Book Reviews John Mosier

8/7/2019 Book Reviews John Mosier

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/book-reviews-john-mosier 1/5

Book ReviewsThe Myth Of Blitzkrieg

by John Mosier

The Blitzkrieg Myth, written by John Mosier, is a disappointment. Mr. Mosier,an English professor, is hopelessly out of his league when grappling with theissues of strategy, doctrine, tactics, and technology in the Second World War.As anyone who is familiar with the literature on the war reads this book, itwill become apparent that Mosier writes simply to provoke rather than inform.His book is poorly researched, arrogantly dismissive of decades of amassedknowledge, and woefully incomplete.

It is clear that Mosier has little or no training in the social sciences. Idislike, generally, history books written by those without this training. Mostjournalists, for example, write highly impressionistic military history, withtendencies to overblow the insignificant but dramatic, while missing the mundane

but crucial. Others with no training in research whatsoever will fare evenworse. Mosier is an amateur historian, and it shows. His use of sources isdeeply flawed: he relies upon a very narrow range of research material, usesparticular sources excessively or inappropriately, and does not have anappreciation for the development of knowledge over time. Mosier is blithelyunaware of the fact when doing research one must pay most attention to scholarly works and only carefully use works that are known to be of questionable value.

For example, when writing on the war during 1939-1940, Mosier relies heavily onKaufmann and Kaufmann's Hitler's Blitzkrieg Campaigns. This is an engaging butrather amateur description of Germany's early offensives, and Mosier ignores the

fact that a much better assessment exists: the translated work Germany's Initial Conquest of Europe, which is part of the semi-official set of volumes from theGerman Research Institute for Military History. As another example of his pooruse of sources, in footnote 4 to chapter 7, Mosier relies upon and defendsSuvorov's Icebreaker, arrogantly and too-quickly dismissing the debate the bookhas created. Mosier misses the fact that it has been thoroughly debunked byGlantz (Stumbling Colossus ) and that Erickson's classic (The Road toStalingrad) shows that Halder and the rest of the German high command knew theRussians were in no shape to attack. Finally, that Mosier would mention (onpage 308) James Lucas' War on the Eastern Front as "the best short study" is

astounding. It is nothing but a mish-mash collection of various personal tales(such as an expose on a assault gun commander), specific combat stories (such as making an ice bridge on a river, or the exploits of a tank destroyer platoon ina single battle), and some sparse discussion of specific weapons. Beyond this,the book contains outdated material, largely I think lifted from the U.S.military's efforts to use German officers for information about the East frontafter the war, about the Soviet army and conditions in Russia. Finally, forMosier to label it "the best short study" buries the fact that it is completelyfrom the German side and therefore can not serve as an overall assessment of the Eastern Front (I would suggest Glantz and House's When Titans Clashed for aone-volume study; it is not perfect, but it is still good).

Furthermore, he arrogantly dismisses previous research that he does not agreewith without any assessment of why. In fact, Mosier states on page 292 that



"When works are omitted [from the bibliographic essay] it is becausetheycontribute little to our understanding of the war, generally because they repeat what has long been known." Since the number of books discussed in hisbibliographic essay is quite small, this means that Mosier either has a dim view of almost the entire literature on the Second World War, or that he is badly

read on the subject. My bet is on the latter. His message is quiteproblematic, particularly for those who are not as familiar with the literature. By only including just a few books for each subject, readers might come awaywith the impression that there is not much out there worth studying. In thissense, Mosier does a great disservice to those interested in learning more about World War II.

Furthermore, as an academic, Mosier should realize that bibliographic essays are used primarily to obscure the fact that not much research was conducted, and

that so few sources were considered that writing a proper literature reviewwould be impossible, let alone a research-driven book. His research problemsare so great that I am inclined to disregard Mosier's claims entirely. Theweight of historical scholarship is not with him, nor can he build a case forwhy he is right and all the others are wrong.

Mosier's inability to do proper social science is further revealed in his manyexaggerations, his distortion or concealment of facts that run counter to hisarguments, and gross inaccuracies on even simple matters, facts, and events.For example, Mosier argues that the armored breakthrough in World War II alwaysfailed because defending armies could either shift to react or retreat out ofthe way. Mosier "forgets" to mention the Italians at Beda Fomm in February1941, or the Russians in the Summer and Fall of 1941, or the Germans at

Stalingrad in 1942/1943and on and on. These armies were completely destroyedafter being cut off by rapid combined arms advances. The rest of his argumentis only partially true, and Mosier knows it, since he qualifies his statement in some places by adding that occasionally the defenders would have to abandontheir equipment and vehicles in order to avoid an armored thrust. This ringshollow. An army devoid of weapons, vehicles, and supplies is not effectiveuntil it can be re-equipped, and the territory is has to concede to the attacker is often (but not always) very important. So his argument that the defeat ofthe Belgians, French, and the BEF in Belgium in 1940, or the Germans in Normandy in the Summer of 1944 were not victories for rapid armored advances is silly.These armies were decisively defeated, even if they were not utterly destroyed,and his claims otherwise are exaggerations.

