ISBN 978-1-932033-72-4
xxxiv + 270 pages

Preface; Foreword; Timeline; photos; maps; Conclusion; Notes; Further Reading; Index

Appendices: Mist over the Volga; 62nd Army OB; List of Veterans; Further Veterans Testimony; Russian Ministry of Defence Archive; Corresponding German Material

   Of all the books written about Stalingrad, there have not been many like this one. Nor have there been many like this on the Russian Front as a whole, or any other battle, campaign, or theater of World War II. David Glantz sometimes squeezes the humanity out of his otherwise excellent histories of East Front operations while Jason Mark virtually counts mortar rounds and shell craters on an hourly basis. (And both those distinguished authors, it should be noted, assisted with this book.) Michael Jones, conversely, probes the minds of men at the edge of the abyss, digging into the psychological factors that allowed them to withstand hopeless odds and untold horrors, and still emerge victorious.
   Speaking strictly of the Soviet 62nd Army's defense of the ruined city of Stalingrad, Jones begins with the premise that, based on military factors alone, General Chuikov and his soldiers should have been doomed to lose the battle. As Chuikov admitted, "[How we held Stalingrad] was beyond the understanding of any of us." Nevertheless, the troops and their officers found deep within themselves the mental, emotional, and physical resources to resist and continue resisting even when it seems they should have been broken.
   To understand how they survived and triumphed in Stalingrad, Jones relies on the accounts of men who were there, veterans who tell their stories without pulling any punches or concealing the experience in ideological rhetoric, and the thoughtful progeny of some of the key players, including the son of Vasily Chuikov. In particular, the author seems to have forged a unique bond with Anatoly Mereshko, who in 1942 served as a 20-year-old officer "for special duties" on the staff of Chuikov's 62nd Army in the shattered city. Mereshko, rising to the position of Deputy Commander of the Warsaw Pact in the post-war years, proves an incredible source of information and insight about the battle he experienced while a member of the army staff. His contributions alone would make this book a worthwhile effort, but Jones organizes, amplifies, and integrates everything he learned from Mereshko and other sources into a highly evocative vision of men in battle.
   As a result, Stalingrad is not so much a history of the battle as a study of psychology, morale, and emotion under the most extreme circumstances imaginable.
   Jones opens his book with an explanation of Hitler's plan for Case Blue, the division of effort between Stalingrad and the Caucasus, and the decision to move Manstein's 11th Army from the Crimea to Leningrad instead of using it to reinforce the critical southern flank of the German offensive. From the Soviet viewpoint, the summer of 1942 saw their armies smashed and retreating, leading to despair among many. As he does throughout the book, the author quotes several Russian soldiers to describe the scene on the ground. Here, they bemoan poor training, poor equipment, and poor morale in a litany of inferiority. In a more analytical vein, Jones identifies five key factors in which the Germans held advantages in the approach to Stalingrad:

• Professionalism
• Logistics
• Communications
• Army unity
• Battle memory

   Of that last factor, Jones has this to say:

   German fighting always incorporated a psychological element—a wish to terrorize their opponents and paralyse their fighting will. Their encirclement tactics were designed to create fear and uncertainty, the fear felt by men when they are isolated, surrounded and facing extinction. Armies sometimes experience a kind of 'collective memory', and for the 62nd Army the terror they faced at Stalingrad echoed the earlier, traumatic defeat they had suffered on the Don—when most of the army had been encircled and annihilated. They dreaded that history would repeat itself on the banks of the Volga.

   During the retreat, he goes on to say, "Battlefield stress was reaching alarming proportions.... The Red Army was in meltdown and its commanders could no longer cope with the situation." On the other hand, Jones indicates the "Not a step back order"—issued on 28 July and read to assembled troops, not all of whom accepted it in a charitable frame of mind—immediately stiffened the resolve of the defenders. But the stiffened resolve required a focus, a symbol, and a geographical location. Stalingrad, with tank production in the Tractor Factory and artillery built in the Barrikady Factory, served that need. Along with tanks and artillery and steel and chemicals and oil refineries and a crucial transportation nexus, the city also offered the name of the leader of the Soviet Union.
   Jones in chapter two describes the site of the coming battle. Interestingly, he indicates that "sections of the Trans-Siberian railroad were taken apart" and used to lay a secret, emergency line from Saratov to Leninsk, twenty kilometers east of Stalingrad. "During the battle it carried the ammunition and heavy equipment necessary to sustain the fighting and brought in reinforcements. The secret railway was vital for the successful defence of the city." (It might have been a secret originally, but the line—actually a spur running westward from the Saratov-Astrakhan railroad—was not unknown to the Luftwaffe by the time of the battle. See, for example, text and maps in Plocher.)
   Of the massive air raid on 23 August, Jones quotes Soviet witnesses who testify the Luftwaffe intentionally targeted civilians and residential sections of the city, killing upwards of 40,000 people, partly because the populace, having been utilized to construct defensive positions, had not been evacuated from the city. (Joel Hayward in Stopped at Stalingrad compares the raid and its casualties to an RAF Bomber Command attack on a German city.) Among troops of 62nd Army, the bombing seems to have engendered grim resignation, wild anger, and a powerful hatred of the enemy. It also created panic among the civilian population. According to the author, the looting and mass exodus of 28 August—described in a lengthy piece by a wounded soldier who awoke to find the staff had abandoned his hospital—was suppressed in post-war Soviet histories.
   In "Lion on the Volga" Jones begins to delve into the character of his protagonist:

