This book was very pleasant to read, as Robert Citino had done a great job in making the book readable even to a 16-year-old. A non-native English speaker like myself doesn’t have a problem understanding the book’s content clearly. Although I’ve read multiple World War Two books in the past.
Throughout the book, Robert Citino stayed true to the 1943 event, so that makes the book compact and a standard source of reference to that year of the war.
One of my deep observations in the book was that the author put less blame on Hitler for the losses of the Wehrmacht both on the Eastern Front and in North Africa in 1943. Rather, he balanced the mistakes made on both fronts between the traditional Wehrmacht officers and the Führer. Which was fair. Citino’s argument on this was that the high-ranking officers too enjoyed the wars and were willing to fight to the end.
Throughout the book, Robert Citino also failed to mention Heinrich Himmler even if it was just once, considering how important the Reichsführer SS was to the Third Reich. Apparently, Himmler wasn’t as important to the war effort as I had thought.
Other prominent German high-rankings that failed to surface in this book include:
- Ritter von Leeb
- Walther von Brauchitsch
- Fedor von Bock
- Joseph Goebbels
If I should be looking for other important figures that don’t make it to this book, I would find plenty, but that’s not necessary. Perhaps that’s one of the flaws of this book.
The author, in one of the last chapters of the book, writes that some historians claim that it was only superior firepower that the US Army brought to the Sicilian campaign. I think that’s just enough. But let’s say magically somehow, the Germans had a quarter of the firepower the US does; would they hesitate to use it to win the war? The answer is as clear as day.
I also have a quote that stands out to me in the book:
‘’It is an illusion to believe that one can work out a plan of campaign far in advance and then carry it through to the end. The first collision with the enemy’s main body and the outcome of that clash create a new situation.
To me, it means that your plan will shatter no matter how perfect you think it is, or it could be interpreted as “expect disappointment but never let that slow you down.”