Stalingrad : The Infernal Cauldron, 1942-1943

Rating:
Summary: Excellent overview of a terrible battle.
Review: As the author of a book on Stalingrad myself, I am delighted to recommend this volume as the best introductory overview of the Stalingrad campaign and battle. It isn't aimed at specialists (although they will doubtless still gain much pleasure from it), but at the general reader and the military "buff". They will delight at the book's careful research, its gentle but convincing argument and its clear and engaging prose.

It may, as the first reviewer noted, have one or two tiny errors, but that's all they are. They certainly don't detract from the marvellous level of scholarly competence demonstrated throughout.

I am hoping to meet Mr Walsh one day, not only so we can chat as fellow scholars about a topic that clearly captivates our interest, but also so I can get him to autograph my copy of his lovely book, which sits alongside my own, Anthony Beevor's and John Erickson's on my bookshelf. I am proud to own Walsh's lovely book, and believe you will be too.

Rating:
Summary: A GOOD GENERAL OVERVIEW
Review: For the non initiated, I would recommend this book about the battle that made the difference in the eastern front. It gives a good view of the final siege in Ostland, and is fact filled, the figures and orders of battle are there. I give it 4 stars because maybe there are too much numbers and figures, and this interferes with a linear reading of the history. Also, because there are some minor mistakes in the descriptions of some photographies, as a previous reviewer from Holland has pointed out. But if you have the time and the interest to live and suffer the battlefield in detail, then read Anthony Beevor's Stalingrad. But then, you only get the visual part through the emotions and images evoked in your mind by an accurate account of Dante's inferno on earth......

Rating:
Summary: Not Engaging
Review: I am not going to repeat observations made by earlier reviewers and which I felt were quite accurate (e.g. nice pictures, dry prose, errors etc..). I am an avid WW2 reader and I must say that this book failed to engage and get my interest. I found the lack of maps which follow the narrative disconcerting given the assumed scholarly background of the author. Few sources are cited, and when they are, it's in trivial statements like "in the words of prof. X, from this point on, the Yth army group didn't have the resources to carry its mission". Finally, I found the way the distances were indicated extremely irritating, e.g., the 6th army only advanced 274m (300 yards)???? Where did all these signifcant digits come from? You should know that ALL the distances mentioned in the book are cited this way. Decent editing should not have allowed this to be.

Rating:
Summary: Stalingrad Put Nicely
Review: I enjoyed reading this book and well recommended to advanced readers and students who wanted to know more on the Eastern front! This book is well illustrated with pics that never been publish before plus years of well research work by Walsh ! Stalingrad was important for Hitler as it is strategic located between the oil rich Baku in the south and railroad from Siberia and the Central Asia linking Moscow and Leningrad. If Hitler invaded Stalingrad, this would bring the end of the Soviet Union as Stalin depended 80% of oil from Baku fields! General Paulus of the 6th German Army was given a task to invade Stalingrad before the brutal Russian winter arrive! The German army was in full confidence as they win every major battles to the outskirt of Stalingrad but the Russian Army kept retreating back to Stalingrad by dugging in waiting for the hunter became the hunted! In chase of time, the Germans wanted to complete their mission in less than 2 weeks by October! The invasion proved fatal to the German Army as Stalin wanted to defend the city with every resources and man power he can find as oil was not just important but the city of Stalingrad was name after him due to his heroism defending the city from the white army! Unlike open plains in the Russian steppe, the Germans have difficulty fighting in urban warfare as the Russians were well dug in the rubbles due to heavy German bombardment before the invasion! Unlike in the plains, the German Army can push up to 20 to 200 kilometres a day but in Stalingrad they can hardly move 10 metres a day as some places exchanged hands more than 4 times a day! The Russians fought bravely by sniping German troops dropping their morale and defended lines in the rubble city by setting up stronghold and ambush agaist panzers and German companies! The Germans suffered hard time in supplies as Russian roads were not well pave and there was only a single railway track to Stalingrad! Compared to the blizkreig in Western Europe in 1940, the Germans tend to complete their task within 900 kilometres from Berlin as Stalingrad is 3500 kilometres from Berlin deep into Mother Russia! As General Chuikov's 62nd Army defended Stalingrad to keep the German 6th Army busy, Field Marshall Zhukov was preparing his 11 Armies to counter-attack the enemy lines! By November, the Germans invaded 90% of Stalingrad by losing heavy casualties with ireplaceable man and equipment. The Russian winter arrived and the Germans were not well equiped in winter clothing! The exhaustion of fighting in close combat for 2 months dropped the Germans morale as supplies were not adequate! On November 18, Zhulov launch Operation Uranus penetrating the weak point of Romanian 3rd Army in the north and 4th Romanian Army in the South! Within 3 days, the Russians surrounded German 6th Army in Stalingrad! The German Lufwaffe airlifted and promised to fly 90 tonnes of supplies daily but failed as promised! The encirclement of Stalingrad proved fatal to the German 6th Army as Manstein failed to penetrate into Stalingrad! By January 1943, German 6th Army was doomed as the last airfield at Gumrak was captured mark the end of food and ammunition! On February 2, 1943, Paulus surrundered his 6th Army! Of his 300,000 troops fought for Stalingrad half of them got killed while 90,000 men were captured while the rest were evacuated by air! Only 5,000 troops included Paulus survived after the war. Russian losses were not known as casualties estimated one million! Stalingrad is important for the Russians and her allies as it defeated the Germans ended Hitler's Army strength in Europe!

