Literature review masquerading as D-Day anniversary post
June 8, 2022 7:49 AM Subscribe
"Beyond the triumph of the landings and the enemy defeated, the D-Day literature has never found complacency easy to come by. The tactical performance of allied troops was inferior. The advance from the bridgeheads was disappointingly slow. Allied forces were halted on the German border over the winter of 1944-45 and did not breach the Rhine until March 1945. Meanwhile, Stalin’s Red Army surged across Eastern Europe towards Berlin. The frontline of the Cold War was defined by the sluggish advance that followed D-Day." Adam Tooze: For the anniversary of D-Day - Blitzkrieg manquée? Or, a new mode of "firepower war"?
mfoight not withstanding the thrust of your comment (I am in no position to have an opinion re; good/bad lit review) but the essay was written 2 years before Sand and Steel came out.
I liked it.
posted by Pembquist at 10:46 AM on June 8, 2022
I liked it.
posted by Pembquist at 10:46 AM on June 8, 2022
Pembquist: not seeing a publication date on this for 2017 ... The comments on the chartbook post of this week seem to indicate that this is a current publication.
posted by mfoight at 12:15 PM on June 8, 2022
posted by mfoight at 12:15 PM on June 8, 2022
mfoight
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 12:22 PM on June 8, 2022
This review essay, which I first wrote back in 2017From TFA.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 12:22 PM on June 8, 2022
I try to do a D-Day post most June 6ths to acknowledge the courage and sacrifice of the American, British, Canadian, and other Commonwealth troops that participated in the invasion. (Most of the landing force was British/Canadian/Commonwealth.) I'm an American, but I like to recognize more than the 101st Airborne paratroops and the Big Red One at Omaha Beach.
They didn't reach any of their initial goals, but the big picture is they successfully landed and established a beachhead.
D-Day was important, but its significance is dramatically exaggerated in American culture. The Soviet Union basically won the Western Theater. The area covered and the size and scope of the forces on the Eastern Front was orders of magnitude larger than the Western Front. Check out this map of the Eastern Front, August 1943-December 1944, which shows the massive gains (yellow and orange) that the Soviet Union made between August 1943 and April 1944, shortly before D-Day.
The purple represents gains to the massive Operation Bagration, launched shortly after D-Day. The combined Allied landing forces at D-Day were about 156,000 troops. The Soviet Union launched Bagration with 1,670,300 personnel, 3,841 tanks, and 1,977 assault guns. Germany suffered 4,000–9,000 casualties during D-Day, and 550,000 casualties in Bagration.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:38 PM on June 8, 2022 [6 favorites]
They didn't reach any of their initial goals, but the big picture is they successfully landed and established a beachhead.
D-Day was important, but its significance is dramatically exaggerated in American culture. The Soviet Union basically won the Western Theater. The area covered and the size and scope of the forces on the Eastern Front was orders of magnitude larger than the Western Front. Check out this map of the Eastern Front, August 1943-December 1944, which shows the massive gains (yellow and orange) that the Soviet Union made between August 1943 and April 1944, shortly before D-Day.
The purple represents gains to the massive Operation Bagration, launched shortly after D-Day. The combined Allied landing forces at D-Day were about 156,000 troops. The Soviet Union launched Bagration with 1,670,300 personnel, 3,841 tanks, and 1,977 assault guns. Germany suffered 4,000–9,000 casualties during D-Day, and 550,000 casualties in Bagration.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:38 PM on June 8, 2022 [6 favorites]
They didn't reach any of their initial goals
Although you are technically correct, on behalf of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, I am slowly raising an eyebrow.
posted by Molesome at 4:15 AM on June 9, 2022
Although you are technically correct, on behalf of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, I am slowly raising an eyebrow.
posted by Molesome at 4:15 AM on June 9, 2022
kirkaracha, can you recommend a book that explains Operation Bagration and puts it into context? I'd like to know more about it -- but the profusion of WWII titles makes it hard to find the good ones. (And there's so much new work still coming out!)
posted by wenestvedt at 5:57 AM on June 9, 2022
posted by wenestvedt at 5:57 AM on June 9, 2022
I haven't read any books specifically on Operation Bagration, but Ian Baxter's Operation Bagration: The Soviet Destruction of German Army Group Center, 1944 seems well recommended.
Robert M. Citino's The Wehrmacht's Last Stand: The German Campaigns of 1944-1945 was recommended in this (slight) Reddit thread looking for books on Bagration. Reddit's AskHistorians sub has a list of book recommendations on the Eastern Front.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:34 AM on June 9, 2022
Robert M. Citino's The Wehrmacht's Last Stand: The German Campaigns of 1944-1945 was recommended in this (slight) Reddit thread looking for books on Bagration. Reddit's AskHistorians sub has a list of book recommendations on the Eastern Front.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:34 AM on June 9, 2022
The combined Allied landing forces at D-Day were about 156,000 troops..
Per the article, the Soviets deployed nearly 2X as many troops for Operation Bagration than the US did the entire war, and the US was fighting on two fronts in 1944. Someone else can add the British/Canadian/Australian/etc soldiers, but the manpower difference was vast.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:41 AM on June 9, 2022
Per the article, the Soviets deployed nearly 2X as many troops for Operation Bagration than the US did the entire war, and the US was fighting on two fronts in 1944. Someone else can add the British/Canadian/Australian/etc soldiers, but the manpower difference was vast.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:41 AM on June 9, 2022
Per the article, the Soviets deployed nearly 2X as many troops for Operation Bagration than the US did the entire war, and the US was fighting on two fronts in 1944.
Whoa. I didn't realize the discrepancy was that big.
The US also only fought against Japanese navy and marines. The Japanese army was tied down in China fighting the Communists and Nationalists. And Japan had been at war with China since Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931.
There were 426,000 American casualties in the Pacific Theater. The Nationalist Chinese Army had 3,238,000 military casualties. The Chinese Communist Party had 584,267 casualties. British Empire forces incurred had 235,000 casualties. Over 2 million Japanese soldiers died.
posted by kirkaracha at 1:48 PM on June 9, 2022
Whoa. I didn't realize the discrepancy was that big.
The US also only fought against Japanese navy and marines. The Japanese army was tied down in China fighting the Communists and Nationalists. And Japan had been at war with China since Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931.
There were 426,000 American casualties in the Pacific Theater. The Nationalist Chinese Army had 3,238,000 military casualties. The Chinese Communist Party had 584,267 casualties. British Empire forces incurred had 235,000 casualties. Over 2 million Japanese soldiers died.
posted by kirkaracha at 1:48 PM on June 9, 2022
Thanks, that was instructive. I was born almost exactly 10 years after D-Day and spent a large part of my outdoor childhood running around with my arms outstretched neeeeoooow strafing armoured columns of daisies budda budda budda with or without my pals. Our reading about WWII was centred on trash-mags - graphic novels about Germans being surprised achtung! and bested donner und blitzen by brave and canny Tommies. It was all ethically black and white. If my affect had been less blunted, I might have noticed that my parents (both of whom served in uniform a long way from base-camp) were completely silent about their experiences between 1939 and 1945. It took 50 years for my mother to open the door to her experiences a little, my father never did. As with road traffic stats, we count the dead but tend to discount the other casualties; especially those without physical scars.
posted by BobTheScientist at 11:23 PM on June 9, 2022
posted by BobTheScientist at 11:23 PM on June 9, 2022
« Older Finding a Path in a Broken System | Neil Young & Paul McCartney -- A Day In The... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by mfoight at 10:27 AM on June 8, 2022