A Comparison of Two Books: All Hell Let Loose (Sir Max Hastings) - The Second World War (Antony Beevor)

What does one do after years of research, having collected piles of documents from the archives, stacks of scholarly and journalistic articles, gigabytes of interview records on different aspects of the same war? A logical thing to do would be to put them all down in a book that gives the reader an overview of the whole war. This was precisely what two prominent and important British authors have done. Both Sir Max Hastings and Antony Beevor are well-known for their scholarly research and clear and engaging writing. Both published their books on the Second World War in close succession and are therefore bound to attract comparisons.

But in a genre that is already well-served over the past 70 years, what can these authors add notwithstanding their respective knowledge and appreciation of the war? Here they are both clear about what they would bring to the table. Sir Hastings tries to depict the experiences of the common people in the war, be they soldiers or civilians, while Beevor offers a higher level view of the war, in an effort to show how the world was involved and affected in this war, and why it was aptly called the Second World War.

Sir Hasting's books are always interesting to read. As a non-native English speaker, I always find much to learn from his books. Not just in terms of the contents, but also from his command of the English language which is economical and precise. He is always able to find the right words which would lead the reader into the world he is trying to describe, and to feel the emotions he is depicting (unfortunately for the French, in this book they came out the worse for it.)

The author is successful in bringing out the story of the common man, military, civilian or victims. From French soldiers feeling bored as they waited for any kind of action to take place (pg 27), to British soldiers feeling frustrated that nothing seem to go right (pg 55). From the elation of victory felt by the German soldier when they were seemingly invincible (pg 133) to the fear and resignation when they finally got pushed back to the ruins of Berlin (pg 601). From a Japanese soldier's idealism that they were the chosen ones to die for their Emperor (pg 643) to their indifference to cannibalism of their own in order to stay alive. From the American soldier's feeling of extreme loneliness stranded on some pacific island (pg 260) to the revenge that the Russian soldier is determined to exact in Germany (pg 617).

The civilians had their own experiences, be it the Polish exasperation at why they were rounded up (pg 21), or the British life of deprivation throughout the years as they stood alone. The Leningraders' disillusionment with their leaders while they starved in the middle of the 3-year long siege (pg 173), or the Berliners' enduring nightly bombardment wanting the war to just be over (pg 513).

Antony Beevor succeed equally admirably in his book in giving his readers an appreciation of the geopolitical situations on the different continents which eventually amalgamated into this one big war. However, Beevor would not leave it at this level, this is one big war but at the same time has parts that are related but not necessarily linked, and in some cases, what happened before the war can ultimately have a great impact on the outcome of the war once it is fought.

His introduction of the individual, a Korean by the name of Yang Kyoungjong, fighing in a Wehrmacht uniform, shows the link that spanned across different theatres in that war. Yet his reference to Nomonhan (pg 15) and on the same page, to Polish opportunism bring home the intricate connection of events related to the Second World War across time and space. Despite that, the outcome or the lives lost in one theatre seems almost inconsequential to those in another. The Americans fighting and dying in a brutal battle in the Pacific would find victory in Europe irrelevant (pg 618). The Chinese, dying by the millions, would eventually find their story fitting but tenuously in the grander World War Two narrative (pg 552).

Beevor's approach allowed him to make some generalisations and conclusions about countries and their people (pg 400). Sir Hastings did not aspire to that, he wanted to go down to the individual, many of whose lives appear cheap beyond description, to see how they lived, coped, and in many cases died because of decisions made by people whom they would not get to meet.

Perhaps one way to differentiate between the two books is to say that while Antony Beevor showed his readers that though related, the parts of the Second World War do not form a coherent story all the time, Sir Max Hastings, showed that as different as the ideologies, motivations and terrains in the different regimes and theatres, the individuals' experience is not that different. Everyone involved would suffer deprivation, fear, loneliness, pain, both physical and emotional, elation, and despair. Both books are good companions of each other, even where the same sources or quotations were used, the two authors used them to highlight different aspects of the war. For that, it is not enough for one to say that he or she has read one, and so need not read the other.

-------------------------

Being Singaporean, I am always interested in the Asian side of the war. While not as well researched as the American-related theatres in the Pacific War, the fall of Singapore is nevertheless adequately covered by many writers and scholars. China, however, enjoys no such attention (but see Paine 2012 and Mitter 2013). The rather scanty coverage on China in these 2 books (although Beevor gave it a more in-depth treatment that Sir Hastings) does not occur to me as an omission. I interpret it as evidence of the awkward situation China was in at that time.

Although people were dying in huge numbers, some in the hands of the Japanese, others from the civil war, and many others from starvation, it would not be until the end of 1941 when China was treated as an ally simply because she was fighting the enemy of the Western democracies. Yet very shortly her role would again be relegated to one of secondary at best and irrelevant at worst. When the Chinese army lost most of its engagement with the Japanese, when the Red Army hardly featured in any meaningful way against the Japanese, when China's leader and the regime he ran was known widely to be corrupt, when the strategy of pitting overwhelming numbers against the Japanese like the Russians did against the Germans did not produce comparable results, when the American Navy alone was able to strangle Japan, this outcome is to be expected.

