Customer Reviews

The Path to Victory: The Mediterranean Theater in World War II

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

The Path To Victory is a comprehensive one volume review of World War 2 in the Mediterranean and vicinity. It has flaws, but it provides a wealth of information and is easy to read.

The scope of the book is an uncommon one. Most titles deal with individual people or battles, or cover one country's contribution (e.g. An Army At Dawn), or look over the whole war in a general way. The auther here, Douglas Porch, deals with the whole war, but restricts himself to the Mediterranean sea. His descriptions of circumstances surrounding the battles is excellent, his short histories of the people involved are quite good (his handling of Juin is outstanding, finally, a French General to admire). His description of battle in Africa tends to be anti-climactic, however, as though the reasons for the outcome rendered the actual fighting superfluous. This is often true, but the reader of WW2 books is used to a different style. However, his description of the Italian campaign is quite good in all respects.

His story is as comprehensive as you could expect for one volume covering so much area and so much time. His argument, that the Mediterranean was critical for Allied victory (not a sideshow or distraction, as many accuse), is something you might not agree with, but is nevertheless well worth considering.

The main flaw in the work is that Porch does not have a constant command of his timeline. Often in the early to middle part of the book he will rock back and forth over the same time period, and he does not always keep the reader well grounded. I often found myself thinking of the abducted woman in Minority Report: a psychic used to living in a constant stream of flshbacks and premonitions, asks "is it now?"

The last half of the book, however, is firmly grounded. I would also liked to have seen more on the impact of the USAAF operating out of Italy, which, as I recall, accomplished far more than just the Ploeti raids Porch deals with in some detail, but then, in anything well written, one always wants more.

One picky error, that bothers me as a math-literate person, occurs on page 76. He says an influx of refugees increased the population of Greece by 28%, thus "nearly one in three" Greeks was a refugee. If you add 28% to something, you get 128%, and the proportion of the influx to the new total is 28/128, or 21%. Thus, barely one in five was a refugee. His point was that there were rather alot of refugees, and I guess that's true enough, but I hate to see basic errors in math a work that one assumes was read by many people before publication.

The Path To Victory is easy to read, does a very good job on an under-appreciated theatre of the war, and provides a new perspective that is well worth reading.

A Note on the five-star rating: In my view the stars are not a judgement on the literary perfection of a title, but on whether or not a person reading the review ought to read (and buy) the book. It's a relative judgement of the quality of the book, the subject matter, and the available alternatives.

Douglas Porch's "The Path to Victory: The Mediterranean Theater in World War II" is an outstanding piece of historiography. While its 683 p. length may deter some from picking it up, this is a book worthy of a read by anyone with even passing interest in the Second World War, especially that portion of the war oft referred to as the 'backwater war'. Aside from Porch's clear mastery of the English language that lends itself to easily digestible prose, the most significant strength of "The Path to Victory" is related to how it can change the way the reader/historian looks/appreciates the Mediterranean Theater.

Porch, unlike most historians of note, argues that the Mediterranean Theater of Operations in WWII was not in fact a 'backwater war', but was THE definitive theater of the war in Europe. This is the base thesis of Porch's book, and he presents his historiography around this idea. Although Porch's thesis goes against the grain he does not simply spin history to fit his ideas, as other controversial authors have done. Instead, Porch presents a thoroughly researched story that in it's content is not significantly different from that presented elsewhere, but is analyzed in a more open fashion, thus allowing his thesis to be properly tested. After reading "The Path to Victory" the reader is likely to conclude that previous conclusions that the Mediterranean Theater was a 'backwater war' may have been made under quite restrictive analyses; namely, that few authors have not taken a biased, almost predetermined, approach to the analysis of this portion of the war. Much of this bias is derived from strong nationalistic feelings (e.g., American authors often see the Mediterranean Theater as a 'backwater' because of the American belief that this geographical portion of the war supported British imperial desires), or a question of simple public interest (e.g., the general reader is usually much more interested in the battles in Normandy or the Ardennes than what happened in the Po Valley in the summer/fall of 1944). Although Porch is a Brit, he seems to give the theater a fair shot without obvious nationalistic bias. In fact when he discusses the decisions/actions of the various commanders he is equally critical of all, British (yes even Monty) as well as American. In short, Porch appears to approach the topic critically but fairly.

