The Moscow Option: An Alternative Second World War [Hardcover]

Many alternative histories have fatal flaws in logic which after inspection causes them to fall flat on their faces. This one does not. David Downing bases his ideas on facts, and in an extensive war the limiting factor is logistics. All strategies were based on possible options, from amphibious landings to bombing raids to troop movements.

In 'The Moscow Option', history forks from the true course to the fictional course when Hitler is sent into a coma in an air crash. Barbarossa has just kicked off with the Wermacht advancing rapidly, but a critical decision must be made. Do the Germans implement 'the Kiev Diversion' and capture Marshal Budeny with 700,000 troops? Or do they push on to Moscow without closing the pocket? With Hitler out of the picture the Generals under Goring decide the latter is the option to deal the Russians the most damage.

There are only two major changes to world history as we know it, yet they result in a myriad of consequences, like ripples in a pond. We often take history to be determined or forordained, and for much of this book so does the author. That's good because it's grounded in fact. What he does explore are possibilities like different start dates for battles due to weather (Barbarossa), different force compositions for battles (North Africa), and different tactics (Japanese at Midway). He also explores how Hitler's reluctance in employeeing airborne troops would have been different if Crete had not been so bloody. Would the Germans have agressively employed an airborne corps as the allies did at Arnhem? You'll have to read the book for that one.

This is a thoroughly readable and enjoyable book that expert or amateur can appreciate. It has been written as a history and does make comparisons as it goes, so some knowledge of major battles and characters is vital. Fascinating reading!

I own a first edition copy last in print in 1980. I'm very pleased to see it back in circulation.

Downing falls into neither of these tracks. He explicitly refuses to give the Germans those things which would have given them potentialy war-winning advantages: an economy geared for sustained warfare or a political acceptance of liberation in occupied Russia. To do so, he rightly considers, would require fundamental moral and philosophical changes in the nature of the regime that were profoundly at odds with both National Socialist ideology, and with Hitler's personal Weltanschaung.

Downing allows - as the title and cover suggest - for Germany taking Moscow. He also allows the Japanese a decisive triumph at Midway.

The result is a counterfactual book that runs contrary to the trend in this area. Downing is not saying "what could the Axis have done differently that would have allowed them to win?" Instead, he guides us to the conclusion that, given their early decisions, whatever the Axis powers did, they were doomed to fail.

This is not to say that he subscribes to a neo-Marxist analysis of "historical inevitablism". Rather, it is an intriguing exposition of how the logistical, manpower and strategic factors that faced the Axis would eventually have ground them down to an extent that rendered operational-doctrinal advantages irrelevant.

Thoroughly enjoyable on the level of a page-turner, this also provides a range of historically-grounded argument that will interest the military historian without alienating the casual reader.