Blood and Iron: The German Conquest of Sevastopol

Rating:
Summary: GLEN SWEETING SCORES ANOTHER BULL'S EYE!
Review: "BLOOD AND IRON" by G.C. Sweeting, published by Brassey's, is a fine study for the general reader. It was not written for the wargamer or the student of military history who wants hundreds of pages of tedious particulars about order of battle and exacting day-to-day movements of every unit. There's plenty of detail here for the average buff who wishes an accurate as well as interestingly written history of the last major German victory, the conquest of the Crimea and the siege of Sevastopol, the world's strongest fortress.

Sweeting offers lots of fascinating information not found anywhere else: ... what is was like to be a German soldier, the rations, equipment and even secret weapons such as the massive 800mm "DORA," the biggest gun ever built. It's the first comprehensive account of Germany's major ally, the Romanian army, on the Eastern Front... and Sweeting answers many questions such as why Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, and why, after spectacular early victories his Wehrmacht was unable to defeat the Red Army.

The first critical months of "Barbarossa" are briefly described. Emphasis is strong on the German Eleventh Army and their Romanian allies in the Crimea under General von Manstein. A significant chapter is devoted to the Luftwaffe, which played such a vital role in that campaign. I found details and comparison of German and Soviet weapons and tanks especially engrossing, a feature seldom offered in any campaign histories. Perhaps of greater importance, the book answers the intriguing question of how Von Manstein defeated the stronger Soviet forces in the Crimea and then managed to devise the daring plan to break through Sevastolpol defenses and win over all odds. The author has based his work mainly on German sources and has fully footnoted them. A great many of the profuse photographs have never been published before in the West... and there is a welcome Glossary of German terms and abbreviations which will prove a great asset to anyone interested in the broad subject. It truly has something for everyone... and I heartily recommend it to the general reader!

Steven Augutis
Deerfield Beach, FL


Rating:
Summary: Very disappointing
Review: Almost half the book is filled with appendices relating to information that most enthusiasts would already know. To top it off, the rest of the book, being the main narrative, does not furnish much new information and this just adds to the ordeal.

Rating:
Summary: Enhanced with more than a hundred vintage photographs
Review: Blood And Iron: The German Conquest Of Sebastopol by C. G. Sweeting (military historian and former curator at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum) focuses the pivotal and bloody battles for control of the Crimea peninsula and the port of Sebastopol in 1941 and 1942. Fought with German forces at the height of their power, the struggle for the world's most strongly fortified port city and the home of the Soviet Black Sea fleet resulted in what was to be the last major German victory of the war when the captured the city in 1942. Soon afterwards, the battle for Stalingrad was to undermine the German triumph as the momentum of war along the Eastern Front between German and Soviet forces was to irrevocably shift back into the Russians favor. Visually enhanced with more than a hundred vintage photographs and other illustrations, Blood And Iron is informed and informative reading. Also very highly recommended as additions to Military Studies library collections are C. G. Sweeting's earlier military studies: Hitler's Personal Pilot: The Life And Times Of Hans Baur and Hitler's Squadron: The Fuhrer's Personal Aircraft And Transport Union, 1933-45.


Rating:
Summary: Excellent Analysis
Review: Glenn Sweeting is always on target and this book is on a par with his previous efforts on World War II aviation equipment and clothing. I found the information on weaponry to be particularly good-it puts in one spot the information found in many sources. The attack on Sevastapol is placed in context with the overall invasion of Germany, and the chronological approach Mr. Sweeting uses makes the whole battle easier to understand.





Rating:
Summary: An Extreme, Almost Incredible Disappointment
Review: I am quite interested in Manstein's campaigns, and those operations focused upon Sevastopol during 1941 and 1942 are some of his finest. I have long been eager for a comprehensive account, perhaps akin to what Douglas Nash produced for Cherkassy in _Hell's Gate_. Sweeting's _Blood and Iron_ (published by Brassey), however, is not that; is not anything like that; is not, in fact, anything I wanted to read, or would ever care to read again. This is the worst book of military history I have ever read or-- worse luck-- purchased. I received it on October 17th, one day before the first helpful review appeared on this site. Not counting that of December 2cd (which must be either a joke or composed by a relative of the author), I agree with all preceding reviews. This thing is tragic.

I could repeat much that has gone before: _Blood and Iron_ misleads, in that it purports to be a volume about the campaign and siege, while most of it is not; well over half of this rather short book wanders off on irrelevant tangents. What little information it contains about the battle-- or any other subject-- is general, vague, and clearly derivative, containing nothing new. The book is hopelessly one-sided, presenting only the German point of view, and seems to fawn upon Manstein, who may have been a great general, but was scarcely a knight in shining armor.