Overall, "The Path to Victory" is a single volume treatise covering the Mediterranean Theater as a whole, within the context of the greater European war. Moreover, while many historians express their comfort zones very clearly in their writings, Porch discusses multiple areas of historiography with equal zeal and competence. For example, Porch seems equally comfortable discussing both naval and ground actions in detail, from command level decision making to unit level actions. He engages the relationships and decisions among the leaders of the Allied venture (e.g., Churchill, Roosevelt, and de Gaulle) with much confidence, while simultaneously providing the reader considerable detail with respect to various battles that were fought within the theater. However, the reader should be aware that this is not a regimental history, it is much more broad in coverage. This is not however to suggest that Porch neglects the value of discussions at this level.

In the end Porch's prose takes the reader from North Africa to the Balkans and the end of the war in a way that is likely to make most readers stop and reconsider how important (or not) the Mediterranean Theater was to the greater European Theater of Operations. Any book that makes one think has value and when it's done well and written with flair it's a bonus. Porch does all of these things. Solid 4 star effort.

Reading The Path to Victory is like eating a nice steak. It's filling. It's rich and satisfying. It's to be slowly chewed and savored. It's meaty and juicy. And occasionally there's a bit that just isn't very good. Porch has a daunting task in his book: to relate the entire war in the Mediterranean in one volume. This is a difficult job, for a number of reasons. First, the conflicts in that theater were far-flung, ranging from Morocco to Iraq, and they had only indirect strategic links. In other words, many of the events do not fit in one single story. Second, conflict there lasted the entire war, without interruption, so there is a lot to tell.

Porch does an admirable job of telling this long, twisted story. His main purpose is not to simply chronicle combat operations. Rather his goal is to demonstrate the strategic importance of the Mediterranean in World War II. In many US histories, The Mediterranean theater is dismissed as a sideshow, a strategic dead end that diverted resources away from the main effort in northeast Europe. In many British histories, the critique is that the Mediterranean garners far more attention than it deserves, El Alamein notwithstanding. Porch takes on these assessments. He argues that while the theater was not sufficient for victory over Germany, it was necessary. The bases of his argument can be broken down into several parts.

First, Porch shows that Allied leadership needed a place to improve. He refers to the theater as the "graveyard of the generals", and rightly so, when one begins to tally all the failures in command. The UK and the US badly needed an opportunity to weed out poor commanders, and the theater (primarily in North Africa) gave them this opportunity in a strategically safe environment where operational reverses were not war-enders.

Second, Porch argues that the Mediterranean provided an opportunity for the US and the UK to improve it soldiering. Doctrine improved, tactics improved, and amphibious landings were executed, all of which gave the Allied militaries practical experience necessary for the eventual invasion of northeast Europe.

Third, although the Mediterranean theater was on the periphery of US and German strategy, it was decidedly not on the periphery of British or Italian strategy. In the United States, we view the war from a US- and German-centric perspective. We forget that the Mediterranean represented an important region for the UK, with its interests in Egypt and the Middle East, and the Suez canal represented a lifeline to India. For Italy, the importance of the region is obvious. Some historians complain that the US was "sucked into" the Mediterranean and wound up fighting for British strategic interests. Possibly so, but Porch argues that the practical experience of fighting outweighed this. Additionally, the US put its fighting in the Mediterranean to good use: clearing Sicily and much of Italy allowed for ANVIL, the amphibious invasion of southern France, which was instrumental in producing the strategic withdrawal of the Germans.

Porch also demonstrates that the Germans, like the US, got "sucked into" the Mediterranean in order to help its ally (Italy). However, for the Germans, the theater certainly was a dead end and ended up costing Germany a great deal of resources (squandered in Tunisia, or occupying Italy and the Greece and the Balkans).

The largest contribution of the Mediterranean theater was to clear up political and strategic ambiguities. El Alamein was a badly-needed victory, politically and for morale, for the British. Another significant strategic advance was to resolve the French situation. Action in the Mediterranean theater swept away Vichy and firmed up power for the Free French, important in the short term for fighting Germany and in the long run for the political stability of France. Allied offensives also knocked Italy out of the war, which was significant for politics and morale. Bombers stationed in southern Italy could reach significant targets, such as the Ploesti oil fields. ANVIL could not have happened without the liberation of North Africa, Sicily, and most of Italy.

