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When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler (Modern War Studies)

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This incredible book belongs on the shelf of any student of World War II. It is easy to read, concise, and scholarly. If you don't know much about the Soviet-German conflict, this is an ideal place to start. If you have read widely on the subject, be sure to add this to your collection. It is excellent for both those looking for a quick read or for those who want a starting point for further research. The notes at the end of the book list an impressive number of sources.

So many Americans, even those who are avid readers of military history, are very uninformed about the Russian Front. Anti-Soviet attitudes and the preponderance of books written from the German point of view have combined to present an often false and distorted version of history. In the minds of many, the Red Army was completely dependent on American military aid and survived only because of its "inexhaustable" manpower. The Soviets could only win by throwing more men into battle than the Germans had bullets to shoot them with, and were just barely holding their own prior to D-Day. According to popular imagination, the Russian winter is what really stopped the Nazis. As bad as these misperceptions are, even worse are the schools of thought which suggest that the Soviet Union was as guilty as Germany for the start of the war or that Hitler's invasion was a defensive move against an impending Soviet attack on Germany.

Col. Glantz has proven himself to be the preeminent Western author on the Soviet military in general and its pivotal role in the Second World War in particular. Against all the myths, he presents the facts. Tenacious Soviet resistance, combined with overextended German supply lines, halted the Blitzkrieg at Moscow and Leningrad. Long before D-Day, the Red Army had made Hitler's defeat inevitable by gutting the Wehrmacht in the decisive battles of Stalingrad and Kursk. During the same time as the Normandy fighting, the Soviets' "Bagration" offensive inflicted 500,000 casualties on the Axis and drove the last of the invaders from their territory. From 1941 until mid-1943, the Red Army confronted 80-90% of Germany's total armed forces. At no time in the whole war did it ever face less than 60%, not even during the heaviest fighting on the Western Front (Normandy, Arnhem, or the "Battle of the Bulge"). Germany's Axis partners on the Russian Front included not only the Italians but the whole armed forces of Romania, Hungary, and Finland, as well as contingents of pro-fascist volunteers from all over Europe.

Proper credit is finally given to the Soviet military leadership, as well. Red Army commanders often displayed outstanding generalship after the harsh lessons of '41 and '42, mastering the art of strategic deception and mechanized warfare on a level matching, even exceeding, that of their best German or Allied counterparts. Names like Zhukov, Vasilievsky, Rokossovsky, Konev, and Vatutin deserve a place alongside Rommel, Guderian, von Manstein, and Patton.

Glantz does not claim that the Soviet Union defeated Germany on its own. American Lend-Lease supplies and the Allied bombing campaign were important, though not decisively so, to the Soviet war effort and are given their just due here. However, 80% of Germany's combat losses were sustained on the Russian front, inflicted by Soviet forces equipped almost entirely with Soviet-made weapons. Had Germany honored the 1939 Non-Aggression Pact, or had the Red Army been defeated, the Anglo-American forces would have faced an enemy that was 4 times, that is 400%, stronger than it was historically. How many more Americans would have died under these circumstances? How many atomic bombs would need to be dropped on Hitler's Europe in order bring about victory. As we honor our own veterans with movies and memorials, let us not forget the 11 million Soviet soldiers and the at least 15 million Soviet civilians that died in World War II.

David M. Glantz's "When Titans Clashed" is a comprehensive but not overlong operational history covering the entire Russo-German conflict from 1941-45, plus an interesting chapter on the Soviet operations in Manchuria against the Japanese Army. It's exhaustive, it's readable, it's filled with maps, it does include all the recent archival material worth being included, it's balanced even taking in account the focus on the Russian point of view. What could you ask for more? Well, a couple of things, but more of this later.

"When Titans Clashed" is a book that has already been dissected in every possible way, and is, if not a clear-cut best seller, definitely a popular. So I'll just underline the three main reasons why it a mandatory text for anyone even remotely interested in the subject, the first being that colonel Glantz does his own job, and not someone else's. In other words, he's a military expert, and this is an operational, and not political, social or human dissection of the conflict. Richard Overy's "Russia's War" aimed at being all that, and failed. Sticking to his guns, Glantz gives to this (not too big) book a greater level of detail,. Of course, we still need a good political, human and social history of the war - while Robert Thurston's "The People's War : Responses to World War II in the Soviet Union" is a fine social study of wartime Russia, it may be a bit too difficult for the casual reader. But Glantz's focus was on military operation, and this book is just that - a military history.

