Once more unto the bridge
Sir Antony Beevor, arguably Britain’s finest military historian, has long been able to operate a winning formula without becoming formulaic. His books are deservedly famous for dogged scholarship, an addictive narrative and a fearless approach to reappraising self-serving myths and puffed-up reputations. His latest work, Arnhem, continues the winning form. Not least of his achievements is simply finding more to say about one of World War II’s most analysed — not to say mythologised — disasters. Operation Market Garden was a British-led airborne attempt to create a back door into the Reich, by capturing bridges in the German-occupied Netherlands. This resulted in British paratroopers reaching the bridge at Arnhem — and being defeated after a ferocious battle.
Although this epic was splendidly covered by Cornelius Ryan almost 50 years ago in A Bridge Too Far, Beevor has made great (and properly-acknowledged) use of Ryan’s unused sources in addition to new information from Allied, German and Dutch archives. The photos (many previously unpublished) and maps are an essay in clarity themselves.
As befits British military history, there are moments of Goonish humour (such as the paratroopers’ war-cry “Whoa Mahomet!” — who would believe this Egyptian shopkeepers’ lament could bring such a chill to German spines?). But these moments are rare in a narrative brimming with horror and pathos, as close as any reader should want to get to the reality of war.
When Beevor butchers a sacred cow, it stays butchered. The lionised British commander Bernard Montgomery comes across as a conceited blimp, who was fine when he stuck to his slow and meticulous knitting but who had no business conducting an operation requiring Germanstyle speed and flexibility (although Beevor makes it plain that Market Garden was fundamentally unwinnable, whoever was in command).
For Beevor, the greatest heroes are the Dutch people. Their bravery, stoicism and forgiveness of Allied failure shine throughout the book. What is too often overlooked is that the battle of Arnhem was a brilliant German victory. It was, for the Dutch and all of Europe’s terrorised peoples, thankfully the last one.