Review: Stalingrad -- The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943 by Dwight Mercer

Stalingrad - The Fateful Siege : 1942-1943                    (translated into 26 other languages)

Sir Antony Beevor                            Viking Press, Penguin Books                        1998

Education:           Winchester College, Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst

                                He studied under the military historian John Keegan, and is a former officer with the 11th                                Hussars.

Stalingrad is a narrative history written by Antony Beevor of the battle fought in and around the city of Stalingrad during World War II, as well as the events leading up to it. It was first published by Viking Press in 1998.  He is the author of about

The book won the first Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson History Prize, the Hawthornden Prize for Literature and the Baillie Gifford Prize (£30,000).

The book starts with Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the USSR in June 1941, and the subsequent drive into the Soviet Union. Its main focus is the Battle of Stalingrad, in particular the period from the initial German attack to Operation Uranus and the Soviet victory. It details the subsequent battles and war crimes committed by both sides. The book ends with the defeat and surrender of the Germans in February 1943 and the beginning of the Soviet advance on Germany.

Antony Beevor conveys the reality within a conventional narrative - but he concentrates not on strategy, but more on the experience of soldiers on both sides.  Number of maps and photographs could be higher - but most military books tend to be lower than I would like.

His account is enriched by new primary sources including reports on desertions and executions from the archives of the Russian ministry of defence, captured German documents, interrogation of prisoners, private diaries and letters from soldiers on both sides, medical reports and interviews with key witnesses and participants.

I read the book about the same time I was playing the strategic game Stalingrad on a Macintosh computer.  The main full battle game required 2 hours of play per night over 60 days to complete.  Supply lines and unit exhaustion levels were critical factors to account for in the game playing. 

The game clearly presented the extended "meat grinder" battle situation - a battle of attrition and exhaustion in an arctic weather scenario.  The book also presents this impression.

As a final endorsement - I bought a second copy of the book to replace a loaned copy which never came back.

Books by Sir Antony Beevor

Violent Brink	1975	Novel	First published by John Murray, London
The Faustian Pact	1983	Novel	Jonathan Cape, London
For Reasons of State	1980	Novel	Jonathan Cape, London
The Spanish Civil War	1982	Non-fiction	First published Orbis, London	ISBN 9780141001487
The Enchantment of Christina von Retzen	1989	Novel	Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London
Inside the British Army	1990	Non-fiction	Chatto and Windus, London
Crete: The Battle and the Resistance	1991	Non-fiction	John Murray, London	ISBN 9780140167870
Paris After the Liberation, 1944–1949	1994	Non-fiction		Co-authored with his wife, Artemis Cooper. Revised edition 2004
Stalingrad	1998	Non-fiction	Viking Press, London, later by Penguin, London	Translated into 26 other languages. ISBN 9780670870950
Berlin: The Downfall 1945	2002	Non-fiction	Penguin, London	Published as The Fall of Berlin 1945 in the US ISBN 9780670030415
The Mystery of Olga Chekhova	2004	Non-fiction		(See Olga Chekhova) ISBN 9780670033409
The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936–39	2006	Non-fiction	ISBN 9780143037651	Spanish edition published in 2005. ISBN 9780143037651
D-Day: The Battle for Normandy	2009	Non-fiction	Penguin Books, London	ISBN 9780670021192
The Second World War	2012	Non-fiction	W&N	ISBN 9780316023740
Ardennes 1944: Hitler's Last Gamble	2015	Non-fiction	Viking	ISBN 9780670918645