Masters and Commanders: The Military Geniuses Who Led the West to Victory in World War II [Paperback]

This fascinating book, thick with historical data and insights, makes a riveting read. Whilst having no wish to quarrel with previous reviewers, for this reviewer, the book's strength is to be found within the all too rare combination of the elucidation of pertinent details and the subsequent compilation and marshaling of this data in order to reach coherent conclusions. The hi-lighting of detailed minutiae is only of secondary value, it would appear, if any historical advances are unable to be procured from it. Fortunately, this fastidiously researched volume abounds in both.

It is a lengthy read, at round 670 pages, and is at times dense in the chronicled information it conveys. It is an honest read, too, and this reviewer proffers that an alternative title could well have been formed along the lines of 'How Roosevelt, Churchill, Marshall and Alanbrooke very nearly didn't Win the War in the West'! Indeed, some readers - especially those none too conversant with the internecine bickering that went on in and around the corridors of power prior to the D-Day Landings, for example - might be quite take aback at the apparent abrasiveness and the various fractious dealings which formed part of the staple diet of 'Allied' conferences, rhetoric and debate.

This reviewer would want to take issue with one or two points in previous press reviews which have suggested that, whilst Andrew Roberts' book remains a immense achievement, it establishes and thus contributes only slight, minor historical detail to the ongoing research into the WWII fray. Surely this is both to ignore key passages and sections of the book and to miss the point. Firstly, from an historical perspective, Roberts has successfully revealed a number of new 'primary' sources (in the forms of 'oral' reports and written chronicles, diaries et al) and, secondly, this information helps us to somewhat 'recalibrate' certainly, and possibly even to reassess the methods and the roles of a number of key policymakers. Again, this would appear to illustrate the author's successful achievement in having interpreted the mass of available data and having translated this into 'applied history'.

There is plenty of historical meat within this work and it should appeal to the interested/well-informed general reader on the one hand and the historian (and possibly even the military tactician) on the other. IThis reviewer found the sections relating to the Allies' 'sweep' across Europe especially interesting and I must congratulate Andrew Roberts on handling the material (which remains a sensitive substance within certain quarters and factions) very well, with confidence and authority. Narratives pertaining to the reticence with which Brooke approached the invasion of France, the mood swings and what amounted to the basic pessimism of Churchill et al will never sit easily with some, yet to gloss over delicate topics such as these would be to gloss over history and to, ultimately misrepresent it. As Quiller-Couch put it, we sometimes have to be prepared 'to murder our darlings' ... occasionally these need to be historical or conceptual little treasures, too!

In a nutshell, this volume accomplishes a great deal, to the mind of this reviewer, at least. It is eminently readable, dense with data, and offers measurable and definite conclusions based on the material within. As ever, this work, too, will now be subject to the rigours of historic analysis itself. This reviewer suspects that it will fair pretty well.

Michael Calum Jacques (author of '1st Century Radical: the shadowy origins of the man who became known as Jesus Christ')

This is a brilliant study of the wartime cooperation between Prime Minister Churchill, President Roosevelt, and their military commanders, General George C. Marshall and General Sir Alan Brooke. Roberts makes good use of the previously unused verbatim notes of War Cabinet meetings taken by Lawrence Burgis (assistant secretary to the Cabinet office) and the reports of Cabinet meetings made by deputy Cabinet secretary Norman Brooke, released in 2007. Roberts also uses the diaries of 27 senior figures and the unpublished papers of another 60.

After the battle of Britain, the USA and Britain had the luxuries of time and space. With Britain no longer under threat of imminent invasion, they could choose when and where to deploy their forces. The Soviet Union had no such freedom. The US and British governments were relying on the Soviets to win the war for them, or at least to weaken the German army enough to make D-Day possible.

Marshall and the US Chiefs of Staff wanted to concentrate the entire US-British war effort on the key point of the battlefield, Northwest Europe, as soon as possible, that is, in 1942 or 1943. But Churchill and Brooke saw a premature landing in France as the greatest danger.

So Churchill said that he agreed, writing to Roosevelt in April 1942 of a Second Front in September 1942 or even `before then'. Instead though, he continually proposed other operations, in North Africa, Italy, the Balkans, Norway ...

Marshall said that Torch, the North African campaign of 1942-43, `represented an abandonment of the strategy agreed in April'. Roberts adds, "and of course he was right." Roberts writes, "Churchill and Brooke had deliberately misled Roosevelt and Marshall into thinking that if the United States poured troops into the United Kingdom in 1942 they might be used to attack France that year, when in fact they had no intention of allowing that to happen."

In June 1942, Churchill and Roosevelt promised Molotov, in writing, the Second Front: "we expect the formation of a Second Front this year." After his meeting with Molotov, Roosevelt issued a communiqué: "Full understanding was reached with regard to the urgent task of creating a Second Front in Europe in 1942." On 3 February 1943, Churchill said to Stalin, "We are aiming at August [1943] for a heavy operation across the Channel."

Yet there was no D-Day until 6 June 1944. But there were plenty of diversions. As Roberts points out, the Italian campaign of 1943-44 was `largely a waste of effort after Rome'. Operation Anvil, the invasion in the south of France in June 1944 was also a waste of time - the Allies should have focused on freeing Antwerp, not Marseilles.

Roberts sums up the Soviet Union's decisive role, "it was the Eastern Front that annihilated the Nazi dream of Lebensraum (`living space') for the `master race'. Four in every five German soldiers killed in the Second World War died on the Eastern Front, an inconvenient fact for any historian who wishes to make too much of the Western Allies' contribution to the victory."

Beware, this book is not a history of WW II, nor does it deal with "the operational art" of battles and campaigns.

The subject of this book is British and U.S. grand strategy in WW II, and how it was decided upon. Andrew Roberts analyses and describes much source material, some of it previously locked away in archives. In particular he has consulted verbatim reports of Cabinet and General Staff meetings.

Robert's book is clearly structured and very well written. A prerequisite for full enjoyment of the book is some knowledge of WWII history, but if you have that, in this area of WW II studies, this book is simply the best.