Crete 1941: The Battle and the Resistance

this is one of Antony Beevor’s first world war 2 history books, coming long before “Stalingrad”, arguably the gold standard of contemporary WW2 history. while that work was flawless, wide-ranging, and highly detailed while being easily accessible, this one is significantly less so.

This book, as another reviewer clearly points out, is highly British-centric. Even in books like “Stalingrad” Beevor managed to maintain a narrative that saw actual snippets of dialogue from the likes of Hitler and Stalin (as recorded in diaries and journals from people there) which managed to remain relevant to the story and to a sort of “character building” that better frames the historical figures to better understand them.

This book starts off with a long and winding story that seems to go absolutely nowhere, about a ragtag group of British adventurers dicking about in Greece and Crete prior to the German invasion, including lots of gushing over John Pendlebury, an archaeologist depicted in a quite literal Indiana Jones adventure style, and who ends up ignominiously killed on like the first day’s battle in Crete. I haven’t finished the book yet, but almost 200 pages in, this “adventure” portion of the prologue has proven to be completely irrelevant to the actual campaign thus far. So much is devoted to these people and yet I could not even tell you any of their names here and now, aside from one of them who was apparently the brother of Ian Fleming, the guy who wrote the James Bond novels.

This book is not easily accessible the way Beevor’s other works are, as there is a constant fixation on highly British-centric things which, me as an American, go completely over my head. For example, the concept of Freyburg, a native New Zealander, being considered as “British” and not a real New Zealander by the troops prior to his taking command. There seems to be a level of cultural dissonance with Freyburg which is heavily indicated at many points, yet never truly explained. There’s not even context clues for people like me to understand beyond the stereotypical “Former colony dislikes its imperial suzerain”.

Another issue is the frequent use of obscure English phrases and random French words and phrases which go far beyond the easily translatable snippets in some of his later works like D-Day and the Ardennes Offensive, and which have absolutely no context clues for us to even figure out what is implied by certain phrases.

Unlike his later books, there is very little insight into the German side of the campaign. We’re essentially seeing the entire battle unfold from a British point of view, with frequent distinctions between various British battalions and regiments, including specifications of which battalions are Welch, which are Australian, which are New Zealander, which are Maori, etcetera, while the German forces essentially amount to just paratroopers, and the Mountain Regiments. So many British names are thrown at you, sometimes with absolutely no indication as to what their command even is, that they just start to blur and merge together, and you end up being jolted out of the narrative and left confused when one of the names pops up later on seemingly out of nowhere, somehow in command of a regiment you’d been reading about for the past 30 pages yet never seen their name until that point.

Another problem with the book is a tendency for Beevor to constantly step over his own narrative, in a rush to assure of us the results of certain events, or to fixate on certain characterizations. This isn’t a mystery novel so we’re expected to know how the Battle of Crete ends up, but there’s just so many instances long before the narrative of the battle unfolds that is telling us basically “This sets the stage for the British defeat” or “This allowed the Germans to avoid catastrophe on day 5”. He’s done stuff like this in some of his other books, but never to this significant a degree. He comes upon a certain regiment and its commander and bounces ahead 2 or 3 days to tell us their fate and how it relates to their position on the night in question, and how the lack of wireless sets led to etcetera which caused etcetera and thus could have prevented the Germans from reinforcing. As well, he seems to be constantly stepping out of the role of historian and defending Freyburg, citing snippets from official New Zealand histories as well as from Freyburg’s son’s writings and other sources. It gets to a point where you start to think that Beevor genuinely wants Freyburg to be a solid, competent commander led astray by some of his own foibles (such as being too soft-hearted to sack an incompetent officer) but which otherwise doesn’t detract from him as a commander. Oftentimes we get these sorts of defenses in a way that calls to mind the theater adage “show, don’t tell” in reverse, in that we are told of certain attributes of Freyburg in his defense which end up not coming up at all in the narrative. It would make sense to bring up the fact that a certain general/commander’s failings in one battle don’t reflect their true capability as depicted throughout a campaign or a war, but we don’t even get any examples either in the battle or in other battles to provide us a frame of reference. You’d think Freyburg was a family relative of Beevor’s.

I had almost taken a bit of offence when a history professor I had once disparaged military historians as being rather narrow in scope, and almost not quite historians so much as highly educated alternate history “what if?” types. It’s natural, and rather fun, to play a bit of “what if?” even in the midst of a straightforward military history book. But Beevor does it so much here, it almost plays that aforementioned trope true. He steps out of his role in narrating history to give flat out authoritative judgments on certain military decisions, absolutely assured that “If Freyburg had done X, the airfield would have been fully covered and the Germans would’ve been completely defeated”. Some decisions from underlings are treated with the tone of incredulity, with Beevor finding Hargest’s suggestion that the Germans had taken Maleme airfield in order to land planes so as to withdraw (as opposed to landing more troops and supplies) somehow inexplicable and shocking in its lack of justification. And yet there’s no additional evidence to support it being unjustifiable or flat-out stupid. We’re only told via Beevor’s choice of words that it’s a stupid thought and a stupid decision.