Second. Glantz comes from old guard: i.e., he works mainly on primary/archival sources, and he knows how to separate gold from garbage. WWII history is a tricky business, and Eastern History (given the political sensitivity of the campaign's outcome) is even more so. Again, a comparison with Overy (who ended up giving credit to such debatable authors as Sokolov and gave readers sensation they could have spent much better your money on the secondary resources he continuously cited) may be useful. Glantz attitude towards the material is level headed and inspired by old fashioned positivism (there's a very useful appendices dealing with comparison of forces and losses). And he never assumes, giving even more authority to the basic thesis of this book - it was Russia who won the war, and not Germany that lost it, and Russia won because it learned how to outfight, outmanoeuvre and outsmart the Nazi army, in a long and (extremely!) bloody process, ending in 1945 with the Red Army being a even better military machine than the Wehrmacht was in 1941. Glantz gives you a lot of food for thought to support his view, especially on the "numbers" issue. More controversially but not polemically, colonel Glantz maintains also that while the Red Army broke Hitler's back, what the Allied did in the West was important - but basically more aimed at containing Russia's success rather than at speeding up Nazism's demise.

The third reason why you should buy "When Titans Clashed" is that it may be the first divulgative book on the Great Patriotic War (of course, I don't include Erickson's "Roads" in the "divulgative" department) giving the second part of the war - the one after the Red Army began to win - its due. On this respect, the post-Kursk operational history is given a extensive treatment, and some of the bits - like those on the Vistula-Oder operation - are absolutely compelling. Also, much coverage is given to the massive Bagration/Ukraine twin offensives, and, last but not least, we've finally a clear overview of the Battle For Berlin, a topic that often becomes the focus for some horrendous inaccuracies. Not that "classics" like Moscow, Stalingrad or Kursk aren't properly treated - it's just that they're finally taken into the big picture. All summed up, this approach gives to "When Tytans Clashed" an unprecedented freshness.

However I've two complaints, and the first it's in the editing department: its way better than that of Glantz's books of the early 90's, but it could have been improved; there are still too many repetitions (I've seen the word "aftermath" at least 10.000 times) and some confusing bit. For instance, you get three different tables detailing forces and strength ratios involved in Bagration - and you end up not knowing which of these was final. I'm being picky here, but this book deserved a better post-production job.

My second gripe is that, for being so objective towards the main topic, when it comes to his pet subjects Glantz seems to loose focus and control. For instance - we do know now that Operation Mars was basically a failure but, in the context of the late 1942 strategic situation, was this failure so substantial as he maintains? After all, tying down massive German reserves was pivotal on the German debacle at Stalingrad: Zhukov may have botched operationally here, but as the overall strategic situation goes, it's possible that "Mars" outcome didn't change much.

I repeat here what I wrote elsewhere: "When Titans Clashed" doesn't supersede Erickson's "Road To Stalingrad" and "Road To Berlin" - it complete these two masterpieces, and provides finally a operational history of the Russian Front that his both up-to-date and accessible. Neither it fills the long-empty slot for an up-to-date and accessible - and balanced - operational history on the German side (the last feasible being Earl Ziemke trilogy back in the early 70's). But it's a great book, and you'll do yourself a big favour buying it.

Every new unbiased book about the Eastern Front should be welcome, as quite a few western historians tend to discount its significance and/or relate from the german point of view. A good example is much over-praised, in my opinion, Harper Military Encyclopedia, that assigned less than 20% of its WWII in Europe pages to the soviet-german front (where, ironically, Nazis lost about 80% of its troops).

David Glanz had the luck of being able to use recently-opened soviet archives, and he did a pretty good job combining soviet and german materials. The book is well-balanced and covers every major operation from 1939 to 1945. I also liked how the book tracked the development of soviet military art and improvement of the Red Army with the course of the war.

Among shortcomings I would name a lack of statistics re the german side - detailed losses, war production and so on. Also, numbers of german combat strength in 1943-44 seemed somewhat underestimated (compared to other sources I've seen).

It is unfortunate that until the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1980s, historical accounts of the Battle for Russia (as it should probably be named) have been hamstrung by the fact that the Soviet archives were off limits even to Russian speaking western historians.

Consequently most histories are based on German archives, memoirs, captured documents and the occasional release of "approved" Soviet historical accounts. This, and the natural patriotic fervour generated when reading accounts of your own nations exploits in war, have led to the popular belief that the Western Allies, especially the USA were principally responsible for destroying the Nazis. More serious is impression that the Red Army was an enormous, bungling hydra-headed monster that wouldn't wilt under the brilliant blows the Whermarcht delivered before Hitler took over and stifled their creativity.

