Disaster at D-Day: The Germans Defeat the Allies, June 1944 by Peter Tsouras. Greenhill Books/Lionel Leventhal Ltd. (http://www.greenhillbooks.com), Park House, 1 Russell Gardens, London NW11 9NN. Distributed in the United States by Stackpole Books (http://www.stackpolebooks.com), 5067 Ritter Road, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania 17055, 2004 (reprint of 1994 edition), 256 pages, $19.95 (softcover).
Obviously, this is nonsense. We all know that the Allies landed on 6 June 1944 and swept inevitably and irreversibly through Europe, pushing German forces all the way to Berlin. Well, not exactly Berlin—there was a political decision that stopped the Americans short of the German capital—but the Allies won. Didn’t they?
Of course they did. But not inevitably. That’s the point of Peter Tsouras’ interestingly presented alternative history. The narrowest of margins separated success from failure on Omaha Beach, and as Omaha went, so went the landings. A stroke of luck here, an error of judgment there, and suddenly the Allies were revisiting Dunkirk or Gallipoli rather than slogging inexorably through France and on to Germany.
What if the German high command had let Rommel have his requested extra Panzers on Omaha to back up the extra infantry that really were there and missed by Allied planners? What if Rommel were there at that critical point of the battle instead of back in Germany? Both events could have happened had decisions not gone otherwise. They are legitimate what-ifs, not just idle speculation.
Incorporating these and other choices rejected at the time, Tsouras develops his detailed account of D-day. Small initial changes trickle down, generate more change, moving the war in significantly different directions from what history records.
The story is full of heroism, blood, and gore. It’s nasty business all around. It’s war. It’s D-day. Tsouras hasn’t sacrificed any of the historical bloodiness, tragedy, and farce for his intellectual exercise, his lesson about war. Moreover, Tsouras keeps the excitement of an oft-told story, almost as a sleight-of-hand maneuver to divert attention from his tinkering with history.
For those interested in the construction of the alternate history, Tsouras itemizes the pivot points that take D-day from history to his story. He even adds fictitious footnotes and historical photos with nonhistorical captions to lend authenticity.
This work succeeds on a couple of levels. As alternate history, it’s well put together, with the proper blend of fact and fiction and a good logical consistency. One can read it as an interesting and sophisticated what-if exercise or as an exciting and dramatically presented fiction. Either way, the book is fine. The important level is the second, the lessons learned. Without hammering a message into his reader’s head, Tsouras makes clear the iffy-ness of war, the criticality of chance, in this most serious of human endeavors. All who engage in humanity’s most perilous enterprise, war, should keep in mind how narrow are the differences between success and failure—and how costly even success can be.
John H. Barnhill
Tinker AFB, Oklahoma
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.
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