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Pendulum of War: Three Battles at El Alamein by: Niall Barr

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Publisher: Pimlico
Release date: 4th August, 2005
Media: Paperback

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Average rating -

Rating: - Good book

Nice mix of 'human' and 'military' aspects of these battles. I was especially pleased to see more on the first two battles, but even the October battle was much better explained than usual.

Rating: - An unbiassed history

The truth of what really happened in the desert is confused by Montgomery's hyperbole and sometimes plain downright lies. This sets the record straight and also illuminates Churchill's disastrous meddling in military matters. One can only thank God that Allanbrooke managed to control his romantic adventures. The treatment of Auchinleck was appalling.

Rating: - An Outstanding Book

I have read several books on the Alamein battles in the past, but this is without question the finest.
Most authors concentrate not only on the fighting, but on the controversy surrounding Auchinleck and Montgomery, and almost invariably take sides, supporting one general or the other. Sometimes an author will try to avoid this by concentrating on personal stories and experiences, leaving aside the big picture.
Niall Barr has done neither of these. He has sought to tell the story of an army and its coming of age in the cauldron of battle. The Eighth Army is his central character here and he concentrates on telling the story of the battles and how the army developed and responded through those challenges.
In doing this he does of course touch on the generals and their controversies, and the officers and men, and their stories. However, his narrative is clear and impartial, and the reader will be shown the strengths and weaknesses of all parties, including the Germans, with a clear logic and impartiality. It was this which impressed me most.
Additionally, he goes into great detail about the various components of Eighth Army - infantry, armour, artillery, engineers, armoured recovery teams etc - and details their roles and development in clear and interesting detail. Their responses to technical and tactical challenges are detailed and explained, and the reader can see the faults of the army going into these battles and understand the incremental development and improvements made to turn the army into a true fighting machine. At the end of this book I understood far more than before about the army's inner workings, and such detailed matters as techniques of mine lifting, artillery barrages, infantry tactics and amoured warfare.
The authors clear and lucid dispassionate style explains the Eighth Army struggles at Alamein far better than any previous book I have read. This is a book I would recommend to both the newcomer and the expert, and I can only hope that we will see more of the same from Mr Barr.

Rating: - An Outstanding Book

I have read several books on the subject of the battle of Alamein, and this is probably the best. It has a simple straightforward narrative style, with a compelling story. The author deals with the usual controversies with a clear and fair approach, and is clearly non partisan, highlighting strengths and weaknesses for all the generals concerned, and succesfully navigating the reader onto the salient points of the time.
He goes into considerable detail in describing such matters as minefield clearance; inter arms co-operation, and problems; infantry, armour, and artillery tactics, and their development in the desert, in a way that no other book on this topic that I have read has done. I certainly came away from this feeling I understood far more than before I started.
The tone and language is clear and unemotional, and focuses on what the author believes to be the salient facts. Although time and analysis is devoted to the generals and thier subsequent squabbles, this book is not written from the point of view of the generals. Nor is it a soldiers story, in the sense of including lots of personal accounts and experiences. Rather this is the story of an Army, the 8th Army, and it's coming of age in a crucial period and through the trial of three major battles. It covers all it's components and support arms, plus the impressive contributions made by the Air Force and Navy. But primarily this is the story of 8th Army, it's development and experiences, it's training and the painful lessons it learned in the crucible of battle.
I would heartily recommend this to anyone wanting to read an impartial and logical book on the Alamein campaign.

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