In a conflict characterized by blitzkrieg-style movement, the siege of Sevastopol in 1942 is a rare outlier. For eight months the forces of the German Eleventh Army sought to take the fortified city, which served as the main port for Soviet naval forces in the Black Sea. This the Germans did only after months of air and ground bombardment, followed by a bloody attritional battle more akin to the struggles of the First World War rather than the second one. In this book, Robert Forczyk provides a summary of the campaign that describes the commanders on both sides, the order of battle of the forces, and the developments that earned the Germans a debilitating victory.

As Forczyk notes, attacking Sevastopol was not even part of the original German plan to invade the Soviet Union. Focused on capturing Moscow, it was assumed that the Crimean Peninsula would be dealt with in one of the mop-up operations after Soviet forces west of the Dnepr River had been defeated. Occupying the peninsula became a priority soon after the start of the invasion, however, when Soviet bombers based out of the peninsula struck the Romanian oil refineries in Ploesti. Newly cognizant of the threat posed to the key source of oil for the German war machine, both Adolf Hitler and the Wehrmacht high command made capturing the Crimea before the onset of winter a priority.

To that end Erich von Manstein’s Eleventh Army was tasked with attacking the peninsula. While acknowledging his operational abilities, Forczyk is highly critical of the commander who is regarded today as the outstanding German general of the war, noting his aloofness from the men under his command and his postwar efforts to sanitize his wartime record. Forczyk notes in particular Manstein’s attempts to distance himself from his role in the “Final Solution,” spotlighting every example of his support for the Nazis’s genocidal policies towards the Jews. By contrast, his Soviet counterpart, Ivan Petrov, is not as well defined in the text by Forczyk, and is usually represented in the text only by the author’s negative judgments of his conduct of Sevastopol’s defense.

Here the limitations of Forczyk’s book are particularly apparent, as he never considers the degree to which Petrov’s decisions were shaped by the constraints of the siege. By contrast, the Germans operations are far better analyzed, and are the great strength of the book. As he demonstrates, the Germans faced almost as many constraints as did the Soviets. With the bulk of German forces committed to the attack on Moscow Manstein attempted to take Sevastopol in November 1941 by a coup de main, only to fall short. Both sides settled into a siege, with the Soviet high command confident that the Germans lacked the resources to reinforce their position and that any attack could be countered by Soviet forces nearby in the Kerch Peninsula. To address this Manstein launched an offensive on the peninsula in May 1942, achieving what Forczyk labels “one of the more astonishing victories of World War II” and leaving him free to assault Sevastopol unimpeded.

Nevertheless, Manstein was effectively on the clock, with many of the Luftwaffe units assigned to him due to be reassigned to support the upcoming summer offensive in the north. Redeploying his forces, he began his attack on June 2 with a five-day bombardment of Sevastopol’s defenses. Much of the attention given to the siege is because of the artillery employed, which included two massive 60-cm mortars and “Dora,” the largest rifled cannon ever used in combat. Forczyk is dismissive of such spectacular weaponry, however, pointing out their meager results especially considering the considerable resources required to deploy them. By contrast, the naval support for the siege was far more limited, which enabled the Soviets to sustain their forces in the city right up to the end, when a surprise German crossing at Severnaya Bay on June 29 triggered the final collapse of the Soviet defenses and the capture of the port by Axis forces.

In the end, the siege of Sevastopol proved a sideshow to the overall war, with Manstein’s costly triumph having little effect on its outcome. Nevertheless, the unusual nature of it and the noteworthy weapons used by the Germans have guaranteed it considerable attention both then and since. Forczyk’s book provides a good history of the siege, one that gives due acknowledgement to all of the factors involved (including the often-overshadowed role of the Romanian and Italian forces that participated) in describing its course and explaining the outcome. It is a fine account that should be the starting point for anyone interested in learning something about this dramatic battle of the Eastern Front. ( )

Disappointing - not as good as expected ( )