Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/April 2021/Book reviews




 * By Hawkeye7

The subject of this book is the tactical adaptation of the British Army to the circumstances of the 1944-45 campaign in Northwestern Europe. It is based on Forrester's PhD thesis on the subject. The Battle of Normandy has received a lot of attention since its 50th anniversary in 1994; the subsequent campaigns in the Rhineland and the 1945 fighting, not so much.

The British Army gave a lot of thought to its doctrine before the war, but failed to arrive at consensus, or at a workable doctrine. A conviction that the future lay in mechanisation led to the British Army abandoning horses and embracing motor transport before the war began. The book recaps the pre-war thinking, but skips over the early war years, which is a pity. By 1944, the British Army had evolved an armoured division organisation consisting of an armoured brigade with three armoured regiments and a mechanised infantry battalion with armoured vehicles; an infantry brigade with three infantry battalions transported in lorries; and a armoured reconnaissance regiment, which was also equipped with tanks.

The thinking at the time was that the war in the fields of France would more closely resemble that the British Army had experienced in the Western Desert campaign than that in the subsequent Tunisian or Italian campaigns. The armoured and infantry brigades of the armoured division would operate separately, the armoured brigade advancing and the infantry following behind to mop up. Infantry divisions would be supported by independent tank brigades.

Different models of tanks were designed to suit the two roles, the heavier and slower Churchill tank designed for infantry support in the tank brigades, and the lighter and faster Cromwell tank for armoured brigades. This was a holdover from the pre-war differences of opinion about the proper role of tanks. In practice, most of the armoured regiments were equipped with the American Sherman tank, which could do both. Montgomery in particular was an advocate of tanks that could perform all the roles. The armoured regiments of the 11th Armoured Division and the Guards Armoured Division were equipped with Shermans, so only the armoured reconnaissance regiments and the armoured regiments of the 7th Armoured Division were equipped with Cromwells.

The British Army's doctrine turned out to be wrong. In Normandy the British Army found itself fighting in close country against German defences organised in great depth. Concealed anti-tank guns took their toll on British armour and the German Panther, Tiger I and Tiger II tanks proved deadly in counter-attacks. The infantry and armoured brigades learned that they could not operate separately. Most of the senior British corps and division commanders had served in the desert, and an unlearning process was required.

The armoured divisions adopted a new organisation that saw the infantry battalions and armoured regiments operating together in pairs. The infantry then protected the tanks from anti-tank guns and infantry armed with hand-held anti-tank weapons, and the tanks protected the infantry from the German infantry. The big cats remained a menace to both, and there were urgent requests for the Sherman Firefly tank and Archer self-propelled anti-tank gun that mounted the powerful 17-pounder anti-tank gun. Resort to use of artillery to facilitate advances limited them to the range of the guns.

If this interests you, I would highly recommend John Buckley's British Armour in the Normandy Campaign (2004). But Monty's Functional Doctrine takes the story beyond Normandy. It argues that a true combined arms doctrine had not occurred in Normandy, at least not completely, and the infantry and armour tended to regard the other's role as being to protect them while they advanced. Over the following months, Montgomery attempted to impose the new doctrine from above. Controversially, he permitted the transfer of Lieutenant General Sir Richard O'Connor, who was never quite in tune with Montgomery's ideas. Publishing details:




 * By Nick-D

This book provides a military history of the military campaigns the Italian leader Benito Mussolini ordered during the period between 1935 and 1943. These included an effective intervention in the Spanish Civil War, the conquest of Ethiopia, and many (mostly unsuccessful) campaigns during World War II, which ended with Mussolini being forced out of power.

While this book fills an important gap in the modern historiography of World War II, Gooch's slightly odd approach means that it doesn't fully deliver on its promise. The main problems are a lack of background on the nature of Mussolini's government and its decision making and the capabilities of the Italian military. Instead, the book jumps straight into the action, and most discussions of decision making are focused on blow-by-blow accounts of who said what (often presented in an almost comic-opera style) rather than summaries and analysis. As a result, while Gooch clearly establishes that Mussolini and the military's decision-making processes were disastrously shambolic, why that was the case is unclear. In particular, the logic which drove Mussolini to absurdly over-extend the Italian military isn't made as clear as it should have been - it seems that he was hopelessly undisciplined and no-one was able to say no to him, but this isn't really ever clearly explained.

Looking beyond those flaws, there's a lot to like about the book. It provides good and even-handed accounts of Italy's military campaigns during this period, and explains the factors behind the results of these operations. The Italian military appears to have had a core of highly competent units and personnel, but over-expansion, casualties and equipment shortages meant that the general quality generally wasn't up to scratch. As a result, when good units were concentrated the military performed well, but in most cases under-equipped and under-trained units under-performed - often badly. The book also provides good coverage of the brutal nature of Italy's wars, which included terrible atrocities in Ethiopia and Yugoslavia and a role in the Holocaust in the Soviet Union, as well as repeated acts of aggression against countries that had no desire to fight Italy.

Overall, Mussolini's War is an interesting and worthwhile book, but it's not the definitive modern history of Italy in World War II I was hoping for.

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Various works