I would like to discuss sources. Whenever I acquire an historical work, the first thing I do is check the bibliography; I want to know whether the author has done his homework. My first glance at the back of this book gave me a funny, uncomfortable feeling. I saw a list of mainly secondary sources, punctuated by some well known and oft read personal accounts, with that old workhorse _Lost Victories_ clearly dominating. I did note a handful of references with which I was unfamiliar, but they seemed to deal with minor or even unrelated matters. There were no Russian sources, and most of the German (or derivative English language) sources proved to be quite old. I found no fresh or original references, unless one counts Rall's letter, which has no bearing on the main subject, and may even have been included as a plug for the book. Solely from examining the bibliography, I developed the disconcerting impression that the manuscript of Sweeting's work might have been written many years ago, yet only recently published. Then I read the book. My forebodings were justified. To all intents and purposes, I learned nothing. _Blood and Iron_ is a waste of money.

"Glenn Sweeting is known for his meticulous research"; so reports that one very odd review below. I can not respond directly to that statement, because I had never heard of Sweeting before. I do wonder: known to whom? I will say that, whatever positive reputation he may have formerly possessed, _Blood and Iron_ has shattered it forever; no one recovers from a wreck like this. It is not rock bottom, like Gary Simpson's _Tiger Ace_, but it is really bad. Mr. Sweeting owes us an apology, as does Dr. Crane, the author of the introduction, and the editors at Brassey. I will have no future dealings with any of these people.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing - very little new information
Review: I bought the book as I wanted to read a non-German book about the battle for and the siege of Sevastopol, as German accounts tend to be too biased in my opinion. But: Blood and Iron is not much better in that respect. But that is not the key problem. The main problem is how little information on the battle for Sevastopol (and the Crimea) is actually in the book.
Let's have a look at the book's structure:
it starts with a brief introduction about the beginning of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, which is OK.
What follows is an equally long chapter about the Luftwaffe, which is full of information completely irrelevant to the book, e.g. on Mr. Rudel or the history of the Luftwaffe.

The whole story of the 41/42 battles for the Crimea follow on only 53 pages. The amount of information provided is limited and is not much more than an overview. There is no order of battle and the few maps are unfortunately poor in quality and content.

Then come the appendices, which cover more than half of the book. There is a short combat report from the Crimea by a German pilot, a section on ranks, medals, insignia and uniforms (but only the German ones are presented!), a very long section on the weapons of Barbarossa, which might be a good introduction to readers that want an introduction to the Eastern Front, but is hampered by the poor quality of the reproduced tables and pictures. While this is a section that would do no harm if there was plenty of other information in the book, it is -from my point of view- a major problem when you buy a book on Sevastopol and get only 50 pages of information on Sevastopol and a lot of other information presented more clearly arranged and in more detail elsewhere anyway. In the end, the book has appendices on some German superlarge artillery weapons that were used in Sevastopol - I was not looking for information on those as they had no combat significance, but other readers might want that information.

In conclusion, Blood and Iron can give you a brief introduction to some aspects of the Eastern Front and the fight for the Crimea peninsula in 41/42. But be aware that the pictures are not very good in quality. If you look for a detailed account, orders of battle, a wealth of so far unpublished pictures, new archival sources, overview maps or a non-Mansteinian non-"Lost Victories"-perspective, you will be seriously disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Save your Money
Review: I'm only keeping the book because it is an easy reference. If you haven't bought it, keep it that way. Waste of time and money with nothing new about the campaign and heavily slanted toward the German point of view with NO use of Russian/former Soviet archival information, memoirs, literature, reports, etc (which are just now coming out with many new facts and statistics that the West wasn't privy to before). I believe I saw only ONE Russian source used in the bibliography, one that is around 35 years old entitled "The Great Patriot War of the Soviet Union, 1941-1945" published in 1970.

Rating:
Summary: What a Horrible Book
Review: Short and sweet: This book is a big disappointment; don't waste your money. You have been forewarned.

Rating:
Summary: One star because I can't give it a zero
Review: This book is a complete let-down. A balanced, detailed assessment of the battles in the Crimea in World War II is badly needed. This book is definitely not it. Instead, "Blood and Iron" is a hack-job, more like an article in World War II Magazine, providing only a superficial overview of the battles and some new pictures.

Part of the problem lies with the author, who, as an airpower historian, is inexperienced in writing about ground combat. However, the publisher, Brassey's, must also take blame for failing to have the text properly reviewed and edited. How else could a book that purports to cover more than a year of combat devote only 65 pages to the subject? Sweeting was clearly unable to write a good book on the subject and had to pad it with filler, but Brassey's published it anyway.