(Find All Hell Let Loose at Goodreads)
(Find The Second World War at Goodreads)

Winston's War: Churchill, 1940-1945 (Sir Max Hastings)

This is the first book I have read about Sir Winston Churchill and I'm glad to have picked one written by Sir Max Hastings, another first. Sir Hastings is British, and many would expect him to therefore have a great command of the language, but not all British can write like him. His arsenal of vocabulary and elements of the language is impeccable. He was able to summon the right words and phrase them in ways that express precisely what he was trying to convey. It was not only on the one or two occasions when you would see the gems, it was peppered throughout the book. But I could have been too easily impressed, not being a native speaker.


Most readers probably knew Winston Churchill as the Prime Minister of Great Britain in the Second World War despite his service to the nation prior to and after that. For that reason, this book that focuses only on his years as Prime Minister is a good first book to read about him before moving on to other more comprehensive biographies. Instead of just the events, the author showed how the fortunes of the man rose as he led Britain as the sole nation to stand up against Hitler and fell as he found himself losing influence over the conduct of the war once the Americans entered the war and the Russians' fortune took a turn for the better.

The Americans' involvement in the war was featured throughout the second half of the book and it was important because the depth of America's involvement in the Second World War was in direct proportion to the decline in Churchill's influence over its conduct. One cannot help feeling a little indignant over the American's handling of their allies; it is easy to feel that when the British were suffering alone (and at one point was on the brink), the US was dragging its feet and seemed almost ready to let Britain meet its 'fate' in the hands of Hitler, and yet once they themselves were attacked, they were almost reckless in wanting to bring retribution to their enemies. But this narrative would be simplistic. The US is a huge country, and huge countries have huge buffers to shield them from what is happening around the world, even the eastern side of the country is rather different from its west, it is therefore hard to feel the urgency of things happening across the Atlantic. On top of that, the democratic system in the US probably mean that as much as the President himself wanted to enter the war, he would be up against many opponents.

I always put the US' involvement in Europe against the backdrop of the 'Europe first' policy. Japan was the one that violated the US, not the Germans, even though Hitler perplexingly declared war against the US after Pearl Harbor, a sneak attack by an ally for which he received no prior notification. Selling the 'Europe first' policy to Americans in general would have been hard when it was Japan that they wanted to go after, and yet the Americans were persuaded. For that, Americans deserve credit.

The portrayal of Stalin was more straightforward, although there was nothing straightforward about him. Desperate at first, he emerged the master of realpolitik as his own army prevailed over the Germans. His treatment of Churchill was harsh, not in the sense of being rude, but he knew exactly how to 'play' with Churchill. He probably had respect for Churchill in recognising that if anyone, Churchill could see through his own designs on Eastern Europe after the war. But he knew that Churchill had no chips with which to bargain and so would not be able to do anything about it. So he just led Churchill along, giving some hope whenever it suits him, and needling Churchill when he felt like it. I doubt Stalin had more respect for Roosevelt, he probably respected the US' industrial and therefore military might, but at the same time he was cordial with Roosevelt because he thought Roosevelt was not able to see through his ploy and was too idealistic in believing that post-war, countries would behave civilly.

The British lost a part of their empire to the Japanese in South East Asia, together with that a huge number of men (British and soldiers of the Commonwealth), materiel, and even the Prince of Wales. Yet Asia got just but a cursory treatment in the book. I do not think this is a deliberate omission on the part of Sir Hastings, rather I think it reflected the actual sentiments prevailing in Britain then. The enemies were at the gates of the home islands, and even though they did not manage to break through, the British suffered years of uncertainty, deprivation, humiliation, and endured many nights of German bombing. The war almost bankrupt the country and the people were weary, how would some faraway land matter? Sadly, if they prevailed over the Germans, they surrendered their initiatives in the colonies. It would be hard, if not impossible, to hold on to them when most British no longer wish to anyway.

It is hard not to like Sir Winston Churchill. People who worked for him had sometimes been harshly treated, but even they grew to like him. Although we can point to his rather unenlightened attitude towards imperialism, his magnanimity towards the vanquished (and even the French), his unselfish fight for the Poles, alone against Stalin, was really moving. Unfortunately, recognition of his tremendous qualities as a war leader does not automatically confer him another term as prime minister in a parliamentarian system. In his case it was not even because his party could not field enough good MPs to win over their constituencies, the electorate had comprehensively rejected him sensing his lack of interest in running the country as a peace-time prime minister.

At the end of the book Churchill was in the wild, very much alone, like how he was shown on the cover of the Vintage edition. Sir Alan Brooke wrote: ' It was a relief to get Winston home safely...I honestly believe that he would really have liked to be killed on the front at this moment of success." I do not know how to feel about this, there was a part of me that felt that this might just be the most fitting way and time to go. But then, how could I?

(Find this Book at Goodreads)