Marshal Zhukov's Greatest Battles

This book is verry informative on its main topic (Eastern front) but the most interesting informations come from the comments provided by the editor explaining why Zhukov ommit certain things or why some people are mentionned instead of other. trought the annotations you get an insight on the party politics and personality clashes of ww2 and post WW2 within the soviet military.

Most Americans have no idea as to how the Russians suffered at the hands of Hitler's invading army. Still fewer realize that had Hitler been victorious there, the outcome of WWII may have been very different. After sustaining continuous and devastating losses to his military and civilians, Stalin put Georgi Zhukov in charge of the entire defense. This book is his own story of the battles- Moscow, Stalingrad and Kursk- that turned the tide against Germany despite seemingly unsurmountable odds. He ends with the battle of Berlin, where the Germans pay so dearly for their earlier treachery and atrocities against Russia. There was no military commander in WWII, and perhaps in history, who was smarter, tougher or more dedicated to his country than Marshal Zhukov. After the war, Stalin delegated him to obscure duty in Siberia because he felt so threatened by Zhukov's popularity. It was not until Stalin's death that Zhukov received the recognition he deserved. Despite appearing to suffer a bit in the translation, this book is a must read for students of WWII.

Western writing about the Eastern Front tends towards melodrama and are patronising of the Soviets because of the past Cold War mentality. Most people are unaware that the most decisive and the largest battles of WW11 were on the Eastern Front: Moscow, Stalingrad and Kursk. The well documented stories of Dunkirk, Battle of Britain, Normandy, North Africa, and Hollywood's celluloid myths about these are eclipsed in reality by the sheer size and ferocity of the war in the Eastern Front. The world will never see land battles of this enormous size again. And in these wars which produced a clutch of brilliant military commanders on both sides, Marshal Georgi Zhukov was surely the greatest of all. This book is factually very interesting to the student of military history and Salisbury's editing and notes are excellent. The only drawback, as usual, is the lack of larger detailed maps to follow the campaigns. It is also interesting to political students for the glimpses of Stalin as Soviet Supreme Commander behind this gigantic enterprise. He comes out much better than in the descriptins by Western writers, despite his initial blunders in this war when he failed to recognise the German threat.

The reviewer from Philadelphia said something about "riduculously wrong statistics". Well, such kind of statemnts are not surprised me. This reviewer is from the country were teachers tell students at school that WWII was won by US, UK and... Poland. This reviewer is from the country where even people who are into history told me Americans killed Hitler, etc. etc. The most American books on WWII don't pay too much attention on Stalingrad battle, though some of them briefly admit it was the biggest battle in human history. Yes, the numbers in this book are correct! German lost more than 8 millions in this war. And Stalingrad was a biigest battle in WWII, so 1.5 soldiers don't seem like "wrong statistics" from that perspective, isn't it? Another one example: 1 million soldiers were engaged in Berlin battle in April-May 1945. Wrong statistics again? Yes, German started the war with 1,5 millions soldiers in JUne 1941, but by December 1942 they army had some much more soldiers. Besides, Romanian and Italian troops took part in Stalingrad battle. Italy lost in Stalingrad more soldiers than in the whole WWII, did you know that? I understand it's hard to believe in 1.5 millions loses after reading about "one of the most important battle in WWII" in Ameican historical books, the battle for Northern Africa, where 40,000 soldiers from both sides were engaged! Slightly different scale, isn't it? I'd suggest the reviewr to read serious historical books before making statements he made here.