Many historians view 1942 as the year that doomed the Axis. As the title of this study indicates, Robert Citino seeks to increase their number, although he insists that the Wehrmacht's demise was no foregone conclusion. Citino provides a detailed description of the major campaigns of 1942 from the German perspective, drawing readers' attention not only to the Wehrmacht's defeats at El Alamein and Stalingrad, but also to the less well-known yet impressive German victories earlier that year at Gazala and Tobruk in North Africa, at Kerch and Sevastopol in the Crimea, and at Kharkov. He convincingly shows that the Germans came much closer to achieving their strategic goals in 1942 than most realize, contending that, “The short distances, in some cases only hundreds of yards, that separated the Wehrmacht from its strategic objectives in Stalingrad, the Caucasus and North Africa should give anyone pause about treating 1942 as a foregone conclusion” (p. 13).

The author's main argument is that 1942 witnessed the last victories of a centuries-old “German way of war,” the title of one of his previous studies for which this work is a sequel. This Prussian-German method of warfare emphasized short, decisive campaigns, battles of maneuver, and delegation of authority to commanders on the battlefield—all to compensate for superior enemy numbers and resources. This tradition had worked well for the Germans since the seventeenth century, but collapsed when confronted with Russia's vast geographic expanse and the overwhelming material superiority of the Soviets and Anglo-Americans.

The study has many strengths. It is clearly organized, convincingly argued, and accessible to a general audience. The book is well edited, with few typographical errors. Citino's engaging style of writing brings his subject to life, for example referring to “constantly chattering teletypes bearing new orders” (p. 175) and how “enemy armies looked on calmly as the Wehrmacht went through its ornate repertoire of maneuver, then smashed it with overwhelming material superiority” (p. 304). The author includes fifteen maps, conveniently placed at relevant points in the text instead of at the end of the book; one minor annoyance is that the maps have no indication of scale or distance. Citino repeats his main points often, but they are worth repeating. His description of German victories early in 1942 draws attention to the important, yet often neglected, conquest of the Crimea and success in halting a Soviet assault at Kharkov just prior to the opening of the German summer offensive. In these actions, the Germans wiped out six Soviet armies and captured more than 500,000 men, demonstrating that they were capable of repeating the early successes of 1941. His account of the German thrust into the Caucasus, “the first war for oil” (p. 361), brings that relatively little-known campaign into focus.

Regarding operations in North Africa, Citino corrects some popular misconceptions. Although some authors have described the desert as ideal terrain for tanks, Citino argues that armored units were more tied to supply lines there than elsewhere. He also notes Rommel's “worshipful” attitude toward Hitler (p. 117) and a tendency to ignore logistics in a theater where this was perilous indeed. Rommel scored several notable tactical victories in North Africa, but achieved little strategically. Citino chastises Montgomery's critics who fault him for being overly cautious at El Alamein, maintaining that Montgomery's plan worked and was well suited to prevailing conditions.

There is much here for specialists as well. Citino points out that when the Germans assembled for their 1942 summer offensive in southern Russia, only twenty of the forty-one divisions delivered for the attack were German; the majority were Hungarian, Italian, and Romanian. Furthermore, had the Germans' attack into the Caucasus succeeded, they would have had to capture the Soviet Union's fifth and ninth largest cities, Baku and Tbilisi, respectively. Moreover, contrary to popular belief, on several occasions Army Chief of Staff Franz Halder and the General Staff sided with Hitler on the issue of whether Hitler or the commander in the field should direct Germany's battles.

A shortcoming of this work is its reliance upon published sources, although the author used several manuscripts from the German Report Series, prepared by German officers after the war for the U.S. Army. Nonetheless, Citino's extensive notes and comments provide a comprehensive review of the literature and key debates. Some might question his assertion that the Soviet attack at Stalingrad represented “the gravest blow suffered by the Wehrmacht during the entire war” (p. 289). The Russian offensive against Army Group Center in the summer of 1944 and the Vistula-Oder operation in early 1945 rank as greater catastrophes to Germany's ability to wage war.

Although 1942 was the year that saw the defeat of a centuries-old German way of war, it still was a close call. As Citino concludes, “In the end, the most shocking aspect of 1942 is not Hitler's own foolishness in splitting his armies. … It is how absurdly close the Wehrmacht came to taking not one, but all of its objectives for 1942: splitting the British empire in two at Suez and paving the way for a drive into the Middle East, seizing the Soviet Union's principal oil fields, its most productive farmland, and a major share of its industries” (p. 306). That the German Army proved unwilling or unable to change its traditional way of waging war played a major role in the death of the Wehrmacht. This thought-provoking analysis of Germany's campaigns in 1942 is highly recommended.