[peter12]

Hastings makes the argument that the soldiers from the democracies weren't as effective as those from Germany or Russia because they had been raised to be tolerant and empathetic and individualistic. Of course they wouldn't be as good at war as young men raised in brutal totalitarian regimes.

I think Hastings has been criticized for approaching his histories as kind of meta-narratives, but ignoring the tactical actions that actually helped the Allies win the Battle of Normandy.

In the first two weeks after D-Day, the 1st Canadian Army stopped a number of German panzer counterattacks dead in their tracks. As one Canadian commander put it, "they treated us like we were f$%(ing Russians, and we ended up killing a good many of the fellows."

They became better as the war progressed, and learned to hate as well as anybody. But they were never a match tactical from German troops, who could always hold off far larger numbers of attackers when on the defensive, and wrong-foot Allied units with daring counter-attacks of the sort that the Allies never did learn how to carry out.

Even Allied generals recognized the lack of enthusiasm allied soldiers had for attacking, unless supported with total air dominance and plenty of armour.

Because the Germans were entrenched in ridges, and hedgerows. The terrain was ideal for the defender. Attacking was very costly, and casualites were enormous, especially for the infantry which suffered over 75% of casualties during the campaign. Combat was intense, and constant. Never mind that the Germans were driven from the field, and often, ended up surrendering in droves to Allied forces.

The myth of the invincible German warrior is just that. However, there were some elite German combat formations posted to Normandy, and they made the Allies pay dearly for whatever gains they were able to make. It didn't take long for Allied soldiers to hate their opponents.

German tactical doctrine, going back to WW1, emphasized loose forward lines with interlocking fields of fire with a large mechanized reserve held back for an immediate counterattack.

Anglo-Canadian doctrine was centred around meeting this counterattack with intense, concentrated fire from field, and anti-tank artillery. We were very effective. Read Marc Milner's Stopping the Panzers.

Sorry, I typed Catastrophe but meant Armageddon. The premise of the latter book is that the last 9 month of WW2 were by far the deadliest, and that the Allies bear some responsibility with how tentatively and carefully they prosecuted the thrust into Germany. It's understandable that they were extremely frugal with the lives of their citizen soldiers, who themselves didn't have any great incentive to take risks. But, Hastings argues, the result was many, many millions of deaths in Europe in the final months of the war.

It is here that I think Hastings is just clueless. Allied engagements in Operation Totalize and Tractable tied up significant numbers of elite German formations, and drove them from the battle. German tactical doctrine was also misguided. Large division sized counterattacks during the battle actually sealed the German's fate, and ended up creating the Falaise Pocket, which was sewn shut by combined Canadian, Polish, and British attacks - eventually destroying over half of German men and material in Normandy. It has since been compared to a Stalingrad of the West.

Going on the attack in Northwest Europe, and into the Rhineland, Allied soldiers faced some of the most concentrated, well-defended positions in all of Europe. Casualties were enormous, sometimes in excess of 200% of starting strength (no wonder Canada had a conscription crisis), and as I said, was nearly constant.

Meanwhile, the Russians in the East were nearly peasant soldiers. Poorly trained, but decently equipped, they were butchered by entrenched German soldiers to such a degree that casualties actually caused a demographic crisis that probably still effects Russia to this day.