Guide Rating -	and

A triple-award winning book that crossed into the mainstream with genuine best-selling success, a key work of late 1990's historiography with a never-ending list of plaudits and a thrilling read: you can safely assume that Anthony Beevor's Stalingrad is very good. Built from solid, recent scholarship, Beevor's narrative of the struggle for Stalingrad in 1942/3 is compelling (comparisons to top class novelists are deserved), shocking and exciting. Moving smoothly from the decisions and flaws of high-command down to the individual soldiers who were smashed against each other, Stalingrad isn't simply an account of troop movements or a broad discussion of the Second World War - you can finish Stalingrad and still have no idea how WW2 was won - but a wonderfully even sided account of the battle and siege.

Beevor swiftly recounts the Nazi invasion of Russia before narrowing his focus, but 'narrow' might give the wrong impression. The struggle for Stalingrad is shown in all its chaotic, bloody and utterly titanic horror, and Beevor avoids falling back upon mythical or religious imagery to obscure the stark truth. In addition, numerous small character studies and recurring faces maintain the human element and it is surely this terrific combination of empathetic understanding for the common soldier and a portrayal of the vast machinations of WW2 warfare which have earnt Beevor his key plaudits. The sheer level of insight, be it the frequent the quotation of leaders and soldiers to the way lice reacted to different events, is illuminating, but I felt able to read a book twice the size if the author would supply more.

Given the overwhelming praise of others, Stalingrad has a few surprising faults. It would be unfair to criticise Beevor for not supplying more details, but he occasionally mentions intriguing events without giving any specifics. I felt that more maps were needed to illustrate certain attacks and pinpoint more locations: for instance, the NKVD headquarters in Stalingrad are frequently mentioned, but not shown. Far more problematically, Beevor also attempts to make moral and legal judgements. While his demonstration than lower-ranking Wermacht officers clearly bore more responsibility for atrocities than they claimed is persuasive and helpful, his references to an undefined international law and labels such as 'illegal' are both unhelpful and muddled. There is also a noticeable bias, for few Russian actions are condemned outright despite the execution of troops whose terrible crime was obeying orders.

Overall, Beevor's Stalingrad is a masterpiece of historical writing that only falters when the author moves outside his remit; fortunately, this doesn't happen often. The history he relates is intense, brutal, monolithic and wholly true, a mixture of lightening warfare and inch by inch combat filled with courage, cowardice, idiocy and loyalty. Needles to say, some people will find this emotionally difficult to read, as Beevor pulls no punches -and nor should he - but there is no false grandeur, blind glorification or insipid patriotism. Stalingrad is wholly worthy of its fame.

Fortunately for publishers, there are many ways to write history and Stephen Walsh's account of Stalingrad offers a strong alternative: a military history. Walsh may cover the same ground - Operation Barbarossa, the battle for Moscow, Opertaion Blau and the struggle for Stalingrad - but his is a narrative of logistics and tactical planning, an account of where troops moved and fought, why plans were conceived and what they meant militarily. There's a large overlap between Beevor and Walsh - both include the same basic detail - but Beevor's prose is more personal, with an emphases on Paulus' stress, the flawed fantasy of Hitler's ideas and the cowardice of generals, while Walsh's text considers the limits of German national power and the nature of Vernichtungschlacht warfare. Where Beevor discusses the difficulty of providing exact figures Walsh just gives them and where Beevor's writing is ceaselessly gripping Walsh is more sedate, educational and discursive. In short, these books are aimed at different audiences: anyone who likes reading will enjoy Beevor, but someone who wants the military specifics and contexts will benefit more from Walsh.

A definite strength of The Infernal Cauldron is the presentation: the pages are large, glossy and filled with illustrations, the majority being black and white photographs. 169 are scattered throughout and the standard is very good, ranging from shots of the individual commanders to wide panorama's, from staged pictures to those taken as battle raged. While Beevor's book lacks detailed descriptions of Stalingrad's ruined buildings or the form of Russian tanks, Walsh's presents them for you, often to chilling effect: how many readers can really imagine the piles of bodies or shattered cityscapes? Another bonus is a chapter on Army Group A and their campaign in the Caucasus, an event presumably omitted from Beevor's Stalingrad on grounds of relevance, but one which helps place the siege on context. Walsh also provides a swift narrative of the overall German defeats in early 1943, but he spends too little time on the fate of 6th Army.

Walsh's book is an excellent military history, but Beevor's is better suited to a broader audience: in terms of text, neither is more wrong nor right than the other, but Walsh feels like a documentary and Beevor like a feature film. It might seem unfair to constantly compare The Infernal Cauldron to Stalingrad, but I urge everyone who reads one to study the other too. No one should miss out on Beevor's style and treatment of both history and humanity, while The Infernal Cauldron is a superb, maybe even essential, companion to Stalingrad thanks to it's illustration. When Beevor mentions the Mamayev Kurgan, readers of Walsh can see it and when Beevor talks of Chuikov readers can see look at his face. More emotively, the statue of dancing children that Beevor notes as surviving the maelstrom is illustrated in The Infernal Cauldron, and it's an eerie, maybe even ghoulish, sight I wouldn't want anyone to miss.

Note: Wargamers may wish to know that Beevor's book has the more detailed Order of Battle.

Stalingrad by Anthony Beevor:

Stalingrad: The Infernal Cauldron by Stephen Walsh: