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ISBN 978-0-7006-1630-5
xix + 655 pages

Preface; Prologue; maps; photos; tables; OBs; Endnotes; Selected Bibliography; Index

   Over the last twenty years or so, David Glantz has almost single-handedly redefined and reinvigorated the study of the Russo-German War. It wouldn't be much of an exaggeration to contend his output nearly outweighs that of everyone else working in the field in English. Certainly, the current state of our understanding of the course of campaigns on the Russian Front owes more to Glantz than anyone else. Unmatched as a researcher, Glantz on the other hand has never received accolades for scintillating prose. A certain lack of dynamism in his text tends to mean the unmatched levels of fresh information and interpretation are conveyed in a monotone. As we opined in a review of one of his earlier books, "Glantz writes austere, fact-laden prose intended to provide intense doses of data, not entertainment."
   In his latest work, the Prologue opens with a bit of an intriguing splash, telling the story of Major General A.I. Liziukov:

   By all accounts, Aleksandr Il'ich Liziukov had been a skillful and brave commander in 1941, becoming one of the first men recognized as a Hero of the Soviet Union because he had performed superbly during the battle for Moscow as the deputy to Lieutenant General A. A. Vlasov, commander of Western Front's 20th Army. After three weeks of failure in midsummer 1942, however, Liziukov had reached the end of his rope by 23 July. Ordered by Lieutenant General N. E. Chibisov, commander of Briansk Front's special operational group conducting the counterstroke, to locate his corps' two tank brigades encircled deep in the German rear area and lead them back to safety, Liziukov, at 0900 hours on 23 July, climbed into a KV heavy tank with his commissar. He personally directed the tank southward from his headquarters at Bol'shaia Vereika and across the Sukhaia Vereika River, seeking to break through the enemy infantry and armor to rescue his two brigades. Just short of the German defensive positions, in a patch of woods south of the village of Lebiazh'e several hundred meters west of Hill 188.5, Liziukov's tank was immobilized by fire from an antitank gun. The stranded tank acted as a magnet for German fire, and the general ordered his crew to abandon the vehicle. Machine-gun fire wounded the driver and killed the radio operator as they bailed out of the hatches. Liziukov himself escaped from the tank but was killed instantly by artillery fire.

   After that introduction (amplified in an endnote providing the source as well as information about the original, inaccurate, wartime account of Liziukov's death), Glantz proceeds to set the stage—nothing dramatic or groundbreaking—with a chapter on German forces, commanders, and plans (about 30 pages) and another on Soviet forces, commanders, and plans (about 40 pages). These chapters contain much biographical information about the opposing generals, including key officers down to corps and division level.
   The following chapter deals with preliminary operations. First, Glantz looks at German 11th Army's highly successful destruction of the Soviet Crimean Front in the Kerch peninsula during May, although the final paragraph of that section mistakenly refers to the conclusion of the battle in "16 and 17 September." That's an innocent error and easy enough for the reader to note and adjust, but it underscores how the torrent of dates, locations, unit IDs, and names of commanders can be tough for the author as well as the audience to keep straight. In any event, the same chapter goes on to describe the disastrous Soviet offensive at Kharkov in the second half of May, Manstein's victory at Sevastopol, Operation Wilhelm, and Operation Fridericus II, all of which paved the way for the opening of Operation Blue (Case Blau), the German summer offensive for 1942. The chapter closes with about 18 pages of OB data for both sides for the entire front as of approximately 1 July.
   On 28 June German forces opened Operation Blue and promptly tore a gap in the lines of Soviet Bryansk Front. Stalin responded by attempting to micromanage the defense, and telling the front commander, Golikov, "Everything now depends on your skillful employment and precise command and control of these forces. Understand?" Ominous words from Moscow! At this point in the book Glantz takes his text to a new level of detail, with considerably more information about units, operations, and terrain than in the previous chapter. Also, while the chapter on preliminaries utilizes only one or two quotes from other sources, the chapter on Case Blue begins the pattern for the remainder of the book, interspersing more quotes from other books and documents. Here's an example:

