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Why the Allies Won

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Historian Richard Overy sets out to answer what is one of the most important questions of the Twentieth Centuries, why the Allied Powers, and not the Axis, won the greatest conflict of all time. Overy emphasizes that the outcome was not a foregone conclusion, as Western Liberal societies have argued since 1945. Rather, the conflict was extremely close, and in the years from 1942-44, the war could have gone either way. Overy divides his analysis into two types of factors: the actual combat, including campaigns and tactics, and underlying factors, such as economics, resources, and leadership. Overy does more than simply rehash other historians' arguments while synthesizing them into one coherent work. For example, he maintains that the Eastern Front was the most important single front in determining the outcome of the war. At Stalingrad the Soviets won not only by sheer numbers, but by tactical superiority as well. But Stalingrad did not decide the outcome of the campaign. The German lines stabilized in 1943, and had Hitler not wasted all his heavy armor at Kursk, stalemate may have ensued. Overy also discussed the Anglo-American air war, which had little impact in 1942-43, but when the allied forces targeted the German industrial areas, they pulverized the German munitions manufacturing, so that in early 1945 Albert Speer conceded the war was over from his point of view. The sea war in the Atlantic is also examined. Germany's U-Boats nearly strangled England in the early stages, striking American and British ships at will. But American technology and ingenuity changed the tide, forcing the U-Boats to retreat after taking massive losses. All of these campaigns were close affairs, in which the allied forces made better choices than their Axis counterparts. The second main area of Overy's analysis are the underlying, macro-level factors. Overy discusses the internal problems in the Axis nations in terms of economics and resource mobilization. He argues that Germany in fact had logistical problems it did not solve, despite their reputation for engineering genuis. Furthermore, Hitler's "super weapons" like the V-1 and V-2, wasted valuable German resources which were better used on conventional arms. Japan was hobbled by the rift between the army and navy, which did not coordinate as well as they should have. Both Axis nations were also affected by easy victory in the early stages of the war, which prevented them from developing both new tactics and new weapons. Germanys' qualitative advantage in arms was reversed by 1944, when even Soviet weaponry was more advanced. Leadership mattered as well. Overy is not a great admirer of Winston Churchill, but views him as the right man in a time of war. Hitler on the other hand, embodied poor leadership and hurt the German war effort through his stubborness and inept decision-making. Finally, Overy makes the stunning assertion that morality is a major factor in determining the outcomes of war. While the Axis populations were unsure of their cause, the Allies were certain of theirs, and because of it, fought harder and better. It is an original and powerful assertion which I hope will be examine elsewhere as well. The book focuses on the war with Germany, and the war with Japan is relegated to a minor role. One hopes that perhaps Overy will update his book to include more about Japan. Perhaps the only unsatisfactory section is the prologue, in which Overy gives his own interpretation of the origins of the war. His explanation focuses on the depression and the Axis powers' quest for economic security, which they believed could only be accomplished through violence. His explanation leaves out power explanations favored by Realist thinkers. But this is really not the focus of the book. For what it deals with it is not only a definitive answer, but also well-written and engrossing to read.

This is an interesting work, and it helps one to rethink questions about the war one would have thought settled. On paper the military forces of Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union vastly overwhelm those of Germany, Italy and Japan. One would think that military victory was assured. Richard Overy questions these assumptions in this useful book. After all from 1940 to 1944 Germany had most of the resouces of continental Europe to draw upon. If the gap between the two sides seems so vast, it is partially because Germany did not take full advantage of those resources when it could have crushed the other sides. Overy provides particular attention on the battle for the seas when it appeared up until mid 1943 that the Axis might cut the lifeline across the Atlantic, and when the battle of Midway turned for the Americans on the space of a few lucky minutes. He discusses such major events as D-Day and gives due attention to the vital battle for Russia, without which Allied victory would have seemed impossible.