While I think Porch does an admirable job of demonstrating the worthiness of the Mediterranean theater, his book does have some problems that keep it from being uniformly excellent. He is too quick to excuse Churchill's strategies. Although Porch notes that many of his ideas were either wrong or impractical, Porch still gives him the benefit of the doubt, claiming that British "effort" was required in order to ensure US support. Since this support was almost certainly forthcoming (Porch never demonstrates that perhaps was not) these simply excuses for Churchill's disastrous and amateur meddling.

On the issue of command, Porch is hard on most generals, except Mark Clark of all people. Clark is almost universally recognized as a disaster. Although Patton and Monty were both insufferable egomaniacs, neither let that get in the way (very much) of the command decisions they had to make. Clark, on the other hand, did put egotistical competition before sound military judgment and rightly deserves to be labeled a disaster. Porch dismisses his functional insubordination, by turning to Rome out of Anzio instead of bagging the retreating Germans, stating that encirclements were hard to carry out and the Germans usually escaped anyway. With Rommel, Porch is equally off-base, stating that his battles were wasteful with no strategic purpose. Of course, his whole "strategic purpose" was to prop up the Italians and bother the British. This he accomplished and his efforts, strategically, must be considered a success.

Finally, Porch never questions why the Allies made the decision to continue pushing up Italy after Rome fell, and after ANVIL was carried out. By this time, the Germans were shifting troops away from Italy and there was no longer any strategic value in further offensives. If any lives were wasted in the Mediterranean, clearly they were wasted in northern Italy starting in the Fall of 1944.

This is a big meaty book. Porch presents a satisfying argument, even if bits of it are questionable.

Douglas Porch' "The Path to Victory" presents a sensible, and on the whole well-balanced, survey of the progress of World War 2 in the Mediterranean. He draws keen portraits of all the players, Allied and Axis, and does not hesitate to give credit to some of the less known, and less popular, commanders (Juin, for example).

His criticisms of some commanders -- Freyberg is one -- seem born of 20/20 hind sight. Although we now know that Freyberg could have staved off the invasion of Crete with the resources at his command, he had no way of knowing this at the time, and was unable to organize himself to beat off what appeared to be a large scale German invasion of the island. For the first time Mark Clark's shenanigans in Italy are shown in a dispassionate, and largely unfavorable light.

Porch mostly gets it right, and covers a large canvas with ease, moving smoothly from discussions of technical details to the strategies needed to make almost anything happen in the turbulent politics of the time. He argues strongly, with incontrovertible evidence, for the wisdom of Churchill's strategy for fighting in the Mediterranean. His detailed coverage of the Italian campaign shows that it was nothing like the disaster often claimed. It tied down hundreds of thousands of German troops that otherwise could well have been in Normandy, allowing that invasion to proceed successfully.

It is essential to read the book with a good atlas at hand. The maps provided are appalling, among the worst I have seen in any WW2 history. Farrar, Straus and Giroux should be ashamed of themselves for producing such sloppy accompaniments to the text. The maps require the use of a magnifying glass and are mostly miracles of cartographic mud. The photographs are too few in number, and we have seen them all before in other works. I am sure that more thorough picture research would have provided better results than we see here.

The text is sloppily edited, and could have benfited from some judicious pruning.

Simon Evans

Douglas Porch takes a fresh look at WW II in the Mediterranean, particularly with respect to the strategic aims of the Allies and the Axis in that theater. The author's goal is frankly announced in the Preface: to demonstrate that the Mediterranean was the pivotal theater of the war, a requirement for Allied success. The goal, however, is neglected during most of the book, which analyzes the battles and commanders on both sides in a traditional, narrative format. However, Porch returns to his goal with a vengeance, in the final chapter entitled, "Conclusion". The argument is well thought out, and well made, and if one were interested only or primarily is this novel assertion, he could read the Preface and the Conclusion, and dispense with the rest of the book.

That, however, would be a mistake, as Porch's narrative, although traditional in format, is certainly novel in content. Many accepted icons (Rommel, Eisenhower, Clark, and others) come in for some well-deserved criticism, and some not so loved by American readers (Montgomery, and others) are rightly praised. The book is balanced and fair, but the author doesn't back off from controversy, nor cave in to popular opinion.

