All Hell Let Loose_ The World at War 1939-1945 - Max Hastings [240]
The North African campaign established the reputations of the Allied commanders who would dominate the big western campaigns in Europe – ‘Monty’, Alexander, Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley. It was their good fortune to face the Germans when the Allies had substantial material superiority, and the Wehrmacht had suffered debilitating losses in Russia. There is no reason to suppose that any of the battlefield stars of 1942–45 would have fared better than their French and British predecessors, had they borne responsibility for the earlier campaigns of the war. The first requirement of a general eager to forge a great reputation is to lead an army with sufficient strength to overcome its opponents.
By May 1943, after the Germans’ epic defeat at Stalingrad and expulsion from North Africa, there was no doubt among the Allied nations, and little among the Axis peoples, about the outcome of the war. Lt. Vicenzo Formica, whose hopes of desert victory were so high on 1 November 1942, reflected wretchedly on the disillusionment that had followed: ‘I think back with pride to those far-off days, and my heart bleeds on contemplating the reality of life around us today. I am a prisoner in a concentration camp [his own description of his PoW camp] in the middle of North America.’ Yet, if the tide was now running strongly for the Allies, great uncertainties persisted about the course and duration of the war. It seemed plausible that the Nazi empire might survive until 1947 or 1948. While Churchill ordered the church bells of Britain rung for victory in North Africa, much more pain and hardship lay ahead before the Allies would enjoy real cause for celebration.
The Bear Turns: Russia in 1943
In 1943, while the Western Allies were still conducting modest operations in the Mediterranean, the Soviet Union inflicted on Germany a series of massive defeats, causing irreparable losses of men, tanks, guns and aircraft. The superiority of Stalin’s armies grew alongside the confidence of his generals. Soaring weapons output increased the Red Army’s advantage: the Russians were building over twelve hundred T-34s a month, while the Germans produced only 5,976 Panthers and 1,354 Tigers, their best tanks, during the whole war. After the triumphs of the winter, Stalin’s people had no doubt of final victory. Nonetheless, until the end they were obliged to fight hard and to accept massive casualties.
The plight of Russia’s civilians remained dire, with millions nudging starvation even when the tide of war ebbed from their immediate vicinity. In January 1943, some people who had sent their families out of Moscow when the city seemed doomed now brought them back, but Lazar Brontman was deterred by continuing shortages of fuel, electricity and rations. ‘Everyone talks incessantly of food,’ the journalist wrote. ‘We recall the menus of dinners gone by, and if somebody dines in richer and more fortunate company, he afterwards torments others with details of the dishes served.’ In the printworks of Pravda, it was necessary to remove lightbulbs as soon as the daily edition was dispatched, to prevent them from being stolen. Amid the fuel famine, wooden fences vanished from Moscow’s streets and suburbs. Sub-zero temperatures obliged office staff to work in overcoats and gloves.
Battlefield successes provided satisfaction but scant cause for exuberance, because so many people continued to die. Again and again in 1943, the Russians accomplished dramatic encirclements, only to find the Germans smashing their way free, conducting fighting withdrawals with their customary skill. ‘The Russians weren’t very good,’ asserted Waffen SS gunner Captain Karl Godau. ‘They just had the masses. They attacked in masses, so they lost in masses. They had good generals and good artillery, but the soldiers were poor stuff.’ Such condescension was overstated, but it remained true that Soviet middle-ranking leadership was weak, organisation