Rating:
Summary: Just good enough to be pretty good
Review: I gave this book Four stars because it really does give you just the overall Picture of the battle. It has few quotes but the overall strenght of the book is that it goes a long way to explain where each army is and their objective. The movements of each army group and the statistics.
I think this book would better be served called "Operation Blue" because it concentrates a lot on that and that is where all the author gives us the unpersonal view of the battle. He does also talk a lot about Stalingrad but not in a way to actually describe the battle but just to show you where each Corps, Battalion wants to go and who is there to stop them. The book does that really well. Which is if you want a book that explains just that than this book is it.
If you want to know the battle from a personal view, the soldiers, comamders on BOTH sides then Anthony Beevor's "The fateful Seige" is your book. But for what this book does, it does it really well. If you would read this book and Beevor's book at the same time than you would know everything about the battle. But then who has the time for that.

Rating:
Summary: Good but not great.
Review: I was pleased to see Dr Joel Hayward's review of this book below. His own book "STOPPED AT STALINGRAD: The Luftwaffe and Hitlers Defeat in the East" (also available from Amazon.com) is, alongside John Erickson's book, easily the best book on Stalingrad. I strongly recommend these Stalingrad authors as best: Joel Hayward, Anthony Beevor, John Erickson, Graig. Your library is not complete without all these.

But when we look at this book, by Stephen Walsh, we find a different type of book. It focuses too much on ground operations, ignoring the Red Air Force (VVS) and the Luftwaffe. And it is weak on explaining strategy. To counter these weaknesses are terrific black and white photos, many of them appearing in print for the first time.

Walsh's narrative is average. You won't find it as thorough and authoritative as Hayward's or as compelling and racy as Beevor's, but it does the job.

Overall, I still recommend this book and give it 4 stars.

Rating:
Summary: Informative And Captivating Book On Battle Of Stalingrad!
Review: Serious students of World War Two will find this wonderful short but quite informative book on the Battle for Stalingrad a great addition to the great volume of literature already existing. It contains a number of new and intriguing photographs as well as a number of graphs, appendices, and lists helpful to anyone researching the events that unfolded so dramatically in 1942-43 along the Eastern Front. Indeed, herein lay the storm that turned the tide of the European theater of the war, for the epic battle that ran there for so long ultimately smashed Hitler's planned empire (which was to be comprised of the heartland of the Ukraine)to smithereens. It also demonstrated how fatefully Hitler had underestimated the capabilities & indomitable spirit of the Soviet army.

While other books such as Antony Beevor"s epic "Stalingrad" covers the battle much more comprehensively, the use of multiple media here aids the reader in picturing the battle much more definitively than is otherwise possible, short of s trip to the battlefield itself. In fact, even though Operation Barbarossa was fatally flawed from the outset because of its underestimation of the capability, size, and resolve of the Russian forces massed against Germany, it wasn't until the Soviets had gained the experience and battle savvy they demonstrated at Stalingrad that events began to swing in their favor. Still, in defense of historical accuracy, one must admit that based on all the information Hitler had at hand, and considering his handy defeat of everything anyone else had thrown at him, he had every reasonable expectation that the Russian campaign would be yet another blitzkrieg success.