Mosier's penchant for distortion so that the facts fit his argument becomesclear when he addresses the COBRA breakout in Normandy. He claims that thebreakout was a failure because it went in the "wrong direction" (that it headedNorthwest). A quick look at any map of Normandy, and a brief reference to theCOBRA attacks (I suggest Carafano's fine book After D-Day ) will demonstratethat Mosier is either unable to read a map or is simply inventing things. Hissuggestion that COBRA was therefore a strategic failure is baffling. This isunsupported by the facts, as well as the vast literature on the battle ofNormandy. Mosier makes a similar statement out the Meuse crossing at Sedan by

the Germans in 1940: according to him, Guderian's crossing and subsequent thrust across France was a failure because it went the wrong direction. It is true



that the crossing itself, and the move to establish a bridgehead, went fromNorth to South, as necessitated by geography. Of course, once across at Sedan(and other places), the Germans went west, then northwest to encircle the entire Belgian army, the whole of the BEF, and much of the French army as well. Anyarmy would love to have failures like that!

Mosier also conceals facts and events that do not fit his positions. He ignores the war on the Eastern Front, only commenting occasionally on it to discuss tank development. Given that the war against Germany was primarily fought, and won,on the Eastern Front this is an important omission. It is also convenient forMosier: many battles between the Soviets and the Germans were indeed successfulapplications of mobile combined arms warfare, resulting in impressive advancesby armored forces. The battles from the launching of Barbarossa until the gates of Moscow are textbook examples. The Soviets later applied their own theoriesto achieve successes of their own, first at Stalingrad (but possibly at Moscow),

then in the Ukraine in 1943-1944, then perhaps most impressively (althoughcuriously understudied) against Army Group Center in the summer of 1944. It istrue that there were failures on both sides, but Mosier's argument is that thearmored thrust always failed. Ignoring the Eastern Front sweeps contraryevidence under the rug. Mosier also conceals important information about theshift in German plans to attack France. Mosier claims there was hardly anychange from the initial plan to the one Manstein finally put in place, asidefrom a "change in the direction of maneuver." What Mosier conceals is that theemphasis of the attack had changed as well, so as to make that "change indirection" more in line with traditional German encirclement doctrine. He doesnote that the composition of Army Groups B and A had shifted but fails toproperly assess why and what that meant. Nearly all the rapid striking power

(the armored divisions) was shifted from B to A so as to allow for abreakthrough and subsequent encirclement of Allied forces in Belgium andnorthern France.

Finally, regarding Mosier's poor research, he makes mistakes on many simplematters, facts, and events. Many of these mistakes occur in his technicaldiscussions of tanks. He claims several times, for example, that the U.S. M4Sherman tank lacked mobility. In fact, the M4 was one of the most mobile andreliable tanks of the war, particularly if long distance moves are considered,and especially after the suspension was redesigned. Mosier also raves about the German 75L48 gun, yet when he discusses the U.S. 76mm gun he simply states thatit was not much of an improvement over the 75mm gun. This may be true, butMosier misses the fact that the 76mm gun performed similarly to the German 75L48 gun. When discussing tank size and weight, Mosier errs in his evaluations ofdifferent designs because he largely ignores two critical features: enginehorsepower to weight ratios and ground pressure (these facets of tankperformance are mentioned specifically only once, on page 45). It is entirelypossible to have a very heavy tank that has good mobility because of a powerfulengine and low ground pressure. Mosier even seems to notice this on page 57,but then later declares late-war German tanks to be failures because of theirweight and size. This is despite the fact that both the Soviet T34/85 and IS-2tanks had higher ground pressures than the Tiger II. Further, the Tiger II'smetric horsepower to weight ratio is on par with that of the Panzer IV (10.6

hp/ton for the Tiger II and 10.6 hp/ton for the Panzer IVH). Further, groundpressure was lower (.78 kg/square centimeter for the Tiger II and .89 kg/square



centimeter for the Panzer IVH). Late-war German tanks were not failures simplybecause of weight, but because they had poor fuel economy and thus bad range,bad engines that overheated, and were over engineered in ways that made fieldmaintenance difficult. Soviet tanks were more successful because they had morereliable engines, better power to weight ratios, and were simply designed. That Mosier's knowledge of tank design is confined to the Encyclopedia of German

Tanks of World War II and the like is obvious.

