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Nomonhan, 1939: The Red Army's Victory That Shaped World War II, by Stuart D. Goldman
Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2013. Pp. xiv, 226. Illus., maps, notes, biblio., index. $19.95 paper. ISBN: 159114339X.
A
new comprehensive account of what was arguably the most important battle of the
Pacific War, the Soviet victory over the Japanese at Nomonhan (May-September
1939).
Nomonhan
took place in an ill-defined stretch of borderland between Mongolia and
Manchuria. After months of offensive movements
and skirmishing by the Japanese, on August 20, 1939, Georgy Zhukov unleashed a
massive Red Army, which gave the Imperial Army a salutary lesson in Soviet
military power. Despite the fact that it
culminated in one of the largest and most decisive battles between the world
wars, the campaign went almost unnoticed at the time and was largely forgotten
afterwards, due in equal measure to paranoid Soviet censorship and deep Japanese
embarrassment.
Building
on Alvin Coox’s pioneering work on the subject more than three decades ago, and
with far greater access to Soviet documents, Dr. Goldman (National Council for Eurasian and East European Research) opens
by fitting the culminating battle , the final and largest phase of a protracted
Japanese-Soviet border war, into its political and strategic framework. He then discusses the physical setting and
military preparations. A detailed
account of the campaign follows, in which Goldman looks at the personalities
involved, most notably the brilliant young Red Army general Zhukov. Goldman then looks at how the operation,
known to the Russians as “Khalkhin Gol,” affected global political and
strategic affairs. The most notable
result of Nomonhan was that the crushing defeat convinced the Japanese to give
up, at least for the time being, the idea of going to war with the Soviets,
leading them into the Pacific War. In
addition, Nomonhan helped pave the way for the Nazi-Soviet pact. Militarily, the battle proved the
effectiveness of Soviet operational art,
though not until Moscow in December of 1941 did the Germans begin to
notice.
A
very valuable read for anyone with an interest in the Second World War.
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Reviewer: A. A. Nofi, Review Editor
Buy It At Amazon.com
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