   Reporting that his army's divisions had suffered "significant losses" but "had not lost their combat capabilities," 40th Army's commander, Parsegov, turned to his front commander, Golikov, for assistance. At Golikov's request, on the evening of 28-29 June the Stavka ordered Southwestern Front to transfer Mishulin's 4th and Badanov's 24th Tank Corps from the region west of Novyi Oskol, where they were supporting 21st Army's left wing, northward to the Staryi Oskol region where they were to organize a counterstroke to restore 40th Army's shattered defenses. At the same time, the Stavka ordered Golikov to shift Feklenko's 17th Tank Corps forward from Voronezh to Kastornoe to join the counterstroke and also reinforced Golikov's front with four fighter and three assault aviation regiments. For his part, Golikov dispatched Pavelkin's 16th Tank Corps from his reserve to bolster the sagging defenses along the Kshen' River at the boundary between Pukhov's 13th and Parsegov's 40th Armies and 115th and 116th Tank Brigades, also from his reserve, to reinforce 40th Army.
   Despite these measures, as Soviet after-action reports concluded, Golikov' s forces were suffering from a lamentable absence of effective command and control:

   40th Army's commander and staff exhibited impermissible lack of concern in the army's sector for such an alarming and harrowing situation. The army command post was located in the Bykovo region, in 6th Rifle Division's defensive sector. Neither the army commander nor his deputies were in the right wing divisions to organize the fighting personally or to refine the missions for the next day; instead, they continued to command by telegraph and telephone. The senior chiefs did not even assign missions to the two tank brigades that had joined the army; instead, this was done through staff officers.

   Frequent thunderstorms and intermittent heavy rains plagued Weichs's attacking forces during the first half of 29 June and forced Bock to postpone the advance of Paulus's Sixth Army for 24 hours. However, during the afternoon of 29 June. Armeegruppe Weichs's rapidly advancing panzers continued sowing chaos among the ranks of Golikov's Briansk Front. Preceded by another artillery preparation and protected by swarms of Stuka dive-bombers, Balck's 11th Panzer Division reached the Kshen' River west of Volovo while the infantry accompanying it to the north pressed 13th Army's left flank and wing back northward toward Livny. Along the Kshen', Balck's panzers encountered Pavelkin's 16th Tank Corps, which had just reached the region with 40th Army' s second-echelon 11th and 119th Rifle Brigades. Farther south, Bassler's 9th Panzer Division also reached the Kshen', where it encountered the defenses of 40th Army's 160th Rifle Division dug in along the eastern bank. By this time both panzer divisions were 25-30 kilometers deep into Briansk Front's defenses, leaving 121st Rifle Division in shambles.

