REVIEW: David M. Glantz, Red Storm over the Balkans: The Failed Soviet Invasion of Romania, Spring 1944

H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-War@h-net.msu.edu (September 2007)

David M. Glantz. _Red Storm over the Balkans: The Failed Soviet Invasion of Romania, Spring 1944_. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2006. 448 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index, appendix with Soviet documents. $39.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-7006-1465-6.

Reviewed for H-War by Robert Niebuhr, Department of History, Boston College

Delaying the Inevitable

In an exhaustive account of the Soviet military operations along the southern Ukrainian frontier with Romania, David Glantz tries to use these episodes to elucidate several key issues important for understanding World War II and the subsequent Cold War.  First, Glantz seeks to resurrect these operations from the supposed dustbin of history and place them among the key moments in the war.  Second, Glantz dives into the intense details of the springtime battles to show that the Soviet operations resulted from far broader, more menacing motives. While a successful Red Army along this front obviously would have compromised Germany's Balkan allies and cut off the flow of oil from the Ploiesti oil fields, the more important issues lies within what Glantz sees as the reasoning behind Soviet operations as early as the spring of 1944.

Glantz argues that Soviet and Russian historians incorrectly assert that Josef Stalin's influence over Red Army operations focused on defeating Germany with a direct drive towards Berlin.  Instead, Glantz asserts that Stalin advocated for a so-called broad front strategy that, on the tactical level, would probe the entire front for individual weaknesses the Soviets could then exploit.  Berlin was a central target, so this argument goes.  But, if the German line broke in the southern Ukraine, for example, the way to the Balkans would open up and effectively degrade the German war effort, simultaneously giving the Soviet Union possession of territory of high strategic value.  But, the significance of this argument expands into territory that is more controversial ...

Comments

[Greg]

I wish Mr. Niebuhr would have noticed that the book, due to 'interesting' editorialship at the University of Kansas Press had managed to rename an entire event in military history from Yassy-Kishinev offensive operation to the Iasi-Kishinev offensive. This was an editor's compromise to preclude complaints by Romanians that the city is being mis-spelled, but not spelling it in Romanian because it is a book in English! No big deal, right? Does Boston College Department of History believe history can be rewritten by pandering to political correctness of being seen to comply with new-world bullies? Iasi-Kishinev is neither right according to accepted English use, according to the IPA, or Romanian script! What next, Santa Claus spelled in Runnic if Norway changes its alphabet?