DNF @ 42%

The Warsaw Uprising is one of those events of the Second World War which, though not forgotten, has been relegated in the pages of history. Accounts dealing with more direct military action are naturally the greater attraction for the general public.

This book, written by George Bruce in the 70s and recently reissued by Sapere Books, is a minor course correction, having come at a time when censorship was in force and Poland still a Soviet satellite state.

Unfortunately, I personally found it rather bland in its depiction of events. Another factor where the book was found wanting was the manner in which Bruce often dumped his research, not taking time or pages to space it out, step it out, let it breathe. There was just far too much to process in very little time, distracting one from the book so they could look up a who's who on Wikipedia. For a book described as a decent starting point for those keen on the events it depicts, this was a major, and ultimately unsurpassable, hurdle.

I'd like to thank Sapere Books and NetGalley for the ARC of this book they gave me.

When Hitler's troops marched into Poland on 1st September 1.939 the Second World War began. The Polish nation would suffer more than any allied power during the conflict. Faced with age-old enemies on both sides, the Poles had to fight Nazi Germany and lived in fear of Communist Russia. From beginning to end it was a bloodbath for them.
When the Home Army try to reclaim Warsaw the result is a massacre. Himmler has ordered the killing of every man, woman and child in the city. Gradually the terrible tragedy of the 63 days of the Warsaw Rising unfolds.
The author takes us day by day, almost hour by hour, through the destruction and death in a stark reminder that in war there are no winners, only losers.

Before his death in 2005 George Bruce had built a reputation as an eminently readable popular historian, and I'm very pleased to see Sapere Books have recently brought a couple of his works back into print. Here Bruce guides us step-by-step from Germany and Russia's invasion of Poland in '39, through the Polish efforts to build a Home Army strong enough to fight to her oppressors, to the dramatic, and of course tragic, story of the Uprising itself. Bruce had been criticized in the past for being too journalistic in his historical works, putting narrative before historical rigour, but here he is thorough. This is a fine exposition of an event that should rightfully remembered as a key episode in WW2. As Bruce puts it, the Uprising marked the moment when "a beautiful and attractive city had become a giant and terrifying death-trap." Up to 200,000 civilians were killed during the Uprising and the entire city of Warsaw was reduced to rubble as Hitler had ordered. However, the book does conclude with some hope as Bruce details the passion and dedication the Polish people had for rebuilding their capital, leaving us with the beautiful vibrant city that stands today. (The book would be perfect reading material for any travellers planning to visit Warsaw's extraordinary museum dedicated to the Uprising.)

Recent years have seen historians such as Roger Moorhouse and Halik Kochanski have success with works focussed on Poland's experience during WW2 (Moorhouse with his First to Fight, Kochanski with her The Eagle Unbowed respectively) and this new printing of Bruce's The Warsaw Uprising would make a fine companion to such works on any shelf. Not be missed by WW2 enthusiasts, or those interested in Polish history more generally.

Almost 50 years after its original publication this classic story of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising and its bloody aftermath still stands as a gripping account of a painful event at the end of WWII.
While some might find this book somewhat outdated (especially since Alexandra Richie published her masterful Warsaw 1944 in 2013) it still manages to give a clear picture of the doomed Polish resistance attempt against the German military forces during the late summer and early fall of 1944. Of course, by the late 60s early 70s, it must have been very difficult for George Bruce to have had access to much information from the Soviet Union especially when one takes into account how scorned & denigrated the uprising was at the time by Stalin.
Unfortunately this tragic episode still remains somewhat blurry in Western Europe today. June-October 1944 was a momentous period on the Western Front and that seemed to have pushed any attempt to revolt against the Germans on the Eastern Front to the background in the West. It's still today difficult to find a comprehensive history of the uprising written originally in French.
George Bruce does a wonderful job explaining step by step all the mechanisms behind the insurrection and why by the end the insurgents were overwhelmed and unable to keep their hard fought gains, why the Soviets remained aloof and finally how the German brutal crackdown was one of the most horrendous ever in European history

Many thanks to Netgalley & Sapere Books for the opportunity to read this wonderful book prior to its release date & to Sapere Books for the publication of this hard to find monograph