All in all, the book is thought-provoking and valuable.

"The Path To Victory", by Douglas Porch, is a remarkably well written one volume history of the Mediterranean theater in the Second World War. In an engaging narrative studded with bold and often critical portraits of key personalities such as Mussolini, Eisenhower, Rommel, and Montgomery, Porch describes the theater from Gibralter to Baghdad.

Porch's theme is that far from being a diversion of resources from a decisive Allied confrontation with Hitler in Northwest Europe, the Mediterranean theater was the vital path to victory. For the British immediately after Dunkirk and the surrender of France, the Mediterranean was the only theater of operations where the British could marshal the forces to effectively counter first Italian and then German military designs on the lifelines of empire. After the entry of the United States into the war, the Mediterranean became the only theater in which the United States could reasonably conduct ground operations against Germany while building the competence of green troops and commanders in modern warfare and while forging the great alliance with the British. For Italy and especially for Germany, the Med created huge demands on military forces that might have found better, even decisive use on the Eastern Front and after June 1944, in France.

Porch provides a vivid narrative of the growing pains of the British and American militaries in North Africa and Italy, but he also makes clear the link to later successes in Northwest Europe. His commentary on the struggles of the French to re-enter the war are covered in a detail and with a sensitivity I have not seen elsewhere in English.

This book is highly recommended for the serious student of the Second World War. The casual reader will find it very long at over 600 pages, and filled with occasionaly dense commentary on various longstanding academic disputes over the conduct and personalties of WWII. Production note: the maps in the book should have been full page size; at half page, they are too small to read without additional magnification.

This is a serious and partly successful attempt to produce a 1 volume history of combat in the Medierranean during WWII. This is a very ambitious goal. The Mediterranean theater involved numerous combatants, both major and minor, complex politics, and a variety of campaigns. The book also includes narrative/discussion of relevant events in the Balkans, Middle East, and East Africa. Porch aims at providing the basic military/naval history, appropriate background, assessments of the major military and political figures, and even discussion of the aftermath of the war. Packing all this into 1 book, even a reasonably thick book like this one, is difficult. It is not surprising that Porch does better with some aspects than others. The book appears to have been written primarily from secondary sources and I suspect the quality of individual sections depends to some extent on the quality of the sources from which Porch drew for each topic. Some sections are excellent. For example, his narrative and assessment of the invasion of Italy and the first year of the Italian campaign is first rate. An number of other episodes are described equally well. His descriptions and discussions of the French Army, a subject on which he is an expert, are enlightening. He does very well in giving a feel for how events in Britain, America, and the Soviet Union interacted with and drove decisions in the Mediterranean. In a number of other cases, however, he does less well. His analysis of Franco's behavior is probably incomplete. He attributes Franco's failure to join the Axis to his native caution, which is partly correct, but intelligent Allied diplomacy (translation: economic blackmail) also played a significant role. Franco's decision making during WWII is discussed well in Paul Preston's excellent biography of Franco, which Porch does not seem to have utilized. Similarly, much of his discussion of Mussolini is derived from Dennis Mack Smith's biography, which is considered by many scholars to have been superceded by other work. A signficant deficiency is that Porch is a bit careless about his narrative. The narrative doesn't give precise specification of dates, and Porch has a tendency to cut back and forth between episodes. Readers without a basic familiarity with the war will be confused. Porch's strategic overviews and discussions of personalities are generally very good but these tend to occupy space at the expense of narrative. Porch takes considerable pains to emphasize the significance of the campaigns in the Mediterranean. In contrast to conventional views that the Mediterranean campaigns were a wasteful sideshow, he argues convincingly for their political and military significance. He repeatedly descibes the Mediterranean theater as "pivotal", arguing that it was necessary though not sufficient for Allied victory. His analysis is thoughtful, articulate, and convincing. It also appears in different forms repeatedly in the book, again at the expense of the narrative. The final and excellent summary chapter would have been enough. Porch is generally a competent writer and often a very good writer. For example, his concise, vivid and ultimately scathing discussion of the failure of Allied military planners to anticipate the needs of the civilian population in Southern Italy is a particularly nice example of historical narrative as rhetoric.

