Prit Buttar, Meat Grinder (Osprey, 2024)
Most readers familiar with the Eastern Front in WWII recognise the catastrophes of Stalingrad, Leningrad, and Kursk. But in this noteworthy narrative history, Prit Buttar takes us into the Rzhev Salient, an otherwise unremarkable place that will be remembered for being among the worst of the worst European battlefields.
Buttar works his way from the broad invasion front in June 1941 and the German thrust towards Moscow to the creation of the Rzhev Salient in the wake of their rebuff. This was a miserable land by any measure, a place of dark forests and dank swamps that favoured the defensive. But as far as Stalin was concerned, the salient pointed at Moscow and had to be eliminated, while Hitler refused to countenance retreat. Given their rigid demands, it was a recipe for savagery and slaughter on an awesome scale. Buttar narrates the Soviets battering the salient relentlessly, with the Germans counter-attacking whenever ground was lost. Along the way he describes, among other factors, the role of intelligence, the plight of civilians caught in the maelstrom, the problems of fighting in extreme weather conditions, the misfiring Soviet airborne operation, partisan warfare, cavalry operations, and the problems of logistics and command and control. Ultimately, the Soviets failed to erase the salient; it would be the Germans that chose to leave to cover other problems on the Eastern Front. The butcher’s bill was fearsome, with Soviet casualties at over 200,000 and the Germans around 45,000. Buttar concludes with chapters on the lessons learned and then unlearned on both sides and the mostly Soviet historiography of the battle that does not quite fit the evidence, for understandable reasons.
Meat Grinder is an outstanding example of modern military history. Buttar is an accomplished story-teller who seamlessly weaves his analysis into the narrative. He handles his sources particularly well wisely penetrating the cloud of propaganda to explore the realities of the battle as it unfolded. Moreover, while most of the narrative is at the operational level, Buttar does not lose sight of the men on the ground doing the fighting, incorporating many examples of deadly combat endured by ordinary soldiers. This is the Eastern Front, though, and probably fought on unfamiliar territory for many readers who might want to keep a detailed map of the region handy to follow along. That quibble aside, Buttar’s book is highly recommended for anyone interested in understanding the Eastern Front.
