Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice older book in good condition. Pages in great condition. No notes or highlighting. Very slight dust marking on edges but pages are bright and clear. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> To make matters worse for the Red Army its disposition in Eastern Europe at the start of the German attack was extravagantiy vulnerable. It was the compromise product of a continuing and barely articulate disa- greement between some of the senior generals and Stalin which was it self a function of the hesitant approach to tactics. Zhukov had agreed that it was desirable to occupy the western terri tories in order to forestall entry by the Germans but wished to do so with a light screen and revise Tukhachevski’s plan by dividing the strategic reserve between Kiev and the Novgorod-Lake Ilmen region in the north. During the summer and autumn of 1940 it seemed as if Zhukov were getting his way as there were only fourteen Russian divisions in Po land and seven in Bessarabia while the Novgorod region was becoming a substantial concentration area with upward of twemy divisions of which eight were armoured. But following on the Vienna Award” and the mounting evidence of German infiltration into the Balkans this par tern of concentration altered. The shift in emphasis gathered speed and weight during the winter after the rejection of Stalin’s letter of 27th November seemed to have made conflict between the two powers inevita ble; and the effect was that by the spring of 1941 the Russian disposi tions resembled a caricature of Tukhachevski’s old plan with the troops bunched on the new frontier which they had little time to pre pare for defence and with their communications to base areas already stretched. (MP)