Harold R. Winton

As the tile suggests this is an examination of the Ardennes Campaign when viewed through the perspective of the American corps commanders. For the well-read student of the American Army in ETO there will not be that many great revelations, but it will be an entertaining review. If a portion can be called revelatory it is the examination of how John Millikin of III Corps performed and it was quite respectable under the circumstances, and certainly suggests that the rough treatment Millikin received at the hands of Courtney Hodges in the course of the Battle for Remagen was not especially just. Frankly, Winton concludes that all six corps commanders handled themselves in an estimable fashion, which is fortunate in that Omar Bradley probably had his worst performance of the war in this campaign and Hodges probably deserved to be relieved on the basis of ill health alone; never mind the disaster he presided over in the Huertgen Forest.… (més)

Excellent survey of the fate of military reform in the interwar period. Dennis Showalter's concluding essay is worth a read alone - he effectively critiques simplistic accounts of change based on single variables in favor of a broader, more complex view of reform. Also contains a number of interesting reinterpretations of traditional narratives. Eugenia Kiesling shows that the French Army was indeed complacent and closed-minded, but that it also faced severe political restraints. Tensions between the government and the Army (partly brought about by their own meddling) along with general instability and public war-weariness precluded the estabilishment of a large, technocratic force. Would the German model have made sense for an army made mostly of one-year conscripts? Ironically, as Showalter points out, the French plan for civil mobilization ultimately was the deciding factor for the Allies, while the Blitzkrieg petered out sometime in 1941.

Jacob Kipp's history of the search for a Soviet operational art is equally intriguing. The military leadership sought an essentially revolutionary style of warfare suitable for the revolutionary state. Experiences against Poland, the Civil War, and in internal policing were shaped a doctrine of deep operations. Kipp recognizes that politics must go hand-in-hand in any study of the era, and he illuminates the struggles to define the shape, size, and role of the nascent force.

Reccommended, all worth reading.… (més)