The majority of the civilian soldiers of the Western democracies, by contrast, just wanted to survive and return to normal life as soon as possible. That also meant that American and British generals had to eschew the dashing aggression of their Russian and German counterparts, who could squander lives with impunity. Thanks to the bloodbath in Russia, where the Wermacht was broken and nine out of ten German soldiers who died in the war met their end, they could permit themselves to be more cautious.

相比之下，西方民主国家的民兵大都只想保住性命，尽快回归正常生活。这也意味着英美两军的将军不得不避开那些为了不受惩罚而不顾生死的好斗的俄国和德国士兵。幸好德国国防军在俄罗斯的大屠杀中被击溃，十个德国士兵中有九个牺牲，他们才能表现的这么谨慎。

Mr Hastings excessively admires two German field-marshals: Gerd von Rundstedt and Eric von Manstein, whereas only Bill Slim and George Patton rise above the general mediocrity of Allied field commanders. Luckily, the tactical virtuosity of the Germans and Japanese was more than matched by their strategic incompetence in declaring war against Russia and America. Less hubristic and more informed leaders would have realised that both countries had the manpower and industrial resources to prevail in a war of attrition.

马克斯·哈斯丁极为敬重两位德国陆军元帅：格特·冯·伦德施泰特（Gerd von Rundstedt）和埃里克·冯·曼施坦因（Eric von Manstein），相比之下他认为盟军的将领中却只有比尔·斯里姆（Bill Slim）和乔治·巴顿（George Patton）非泛泛之辈。所幸，德日两国的战略水平远低于其战术素养，对美苏宣战在战略上筑成了大错。更谦逊、见识更为广博的将领会意识到俄美两国都有足够的人力物力打赢一场消耗战。

Close connections

密切关联

Overall, however, Mr Hastings does an admirable job of weaving together deeply personal stories with great events and high strategy. This raises the question of whether another book covering essentially the same ground is necessary. The answer depends on what the reader is looking for. Mr Beevor, who is known for using the sometimes unbearably moving diaries and letters of ordinary soldiers to shed new light on old battles, is otherwise less generous than Mr Hastings in the space he gives to primary sources. He has written what is in many ways a more conventional military history. But where he is good, he is very good.

不过总体上，马克斯·哈斯丁在将人物故事、重大事件与高层决策编纂成书方面十分出色。这就让人有以下疑问：是否有必要再出另一本题材一样的书。答案取决于读者的诉求。众所周知，安东尼·比弗用了普通士兵的日记和书信（其中一些十分感人）重新诠释过往的战役，但他引用的第一手资料却比马克斯·哈斯丁少。在很多方面他的书都更像一本传统的军事史。但在他所擅长的方面，简直一流。

Mr Beevor is full of insight about the connections between things—he sets out “to understand how the whole complex jigsaw fits together”. Thus the relatively little-known Battle of Khalkhin-Gol, in which Japan’s plans to grab Soviet territory from its base in Manchuria were undone in the summer of 1939 by the Red Army’s greatest and most ruthless general, Georgi Zhukov, had profound consequences. The Japanese “strike south” party prevailed over the “strike northers”, ensuring that Stalin would not have to fight a war on two fronts when the Germans launched Operation Barbarossa in 1941. Mr Beevor decries the rebarbative “Bomber” Harris’s attempt to win the war by bringing death and destruction to every major German city as a moral and strategic failure. But he also points out that by forcing the Nazis to move squadrons of Luftwaffe fighters from Russia to defend the Fatherland, Harris’s campaign allowed the Soviet air force to establish vital air supremacy.

安东尼·比弗对于事物之间的联系有很多想法——现在他打算解读“整个复杂的二战是如何进行的”。在他眼里，比较少人知道的诺门坎战役对整个二战有着深远的影响。日军计划利用这场战役以满洲为据点夺取苏联的领土，但却在1939年夏天被苏联红军中最伟大、最无情的将军朱可夫（Georgi Zhukov）破坏了。日军的“南进派”压倒了“北进派”，确保了在1941年德国进行巴巴罗萨计划时斯大林不必同时在两条前线开战。在安东尼·比弗笔下，讨人厌的“炸弹”哈里斯试图通过轰炸所有德国主要城市以赢得战争的做法是道德上和战略上的失误。但他也指出，哈里斯的轰炸迫使纳粹将大批空中战斗机调离俄罗斯以保卫本土，让苏联空军夺取了至关重要的制空权。

Mr Beevor also has a surer hand than Mr Hastings in describing how the great land battles of the war unfolded. Although his judgments are less waspishly entertaining than his rival’s, they are also more measured. He is notably more generous about Britain’s contribution to defeating Hitler, which Mr Hastings at times appears to think was mainly confined to the code-breaking centre at Bletchley Park and, after defeating the Luftwaffe in 1940, providing an “unsinkable aircraft-carrier” for the build-up of American military power.

与马克斯·哈斯丁相比，安东尼·比弗对大型陆地战如何展开的描述更能令人信服。尽管他的观点没他对手的那么尖刻，但却也更有分寸。尤其是谈及英国在打败希特勒方面所作的贡献时，他更加宽容；而马克斯·哈斯丁却似乎一再认为英国的功劳不过是建立了布莱切利园的密码破译中心，以及在1940年打败纳粹空军后为美军发展空军力量提供了一艘“不会沉没的航空母舰”。