Fortunately publications like this one have started to reverse that impression. The authors have crafted a well-written thoughtful summary of Soviet operations from 1939-1945. Contrary to some of the other reviews of this work Glantz and House DO discuss Stalin's purges and their effects, but only as they applied to the Red Army - which is fitting because that is the focus of the book. I would also like to point out that the book is a summary from a strategic point of view, that is you won't see interviews with veterans and the accounts of the battles are not exhaustive - nor could they be because the book is less than 500 pages!

I think the fairest way to finish is to list the things I took from this account:

1) Finding out what the Soviet Generals from STAVKA down to Army level did and intended to do in EACH major operation. 2) A rational explanation why the Soviets simplified their sub unit structures initially, removing the combined arms elements from divisional/corps control, before reinstating them in the latter stages of the war. 3) The book is an excellent study guide if you're interested in finding out about the unsung generals of the Red Army - the subordinates of Zhukov, Konev et al. 4) A detailed breakdown of casualty and Order of Battle Statistics and some explanation as to why the Germans thought the Red Army was bigger then it actually was.

Basically I came away with a deeper respect and understanding about what the Red Army/Soviets accomplished in '41-45, especially the skill they displayed in beating what until 1943 was still the finest army the world had ever seen.

When Titans Clashed is an excellent attempt to use Glasnos era Soviet opening of documents about the Second World War to present a more precised and accurate history of the War between the Soviet Union and Germany and its allies. The focus here is entirely on military organization, command structure, military doctraine, etc. There is also an effort to overcome weaknesses created by the overavailability of German sources with what new Russian sources reveal.

For me, as someone interested in the Soviet German war for its political and social, rather than military, aspects, Glantz's points about the difficulties that the Soviet Union faces in having adequate forces to replace fallen soldiers, was most interesting. While recent authors have educated me that the old cold-war prejudice that the USSR defeated Hitler because of "inexhaustable" supplies of humans, Glantz's explanation of the shortage of trained soldiers after the Soviet Army had absorbed more than 20 million casualties and the Soviet Union millions more, is very interesting. He shows that by the end of the war, the Soviet commanders, despite their general reputation as being willing to sacrifice their troops for victories in ways that shocked even the Nazi commanders, had to devise tactics that emphasized firepower, mobility, and concentration of forces to deal with a growing shortage of trained forces.

Overall Glantz provides a very extensive explanation of Soviet staff discussions, plans and preparations for operations during the war, and a resultant analysis of how execution of the operations differed from plans. He also links it to the origins of the Red Army and its prewar doctrines and gives some hints on how the war effective postwar Soviet Military doctrine. He also details shifts in Soviet commanders and overall military organization.

This book is best for a military specialist and assumes that the reader is knowledgeable of the general history of the Soviet-German war and the Second World War. There is only minimal attention to the social, political, economic, and personal aspects of the war. One never gets a picture of what any of the war was like for the average Soviet or German soldier, for civilians, or anything of that nature, but that is not Glantz's purpose.

His aim is the military specialist and his aim is to document how conduct of the war reflected the evolution of Soviet military doctrine and organization. In this regard, his chapter on the Soviet campaign against Japan in 1945 and how it represented execution of lessons the Soviet military derived from the European war that the Soviet military continue in the post war era was quite interesting.

Again, if you are a common reader looking for a book to give you a picture of the Soviet-German war as a whole, this book would probably confuse you with its endless recounting of names of Soviet units, German units, commanders, etc. However, if you are interested in military organization and development, and how this evolved in this war, this is the book for you.

No doubt with some of the updated information on engagements, command and control, and organization, this book can become an useful English-language reference for military operations and organization in the clash of Titans.