While later Beevor books managed to properly capture a sense of battles without getting overly technical or deep into things like gun calibers, bullet quality, etcetera, here there is very little of even that. We don’t even get a Unit Size appendix to remind us how big a Battalion is versus a Regiment, and we get constant battle sequences of just “Xnd Battalion, X/Xst Battalion, and the Xth Regiment were thrown into fierce battle against the paratroopers. Heavy casualties were sustained on both sides.” You get no sense of scale in terms of the army sizes, the types of battlefield (rather stunning given how insistent Beevor was in describing the Bocages of Normandy in his D-Day book and how drastically that affected the campaign), or even the types of weapons used. At one point there is described a sudden surprise attack by a group of Greek irregulars and Cretan peasants, including women and children, that breaks and routs a group of German soldiers engaged with the British. We’re not told anything other than that. Were some of the peasants and irregulars killed by the Germans before they broke and ran? Did the Germans have mostly rifles or did they have submachine guns and grenades? Did some of the British accidentally shoot some of the Irregulars? Did the British have mostly rifles or did they have submachine guns and grenades?

All these are the sorts of details Antony Beevor puts in his later works but which are painfully absent here, making for some extremely dry battle sequences that provide no sense of scale, scope, or direction (the maps are extremely limited and don’t show troop movements) so most of the time when they describe an attack on a certain location like Hill 107, we have no idea what direction the attack is coming from, or where a certain area, such as the Prison Valley, is located relative to another location which may not be on the same map as the first location.

It still manages to be a compelling and informative narrative despite all its flaws, but it’s very clear this work was not as thoroughly refined and well put together as his later works.

A good history, but essentially overwhelming focused on the British & Greek side. Lots of details about British, Dominion, and Greek resistance activities & people, far fewer about German activities and even less about German personalities. Sometimes almost exhaustive detail on British officers. Almost as if the German side is only mentioned to explain what the other side did. Also very little description of non-military life on the island during the war, and practically nothing about how Cretan society beyond the resistance coped with the war. Also conspicuously little detail of what the Italian and towards the end of the war American detachment on the island did – or wdid the American detachment did hardly anything. Was it, perhaps, mainly to have a bargaining chip when after the war its spoils were divided?

This book left me with a lot of burning questions: why did one German commanding general try to be as pleasant as he could with the Cretans while his successor was a butcher? On what reasoning did the German high command appoint these generals with their wildly different philosophy. The German invasion would have failed had it not been for a German pilot who defied orders and flew in desperately needed supplies and ammunition. Do the German histories reveal what happened to him? Was he perhaps Austrian, as the Austrian army used to decorate soldiers who saw that their orders made little sense, and acted against them, provided of course, that it worked outmainly philosophy.

In the last pages of the book, the author mentions the killing of a German army doctor who in his spare time had treated as many Cretans as he could, whom the Cretans had loved. No mention if there were other such doctors, and how they had or hadn’t effected the resistance to the German occupation. After the war, the victors get to write history, but it seems to me that good historiography would be a little less obvious in leaving unanswered questions.

A much better book would have been possible.

Normally anything by Antony Beevor gets five stars from me but this early work by the author is not particularly engaging. The battle, occupation, and resistance of Crete is a fairly small campaign in the larger landscape of WWII. The Brits were convinced the Germans were going to invade the island by sea rather than the massive Airborne assault masterminded by Gen Kurt Student. Even as unprepared as the British were they and the fierce Cretan populace inflicted severe casualties on the Nazi Fallschirmjagers all but ending Hitler’s enthusiasm for future parachute operations. There’s a lot of interesting stuff here; the British SOE special ops guys and their casual bravery; the valorous Cretan resistance fighters; and the beleagured German occupiers are worth study. It’s all a bit dry however and the numerous tongue-twisting Greek names will try the patience of some readers.

Antony Beevor’s “Stalingrad” is almost legendary – extremely well researched, and written. Also, he takes an objective point of view, not favouring a side. Here lies the problem I have with “Crete 1941” – he takes sides with the Allies too much.
Don’t get me wrong – the last thing I’d want would be for him to sympathize with Nazi Germany! However, many other authors of military history (like the late John Keegan) have demonstrated that a certain level of objectivity can be retained, although one lives in a former Allied country, and despises the Nazis, which every sensible person should. However, when Beevor describes the death of a German paratrooper like that of an animal, while Commonwealth soldiers die with dignity, I think he’s lost his perspective.
Every reader should judge Beevor’s (otherwise very good) book by themselves, and I recommend reading it – but this flaw I’ve mentioned is something that made it less enjoyable for me.

a depressing read but well written. how did we win the war ?

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