Crucial to this account is the economic side, however, and here Overy challenges two important scholarly opinions about the war. The first view, which developed in the sixties, looked at the relatively low levels of arms that the Germans produced, theorized that German war production was limited because of a need to placate German living standards. Because of this restriction Germany turned towards the devastating and hopefully quick stratgey of blitzkerig. The second view argued that aerial bombing was of limited success because German war production still rose from 1942 to 1945. Overy, however, argues that Hitler did not sacrifice guns for butter but always wanted a fierce military regime. The problem for him was that armaments levels were puzzingly low, barely keeping steady with Britain and France. The reason was not any lack of technical skill, since the Germans made many remarkable innovations during the war. Instead the German economy was not a well organized machine, but a set of dueling quasi-feudal principalities, where quality control ran amuck and where local party and company privileges hampered the rise of mass production. The contrast with American production is quite striking, and also with Soviet production, whose evacuation of much of its factory plant under the most desperate circumstances is one of the great untold stories of the war. It was only by 1942 that people like Albert Speer recognized the problem, and sought to correct it. Had it not been for the massive bombing, Overy argues, Speer's efforts to raise production would have been much more successful.

There are many other interesting insights in the book. Overy, contrary to a rather dense reviewer in Commentary, does not reduce the remarkable performance of the Soviet army and people to NKVD terror, but to a remarkable genuine courage on their own behalf. The portraits of the leaders are also compelling, with Churchill being criticized for his romantic and often poor military judgement from Norway to France to Crete to Singapore. Stalin's military judgement gets high praise from conservative Anglo-American military officers, while there is a fine sketch of George Marshall, the greatest general America ever had, who never actually fought on a battlefield. There are some comments one should quibble about, such as Overy relying on James Bacque's tendentious Other Losses, but overall this is a fine book, and it has one of the finest final lines of any work of history this decade.

Richard Overy's excellent book takes a careful and painstaking look at both how and why the Aliies won what he contends was a much more closely fought war than traditional treatments of the matter would have us believe. He cites several issues which were crucial; the war on the seas, primarily in the Atlantic, where the balance of terror for some time seemed to be tipping in favor of the Axis forces, the air bombing war over the skies of Europe, which holstered squadrons of Axis planes into a defense of the Fatherland, and removed them from conduct of a more vigorous air campaign against the Russians; the miscalculation concerning the ability of the Soviets to sustain their battle lines and to even accelerate the pace of the war on the Eastern front. In addition Overy cites the astonishing productive and manufacturing capability of the Americans, Canadians, British, and even the Soviets, who outworked and outproduced the Germans gun for gun, plane for plane, and tank for tank during the darkest and most difficult moments of the war; the constant and confusing interference with weapon selection and production by the upper reaches of the Nazi hierarchy. Finally, the philosophical sense shared by the Allies of fighting for the right, which Overy argues persuasively informed Allied forces with a sense of moral courage that seemed to imbue them with a fighting ferocity the Axis found difficult to rival. This is a great book by a very notable author, and one every respectable denizen of WWII history should have on his or her shelf.

The book presents several principal themes among the reasons for the Allied victory. Germany was the Allies' main adversary and Russia, who started the war as a de facto German ally, was the primary force that defeated it. In the course of the war, the Soviet forces have destroyed over 600 German divisions. This unexpected result was brought about by the extraordinary transformation of Russia into a first-rate military state with passionate soldiers and talented military command. Its wartime economy was resurrected by an unprecedented effort of over 16 mln people who relocated whole industries beyond the Ural Mountains and beyond the reach of German forces. Russian military started the war by losing, by December 1941, almost the entire strength that they had in June. Yet, by the end of '42 the Red Army had twice as many tanks as Wehrmacht and by the autumn of '43 - more than three times as many. (For more details see the author's excellent "Russia's War"). While Russia defeated the German army and inflicted the most casualties on the German military force, the Western Allies, the US and Britain, defeated the Luftwaffe and won the war of the seas. In addition, the Western Allies' bombing campaign was instrumental in disrupting German military production and the transportation routes, denying Germany half of the weaponry in 1944. The Allied bombing campaign was made possible by the American phenomenal military production and the victory in the war of the seas, which cleared up the delivery channels.

One of the sobering statements of the book is that the Allied victory in WWII was far from pre-ordained. In October of '41 Stalin was considering giving up, the US war machine was not geared up yet and the battle of the seas was still to be won. It appears that with no support, Britain would have found it extraordinarily difficult to stand up to Germany. In 1941, the Allied prospects looked grim, and at that point the most probable outcome looked like Germany dominated Europe and possibly Axis dominated world.

