Crossroads of Modern Warfare, A Book Review

Crossroads of Modern Warfare: Sixteen Twentieth-Century battles that Shaped Contemporary History, By Drew Middleton, Doubleday Publishing, 1983, 320 pages, Maps, Index, Hardcover.

Drew Middleton is a career newspaper reporter, and at the time this book was published, the military analyst for the respected New York Times. Also a witness to history as he was in France during the 1940 invasion and present shortly after some the battles he describes in his book.

As the sub-title implies, Middleton has selected 16 battles fought during the last century as being those that had the most impact upon our modern history. Each battle is covered in a discrete chapter of its own, in chronological order. One from the Russo-Japanese war, three from WWI, seven from WWII, one from Korea, three from the conflicts in Vietnam and one from the Arab-Israeli wars.

The term "Battles" is something of a misnomer here by the author. Most are indeed discrete battles, a few are really whole campaigns and the final chapter is essentially the entire Yom Kippur War.

Normally, this the place where I dissect the high and low lights of the book in order to justify my recommendation, but sadly in this instance there is very little point.

A book is a investment in time, money, and that sometimes most restrictive resource, shelf space. Because this is the case I take a recommendation seriously and I just can not give one for this book. It is not badly written by any means, and though somewhat dated now, for its intended purpose it is not too far off the mark for accuracy. Its unredeemable flaw is that it has been overtaken by technology.

When I purchased this book back in the mid 1980's there was very much a place for its format. Chapter length thumbnail description's of great battles that gave the reader a basic understanding of the who, what, why and when of these battles and acted as a jumping off point for the reader to select the areas that they decided needed closer inspection.

Today we have the Internet.


BR-XXXV

 

So what you're saying is, is that there is no place today for the non-academic publication, because such generic reading material on a subject can be cobbled together from various internet sources of dubious origin and minimal if any editting, leaving the neophyte in a wasteland of opinion and fallowing in a mire of propaganda and counter-claim?

 

By no means.

Had I reviewed this book solely upon content, structure and readability my opinion would have been the same if not worse. I found the chapters on WWII tedious as they are no different from what I have seen on Wikipedia. The others only get a mild endorsement because they are less well known to me. As for opinion and propaganda the author offers plenty of his own, repeatedly offering his personal opinion (some of it questionable) on various person's and acts.

His selection of "worthy" battles is questionable in a few cases and those he considered not to make the muster, are telling. There is no narrative linking the battles into any coherent whole and his criteria for inclusion is inconsistent at best. Nor does the fact he left out at least the last 17 years of the century (Afghanistan, Falklands, Bosnia, Gulf War I) give it much cache as a definitive examination of 20th century warfare.

While some of the Internet might fit your description of a "wasteland of opinion and a mire of propaganda and counter claim", there are plenty of places (like our own little piece of the 'net) that can give a neophyte a good solid foundation for further research.

Of course if you are tired of the wasteland and mire, tap that little power button and it will all go away.

 

No Salutes left today, but you got a LoL from me If that is any consolation.

Now it's starting to read a bit more like a book review, than an endorsement of the web.

 

Well to stop me looking on the internet...I do love a good book...ever tried swatting flies with a Kindle..not the same...What battles does he cover mate..

 

Chapter One: Tsushima. No quibble here, a great battle.

Chapter Two: The Marne, 1914. Certainly important, but a Campaign really as presented in the book.

Chapter Three: Jutland, Big yes, but it offered no new technology and was essentially a one off battle between ships that was almost obsolete. Even if Germany "won" the battle at best they still would have been bottled up in the north sea unless they somehow sank 2/3'rds of the RN (highly unlikely and not the plan anyway, just to sink a few ships and to lower the tonnage imbalance).

Chapter Four: Cambrai , Introduction of tanks, so worthy.

Left out Verdun, Tannenberg (or any eastern/southern front battle), Last German offensive (Introduction of Stoss Truppen tactics a key component of Blitzkreig).

Chapter Five: France 1940, Again a campaign rather than a specific battle.

Chapter Six: Battle of Britain, No problem here.

Chapter Seven/Eight/Nine: Midway, Stalingrad and El Alamein. All worthy, except the 1st battle of El Alamein was ignored and should have gotten credit with the Second in Chapter Nine.

Chapter Ten: Imphal-Kohima, Here I have a problem as the author calls this the "greatest land defeat of the IJA" which ignores Okinawa (higher Japanese losses) and the crushing of the Kwantung Army by the Soviet Union.

Chapter Eleven: Nomandy, nuff said

Left out, Battle of the Atlantic, Guadalcanal, Kursk, Okinawa (guaranteed the use of the Atomics)

Chapter Twelve: Chongchon, Vital but again presented as a campaign.

Chapter Thirteen: Dien Bien Phu, worthy.

Chapter Fourteen: Tet, worthy.

Chapter Fifteen: "The Battle of the Bridges", American Attacks on Vietnamese bridges with the first generation of smart bombs.

Chapter Sixteen: The Yom Kippur War.

 

If you limit the format at 16 you have to make choices, from the title his criteia is political consequences not military innovation, but then he makes some pretty strange choices from that perspective.

For long term consequences the Brusilov offensive in WW1 and Pilsudski's victory at Warsaw overshadow Jutland by far.

In ww2 I have no quibbles with the French campaign, BoB and Stalingrad, but would pick the siege of Tobruk or Crusader over El Alamein as the German "high point" West.
Midway is ok though after going through Shattered sword, Miracle at Midway, The First Team , etc. I would probably skip it, but Malaya/Singapore had a much greater impact towards the huge change that was the end of colonialism that followed WW2 than Imphal-Kohima that could not restore the perception of white superiority that was crucial to colonialism.

Dien Bien Phu and Tet are good choices but adding a third Vietnam battle with the campaign on the bridges is ridiculous from book balance perspective.

IMO the 1956 and 1967 and campaigns were both more important than Yom Kippur that just confirmed a stalemate.

I actually like that format, there are some very good reads that use it like Archer Jones's the art of war in the western world, or J.C. Fuller's monumental the decisive battles of the western world, though both have a lot more battles than 16. What makes me suspicious in the description of that book is the lack of focus, you must choose a thread and stick to it, like tactical evolutions (Jones) , political consequences (Fuller), effects of leadership, or whatever you think may work, mixing criteria is not a great idea. The artful execution of the thread theme is what makes the difference between a great read and just another collection of essays on different battles. Currently have a book on medieval battles by Andrea Frediani that uses that format in my pile and it's a nice read, having the same author write on different battles gives a nice consistency.

 

Agreed, his criteria is flexible so I suspect that these are battles that interest him more than their if they were truly epic in scope. Deep down I am left with the impression he was just filling a book contract or writing something 'easy' to get it out of the way.

 

"shaped contemporary history" is a rather broad stroke.

But in that context, I'd have personally included "the Suez Crisis", which, definitely showed that Britain was no longer great, and provoked a crisis in England.

In fact, many of the battles listed I find strange in that context, as I don't feel that they have left any indelible mark in "contemporary history" at the time. I suppose it might be because of my own personal interpretation of that, as to be something that affected people deeply at the time.

Jutland, in that context, is easier to understand its inclusion, and makes Verdun and Tannenberg definitely stand out as missing, and I don't think Cambrai is particularly noteworthy contemporaneously to the events of the day.

I also would like a nod to the great conflict in the middle east throughout the entire 1980's: The Iran-Iraq War; perhaps looking at the Battle of the Marshes.

Perhaps the actual Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

But it seems like the author has really very much focused on Western battles, and not really interested in what people contemporaneous with the events considered "historic".