   Although the author continues to use a fair number of these kinds of block quotes throughout his book to support and enhance his own narrative, it should be noted that he does not go nearly so far in that approach here as he does in After Stalingrad: The Red Army's Winter Offensive, 1942-1943, a significantly higher proportion of which comprises direct quotes from primary sources.
   In terms of combat operations, Glantz emphasizes again and again how Soviet forces, although obviously on the defensive, staged repeated counterstrokes—usually at the behest of Stavka—in order to distract and delay the German offensive. It's not unusual for less detailed histories of Operation Blue to gloss over those counterattacks, but at this level of detail it's clear the Soviets were far from passive participants in the battle. Soviet jabs and counter punches in the Voronezh sector, for example, caused some disagreement among Hitler, Halder, Bock, and Hoth about how best to respond. Efforts in that area in the early stages of the campaign included attacks by Liziukov's 5th Tank Army, which ended unfavorably for 5th Tank Army as well as Liziukov himself, as foretold in the Prologue.
   Glantz draws three main conclusions from his research into the opening of Blue, all contradicting earlier interpretations by other authors. First, the Soviets not only matched the German attackers in manpower, their tanks substantially outnumbered the panzers facing them. Second, "...fighting during Blau I was far more ferocious and consequential than previously described, especially in the vicinity of Voronezh." Third, Stalin did not immediately order Soviet forces to withdraw; instead, as the chapter shows, Stavka insisted on repeated, forceful counterattacks.
   That third conclusion in particular contradicts some of the classic accounts of the campaign. In Barbarossa, Alan Clark says "Accordingly, Timoshenko had been ordered to hold the two 'hinges' at either end of his front, Voronezh and Rostov, and to allow—indeed, he had no option—the Germans to burst through the 'gates' between, trading space for time across the Donetz basin and the large bend of the Don." Albert Seaton's Russo-German War echoes much the same sentiment with "Soviet armies...were withdrawing rapidly eastwards...[i]n consequence the attacking formations lacked the mobility to outpace the retreating Red Army troops....." And Paul Carell in Hitler Moves East claims "But something strange happened. The [German] troops discovered that although enemy rearguards were fighting stubbornly in well-prepared defensive positions, the bulk of the Soviets was withdrawing eastward in good order. For the first time the Russians were refusing large-scale battle." That sums up the accepted interpretation among Western historians that held sway for decades, now overturned.
   In the second phase of the German offensive, Blau II, Stalin and his generals appear to have been somewhat less prone to order such constant counterattacks, but Glantz demonstrates how Soviet forces did not simply withdraw in the face of the German advance, as Carell and others have written. As a result, in the Millerovo sector Soviet armies were encircled, and more were subsequently destroyed along the approaches to Rostov. More than covering all this action thoroughly with his usual attention to unit IDs, positions, and dates, the author further discusses the strategic choices facing the Germans at this point in the operation. In addition to relieving Bock for raising objections to earlier decisions, Hitler ordered changes to the overall plan for Case Blau, deciding to simultaneously advance against Stalingrad with Army Group B and into the Caucasus with Army Group A. Furthermore, according to the chapter's closing "Conclusions," the Voronezh axis remained an active and critical part of Hitler's Directive No. 45. Anyone with the slightest familiarity with the campaign will know exactly where this leads, and the final paragraph of the chapter includes suitable foreshadowing. "Thus, as was the case in Blau I, Blau II was indeed a magnificent victory for the Wehrmacht. However, it was also an empty victory of sorts that in no way justified the unfettered optimism and new ambitiousness demonstrated by the German Fuehrer."
   The sixth chapter of the book studies the advance into the great bend of the Don. While German Army Group A began advancing beyond Rostov and Army Group B began pushing toward Stalingrad, Glantz writes that Stalin demanded "...Briansk and Voronezh Fronts unleash their armies in a concerted assault against German Army Group B's long right wing." However, he must mean "Army Group B's long left wing." That kind of mix-up is not uncommon, including, for example, a reference in the "Conclusions" chapter to Army Group A being on Army Group B's left. Only true when viewed from Moscow! Similarly, a few pages later, while explaining the events of 23 July, the text refers to the next day as 24 June. Another chapter seems to list both 7 August and 8 August as the date for 6th Army's renewed offensive toward Kalach. These are only minor errors, but they are reminders that —with so many detailed descriptions of so many forces and operations—readers need to pay close attention to what's going on, and they need to be aware that some inaccuracies have slipped through.
   Here's an example of how Glantz tracks this stage of the battle:

   The failure of most of Zhuravlev's group to escape was a direct result of the ineffectiveness of Kriuchenkin's 4th Tank Army and, in particular, of Shamshin's 22nd Tank Corps. With an initial strength of 180 tanks. Shamshin's corps, if properly employed, should have played a decisive role in the defeat of Paulus's northern pincer. However, when the corps finally went into action on 29 July, its 182nd and 173rd Tank Brigades managed to employ only 96 operational tanks because their remaining 36 tanks had already broken down. In addition, Shamshin retained 176th Tank Brigade, with 29 operational tanks, in his reserve and 133rd Heavy Tank Brigade, with its formidable force of KV tanks and the reinforcing 22nd Motorized Rifle Brigade, in the forests west of Trekhostrovskaia on the Don, on his extreme right wing.
   Shamshin committed his tanks into action without conducting a proper reconnaissance and without infantry support. As a result, the first two attempts by 182nd and 173rd Tank Brigades to capture Ventsy and nearby Mukovninskii (6 kilometers northeast of Verkhne-Buzinovka) from 100th Jaeger and 113th Infantry Division and a supporting kampfgruppe from 16th Panzer Division failed miserably and cost the two brigades 13 destroyed tanks (11 T-34s and 2 T-70s). Resuming their assaults on 30 July, this time with 176th Tank Brigade attacking toward Osinovskii on the corps left wing but with 133rd Tank and 22nd Motorized Rifle Brigades both still motionless on the Don's eastern bank, the three tank brigades lost another 41 tanks (25 T-34s, 11 T-70s, and 5 T-60s) and the commander of 176th Tank Brigade. During this fighting, the remnants of Tanaschishin's 13th Tank Corps finally linked up with Shamshin's dwindling forces, with 13th Tank Corps' remaining 66 tanks forming a new 169th Tank Brigade in 22nd Tank Corps. Thereafter, Shamshin's tank corps, together with 184th and 192nd Rifle Divisions, continued daily attacks against VIII Army Corps' defenses south of the Kremenskaia and Sirotinskaia bridgehead but with distinctly diminishing effect.

