14 JUNE 1957, Page 23

Marching on Moscow

'Rutz One of War,' FM Montgomery is apt to say, 'Don't march on Moscow.' The author of this book, as is fitting for an ex-Staff College instructor, agrees with him. His thesis is that Russia is impermeable to invasion; whatever the technical superiority of invaders from the West t,heY will sooner or later find themselves worn down nY the immense natural defensive strength of the Russian lands. It is not a theory one is inclined s.eriously to dispute, and Colonel Jackson argues 9 It with due Camberley pertinacity and logic. Only one invasion of Russia has been per- manently successful, that of Rurik the Viking in 862. Militarily Rurik was successful because he advanced down the .great rivers instead of across them; politically the Viking occupation became permanent because it enlisted the co-operation of the native Slav population and increased their prosperity. Hitler and Napoleon, by contrast, made little or no attempt. to win the sympathy of the Russian population. In Hitler's case a ruthless attitude towards the Russians was an act of deliberate policy—it was, after all, his aim to found a colonial empire for all people of Nordic stock by colonising Russia and particularly the Ukraine. 'The territories of Russia will be for us what India was for England: It was a policy of unbelievable folly; for the Russians were quite prepared to welcome the Germans as liberators, and were only forced by Rosenberg's racial policy into a position of uncompromising hostility to the invaders.

The author writes history in the Cambridge, not the Oxford, manner. There are 120 diagrams and maps. Not a tactical or logistical trick is missed in either of Napoleon's, Hindenburg's or Hitler's Russian campaigns. The book is a master- piece of sound, accurate analysis. It does not, however, bring the campaigns to life.

For the author is a sapper, trained to deal with things and only incidentally with people. He does not, I believe, either care or mind much about human reactions; to him the interest of war lies in the assembly of masses of men and equipment in accordance with carefully thought out and co- ordinated plans. An infantry soldier reacts (or should react) quite differently; his stock-in-trade is leadership and personal relations. How, for example, did individual German soldiers feel about their High Command when called upon to face the rigours of the 1941 winter without any cold-weather clothing of any sort? What did individual French soldiers think and write during the Retreat in 1812? Did they lose confidence in the Emperor, and, if so, when? This book does not try to answer such questions.

This limitation apart, this is a valuable book. The English is admirably clear and the lessons of each campaign are plain for all to see. The Viking Road, which provides the constructive services which the Russian people want, and for which they themselves have asked, is the only lasting