Forgotten Victory – Review
Many people tend to assume that the Second World War, at least in the west, was pretty much over after D-Day. Germany was on the run and it was just a matter of the Allies mopping up a defeated enemy.
The truth is that there was a lot that happened between D-Day and VE Day. Germany still had a powerful army, and while their defeat might have been the most likely outcome, there was always a question of how long they could hold out and how much damage they could do.
Another myth is that it was just the Americans and the British that pushed the Germans back across the Rhine. The Canadians were very much involved in these battles. while the Canadians are primarily known for the liberation of the Netherlands, there was much more that was done.
Forgotten Victory by Mark Zuehlke covers these battles from the events of Operation Market Garden to the final push through the Rhineland. These were hard going battles. Not only did they face a determined German army, they had to fight in terrible weather conditions, both cold and mud.
Very often the Second World War is contrasted with the First World War and its strategy of just throwing more troops into battle and accepting huge losses for small gains. What Zuehlke describes here comes very close to the First World War style of combat.
What I like about Zuehlke is that he covers both the headquarters perspective, such as the tensions between Eisenhower, Bradley, Montgomery and Crerar, but also the stories on the ground. He draws from regimental histories and shares the names of privates and corporals as they give their lives for that next town.
I found Forgotten Victory to include more of the American involvement than some of his other books. This is the time of the Battle of the Bulge, which the Canadians were not involved in, but were affected by and reacting to. Everything in that area of Europe was interconnected and Zuehlke brings it together nicely.
If you are interested in military history, especially from a Canadian perspective, I hight recommend Forgotten Victory.
