Europe at War 1939-1945: No Simple Victory (review)

So you think you know all about the Second World War in Europe? – Think again, argues Norman Davies in a comprehensive re-evaluation of this great conflict. Bucking the trend toward 'specialization' and 'compartmentalization' in the study of the 1939-1945 war, Davies offers an audacious 'macro' perspective. His stated aim is 'not to present spectacularly new facts, but rather to rearrange, to juxtapose and reintegrate well-established facts that have hitherto been strictly segregated' (p. 7).

He eschews both the orthodox chronological or geographical narrative frameworks, instead dividing the volume into seven thematic sections. In chapter one, 'Interpretation,' the author surveys the material, ideological and historical parameters involved in understanding the war, and unmasks the ethnocentric biases embedded in Western perceptions of the struggle for Europe. Chapter two, 'Warfare', is a concise analytical survey of military operations, while chapter three, 'Politics,' considers the international and domestic 'superstructure' that regulated the national and geopolitical intricacies of waging the war. 'Soldiers' (chapter four) is an exposé of various aspects of the martial experience from Private to Field Marshal. Non-combatants are the subject of chapter five, 'Civilians'. Here the author ranges across elements of the home front, a particularly important topic given the 3:1 ratio of civilian to military deaths during hostilities (p. 367). Chapter six considers 'Portrayals' of the War, contemporary and modern, across all media: art, propaganda, literature, newsprint, film. Finally, in chapter seven the author reaches his 'Inconclusions', largely concentrating upon the problems of misinformation and manipulation that continue to afflict the historiography of the War.

In the course of this wide-ranging exposition Davies promulgates a multilayered thesis based upon the contention that the war in Europe was decided almost entirely on the Eastern Front, with the Allied invasion of Normandy little more than a 'sideshow' (p. 25). The author recognizes that this is not a new thesis, but suggests that it has yet to be fully 'internalized' by the scholarly community at large, let alone the general public (p. 467). Thus he advocates a clearer understanding of what the 'Eastern front' actually entailed. First, he stresses that the pervasive conflation of 'Russia' with the USSR must be overcome. Russia itself, of course, made up a massive component of the Soviet war effort, but despite the headline-grabbing battles of Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad, this was not exclusively 'Russia's War'. Indeed, most of the fighting occurred in the western Soviet Republics, with Belarus (Byelorussia) suffering the worst extremes, and conducted in large part by non-ethnically Russian soldiers (Kazaks, Mongols, Chechens). Second, Davies questions our conception of the nature of the German-Soviet clash and the relationship between the Western Allies (the UK and USA) and the USSR. The conflict in the East is best conceived of as a gigantic contest between two equally monstrous regimes, Nazi and Soviet - a 'fight to the death between gangsters' in the author's words - in which the USSR called upon allies in the West to help defeat their mutual foe (p. 383). He emphasizes that the USSR was an aggressor state as well as a 'victim' in World War II due to its unprovoked attacks on Poland and Finland and its annexation of the Baltic Republics, to say nothing of Moscow's oppression of recalcitrant Soviet Republics, especially Ukraine. Furthermore, the USSR under Stalin was a brutal tyranny that boasted the largest concentration camp system in Europe (p. 328) and which massacred its own subjects as well as its enemies without compunction. Davies argues that Stalin's regime was every bit as inequitable as Hitler's Germany. This fact was reprehensively overlooked by the Western Allies due to their dependence upon the Red Army to defeat the Wehrmacht in the field.

A few slipshod errors notwithstanding, Europe at War is a true tour de force. The thematic approach is a novel and largely effective one, if occasionally a bit arbitrary and fragmented. It is difficult...