   The commander of the 62nd Army at Stalingrad, Vasily Chuikov, gave a quality of leadership vital for the defence of Stalingrad. He has often been viewed critically—sometimes in Russia, more often in the West—as a brutal and ruthless figure who willingly sacrificed thousands of his soldiers' lives to wear down the Germans. If Chuikov had actually been like that, his army would not have held out at Stalingrad.

   The chapter goes on to discuss Chuikov's youth and early career and to quote opinions of him, both Russian and Western, which paint completely different portraits of the man. Antony Beevor treated Chuikov roughly (noting in particular that during the battle more than 13,000 Soviet soldiers from Stalingrad Front, including 62nd Army, were executed for various offenses such as desertion and drunkenness) while Richard Overy called him an inspired choice to defend the city. One Russian source claims he "was known to have shot down officers with his own hand," and there was certainly no denying that he had an explosive temper. Mereshko believes that if someone else had been in command, it would not have been possible to hold Stalingrad.

   Chuikov's own soldiers are honest about his faults, but choose to place greater emphasis on his outstanding qualities, for in the burning hell of Stalingrad he reached out and inspired his men. Chuikov's remarkable rapport with the ordinary combatant, a most unusual gift for a Red Army commander, lay at the heart of his extraordinary achievement: transforming the battered divisions of the 62nd Army into a fighting force of stupendous power.

   Jones enumerates and evaluates the "four vital qualities" of Chuikov's style of leadership:

• Toughness in command
• Distrust of blueprints
• "The ordinary soldier is closest in my thoughts"
• Leadership from the front

   The chapter closes with a comparison of Chuikov and 6th Army's Paulus. Mereshko, quoted here as in so many places, has this interesting insight on German generalship: "What we dreaded, as the fight for Stalingrad intensified, was someone like Field Marshal Rommel being sent in to take overall command. Rommel could have grasped the nature of city fighting and imposed his will on the battle."
   The next chapters turn to some specific incidents during the early phases of the battle. Jones keeps his focus on the psychological state of the defenders while also offering new information about the fighting. For example, he explains that, unlike officially accepted accounts, due to mass panic in much of 62nd Army on 14 September in the face of an overwhelming German attack, 13th Guards Division, rather than waiting until nightfall to cross the river, ferried its lead elements across the Volga in a dangerous daylight crossing and barely managed to prevent 6th Army from taking control of the central ferry landing. Without such costly emergency action, the remainder of 13th Guards, and other units, would not have been able to reinforce the city in time to stop the major German push. Similarly, Jones punctures some myths about the fighting around the grain elevator in the southern part of the city. He also re-writes history when he claims the Soviet assault that captured the central railway station held the position for only 24 hours, not ten days. In the same way, the author methodically deconstructs the propaganda version of "Pavlov's House" to detail the facts behind its heroic defense, pointing out that despite the later deliberate distortions of events, the valiant effort there made an impression on 62nd Army and helped improve Soviet morale. Jones also clears up a mistake made by Beevor. The Pavlov of Pavlov's House did not convert to Christianity and become "the Archimandrite Kyrill in the monastery at Sergievo" after the war; that was a different Pavlov entirely.
   In October 1942, Chuikov apparently was fully aware that the international press was watching the Stalingrad battle closely. Not only that, he is quoted as being worried that Hitler, mocked about his failure to take the city, would only increase the intensity of attacks. (This is an interesting perspective, that Chuikov from his command post in the blasted city in the midst of battle maintained knowledge of what was being published in the "international press" and feared tactical repercussions.) In any event, 6th Army launched major new attacks during the middle of the month.

   The official version of the period 14-17 October is that Stalingrad's defence remained resolute in the face of devastating enemy pressure. Chuikov himself is at pains to say that, despite the terrible fighting and the proximity of the Germans to his HQ, "we had no thought of withdrawing". For personal and political reasons this became the accepted truth. Yet the reality—as on the earlier critical day of 14 September—was far darker. Only by understanding this darkness can we make real sense of the battle.

