RUSSIA 1942–1943

If World War 1 was characterized, certainly on the Western Front, by the endless miles of trenches and the remarkable lack of mobility in the front line during more than four years of war, those military strategists who expected a similar war of attrition in any second conflict were to be confounded. World War 2 was to witness the triumph of offense over defense, with the awesome power of tank armies and air forces deployed to devastating effect. Whilst the French may have perceived their Maginot Line as impregnable; its rapid breaching in the spring of 1940 emphasized how far German military thinking had developed as opposed to that amongst its potential opponents. The theory of Blitzkrieg - lightning war - had developed during the interwar years, but its true potential was only to be revealed in the autumn of 1939 when the German forces swept into Poland. For the next three years, in all theaters of the war, the German forces proved supreme, as their superiority of equipment, training and strategy resulted in a rapid series of victories that culminated in them reaching to the very gates of both Moscow and Cairo; victory in either of these theaters would, probably, have resulted in the ultimate German triumph. Hindsight, however, now enables us to see that, at the moment of these triumphs, the might of the German military machine was so overstretched that the final victory eluded them. After the harsh Russian winter of 1941/42 had effectively ended offensive military action on the Eastern Front, the spring thaw and the buildup of forces allowed the Germans once again to launch a major onslaught on their Soviet opponents. On 8 May 1942, Operation Blue commenced and, over the next few months, the German forces, again adopting the tactics so successful the previous year, swept the Russian forces further eastwards as cities such as Sevastapol and Rostov and German troops entered the iconic city of Stalingrad. Now considered to be one of the pivotal points of World War 2, the campaign to capture the city and then relieve the surrounded forces under von Paulus was one of the epic struggles of the war. Despite the ultimate German defeat at Stalingrad, the Axis forces were still highly potent and continued to mount stern resistance in the face of the Russian advance. Moreover, the Germans retained enough military capacity to launch a further assault the following year - the ill-fated attempt to destroy the Russian salient at Kursk For all military historians, the new 'Blitzkrieg' series will be an essential addition to their library, explaining as it does how the various stages by which the strategy evolved during the war.