   The same chapter covers Stalin's "Not a Step Back" order, the increased levels of discipline and intimidation in the Soviet army, formation of new penal units and blocking detachments, and other draconian measures to shore up defensive positions and improve the martial ardor of the troops. As usual, Glantz ends the chapter with conclusions and new spins on old interpretations. In this case he notes the scope of attacks by Soviet 1st Tank Army and 2nd Tank Army was far broader than generally recognized, and actually represented an effort to mount "a genuine counteroffensive." Next, the resistance by 62nd Army proved significantly fiercer than historians have previously realized. And finally, for all the success of German 6th Army in the great bend of the Don River, the losses suffered there would come back to haunt Paulus when he reached Stalingrad.
   Despite German successes in the Don bend, Soviet forces continued to resist. At the end of July both Hitler and Stalin shuffled their divisions. The Fuehrer in particular seemed to take an increased interest in the drive toward Stalingrad and reinforced that axis with sufficient panzers to give the attackers rough numerical parity with Soviet armor. If Stalingrad Front was unable to defeat German 6th Army in July when the Soviets enjoyed a five-to-one superiority in tanks, the prospects of the defenders must have dimmed in August. With 4th Panzer Army redirected to attack toward Stalingrad from the southwest, the advance from that direction moved rapidly at first, capturing Kotelnikovo on 2 August, but Chuikov's troops dug in their heels and halted Hoth's army along the Aksai River for twelve days. Meanwhile, German 6th Army, with newly assigned reinforcements, on 7 August renewed its attacks in the great bend of the Don toward Kalach with about 330 tanks and promptly encircled 62nd Army. Approximately half the soldiers of the 62nd were captured or killed by 12 August, but the remainder escaped across the Don. Paulus then turned his attention to destroying the remaining Soviet forces, notably 4th Tank Army, west of the Don. By 19 August that task was complete. Paulus' 6th Army and Hoth's 4th Panzer Army were ready to advance against Stalingrad itself. Despite successful destruction of strong Soviet formations, including much of 62nd Army, the battle for the approaches to the city on the Volga had taken longer and cost more than Hitler and OKH expected. Glantz goes on to describe the organization of Soviet defenses for Stalingrad. The command arrangements proved unusual and rather confusing, including one front commander subordinate to another front commander, with both closely overseen by a trio of high-ranking supervisors dispatched from Moscow.
   By this point in the book, the events covered by Glantz begin to catch up to those covered by Michael Jones in Stalingrad. (It's worth noting, by the way, that Jones doesn't appear in the bibliography for To the Gates of Stalingrad.) Although a significant proportion of the topics covered in the two books overlap, the authors approach the material differently. Glantz conscientiously measures, compares, and analyzes forces and maneuvers and combat. Although he offers many thumbnail biographies of key figures, he doesn't devote much space to inspecting the junior officers and troops who fought the battles. Jones, on the other hand, is generally less thorough and less precise about strategic and operational issues, more accommodating of anecdotal evidence, and far more concerned with the men who were actually doing the fighting and dying. Jones also pays more attention to the situation in Stalingrad in late August, including the mass panic and flight of civilians, Luftwaffe attacks, and the subsequent fires that consumed much of the city. The authors disagree on some points. For example, Jones claims the civilian population on 28 August engaged in an orgy of looting and panic-driven evacuation from the city, events suppressed in post-war Soviet histories. Glantz makes no mention of such looting, panic, or evacuation, and writes that "a large portion of the citizens of Stalingrad were trapped in the city throughout the approaching battle."
   Meanwhile, on 21 August Paulus' 6th Army launched its assault across the Don River toward Stalingrad. The first German pontoon bridge across the Don was in position on 22 August, and panzers blasted their way out of the bridgehead early on 23 August and rolled toward the Volga River.