   Jones claims Chuikov intentionally "chose not to disclose the details" of the events of 14-17 October, but "[f]or the first time, it is now possible to reveal what really happened." Essentially, as 6th Army hammered the defenders on 14 October, broke 62nd Army into small pockets, and the heavy artillery and air bombardment destroyed the telephone lines and radio equipment needed to communicate with his units, Chuikov requested permission to move his HQ to the far side of the Volga to an emergency command post. Of course, withdrawing across the river was strictly against orders and far removed from the tenacious mentality of holding Stalingrad that Chuikov and his troops had developed. Stalingrad Front refused the request. Nikita Khrushchev (commissar of Stalingrad Front and consistently misspelled throughout the book) phoned Chuikov. According to Jones, the account of that call in Chuikov's book intentionally obfuscates the conversation, which actually consisted of "Kruschev [sic] repeatedly emphasizing that the army command must stay in the city." Indeed, Jones, analyzing the record, goes so far as to state "this new evidence strongly suggests that their inspirational commander was briefly sacked from his post." The author speculates that Khrushchev and Yeremenko might have reconsidered matters in the light of day, or "[t]heir decision might have been countermanded by Stalin's High Command." However, the situation remained so bad and communications within the city so tenuous that the next day, 15 October, Chuikov again requested permission to withdraw army HQ across the Volga, only to be refused a second time. Jones quotes the relevant passages from Chuikov's The Battle for Stalingrad, then compares recent Soviet scholarship (provided via Jason Mark), indicating that once again Chuikov was highly selective in his description of events.
   Whatever the reality of those events, Chuikov remained in command of 62nd Army and appears to have infused his men with renewed determination in the darkest hour. The army commander is credited with telling officers to place machine guns in higher positions where the gunners could actually see the casualties they were inflicting, thus improving morale. Jones goes on to discuss important psychological issues such as camaraderie, rituals (like the oath not to surrender Stalingrad), the importance of music and singing, and "how steel was formed" in the furnace of the city.
   And, Jones concludes, the successful defense of Stalingrad was forged in the human spirit, by men who were well-led and chose to fight and suffer and die out of contagious courage and convictions formed in the heat of battle.

   Somehow, in the burning hell that was Stalingrad, Chuikov created an army able to withstand everything the Germans threw at it. Their remarkable story has struggled hard to come to life, caught between the propagandist cliches of the communist state—insinuating everybody at Stalingrad was heroic, and that the city would never have fallen to the enemy—and Western cynicism, which believes that Red Army heroism was only created at the barrel of a gun. Neither suffices. This terrible fight took Chuikov and his troops to the very limits of human endurance, and their testimony, now finally uncovered, possesses a universal significance and power.
   Those soldiers reached beneath deep despair and self-doubt and found a near-impregnable strength and resilience. Their shared faith was forged in the fire of battle—and they stood their ground at the last defence line, 200 metres from the Volga, when there was nowhere else to go.

   There was one more point. Alexander Chuikov, the commander's son, is said to retain a faded, creased scrap of paper originally possessed by his father during the battle, on which these words are written: "O Powerful One! The one who can turn night into day, and rough soil into a garden of flowers. Make light everything that is hard for me, and help me."
   "That," the younger Chuikov told the author, "is how we were defending Stalingrad."
   Stalingrad provides a wealth of thought-provoking material, including new interpretations of many of the generally accepted accounts of the battle. While there's no reason to doubt these revelations, it needs to be noted that Jones never proves especially meticulous about providing his exact sources for every claim, and there are no footnotes. Regarding speculation about Chuikov's temporary removal from command, Jones seems to rely on information provided to him by Jason Mark. Mark apparently obtained the text from a Russian book by V. Beshanov.
   Beyond such mildly controversial reinterpretations, Jones performs an admirable job of analyzing the officers and troops of 62nd Army, Chuikov in particular. Having crossed to the west bank of the Volga, they were, in effect, marooned on an island with a deadly foe and no way off. Gradually, in large measure thanks to the abilities of Chuikov and a few morale-boosting incidents—real or manufactured—the men swore to each other they would never leave the ruins, and little by little came to realize they could actually hold the city.
   Jones doesn't ignore the course of the campaign by any means, but this book pays less attention to combat units and more attention to combat soldiers, measuring on the one hand the impact of the battle on their morale, and on the other hand the impact of their morale on the battle.
   Recommended.
   Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from Casemate Publishing.
   Thanks to Casemate for providing this review copy.