This situation did not occur overnight and its roots go beyond appeasement, Chamberlain and Czechoslovakia. The policy of noninvolvement let Mussolini get away with occupying Abyssinia in 1935 and let Japan get away with occupying Manchuria in 1931. With horrors of World War I fresh in memory, and with the economic crisis of the early 30's in full swing, military build-up was not a popular concept. It took two dictatorships, German and Russian, to build the largest armies during that period. Still, before 1939 Hitler was fairly tentative. When he walked into Rhineland, the word was to withdraw at the slightest response from the French. The Axis powers got progressively emboldened by the years of unpunished aggression.

Personal involvement of the leading statesmen is thrown in the balance as well. Churchill's and Roosevelt's - mostly positive. Churchill, on the day of the German's aggression against the USSR, broadcast his pledge of economic and technical assistance to Russia, without even showing the text of the speech to the Foreign Office. Roosevelt, about a month into the Soviet-German conflict, pledged $1 bln to the Soviet aid. Four months into it, he persuaded the Congress to extend lend-lease to the USSR. Stalin's involvement is presented as more spotty. Having proven himself a poor military strategist in the first year of Russia's involvement in the war, he let Zhukov override his plans in both Stalingrad and Kursk. Overy believes that Stalin inspired his subordinates by working intense and long hours with no days off. Hitler is shown as mostly a detriment to the German war effort. He underestimated Russians and Americans, he monopolized strategic planning, taking no advice from the field commanders, he believed in miracle weapons produced by German science (instead of substituting horses with trucks in the German army or achieving a minimum of standardization in the weapons manufacturing).

One aspect of the victory is not really highlighted in the book, but merits a special mention: the loss of human life. Beyond achieving military superiority and economic outproduction of Germany, the Allies suffered enormous human losses. Some 80% of the total casualties in the war were on the Allied side. In many major battles of the war, such as Moscow, Stalingrad or Kursk, Allied human life losses were much larger than those of the Axis. The Allies paid dearly for the victory in WWII. More than half of all the dead in the war were Allied civilians, which both underscores the cruelty of the last world war and makes this victory particularly bittersweet.

The book offers a unique view on WWII in that its primary focus is analysis of the historic events and not the events themselves. One could only hope to find more books using the same approach.

This is a book that gives you "The Big Picture" concerning how the Allies won WWII, but manages not to neglect "The Little Picture" either- no mean feat for a book that is only 330 pages long. The author doesn't have any one grand theme. He methodically takes you through all of the areas that he thinks are important and zooms in on each of these areas- brilliantly analyzing each area and always backing his opinions up with some very telling statistics. Mr. Overy also makes it clear how it was not pre-ordained that the Allies would win. Certainly up until 1943 things could have gone the other way. As the Duke of Wellington said in another context, "It was a close run thing..."

The areas that Mr. Overy concentrates on are: the naval war in the Pacific; the submarine war in the Atlantic; Stalingrad and Kursk; the bombing campaign; the invasion of France; mass production and technology; allies and leadership; etc. Within these large issues the author never forgets to include telling details. One example is when he discusses the Battle of Midway and explains how 10 bombs in the space of a few minutes made a huge difference. The reason? Japanese planes were caught "with their pants down." They had shot down so many of the lumbering American torpedo-bombers that they had to land on their supporting aircraft carriers to refuel. The carriers were left with no air cover and American dive bombers were able to swoop in with no oppostion. A few well-placed bombs ignited all of that fuel, which also blew up the bombs the carriers were carrying and in just a few minutes all the Japanese carriers were out of commission. Another example- in the submarine Battle of the Atlantic, what 2 things made a huge difference in turning the tide against the Germans? One was attaching an extra fuel tank to Allied bombers so they could extend their range into a "dead spot" in the ocean where previously the U-Boats had been safe from attack. The 2nd thing was the seemingly simple device of fitting a searchlight on Allied bombers so they could surprise U-Boats that surfaced at night to attack...

