Max Werner

Werner (real name: Alexander Schifrin) had a reputation in the very late 1930s and 1940s as something of a military prognosticator. If he did have that reputation, it certainly wasn't from this book. In this book, Werner looks at the military strength of a number of countries, principally: England, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Japan and the United States. As befits a Left Book Club entry, the running theme of the book is Soviet military strength, and how it will tilt the balance, and how impressive it is. Werner, for example, quotes an analysis by Marshal Blucher as to Japan's strength. Realizing (or not) that Blucher had been beaten to death in prison as part of the Great Purge (the manuscript for the book, according to the translator's note, was finished in December, 1938 -- Blucher died in November, and Tukachevsky was executed in June, 1937). Absolutely remarkably, nowhere in the volume does Werner touch on the leadership cadres of the Red Army, and how the Great Purge decidedly affected it. For that matter, he focuses very heavily on numbers, but not on how the Red Army deployed the strength; in the opening days of Barbarossa in 1941, the Red Air Force was decimated, owing to poor leadership. This is by far the biggest flaw in the book. Also worthy of note is that Werner continued to believe, as of December, 1938, that it was possible that Poland might ally itself with Germany; a concept that had long been dead by that time. He does somewhat better with his analysis of Japan, especially pointing out the weaknesses in the motor transport and tank forces, which would bedevil the Japanese. Recommended, if only as an example of how cracked crystal balls can be, sometimes.… (meer)