David M. Glantz and Jonathan House argue that the Red Army defeated the forces of Nazi Germany because of the superior combat effectiveness of its forces. By adapting strategy and tactics and reforming existing command structures best suited to the nature of the war on the Eastern fronts, the Red Army instituted counter-measures that resulted in victory against the Germans. The authors refute some common theories concerning the Red Army's victory as well as Germany's defeat. The authors claim the vastness of the Russian frontier and the extreme weather conditions (a factor usually attributed to the German defeat) were equally detrimental to the Russian forces. The authors counter the theory that sheer numerical advantage the Russians enjoyed over the Germans attributed to their victory by claiming that by 1944, the Red Army too was suffering from acute manpower shortages.   The authors base their research on newly available Russian sources opened to the west in 1989. The authors conclude from these sources that the Soviet Union always held a military advantage over their western neighbors. The authors claim that during the inter-war years, the Soviet Union's doctrine consisted of an offensive strategy based on a concept known as "Deep Battle," This strategy was devised by the Russian strategists M.N. Tukhachevsky and V.K. Triandafillov. Glantz and House assert that the reason Germany enjoyed initial success in the summer of 1941, was because the Red Army was going through a transition period as a direct result of Stalin's purges of the Red officer corps in the 1930's. Contrary to previous accounts, the authors claim that the Soviets were prepared for a German invasion, yet tried to prolong a confrontation until this transition period was complete.   The authors claim to be the forerunners in taping the newly opened Russian archives (Before 1989, John Erickson always claimed to have inside access to Russian sources). They admit, however, that a vast amount of Russian material, "voluminous but fragmented in nature" still remains closed to western historians and that their research represents only the tip of the iceberg. Most of this primary material is military in nature such as: general staff reports and journals and directorates published by various members of the Russian high command structure. The authors also draw from German archival sources as well as a host of secondary literature.   In contrast to Overy, no oral histories or personal interviews were used in the research. This omission eliminates the human face to the struggle. While playing-up the advantages of the Russian archival material, the authors tend to down-play German sources a bit too much. For example, the authors overemphasize the blame it all on Hitler bias of such classic German memoirist and tacticians as Field Marshal Erich von Manstein (Lost Victories) and Major General F.W. von Mellenthin (Panzer Battles). Given the scope of the opposing political ideologies, the emphasis on military operations, to a certain extent, seem to dwarf the role of politics as if the military forces were operating in a vacuum, divorced from politics.   The then newly opened Russian archives does lend the book an important significance, however. The emphasis placed on the analysis of the evidence and the description of the archival material is a big help to the serious student of the conflict. Though the narrative is dry in places, the layout of the book with "conclusion" paragraphs at the end of each section makes the book and the argument easy to follow. The ample supply of maps, though dark in places is a plus. Arguably_When Titans Clashed_ may supersede John Erickson's two-volume standard for scholarly precision. Clark's _Operation Barbarosa_, Werth's _Russia at War_ and Overy's _Russia's War_, however, offer a far better read.

The sheer scale of the conflict in eastern Europe and Russia comes across in this book. There just isn't enough space to write about just one battle and it's participants, the war was so huge in the east. Thousands of people, masses of military equipment move great distances in the space of a sentence and still this book has to be economic with the language used to describe events. Descriptions are good and the structuring of the work is fine. This is no Saving Private Ryan, but it does justice to the efforts of the Russian people to defeat Hitler. Of no small importance is the fact that this book writes from the Soviet point of view. The front is the western front and the enemy a defiler of the motherland. The credit the authors give to Soviet commanders skill in defeating the German army and it's allies is long overdue considering the pro-German bias of previous accounts.

The Russians - is the answer of two American military historians. American and British contribution was large and important (and the authors correctly stress that), but the Russians would have been in Berlin anyway although after much longer and bloodier campaign (ending up probably in Atlantic beaches of France).

But this conclusion was not important for me. As a Russian I always knew it. Anyone who read anything about Stalingrad battle would have realized that. Much more important and enlightening was to read about little ironies of Barbarossa and the rest of German - Russian 1941-1945 conflict. Some of these ironies were pointed out directly by the authors; others came to my mind while I was reading the book.

The most important irony was the fact that Soviet Army ended up the war looking and acting like Wehrmacht in1941 in its mobility, strength and tactics, while the German army in 1944/45 increasingly looked like Red Army in 1941. Truly, we become what we fight the most!

Second irony. Despite apparent Soviet/Russian internationalism and proclaimed by the Nazis superiority of the Germanic/Nordic race - by 1942/43 the main burden of war was carried by the Russian people, while the Germans depended more and more on auxiliary troops from places like Italy, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria. Plus Croatian regiments in Stalingrad, Latvian and Ukrainian "Galician" SS divisions - all were fighting against "godless Bolshevism" and for all practical purposes - the Russians.

Third irony. As the war progressed the German army was increasingly becoming subject to ideological brainwashing from the Nazi party and Hitler direct meddling, while Stalin left Red army pretty much along after 1942/43. Not only he did left people like Zhukov and Vasilevskii along in their conduct of war, but also Stalin withdrew Bolshevist ideology, stressed Russian patriotism and after 1941/42 he stopped harassing Russian Church. Of coarse, it doesn't make Stalin an angel, but still it's important to remember these facts (which might or might not have been crucial to Russian victory).

These are just some of my observations - you might end up with totally different ones (depending where you are coming from). For sure the authors seem sympathetic to the Russians but the book is not one-sided at all.