Mr. Overy is especially enlightening on how the Allies managed to outproduce the Axis once Russia and the United States were attacked. The Germans had been preparing for war for years. Why did they lose their initial advantage? Mr. Overy's hypothesis is that one reason is that the German economy was "neither fish nor fowl." It wasn't centralized enough on one hand or sufficiently capitalistic on the other. It was an inefficient mish-mash that turned out a bewildering variety of weapons- too many types of tanks, too many kinds of planes, etc. There was not enough standardization to allow sufficient mass production and when things broke down there were insufficient spare parts to supply all the different "makes and models." In comparison, the Soviet economy was highly centralized. Despite being surprised by the German invasion in 1941 the Russians managed to dismantle their factories, reassemble them further East (including Siberia!)and, within 2 years, outproduce the Germans. They stuck to making just a few models, keeping things as simple as possible. Likewise, the highly capitalistic U.S. economy was able to switch over to a war footing and, using mass-production techniques, within a year or so we were outproducing both the Germans and the Japanese. Mr. Overy gives an eye-opening exmple of this ability to "change gears." In 1941 the American auto industry produced three and a half million passenger cars. During the war production dropped to just 139 cars. (Yes, you read that figure correctly!) By 1945 the industry supplied almost all military vehicles and tanks and 1/3 of the machine guns. The Ford company alone produced more army equipment during the war than Italy!

Each section of the book goes into this kind of interesting detail, so that you have concrete examples of what Mr. Overy is talking about. No great abstract, philosophical theories but plenty of down-to-earth theories, logically argued and backed up with plenty of statistics. A great book!

This is the most thorough description of the European front I have read in twenty years. The various campaigns, tactics, leadership, morale, geography, economic resources, and their uses are all highlighted. The conclusions he came to are certainly food for heated debate. The main factors for the Allied victory were Hitler's incompetent leadership, the Soviets ability to out produce and out fight the Wehrmacht, and the USA's ability to produce enough equipment to successfully fight a two front war.

In conclusion, with no disrespect to any branch of service of any country I concluded the following. The war was won by the Russian army and the American navy and air force. The former inflicted 80% of Germany's casualties, while the latter two won the underpublicized battle of the Atlantic and crippled Germany's manufacturing ability so that they could not sustain a two front war.

Richard Overy, a British historian who specializes on World War II and has written on air power and the German economy, set out to explain: why the allies won. The result is this book of just over 400 pages. Everything about this book from the writing, research, photos, and even the maps is of the first order.

The war did not end because the axis powers lost; it ended because the allies won. A key ingredient on the side of the allies be it in Canberra, Ottawa, Washington, London, or even Moscow was the sense that the allies were fight for a positive good. That sense of mission sustained people and armies through the difficult times that they faced when the tide of war was running against them. It was a sense of mission that the Axis powers never had to the same degree. Germany and Japan went to war out of a sense of mission, but kept fighting long after its people had lost hope due to coercion.

Overy disagrees with those that think that economic power alone determined the victors. Britain, France, and Belgium had more resources than the Germans in 1939. In 1941, Hitler controlled most of Europe and had more than the allies. Overy believes: "The line between material resources and victory on the battle field is anything but a straight line." It is also important to remember that the difference between victory and defeat was often quite small. The United States defeated Japan at Midway because of only 10 bombs hitting their targets. A key element in the success of D-Day was the fact that the allies kept the Germans guessing about where they would land.

The two critical areas factors that defeated Germany was the victory of the Soviet Army. The eastern front was the decisive theater of the war. Another critical element was British and American airpower, which gave the allies victory over the German and Japanese navies, and then the allies broke the back of German and Japanese industry.

Finally, leadership and the adaptive ability of the allied militaries were other key elements in the outcome of the war. The leaders of allied nations bonded with their people as the war progressed and were able to motivate them. In this case, it was better to be loved than feared. The allies suffered a number of early defeats, but they learned from these experiences and got better. In Germany, Italy, and Japan the situation was the exact opposite.

Highly recommended.