   At about 1500 hours, the advancing kampfgruppen of von Strachwitz's Panzer Detachment from 2nd Panzer Regiment and 2nd Battalion, 64th Panzer Grenadier Regiment, approached Stalingrad's northern suburbs of Latashanka, Rynok, and Spartanovka (named Spartakovka on period maps but Spartanovka after the war) and the Stalingrad Tractor Factory south of the Mokraia Mechetka River. There they encountered gunfire from heavy antiaircraft guns and antitank guns operated by women, as well as infantry hurling grenades. However, virtually every one of these first rounds fired in the battle for Stalingrad missed Strachwitz's tanks. The Germans were more accurate in response, smashing 37 different antiaircraft gun positions. When the Germans later examined these positions, the reason for the Soviet inaccuracy became obvious—the gun crews were composed entirely of civilian women, apparently factory workers and members of Stalingrad's antiaircraft defense (MPVO). Essentially these defenders were locals who had received only rudimentary instruction.
   ....
   By nightfall on 23 August the thrust by Sixth Army's XIV Panzer Corps to the Volga River north of Stalingrad placed the Stavka's defenses in the entire southern sector of the Soviet-German front in peril. In addition to threatening the city itself, the panzer advance had also driven a deep wedge between Eremenko's Stalingrad Front and Southeastern Front, severing most communications between Moscow and the Caucasus. Compounding this threat, southwest of the city the spearhead of Hoth's Fourth Panzer Army had reached Tinguta Station, only 35 kilometers southwest of Stalingrad's southern suburbs, in position to cut off the withdrawal routes of Lopatin's 64th Army back through the city.

   Nevertheless, the panzer spearhead of 6th Army had advanced out of supply, was unable to penetrate into Stalingrad from the north, gradually withdrew from the edge of the city under unrelenting Soviet counterattacks, and was on the verge of retreating toward the west due to lack of fuel and ammunition when a convoy of 250 supply trucks arrived at the critical moment. Stavka formed new armies, the 24th and 66th, to help protect the city and continued to feed reinforcements into the battle, and Glantz enumerates each formation and movement. As usual, Soviet units were already in motion to counterattack on the flanks in an effort to distract and delay the offensive. At this point however—although the comparison is inexact—the constant Soviet counterstrokes away from the schwerpunkt—often piecemeal, disorganized, poorly coordinated, and disrupted by the Luftwaffe—seem to have taken on some characteristics of suicidal Japanese banzai charges against US beachheads on islands in the Pacific. In both cases, the greater mission of the defending forces might have been better served by conserving troops to strongly defend key points and inflict heavier casualties on the attackers, rather than presenting themselves to be chopped to pieces. Unlike the Japanese, the Soviets could afford such wastage because they retained reserves to take the place of decimated units. Even so, Glantz judges the counterattacks of Stalingrad Front as "condemned to failure" and notes the front had "squandered most of [its] imposing armored forces." Even Stalin—usually forceful in his demands for unceasing assaults—criticized Eremenko for Stalingrad Front's wasteful attacks.
   In the meantime, before 6th Army opened its assault across the Don on 21 August, Hoth's 4th Panzer Army renewed its offensive toward Stalingrad from the southwest on 20 August. Although Glantz deals with this attack separately (and in a section that appears later in the chapter and somewhat out of chronological sequence), the effect on 6th Army's operations (and Soviet actions) around Stalingrad was considerable. Soviet troops offered strong resistance but Hoth broke through the outer defenses of the city at the beginning of September, making it necessary to withdraw 62nd Army and 64th Army to the outskirts of Stalingrad or lose them to encirclement. Glantz blames Paulus for failing to heed his army group commander and allowing both armies, nearly trapped, to escape.
   The chapter closes with, as usual, a series of thoughtful reflections by Glantz, and these are among the most important in the book as he discusses the performance of 6th Army and 4th Panzer Army. The author follows with a solid chapter (almost 80 pages) relating events on the flanks of Stalingrad during the period from 25 July through 11 September. These cover battles to the north (operations around Voronezh; the Rzhev salient; the Zhizdra River; and the Demyansk pocket) and to the south (Army Group A's offensive toward the Caucasus; the advance to Stavropol, Maikop, and Krasnodar; and fighting in the Caucasus Mountains).
   With all that out of the way, Glantz brings his book in for a landing. The final chapter, titled "Conclusions: German Strategic Misconceptions," mostly recapitulates in abbreviated form the events covered in all the earlier chapters. It also discusses the three primary reasons why, although the units of Army Group A and Army Group B appeared to be poised to capture Baku and Stalingrad, the future would not be bright for the German offensive.
   Here's a part of what the author has to say about the three salient points:

