if the Japanese had won the battle of Midway? These scenarios are well thought out and generally convincing. Downing concludes that the Germans and the Japanese eventually would have been overcome by superior allied resources. But the world might look different today because of early Axis power successes. This book, originally published in 1979, includes a few diagrams of battles and a disappointing dot and line map of the Pacific.

The first change is the crash of an aircraft carrying Hitler back to Rastenburg in August 1941 after visiting his generals on the East Front. In reality, Hitler forced the Army to drive South to encircle the Soviet armies around Kiev after a long halt at Smolensk.

In this AH, the plane crash leaves Hitler in a coma and the Generals decide to go straight for Moscow. This is successful and Moscow falls well before Winter. The Soviets do however, fall back in good order and establish a new government at Kubyshev on the Volga.

The book then covers the 1942 Summer offensive "Case Blue" in our timeline which is aimed like ours at the South East rather than due East. This is co-ordinated by a Mediterranean strategy and a proposed link up between the DAK and the Eastern armies in Syria. All this in very convincing, well researched detail.

The other change is an American defeat at Midway, and the IJN actually seizing Hawaii and raiding the West coast and Panama. The Japanese make the mistake of making the main thrust against India and Ceylon.

The book ends in 1942, with the Allies having just contained the German co-ordinated offensives and planning the reconquest of Egypt. In Russia, 1943 looks bad for the Germans, bogged down in partisan warfare. The IJN is caught off Panama and loses it's carriers a la Midway.

There are references to nuclear attacks on Germany in 1946 and a civil war between the Army and SS, but the meat of the book covers only the period August 1941 to August 1942 or so.

It is truly excellent, and reads very much like a military history, complete with maps etc. This review is based on my old copy which is maybe 15 years old now. Highly recommended, and I have written this review totally on my recollections since I last reread the book.

This is a good alternative history I've been looking for. It gives the reader a short history written in a War College manner by someone who is familiar with the events he lived through. It spares the reader an overlay of bogus romance and cliched action/adventure. This isn't another version of "Winds of War" with the historic changes in the background. Just the facts of what happened in those crucial years, 1941 and 1942. In this hisotry Hitler is out of commission for six months or so while the German army is approaching Moscow. This counterfact spares his Generals from folowing through the then successful Russian campaign and the Japanese get lucky and win the Battle of Midway. America is now subjected to a real bombing of California from the Japanese Navy.

The author makes two well thought-out changes and leaves everything else the same. He does avoid giving the Axis any more freebies. All the weaknesses in Hitler's Germany and Imperial Japan are still there: overlooking some key technoligies because Hitler wasn't interested in them, a lack of a economic base on the part of Japan, and the racist ideology that precluded Germany from taking advantage of potential allies such as the Arabs and Russians. The Allies prevail but a much higher cost.

Operation Barbarossa almost achieves its stated objectives and Japan does more than anger America but inflicts real damage on its advesary. As a result, World War II lasted one year longer than in real life. It would seem from Downing's asides that Germany was in much worse shape after the War which ended in 1946. Indeed, all the combatants suffered more in this world. The post-war world would have been a much bleaker place had what Duncan wrote about happened.

My only disappointment is that Downing didn't go beyond August 1942. It does leave you guessing how Britain, which in this world didn't have the effective support it would have had from America, battled back from it's near complete defeat. America had to concentrate most of its resources defeating Japan. Downing alludes to the political pressure Churchill faced. I wonder how any of the allied leaders could have survived the great reverals in the period covered by the book. However, he went only as far as the fall of '42. He does leave some of the details to the reader. This is certainly a thought provoking book.

Unlike most alternative histories of World War II which provide short stories about specific events, this book provides a complete view. It starts the reader in Russia, moves into North Africa, includes some Caucasus and Middle East action, plus includes the Pacific theater as well. It also demonstrates how events in on theater can impact events in other theaters. For example, if Japan were to invade the Soviet Union after the Germans. Such a move would tie down the famous Siberian divisions which saved the Eastern Front.

Say what you will about the two major and several minor plot twists. They seem plausible to this reader and made for some fascinating reading. One example is the fall of Malta and how it directly related to the campaign in North Africa. Another would be if the Japanese knew their codes were broken.