To sum up, I think this is an impressive book. Despite its relatively short length, obviously much scholarship and archival research went into it. Great maps! I give four stars only because the book could use some help with correction of Russian personal and geographical names. For example - map on page 164 shows city of Opel instead of correct Orel; Marshal Timoskenko on page 13 should be correctly Timoshenko; General Voronev on page 141 is really Voronov, etc.

This is now the best one volume history of the German campaign on the Eastern Front in the Second World War. One of the authors is one of the leading specialists on the subject and has written a large number of volumes about different aspects of the war on the Eastern Front. The book is easy to read and has numerous maps that support the text.

The reason for the book is that prior to the opening of the Russian archives most historians depended on German material for understanding the campaign. That material was seriously flawed in a number of respects. The first problem was that for the entire war the Germans had very poor intelligence about the size and disposition of Russian forces. The second problem was that a large number of the memoirs of German Generals were self serving and inaccurate.

Early histories of the war have seen the reason for the failure of the Russian campaign as a result of operational failures. That is that certain mistakes were made in the conduct of the campaign. A common theme of histories during the 60's and 70's was a belief that if the Barbarossa offensive had been run differently or if the attacking forces in operation Blue had not been separated victory might not have been achieved.

This book shows clearly that by the end of the campaign in 1941 the Germans were in serious trouble. They had suffered massive casualties and the forces they could muster in 1942 were far below the army that had started the campaign in both men and equipment. The Russians although they had lost close to three million men had by the end of 1941 built up a force equivalent to the Germans. From that time on they were able to edge ahead in production of equipment and achieve a material preponderance over the Germans. In fact it was probably the failure of the Russian Kharkov offensive that made it possible for any offensive operation in 1942 to succeed.

In summary the reason for the failure of Barbarossa was not due to operational problems but due to problems with strategy. In 1941 Germany put into the campaign an army of about three million men. Its level of production of tanks and aircraft remained low. In 1944 it was able to increase its army to the level of ten million and to raise tank and aircraft production. By 1944 it was to late as the Russian forces had reached the top of their fighting potential. The forces put into the field in 1941 were not adequate and the Germans were to suffer from massive supply problems. The basis of the commitment of three million men in 1941 was something that the German armed forces felt adequate to complete the conquest of Russia in five weeks. It was only later in the war that the Germans began to realize the potential of their enemy. Again this is territory that Glantz has discussed in his excellent book Stumbling Colossus.

This book lays to rest a number of old mistakes and historical errors. One of the authors has written another volume on Operation Mars so that the book is able to show that this was a serious defeat for the Russians, a defeat that had previously been written out of history. In addition there is a careful discussion of the Stalingrad campaign which explains in detail that the reason for the defeat are complex and involved the poor logistic situation of the sixth army. The levels of supply made the prospect of a break out from Stalingrad unrealistic. The book also contains an excellent appendix which outlines the level of troop commitment to the eastern front by the Germans and their casualty levels. It clearly shows the importance of the Eastern Front in the defeat of Germany.

It is impossible to praise this work to highly as it is readable well organized and logical.

Glantz's book is perhaps the finest one volume history of the Eastern Front for the serious student interested in an OPERATIONAL history rather than a novelized drama about it. If you want personalized accounts get Enemy at the Gates.

If you are used to operational accounts and thought that you have read every good book on the Eastern Front, think again. It's rare that a book published in the West tries to give tell the war from the Russian/Soviet point of view. Many early Western accounts are tainted either by pure ignorance or by German accounts seeking to excuse their poor performance in certain instances by either blaming Hitler or the Red Army's masses. The book makes it quite clear that the Germans were outfought and outmanuevered time and time again by well orchestrated deception operations, especially from late '42 onwards. Although the Russians certainly had outnumbered the Germans overall, they hardly outnumbered them everywhere on the front as is often popularly believed. The Russians were able to give this impression to the Germans because they constantly fooled the Germans into sending their reserves, etc to the part of the front where the main Soviet attack wasn't going to be. This allowed the Soviet to maximize their numbers and minimize the German's. If you think you know the Eastern Front well, this book may convince you otherwise. Anyway, it is a refreshing look at this part of the war from the Soviet point of view rather than the German point of view or Western point of view.

The advantage of this book is that it doesn't have some of the massive detail that John Erickson's two volume work has (The Road to Stalingrad, The Road to Berlin--both books are often considered THE source on the Eastern Front). Yes, there is much detail in Glantz's book but it skips a lot of the microscopic details that Erickson's books have. Glantz's book is more a pretty detailed summary that builds upon Erickson's work. Glantz's book is a must buy for grogs