This really is an excellent analysis of the causes of Allied victory in WWII. Anyone expecting an introductory history of WWII will be disappointed by this book. It presupposses a fairly good background knowledge of WWII and even its historiography. It is also a rebuttal to much of the facile triumphalism associated with writing on WWII. Overy begins by pointing out that WWII could have been won by the Nazis and their allies. He then goes on to identify important features of the Allied and German war effort that made the difference. Some of these are known well, specifically the remarkable industrial productive capacity of the American economy. Beyond this, Overy follows the lead of Alan Milward and other economic historians who have investigated the differential economic performance of the Allied and German wartime economies as critical determinants of success. Pushing beyond popular stereotypes, the Germans are shown to have performed poorly in this respect and the Allies, including Britain and the Soviet Union, quite well. Some of the success of the Allies, and conversely failure of the Germans, can be attributed to the democratic traditions of the Western states, and to the chaotic despotism of Nazi Germany. Overy also takes pains to emphasize, correctly, that the Eastern Front was the crucial theater of the war and highlights the incredible scale of combat on the Eastern Front. Americans, perhaps partly as a result of the Cold War, tend to be particularly ignorant of the importance of Soviet efforts in WWII. Overy also tackles some controversial issues. His discussion of the importance of the American-British bombing effort over Germany is very interesting. Against much popular opinion, particularly in Germany (see recent work by the novelist Gunter Grass), he argues that Allied bombing of Germany was crucial. The bombing campaign diverted crucial elements of German military production, particularly airplane production. This may have prevented the Germans from maintaining air superiority in the Eastern Front, which could have been decisive. While much of this bombing campaign was aimed at civilians, Overy makes a very strong case for its importance. It appears that targeting civilians (as in the NATO campaign against the Serbian dominance of Kosovo) was necessary for victory. This is an unpalatable but very likely correct assessment. Overy is less convincing on the idea that Allied moral superiority was crucial. How was the Soviet state morally superior to the Nazi state? Few would argue that the Germans didn't fight well. With incrementally better leadership and economic management, there would might well have been a Nazi dominated Europe stretching from the Atlantic coast to the Urals, with all its attendant horrors.

Overy masterfully attacks a subject made all the more elusive by its apparent obviousness; how it was that the great coalition of forces fighting fascism during the Second World War, managed to win a none-too-certain victory. Overy analyses critical components of the Allied victory in the war, and does so in a prose both dramatic, and filled with historical detail. He covers key campaigns on the sea, land, and air -in a detail that is surprising given the breadth of subject matter; and follows his blow-by-blow account of the war by analyses of the economies and technological development of the powers at war; and finally by the leadership of the warring countries, and the moral codes that guided them.

This is an excellent book through and through -from the anecdotes and battle strategies discussed in the planning and execution of Midway and Stalingrad, to the remarkable treatise included on the moral world-view of the Nazi hierarchy, and how it affected the moral! e of the German soldier. Any history enthusiast, let alone any student of this great and terrible war, should have this book in his or her personal collection. It is truly one of those indispensable resources that anyone from layman to general can learn from.

Richard Overy is professor of modern history at King's College, London. He has appeared numerous times on British television as an expert in his field. No wonder 'Why the Allies Won' is such a masterpiece of analytical history, probably answering once and for all one of the great questions of the last century. With Germany and Japan (helped by Mussolini's Italy) rampaging through Europe and the Pacific, and poised to dominate most of the world, with USA standing indecisively on the sidelines, with Stalin believing in the validity of Hitler's peace treaty, with France beaten after just six weeks, and with only Britain fighting a rearguard action, how in heavens name did the situation get turned around?

Overy obviously needs to point to certain pivotal battles/battlegrounds (Midway, Stalingrad, Kursk, the Atlantic, and Normandy) but he centers also on the other factors that changed history. The leadership, the morale of the troops on both sides, the determination of the British, the fighting spirit of the Russians. He points out the inefficiencies and bureaucracy of the German industrial machine, the incredible efficiency of American industry, which geared up so rapidly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He points out that, whilst the bombing of German cities has been questioned by other historians and is now commonly regarded as having served a questionable purpose and was of doubtful morality, that it was of critical strategic importance, having drawn off the Luftwaffe from the Eastern Front, where the European war was fundamentally decided.

Overy's analysis of the battle for control of the Atlantic displays particular insight. Though many historians point to the Allies' radar and code-breaking abilities as being the key, Overy delves deeper and shows how basic good planning and good training was the essential added element that eventually beat the German U-boats.

Despite what revisionist history tells us, there was never any certainty that the Allies would win the war. Quite the opposite. Even Churchill and Roosevelt had to come to terms with the fact that, at some point, they might have to make a conditional peace with Germany and Japan. Overy recounts how the Allies managed to regain superiority only after a series of extremely decisive military campaigns. He also points to the many other factors of the war that are too often left unsaid or not understood.

For a REAL insight into five years that changed the world, you should not miss this extraordinary book.