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90 of 92 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Fresh Account that Alters Our View of the Eastern Front, January 1, 2001
David M. Glantz, a military officer and expert on the Eastern Front in the Second World War, has written an excellent operational summary of the virtually unknown Operation "Mars" (the operation was such a disaster that the Soviets suppressed records of it until recently), the Soviet attempt to pinch off the German 9th Army in the Rhzev salient in November-December 1942. Even readers familiar with the Eastern Front will find their beliefs altered by his book. As Glantz clearly demonstrates, the well-known Operation Uranus counterattack at Stalingrad was actually a strategic deception for the main effort near Moscow. Soviet Marshal Zhukov wanted to destroy ArmeeGruppe Center but he ordered the Stalingrad attack to precede Operation Mars in order to divert German attention and reinforcements to the south. Unfortunately for him, the Germans did not become diverted and their defenses remained steady. Unlike the 6th Army at Stalingrad, the German 9th Army was well entrenched and had powerful mobile reserves. Zhukov's attack was a spectacular failure despite larger forces being used there than in the Stalingrad counteroffensive. The Soviets failed primarily because they could not breach the German defenses quickly and the Germans (Field Marshal Model) did a superb job of shifting mobile reserves around to meet each crisis in turn. Severe winter weather actually degraded the Soviet artillery preparation (poor visibility limited observed fires), which undermined the initial breakthroughs. Amazingly, Zhukov continued to order frontal assaults for three weeks, even though the offensive was obviously failing to achieve its objectives in the first four days. Soviet losses in the three week offensive on this front totaled at least 100,000 killed, 235,00 wounded and about 1,800 tanks. German counterattacks cut off and eliminated three Soviet corps (one tank, one mechanized, and one rifle). After the Stalingrad operation succeeded and Operation Mars failed, Soviet historians erased all mention of Zhukov's attack and instead re-wrote history to make it appear that Stalingrad always was the main effort. The only deficiencies in this account that keep it from being outstanding are: (a) only marginal information is provided on the air campaign over the salient, (b) there is no detailed information on German forces defending the salient prior to Zhukov's attack (e.g. discussion of mobile reserves available, logistics, status of defenses, obstacles), and (c) no real assessment of Soviet units as to quality, equipment, training, prior experience, etc. Maps are decent in terms of quantity and quality although use of acronyms instead of map symbols clutters maps and makes them difficult to read (e.g. "6GCD" for 6th Guards Cavalry Division). However, if you want to learn something new and important about the Eastern Front, read this book.
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48 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting account of a largely unknown battle, February 13, 2004
I thought this book was David Glantz's best effort in retelling the story of one of the worst Soviet defeats in during the winter campaign of 1942-43. I think the Soviet defeat in Operation Star can equal this debacle that helped the Germans restored stability after their own disaster at Stalingrad. The book was well written and researched. The narrative was easy to follow and author gives good deal of insights on Zhukov's motivations behind his purpose. The book clearly revealed some fundamental weaknesses within the Soviet command while reflecting in some part, the strength of the Germans. Although I understand that the author wanted to give a the Soviet view on this matter, but if Zhukov lost the battle, Model won it and he probably deserves equal coverage. I do have one major complaint and that referred to the maps, while its clear enough, I thought the movements of units were not very clear and he should have used the standard NATO symbols to clarified the position instead of just writing a meshmash of lettering and numbers that designated units. It made a complex picture just more confusing when he didn't have to. I also thought that the book was a textbook example of how the Germans could have fought the Soviets after Stalingrad. If the Germans decided against the Kursk campaign, battle like this would have been a good example of how the Germans could have outlast the Russians along the eastern front. Powerful mobile reserves, flexible command structure and capable leadership, post Stalingrad period would have been not a sure thing for the Soviets. This is a book written for people who already got background education on the Eastern Front. Author don't waste a lot pages trying to explain what been going on since Barbarossa began and almost immediately plunge the reader into the conception and realization of Operation Mars and its relations.