Indeed, the events of the initial attack in the summer of 1941 seemed to confirm that assessment. And even though the Soviets were woefully unprepared to face the German onslaught, both because of ineptitude and due to the wide-ranging military purges Stalin had perpetrated on the officer corps of the Russian army, they had the massive reserves needed to absorb a painfully inflicted first blow and still survive to counterattack again and again. Based on the initial success of the operation, many German soldiers believed the fight for Russia had been won by late autumn, until the tide began to show signs that there was still too much active resistance to hold with that idea. Yet the Germans continued to drive ever deeper into the Soviet heartland, murdering, raping, and destroying everything in their path as they went. When winter settled in, the calculus of the situation began to change, however, and as it did, more changed abut the campaign than just the brutally cold and snowy weather condition they now had to contend with. Soviet forces began to take more offensive action, and nowhere was this change more noticeable than in the key southern area around Stalingrad, where German forces were dangerously over-extended and under-supplied.

The battle for Stalingrad was long and drawn out, lasting almost two years. Hitler's mistake was in allowing himself and his forces to be drawn into a devastating war of attrition, one that had murderous numbers of casualties on both sides. General Paulus foolishly allowed his troops to be slowly drawn into what would become one of the biggest and most costly traps in modern battle. By deciding to stay and fight at Stalingrad, Hitler made critical mistakes that would directly lead to his defeat all along the Eastern front, and therefore eventually lose the war. This, then, is a wonderful addition to the existing literature regarding one of history's most fateful and momentous battles of modern warfare, using a variety of new data, maps, and photographs to add new perspective on a fascinating subject. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Stalingrad...with Photos
Review: This book serves to capture some of the drama that was the battle of Stalingrad. It fails, however, to leave the reader with an understanding of the horror of war or a clear view of what events were critical.

"The Infernal Cauldron" is long on detail as to the specific movement of troops but, in so doing, serves to lose the reader from the bigger picture. We are constantly updated as to where particular Armies and Divisions were moving but are shown few maps. The reader is thus easily lost in the minutae without developing a fuller understanding of the battle.

Offsetting the flaws of detail, the book has numerous glossy black and white photos that show some of the key players such as Paulus and his generals. It also reproduces other photos of the phenomenal destruction that was unleashed on this one city.

Finally, as with all books on the subject of Stalingrad, comparison with Antony Beevor's great work is inevitable. In this regard, Walsh demonstrably fails. Read Beevor if you want to understand and try to comprehend the war for and the siege of Stalingrad.

Rating:
Summary: Stalingrad...with Photos
Review: This book serves to capture some of the drama that was the battle of Stalingrad. It fails, however, to leave the reader with an understanding of the horror of war or a clear view of what events were critical.

"The Infernal Cauldron" is long on detail as to the specific movement of troops but, in so doing, serves to lose the reader from the bigger picture. We are constantly updated as to where particular Armies and Divisions were moving but are shown few maps. The reader is thus easily lost in the minutae without developing a fuller understanding of the battle.

Offsetting the flaws of detail, the book has numerous glossy black and white photos that show some of the key players such as Paulus and his generals. It also reproduces other photos of the phenomenal destruction that was unleashed on this one city.

Finally, as with all books on the subject of Stalingrad, comparison with Antony Beevor's great work is inevitable. In this regard, Walsh demonstrably fails. Read Beevor if you want to understand and try to comprehend the war for and the siege of Stalingrad.

Rating:
Summary: A decent overview - brief and well illustrated
Review: Walsh is the very best type of military historian - that is, both a soldier and a scholar. He's done a good job of putting together a brief, slim overview of the battle of Stalingrad (including the lead-up to it, Operation Barbarossa, and the aftermath). It's most notable for its illustrations - many photographs have never been published before - and for its brevity, presenting almost a bullet-point account of the whole saga.

Walsh sometimes tries too hard to interpret the photographs, and the feelings of the men in them: for instance, many have captions on the lines of "the full enormity of the defeat sinks in...". Conversely, the bulk of the prose is very dry, almost as though trying to offset the picture captions.

The history seems reasonably straightforward, relying on dependable sources. For example, the one German soldier's private diary which is extensively quoted is the very same one used in the magnificent BBC "World at War" documentary. The narrative would have benefitted a little from being more tightly linked to the maps, to help those of us who are geographically challenged, or less familiar with tank battle tactics.

All in all, a good single source for those wanting a reliable overview that's quick to read, and for completists looking for more pictorial evidence; but for those with more time to invest, Beevor's book is more sweeping, comprehensive and dramatic.