Quotes from Antony Beevor

It was a gathering which Soviet troops could not fail to miss.

Sé practico: regala un ataúd

This passivity was entirely contrary to the Prussian tradition, which regarded inactivity, waiting for orders and failing to think for yourself as unforgivable in a commander.

Everything he said was right,' the lieutenant replied. 'But don't forget one thing. When a war of two world outlooks is going on, it is impossible to persuade enemy soldiers by throwing words across the front lines.

The brigade fought to the end with great courage, winning the admiration of the Germans. But the continuing failure of British commanders to counter-attack in force from the west was one of the least impressive examples of generalship in the war.

Eden was hardly an impartial observer of the conflict. He is supposed to have told the French foreign minister, Delbos, that England preferred a rebel victory to a republican victory. He professed an admiration for the self-proclaimed fascist Calvo Sotelo, who had been murdered.

Paulus faced what Strecker called 'the most difficult question of conscience for every soldier: whether to disobey his superior's orders in order to handle the situation as he deems best'. Officers who disliked the regime and despised the GRÖFAZ ('Greatest Commander of All Time'), as they privately referred to the Führer, hoped that Paulus would oppose this madness and trigger a reaction throughout the army.

Struck by the limitless horizon and expanse of sky, and perhaps also influenced by the sight of vehicles swaying crazily in and out of potholes like ships in a heavy swell, the more imaginative saw the steppe as an uncharted sea. General Strecker described it in a letter as 'an ocean that might drown the invader'.

Many historians, with an 'if only' approach to the British defeat, have focused so much on different aspects of Operation Market Garden which went wrong that they have tended to overlook the central element. It was quite simply a very bad plan right from the start and right from the top. Every other problem stemmed from that.

Napoleon had said on the eve of his invasion in 1812: 'Avant deux mois, la Russie me demandera la paix.

evidently heard about a young mother. She was being raped continuously in a farm shed. Her relatives came to the shed and asked the soldiers to allow her a break to breast-feed the baby because it would not stop crying. All this was taking place next to a headquarters

The hour of courage has struck on the clock …', ran Anna Akhmatova's poem at that moment when the very existence of Russia appeared to be in mortal danger.

Its first major task had been the liquidation of over 4,000 Polish officers in the forest at Katyn.

Alliances are complicated enough in victory, but in defeat they are bound to produce the worst recriminations imaginable.

The surgeon-general of the US Army estimated that American front-line forces suffered a 10 per cent rate of psychiatric breakdown.

The ultimate paradox of the liberal Republic represented by its government was that it did not dare defend itself from its own army by giving weapons to the workers who had elected it.

On 18 January, determined to repair fences, Churchill made a speech in the House of Commons to emphasize that 'the United States troops have done almost all the fighting and have suffered almost all the losses . . . Care must be taken in telling our proud tale not to claim for the British Army an undue share of what is undoubtedly the greatest American battle of the war and will, I believe, be regarded as an ever famous American victory.

Not surprisingly, American officers regarded their British counter parts as 'too polite' and lacking a necessary ruthlessness, especially when it came to sacking incompetent commanders. Churchill

I saw then that he had lost touch with reality. He lived in a fantasy world of maps and flags.' For Behr, who had been an enthusiastic and 'nationalistic young German officer', the revelation came as a shock. 'It was the end of all my illusions about Hitler. I was convinced that we would now lose the war.

The smell of roasted flesh permeated the air for hours afterwards with the stench of oily-black smoke from the blazing vehicles . Gräbner's body was never identified among all the other carbonized corpses.

The United States ambassador, William Bullitt, was so trusted by the French administration that he was temporarily made mayor and asked to negotiate the surrender of the capital to the Germans.

Operation Typhoon.

A Dutchman stepped out of his house and asked two British Soldiers if they would like a cup of tea. A little further back along the route they had come, the bodies of British paratroopers lay 'everywhere, many of them behind trees or poles', Albert Horstman of the Arnhem underground recorded. He then saw 'a man about middle-aged, who wore a hat. This man went to every dead soldier, lifted his hat and stood in silence for a few seconds.

His policy of aggression was stated clearly on the very first page. Yet even though every German couple had to purchase a copy on marriage, few seem to have taken his bellicose predictions seriously.