I rather enjoyed this book as it offers a very good alternative view to the campaigns fought around the Med during WWII. The one reason being that the Author had some very interesting kitchen details. For example, one reason Gen Auchinleck was not up to snuff against Rommel was that his wife had ran off with a "Brother" Officer.That and the rampant Tribalism of the various Regiments and higher command that weakened the 8th Army. "Monty" had to stomp down on this & the Officers Corp to get the army to play the same tune. That was really what I think was Montys greatest contribution to victory.
I do not buy into his (The Author) denigration of Rommel. The man held off the best of the British Empire and the United States threw at him for almost 2 years. That is a very powerful fact to over come & the author does not overcome it.That & I disagree with his opinion of Patton and his efforts. But no one has or can really point forth a universally agreeded opinion for that Great Captain.
That and I do not think that he went after Mark Clark hard enough. His glory ride to take Rome instead of knocking off the German Army should of caused his recall but that is my humble opinion.
The really strong point of the book is in his coverage of the smaller countries and their background. I found his coverage of Greece was very interesting. That and his coverage of the siege of Malta was good and that Islands impact upon the North Africa Campaigns with their interdiction of the supply line of the Axis forces. (I still think that if Rommel had gotten a bigger portion of supplies, the Germans would of been enjoying the Brothels of Cairo)
Another being how the Med was used as a proving ground of allied leadership and equipment with the weeding out of the weak sisters.This is a fact that generally gets overlooked and was a valuable factor toward final victory. A totally green Army would not of survived the Camapigns in Europe otherwise. Having some veterans and good leadership are critical to winning the fight.
His closing idea that the Med sucked in the Allies to a tarbaby really rung true as the Americans are still there with a good size fleet patroling there today.
All in all a good sturdy effort and well worth the money spent.

The great strength of this book is that it provides a coherent and well-written account of the Mediterranean theater in World War II. Porch tells the story largely from an Allied perspective, though he attempts to view the decisions of politicians and generals on both sides.

The book's main weakness is its central argument. Porch wants us to believe that the Mediterranean was an important theater, perhaps even a decisive one. He admits that the objects of struggle - - Morocco, say, or Crete - - were not important for their own sake. Instead, he argues that the Mediterranean theater was especially important because Allied forces, especially US forces, could learn from their mistakes in a secondary theater

Bluntly put, this argument is built on a paradox: the Mediterranean theater was important because it wasn't important. It's hard to sustain that claim for the entire length of the war.

While the narrative is interesting, Porch's attempts to persuade us of his central thesis don't convince, because he must forever deal with this central paradox. He could have made a more persuasive case by developing more nuanced claims. He might have argued that the theater was important up until the moment that Mussolini was overthrown and Italy exited the war. This stake - - Italian exit from the war - - was clearly important to the war effort, and the Allied strategy was reasonably well designed to achieve this end. One can naturally debate the decisions to invade Sicily and Anzio, but that is natural in this kind of book. Operation Torch provided a good campaign for the Americans to learn from their mistakes on the way.

After Rome falls, Porch should have given up on, or modified substantially, his thesis. Instead, he tries to maintain his argument for its importance even during the interminable and largely pointless slog up the Italian boot.

"The difference between an incompetent doctor, and an incompetent historian," one wag quipped, "is that the latter doesn't kill anyone." to which his friend replied, "He does if someone in charge reads him." This work offers horrendously backward interpretations of most of the historical figures involved, and the value and import of the Mediterranean campaign as a whole. The author lauds Churchill's penchant for peripheral attacks, an obsession which other historians have long noted to have caused grave problems in both world wars. Porch also attacks Rommel, critisizing him for overextending his supply lines (a common criticism), reckless attacks, and drawing American forces into the theater. Porch should have read Rommel's wartime notes. Rommel details the tactics of using inferior attacking forces - in both France and North Africa - in a war of fast maneuver in order to prevent defenders from effectively digging in. Moreover, drawing Alied troops into a peripheral theater was what Rommel was supposed to do; it's called attrition. Porch soft pedals General Clark's incompetence in Italy. When questioned about Clark's move on Rome instead of cutting off retreating German forces, Porch lamely argues that "Germans were good at fighting out of encirclements," that "What happened, happened." and that it wouldn't have made any difference. The truth is that Clark didn't try, that he was focused on the publicity of taking Rome. I fervently hope that impressionable readers skip this book, and concentrate on primary sources, where available.