Matadors and picadors: the western relative contributions historiography of the second world war

Abstract

ABSTRACT

This thesis considers the validity of the dominant paradigm within what I have termed relative contributions historiography. This is a branch of the Western historiography of the Second World War which has focused on the respective contributions of the three major Allies - Britain, Russia and the United States - to Germany's defeat. As of 2020, this historiography is dominated by the judgements of Western historians that Russia's contribution to Germany's defeat was overwhelmingly decisive - and that the Western Allies' contributions were of subordinate importance.

This dominant Russian Primacy Paradigm has been challenged by the Equal Primacy and Western Allies' Primacy paradigms. The Equal Primacy Paradigm encompasses judgements that the Allies' contributions were essentially equal, and has also attracted significant support. There is only modest support among historians in 2020 for the Western Allies' Primacy Paradigm.

Since the 1980s, the dominance of the Russian Primacy Paradigm has been closely associated with the ascendancy of the German Combat Superiority Paradigm. Interpretations within this paradigm argue that the combat performance of the German Army ('the Heer') exceeded that of all the Allied armies throughout the war, especially the British Army. I argue that the ascendancy of both the Russian Primacy and German Combat Superiority paradigms reflected the geopolitical conditions of the Cold War. This ascendancy, and the emergence of significant challenges to both paradigms since the end of the Cold War, demonstrate the sensitivity of historical analysis to the contemporary circumstances in which historians work.

This thesis acknowledges the contributions that the Russian Primacy and German Combat Superiority paradigms have made to understanding of the Second World War. However, both paradigms fall short of a fully-balanced analysis of their subjects. The German Combat Superiority Paradigm does less than complete justice to the substantial improvement in the performance of all the Allied armies over the course of the war. This paradigm has also distracted from the major deficiencies that hampered the Heer's performance after June 1941. Most critically, this paradigm has distracted from the Allies' continuing strategic successes over Germany from 1942. The re-evaluations of the combatants' performances that have gained momentum since the 1990s have provided a much better-balanced presentation of this issue, and its relationship to the relative contributions question.

The thesis argues that there are significant problems with each of the three relative contributions paradigms - especially the over-dependence of the dominant Russian Primacy Paradigm on quantitative comparisons of the casualties that the Russians and the Western Allies inflicted on the Germans. The thesis further argues that an approach which recognises the synergies linking the Allies' efforts provides a better basis for understanding how Germany was defeated. The importance of these synergies is supported by the interactions between two coincident sets of campaigns - the Kursk and Sicilian campaigns in 1943 and the Normandy and Belorussian campaigns in 1944. The thesis further argues that understanding of the relative contributions question can be enhanced by a sharper focus on intangible issues. These include the impact of the Western Allies ventures on German strategic decision-making in both the West and Russia in 1943-44, and the convictions of the Allied peoples that their nations' causes were just. Show more