   Lost amid this depressing mosaic of abject Soviet defeat during summer 1942 were three far more positive aspects of the Red Army's defense that, although often keenly appreciated by many lower-level German combat commanders in the field, remained largely obscure to higher German commands and to most historians who have since described these operations. Masked by the Wehrmacht's many brilliant successes during that summer, ultimately these factors would foreshadow far greater difficulties that advancing German forces would encounter come autumn.
   First, conventional wisdom maintains that, as early as the first week of Operation Blau, Stalin willfully ordered his forces in southern Russia to withdraw from harm's way, thereby avoiding the disastrous losses the Red Army had suffered in summer 1941. As proof, historians cite the lamentably small bag of prisoners the advancing Wehrmacht succeeded in taking during the summer. This is self-evidently incorrect....
   Second, and as a corollary to the first factor, conventional wisdom would argue that the Stavka willfully abandoned the Donbas region and the Great Bend of the Don River so as to preserve its forces and contain the German onslaught along more defensible lines, principally the Don and Volga Rivers. It then chose to conduct a resolute defense only after 62nd and 64th Army's were pinned down inside and south of Stalingrad. This conclusion is also self-evidently wrong....
   Third, conventional wisdom would also assert that, even though the Stavka indeed managed to mobilize fresh forces during summer 1942, most of the armies that slowed, halted, and ultimately defeated the German juggernaut in Operation Blau were the same ones that had escaped destruction by withdrawing time and again during the summer. This conclusion is also mistaken....
   Although the Germans failed to recognize these three factors in early September 1942, and most historians have overlooked them since, collectively they decided the fate of Operation Blau. If they did not foreshadow the coming German defeat by early in September, they certainly confirmed it in two months.

   After almost 500 pages, Glantz has painted the story of operations on almost the entire Russian Front from April through August 1942 in his usual methodical and rather detached style. This is the kind of book where the endnotes not only specify the sources for all his information, at about 90 pages they also contain many additional details so that while it might slow down the pace, readers will gain much by taking the time to follow the endnotes as they read. The book also features an appendix with dozens of entries containing lists of all military positions held during their careers by commanders of all the Soviet tank armies and tank corps on the battlefield. Along with many other photos, the pages contain pictures of all the leading generals on both sides. Statistics about tank strengths and losses also abound.
   The cartography, regrettably, is a different story. With so many units and so many localities, readers will have, despite cogent descriptions of the action, no choice but to refer to maps to follow operations. While the maps in the volume are plentiful—almost 90 are listed—they won't win any awards for clarity or legibility. Unfortunately, most of them look like smudged copies of copies of copies of wartime originals, and most of them are simply so difficult to read that they provide little help when trying to keep track of where forces are deployed.
   Despite problems with maps and a surprising number of mixed up dates and directions and the like, this fat tome undeniably qualifies as the best work written in the English language about this phase of the war in the east. Anyone who thinks he already understands what happened during these operations will be surprised to learn the reality was a little different. As the first in a trilogy, this volume sets a high standard. Of course, the next title will cover the battle inside Stalingrad, a subject which already boasts an extensive library, including some old classics, some relatively new additions, and some highly regarded books. Colonel Glantz will surely do another fine job, but it will be interesting to see what new information and perspectives he brings to the task.
   Whatever surprises he might have in store, we look forward to the next book in the series, but we suspect, General Liziukov's story aside, it will be the same kind of steady, low-key, workmanlike effort without many fireworks, distractions, or digressions, but with a load of reliable facts, unexpected revelations, and sober conclusions. That's what we've come to expect from Glantz, that's what he always delivers, and that's what he's done with To the Gates of Stalingrad. And that's why we rate this is as highly recommended, one of the best new books about WWII to arrive so far this year. Don't miss it.
   Thanks to University Press of Kansas for providing this review copy.
   Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from UPK.

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Reviewed 19 July 2009
Copyright © 2009 by Bill Stone
May not be reproduced in any form without written permission of Stone & Stone