The Moscow Option: An Alternative Second World War

This book is very plausable in how WWII could have turned out differently if a few decissions had been changed. It felt like I was reading real history. The book is a real page turner and I finished it in days. I think the book sets a possiblity that the war could have gone the other way. In the end Japanese luck runs out and Hitler meddles enough to ensure defeat.

This is a good alternative history I've been looking for. It gives the reader a short history written in a War College manner by someone who is familiar with the events he lived through. It spares the reader an overlay of bogus romance and cliched action/adventure. This isn't another version of "Winds of War" with the historic changes in the background. Just the facts of what happened in those crucial years, 1941 and 1942. In this hisotry Hitler is out of commission for six months or so while the German army is approaching Moscow. This counterfact spares his Generals from folowing through the then successful Russian campaign and the Japanese get lucky and win the Battle of Midway. America is now subjected to a real bombing of California from the Japanese Navy. The author makes two well thought-out changes and leaves everything else the same. He does avoid giving the Axis any more freebies. All the weaknesses in Hitler's Germany and Imperial Japan are still there: overlooking some key technoligies because Hitler wasn't interested in them, a lack of a economic base on the part of Japan, and the racist ideology that precluded Germany from taking advantage of potential allies such as the Arabs and Russians. The Allies prevail but a much higher cost.Operation Barbarossa almost achieves its stated objectives and Japan does more than anger America but inflicts real damage on its advesary. As a result, World War II lasted one year longer than in real life. It would seem from Downing's asides that Germany was in much worse shape after the War which ended in 1946. Indeed, all the combatants suffered more in this world. The post-war world would have been a much bleaker place had what Duncan wrote about happened.My only disappointment is that Downing didn't go beyond August 1942. It does leave you guessing how Britain, which in this world didn't have the effective support it would have had from America, battled back from it's near complete defeat. America had to concentrate most of its resources defeating Japan. Downing alludes to the political pressure Churchill faced. I wonder how any of the allied leaders could have survived the great reverals in the period covered by the book. However, he went only as far as the fall of '42. He does leave some of the details to the reader. This is certainly a thought provoking book.

In this well-written book, Downing describes how World War Two might have gone if only a few events had been different. What if Adolf Hitler had been incapacitated when his aircraft crash-landed in 1941? German generals might have pursued their preferred option on the Eastern Front, concentrating their advance on the capture of Moscow. Downing goes on from there, describing alternate outcomes in other theaters. What if Rommel had received the reinforcements he needed to defeat the British in the Egyptian desert? What if the Japanese had won the battle of Midway? These scenarios are well thought out and generally convincing. Downing concludes that the Germans and the Japanese eventually would have been overcome by superior allied resources. But the world might look different today because of early Axis power successes. This book, originally published in 1979, includes a few diagrams of battles and a disappointing dot and line map of the Pacific.

The first change is the crash of an aircraft carrying Hitler back to Rastenburg in August 1941 after visiting his generals on the East Front. In reality, Hitler forced the Army to drive South to encircle the Soviet armies around Kiev after a long halt at Smolensk.In this AH, the plane crash leaves Hitler in a coma and the Generals decide to go straight for Moscow. This is successful and Moscow falls well before Winter. The Soviets do however, fall back in good order and establish a new government at Kubyshev on the Volga.The book then covers the 1942 Summer offensive "Case Blue" in our timeline which is aimed like ours at the South East rather than due East. This is co-ordinated by a Mediterranean strategy and a proposed link up between the DAK and the Eastern armies in Syria. All this in very convincing, well researched detail.The other change is an American defeat at Midway, and the IJN actually seizing Hawaii and raiding the West coast and Panama. The Japanese make the mistake of making the main thrust against India and Ceylon.The book ends in 1942, with the Allies having just contained the German co-ordinated offensives and planning the reconquest of Egypt. In Russia, 1943 looks bad for the Germans, bogged down in partisan warfare. The IJN is caught off Panama and loses it's carriers a la Midway.There are references to nuclear attacks on Germany in 1946 and a civil war between the Army and SS, but the meat of the book covers only the period August 1941 to August 1942 or so.It is truly excellent, and reads very much like a military history, complete with maps etc. This review is based on my old copy which is maybe 15 years old now. Highly recommended, and I have written this review totally on my recollections since I last reread the book.

I found "The Moscow Option" in a used bookstore back in the late 1980s. David Downing's book is a deft blending of military insight and pop culture, entirely plausible and just plain fun. Seemingly forgotten, I'm glad to see it republished in a time where alternative history is much more popular. By tinkering with two small "what-ifs," Downing examines what might have happened if the Germans had taken Moscow and Egypt and the Japanese had won the Battle of Midway. It is the aftermath of these successes that makes this book so memorable, with a timeline so believeable that one might almost think they've stumbled onto a real history book from a parallel universe. The book's main lesson is that the more things change, the more they stay the same. One great touch is Downing's use of quotes by people like Dorothy Parker, Groucho Marx and Neil Young to open each chapter. Besides being a military historian (The Devil's Virtuosos: German Generals at War, 1940-5) Downing is also a respected rock writer, penning a recent biography of Young. A great book, and a delight to read; a work many current alternative history writers would do well to emulate.