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Welcome to the Meatgrinder, April 28, 2007
This review is from: Zhukov's Greatest Defeat: The Red Army's Epic Disaster in Operation Mars, 1942 (Modern War Studies) (Paperback)
ZHUKOV'S GREATEST DEFEAT is an exhaustive and exacting study of one of the biggest and least-known land battles in history, the Battle for the Rzhev Salient, which took place west of Moscow over three weeks in late 1942. It was written by David M. Glantz, the director of the U.S. Army's Foreign Military Studies Office, who also penned two other Red Army studies, WHEN TITANS CLASHED and STUMBLING COLOSSUS. Like Mr. Glantz's other works, it is notable primarily for its extensive use of Soviet and Russian-language sources, which with the fall of the Soviet Union are becoming increasingly available to Western historians. Thanks to his diligent research, this gigantic clash of Nazi and Soviet armies that produced 400,000 (mostly Soviet) casualties, for decades effectively covered up by postwar Communist historians and generally ignored by westerners obsessed with the simultaneously-occurring Battle of Stalingrad, has now been lifted out of historical obscurity.
Glantz's book primarily covers the period between November 25 and December 15, 1942, when the Red Army launched Operation Mars, a massive offensive on the northern-central sector of the Eastern Front to destroy two German armies poised in a 50 x 30 mile bulge that pointed threateningly towards Moscow. This so-called Rzhev Salient was viewed by Marshal Georgi Zhukov, the ablest of the Soviet generals, as a perfect staging ground for an massive encirclement operation of the type that was being carried out at that moment at Stalingrad. The two operations, it was hoped, would annihilate not merely one German army, but two complete Army groups, and caused a frontwide collapse of Nazi forces in Russia. Zhukov made pain-staking preparations and was fully confident that the cold, dispirited and understrength German divisions in the Salient would quickly fall prey to his massive pincer attack. As Glantz shows us, he was wrong. Poor weather, unsuitable terrain and a tenacious German resistance turned the glorious offensive into an enormous bloodbath. One Soviet brigade after another was shattered, driven back or wiped out completely, only to be replaced by still more who met the same fate. German lines were bent but obstinately refused to break as the Nazi commander, Walther Model, hurled in his last reserves to stem the enemy tide. Long after it was clear that Mars would not achieve any of its objectives, the pathologically stubborn Zhukov continued the attack, as if, in Glantz's words, "to punish" his armies for their failure. The result was 100,000 Russian dead, 235,000 wounded and missing and an incalculable amount of equipment destroyed or captured, for gains that nowhere exceeded more than a few kilometers. It was not for nothing the Soviet soldier dubbed the area of the Salient "the Rzhev meat-grinder."
ZHUKOV'S GREATEST DEFEAT is an important book on the Nazi-Soviet war, but it is clearly meant for hard-core fans of military history only. Glantz is a diligent, thorough, and methodical researcher, but unfortunately, his writing style has these same qualities. There is no attempt to edit, filter or streamline the vast amount of information which marches past on every densely-written page: we are treated to every brigade movement, every redeployment of a grenadier battalion, every argument between unit commanders over tactics and supplies. Stylistically, this reads like a military publication -- extremely heavy on tactical and logistical details, light on prose style. As a result, I often found myself in a Rzhev-like struggle to finish certain parts of the book. Many times I found myself longing for the stylistic skills of a John Keegan, Stephen Ambrose, David Irving or Alan Clark, and instead got fact-stuffed passages talking about how the 3rd Battalion of the 173rd Grenadier Regiment, 12th Panzer Division was replaced in the line by the 1st Battalion, 3rd Regiment, Grossdeutschland Motorized Division. Obviously this type of detail is necessary here and there in any battle-book, but after a couple hundred pages it wears on the eyes.
Having said this, I think ZHUKOV'S GREATEST DEFEAT is still something of a triumph. Mr. Glantz has done nothing less than resurrect a forgotten battle and reconstruct it before our eyes down to its smallest details. He may not be the most asthetically pleasing historian around, but he brings the same type of grim determination to tell the story that Zhukov displayed trying to win the battle. Unlike Zhukov, however, he succeeds.
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