The book is populated with many maps which show army and navy movements and battles.

Sadly, the book finishes before World War II is concluded. It leaves the reader hanging with a few bits of info about future events. There is room for a sequel.

If you are looking for a complete world view of a portion of World War II, jump on this book. You won't be able to put it down.

There were many reasons that the Nazis and Axis were not going to prevail in WW2, the most glaring was the lack of oil and essential resources. For the Germans, there was the lack of any allies that would help in the persecution of the war. Though the Italians tried to be a world power, they were never better than a second class Army and a Navy that was afraid to engage the enemy.

In this alternate history both Germany and Japan manage more victories and conquer more territory, but in the end the lack of manpower and material seals their doom. For the Germans, the lack of oil was so glaring that you would have thought they would have made capturing the Caucasus their main priority in Russia. But, even if the wells were captured intact the Germans didn't have the ability to transfer the oil to where it was needed. There was no way that the Nazis could have built a pipeline into Europe without it constantly being sabotaged.

One of the secrets to the failure of the Germans to win the war was their lack of the strategic metal Tungsten. Their major supplier was Portugal and even then there was never enough of a supply to feed the needs of the German War Machine. The metal is used to 'toughen' steel and strengthen the wings on fighter planes. German production of tanks and motorized vehicles would never be able to meet the needs of the Wehrmacht not were their tanks and vehicles built to withstand the winter in Russia and the sands of North Africa and the Middle East.

Japanese Naval experts knew from the start of the war that even if they destroyed the 'whole' US Navy at Pearl Harbor, they would only have one and a half to two years before the US economy rebuilt. Like the Germans, they could not replace their military losses in a timely manner. Both countries didn't have the large populations that the US and USSR had to replace casualties incurred to their Armies and Navies. Neither did they have the troops to 'hold' their conquered territories while prosecuting an offensive war.

In the Moscow Option, the Axis does better, but this only postpones the inevitable and causes the war to go on longer and cause more misery. Good Book.

Zeb Kantrowitz

...then why do we spend the majority of the book everywhere but the Eastern Front?

I won't deny or disparage the actions in the Pacific and the role of the British, but if a book is supposed to be about the German war in Russia, perhaps it would do well to spend some time in that setting.

Instead, we get exceptional detail regarding British actions in North Africa, followed by hour-by-hour reworkings of American actions in the Pacific - and then we get sweeping generalities regarding the German actions in Russia.

The premise and title of the book are largely sidelined, as if they are of secondary importance. Why?

In this case, don't judge a book neither by its cover, nor by the synopsis printed thereupon.

This book is very plausable in how WWII could have turned out differently if a few decissions had been changed. It felt like I was reading real history. The book is a real page turner and I finished it in days. I think the book sets a possiblity that the war could have gone the other way. In the end Japanese luck runs out and Hitler meddles enough to ensure defeat.

The premise behind The Moscow Option is to change two recorded events in WWII and speculate as to how these changes would have impacted the rest of the war. While I didn't have a problem with these two changes, they were plausible enough, I disagree with the author's speculated consequences on two points.

1. The Red Army had built up significant reserves and launched a counter-attack to throw the Germans back in several areas just as the attack on Moscow was called off. It seems to me that these reserves were ignored. I have made a study of the Eastern Front and cannot accept the casual dismissal of these forces by the author.

2. From what I have read about the Pacific War, including the very interesting speculation by Hector Bywater, the Japanese fleet simply could not have performed the missions proposed by the author in the latter part of the book.

If you are not that read up on either the European or Pacific theatres of WWII, this book may be of interest. For me, the assumptions were too thin for me to suspend disbelief.

I came across this book sometimes in 1982 in Delhi. Alternate history was not at all in vogue at that time, in fact, this was my first book of this kind that I saw. I liked it so much that I could not part with it and smuggled it in USSR at the end of my mission in India (the swastika on the cover of that 1980 edition was enough to arouse KGB people on duty at the customs in Moscow, with consequences to myself...)
I was born in 1940 and lived in Moscow during the siege. I remember a few episodes like air bombings, but mostly stories told by my parents. I feel that Mr Dowling captured the atmosphere that prevailed in Russia at that time incredibly well, which is rare in the books on Russia at war. It was a good idea to republish this talented account.