Sweeting covers combat with broad brush strokes. Very little is learned about German, Romanian, or Soviet forces, their commanders, or their operational plans. The story is told without any operational context whatsoever. No information is provided about the naval or the airpower situation. For example, during the first attack on Sevastopol, the Soviets landed significant forces on the Kerch peninsula. Where did these come from? What was their plan? Why were they able to surprise the Axis forces? Without any analysis of combat, planning, or operations, Sweeting only offers an extremely brief narrative and a simplistic timeline of events.

The second attack on Sevastopol, in 1942, is covered in one brief chapter. Sweeting focuses mostly on the heavy artillery bombardments of forts by the Germans (spending several paragraphs on "super artillery" pieces). No analysis of tactical and operational planning is offered. No assessment of various command decisions is made. The description of combat, which in fact was some of the toughest in the war, is bland, generalized, and brief. Sweeting provides no information about the conditions of Soviet forces in the defensive zone, nor anything about the civilians in the city.

Instead, Sweeting uses the small space he devotes to the Crimean battles to focus on trivialities. Here, he is like a bad journalist, focusing on the entertaining but irrelevant and missing the mundane but crucial. So, instead of learning about force structure, dispositions, and plans, we learn about Manstein's favorite meal, how his command post was furnished, and that he flew in Hitler's personal FW-200 Condor, where Hitler's chair had 8mm of armor plating, a parachute, and a trapdoor mechanism. We get a table outlining the precise rations of German soldiers but little about which Soviet units were involved in the fighting.

Sweeting has written a perfect example of 1960s/1970s popular history: long on detail about weapons and "heroic" German commanders, short on analysis of combat operations. Sweeting did no archival research for this book, and instead relied on Manstein's memoirs or other German-focused sources. Thus, the emphasis is on the German army, while the Soviets remain almost completely anonymous. No recent literature is cited, not even Hayward's "Stopped at Stalingrad" which has 90 pages of solid operational analysis of the Crimea, covering air, sea, and land forces.

As a result, the book is superficial and obsolete. Granted, these sorts of books can serve as useful introductions to a subject. However, even here this book fails. Sweeting does not provide enough information even for this low goal. Rather than devoting all 146 pages of the book (not counting notes and blank or picture pages) to the subject at hand, he wastes more than half of his pages on tangential subjects. Chapter 1 is a 14 page overview of Barbarossa. This is fine, and necessary to provide some context. Chapter 2 is a 16 page irrelevant history of the Luftwaffe. Here, Sweeting should have borrowed from Hayward, who provides a thorough analysis of the Luftwaffe's role in the Crimea. Chapter 3 is a 9 page superficial chronology of the German break-in to the Crimea. Chapter 4 devotes 16 pages to the first attack on Sevastopol and the Soviet landings on the Kerch peninsula. This is so brief that the reader does not learn why the German attack failed, or why the Soviets were able to land troops behind the Germans. Chapter 5 is a 24 page chronology of the final attack on Sevastopol. The book concludes with a 6 page Epilogue, focusing on Manstein during World War II. It is clear that Sweeting has a fascination with Manstein, so much so that it borders on being creepy. So, the book has 65 pages of text. Even this is an over-count, as almost every page has at least two pictures.

Then Sweeting provides 5 appendices, none of which are particularly useful for learning about the Siege of Sevastopol. Appendix A is a 4-page combat report from Gunther Rall, a German ace. I'm not sure why this is included, as it is entirely independent of the text. Appendix B is 6 pages of tables and pictures of German ranks, badges and medals. Appendix C devotes 47 pages to weapons used by the Germans and Soviets. This is astounding. It's the largest single component of the book, but presents information easily-accessed elsewhere. Appendices D and E are about the "super-artillery" pieces the Germans used, taking up a combined 24 pages of the book. This is a lot of space for curiosities that did not significantly alter the outcome of the battles. So, Sweeting provides less than 65 pages of text, but includes 81 pages of irrelevant appendices.

This is the last book I'll ever buy either written by Sweeting, or published by Brassey's. Sweeting clearly has no idea how to write or study history. Brassey's clearly has no idea what the state of the discipline is, or how to professionally edit and review manuscripts.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Presentation on use of the Luftwaffe in battle
Review: This is one of the best books I've seen on the last major German Victory of World War II. It presents both sides fairly and does an EXCELLENT job on covering the important use of the Luftwaffe in winning the battle. I really appreciated the way the author put the battle in the context of the bigger social and military picture. While the military role-playing "gamer" that wrote the negative review may not find this book to his liking, most history and military buffs would be thrilled to find it under the Christmas tree!! Glenn Sweeting is known for his meticulous research and the illustrations and appendices are worth the price of the book alone.