Another problem the author has is that he is unable to distinguish betweenstrategy and doctrine, or between strategic, operational, and tactical levels of warfare. Much of Mosier's book focuses on the operational level of war,although he does not seem to realize this. This confusion causes him tomisinterpret important events in the war. For example, he claims that theinvasion of France in 1940 and the invasion of Russia in 1941 were "broad-front" strategies. This was not so, if one pays attention to operations and tactics.Mosier's confusion about strategy and doctrine is also important. What Mosier

should be focusing on is the application of combined arms doctrine. Much hasbeen written on the integration of tanks into the doctrine of the variousmilitaries prior to World War II. It is here where Mosier would have foundimportant information about why the Germans were able to win victories early,but faced difficulties later (as Germany's enemies became more adept atconducting combined arms warfare). There is indeed a "blitzkrieg myth" that isslowly being addressed. Mosier's claim that armored breakthroughs were uselessis incorrect and does not address the myth. The myth that needs to be put torest is that the "blitzkrieg" was new doctrine (see, for example, Doughty'schapter in Lloyd Matthew's book Challenging the United States Symmetrically andAsymmetrically published by the U.S. Army War College in 1998). It was simplyan application of increased mobility to Germany's existing doctrine, from the1800s, of encircling and destroying enemy forces. Had Mosier done some digging

on issues of doctrine, he would have found this very quickly. This becomesespecially clear when one realizes just how little the Germans relied on British armored theorists. Related to this, Mosier should have integrated hisassessment of the German army's effectiveness, which appears at the end of thebook, into his main argument. Much of the reason for why armored breakthroughsworked or failed turned on each side's ability to perform combined arms warfare. The Germans, as Mosier notes, started the war with a decided advantage. Thisdiminished as the war progressed, however, and by 1943-1944 it was the Alliesthat were better at combined arms warfare (with the probable exception ofBritain; see Place's Military Training in the British Army, Hart's Clash ofArms, and French's Raising Churchill's Army).

Related to his inability to see differences between strategy, doctrine,operations, and tactics, is Mosier's failure to distinguish between strategicbombing and anti-cohesion (also called network-centric) bombing (see Pape'sBombing to Win). In fact, Mosier never even identifies anything besidesstrategic bombing and close air support. This is surprising, since the mosteffective form of airpower in the Second World War was that of anti-cohesionbombing. More accurately, Allied bombing of transportation networks in Franceand Germany, along with attacks on communications, supplies, and disruption ofmovement of troops in the theater was a blend of denial (attrition) andnetwork-centric warfare. This was very effective in reducing the ability of the

German army to fight, much more so that either close air support or strategicbombing.



Additionally, Mosier's book is hopelessly unfocussed. For one, why is there anentire chapter devoted to strategic airpower in a book that otherwise is aboutground combat (and is titled The Blitzkrieg Myth)? Mosier has not even graspedground combat, and his treatment of strategic airpower is superficial andredundant to the existing literature. Contrary to "myth busting" Mosier simplyechoes what has been known about strategic bombing for some time (see Bombing to

Win by Pape, or Ross's Strategic Bombing by the United States in World War II:The Myths and the Facts for two recent examples in a long line of literature).Additionally, Mosier can not seem to make up his mind about what sort of book he wants to write: The Blitzkrieg Myth ends up being an unfocussed (andoverly-brief) rehash of some operational failures between 1940 and 1945 ratherthan a book that truly addresses the application (successful or otherwise) ofdoctrines of mobile, combined arms warfare.

Finally, Mosier stops just (barely!) short of deifying Montgomery. It is quiteprobable that Monty was one of the better leaders Britain produced (but I wouldchoose Slim to be the best). However, he is overrated in the minds of many and

Mosier chooses to ignore many of Montgomery's failures despite the fact thatthey offer some confirming evidence for his argument. Once again, thisindicates that Mosier had blinders on when conducting his research: at least hecould have dealt with the controversy over Monty's effectiveness.

The Blitzkrieg Myth is a big disappointment. It is poorly researched, poorlyorganized, and poorly argued. Mosier's book makes no contribution to ourunderstanding of the Second World War. It is surpassed by previous literature,the bases of the arguments it presents are fundamentally flawed, and itsconclusions are therefore either redundant (in the case of strategic bombing) or simply wrong (in the case of armored breakthroughs).

In a nutshell: historical research at its rock-bottom worst.

Email me with comments at [email protected] to the Book Review page.Back to my ASL page.Best matches for John MosierThe Blitzkrieg Myth, written by John Mosier, is a disappointment. Mr. Mosier, an English professor, is hopelessly out of his league when grappling with the...Jump to text »

Documents

Book Reviews John Mosier