[转帖] [Book] [2012.06.09] Counting the cost 二战代价几何？

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The second world war
第二次世界大战

Counting the cost
二战代价几何？

Two British historians analyse the 20th century’s worst conflict
看两位英国历史学家如何剖析20世纪最严重的军事冲突

Jun 9th 2012 | from the print edition
086 Books and arts - The second world war.mp3 (4.1 MB, 下载次数: 291)


All Hell Let Loose: The World at War 1939-1945. By Max Hastings. HarperPress; 748 pages; ￡30. Buy from Amazon.co.uk

《人间地狱：1939-1945，战争中的世界》 作者：马克斯•哈斯丁，哈珀出版社，748页，30英镑，点击Amazon.co.uk购买。

The Second World War. By Antony Beevor. Little, Brown; 863 pages; $35. Weidenfeld & Nicolson; ￡25. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk

《第二次世界大战》 作者：安东尼•比弗，小布朗出版社，863页，35美元， Weidenfeld & Nicolson出版社，25英镑，点击 Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk购买。

HISTORY is full of wars that were bloodier than the second world war. As a proportion of the population, more people were killed during the An Lushan rebellion in eighth-century China, for example, or by the Thirty Years War in 17th-century central Europe. But the sheer magnitude of the human tragedy of the second world war puts it in a class of its own, and its relative closeness to the present day makes claims on the collective memory that more remote horrors cannot.

纵观人类历史，比第二次世界大战更血腥的战争比比皆是。例如，8世纪中国的安禄山叛乱或17世纪中欧的三十年战争死亡人数占总人口的比例就比二战大。然而，第二次世界大战本身就是一场巨大的人间惨剧，其他战争根本不能与之相提并论。而且，二战发生的年代相对较近，它给人类留下的集体记忆之深，是那些年代久远的恐怖战争无可比拟的。

The statistics of the war are almost mind-numbing. Estimates differ, but up to 70m people died as a direct consequence of the fighting between 1939 and 1945, about two-thirds of them non-combatants, making it in absolute terms the deadliest conflict ever. Nearly one in ten Germans died and 30% of their army. About 15m Chinese perished and 27m Soviets. Squeezed between two totalitarian neighbours, Poland lost 16% of its population, about half of them Jews who were part of Hitler’s final solution. On average, nearly 30,000 people were being killed every day.

有关二战的统计数据几乎让人麻木。各方估计的死亡人数有出入，但在这场1939-945年的战争中，直接死亡人数高达七千万，其中三分之二是非战斗死亡，这使二战成为人类历史上绝对死亡人数最多的战争。二战时期，每十个德国人中就有一个死亡，德军死亡率达30%；约有一千五百万中国人和两千七百万俄国人丧命。夹在两个极权主义国家之间的波兰人口减少了16%，其中约一半是犹太人，那是希特勒的“最终方案”要解决的部分目标。当时，每天平均有将近三万人死于非命。

Partly because it is so hard to grasp what these numbers mean, recent historians have tended to concentrate on particular theatres or aspects of the war with an emphasis on trying to describe what it was like for the human beings caught up in it. Both Antony Beevor and Max Hastings are distinguished exemplars of this approach. Mr Hastings has written books on Britain’s strategic bombing campaign, the Allied invasion of Normandy and the battles for Germany and Japan in the closing stages of the war. With several books already under his belt, Mr Beevor became known in 1998 for his epic account of the siege of Stalingrad, and went on to produce accounts of D-Day and the fall of Berlin. Now both writers have tried something different: single-volume narrative histories of the entire war. In doing so, they are following in the footsteps of Andrew Roberts and Michael Burleigh, who made similar attempts in, respectively, 2009 and 2010.

在一定程度上，人们很难明白这些数字意味着什么，所以最近的历史学家往往特别关注二战的某些战区或层面，致力于将亲身经历二战的人眼中的二战呈现给读者。安东尼•比弗（Antony Beevor）和马克斯•哈斯丁（Max Hastings）都是这方面的典范。马克斯•哈斯丁已著有多本作品，内容涉及英国的战略轰炸、盟军的诺曼底联合登陆以及战争末期德日两国的战役。安东尼•比弗同样也写了几本书。1998年，他笔下的围攻斯大林格勒令人印象深刻，他也因此著名，之后他又写了关于诺曼底登陆日及攻克柏林的书。现在两位作家已开始尝试不同的写作方式，即跟随安德卤•罗伯特（Andrew Roberts）和迈克•伯利（Michael Burleigh）的脚步：以单卷本的方式讲述整个二战史。这两位作家分别在2009年和2010年尝试用单卷本写二战史。

Mr Hastings got there before Mr Beevor. “All Hell Let Loose” was published seven months ago (it is now out in paperback) to justifiably rave reviews. Mr Hastings’s technique is to mine the written record of those who took part both actively and passively. His witnesses range from the men whose decisions sent millions to their deaths to the ordinary soldiers who carried out their orders and the civilian victims who found themselves on the receiving end. Cynicism and idealism, suffering and euphoria, courage and terror, brutalisation and sentimentality—all find expression through their own testimony. From the Burma Road to the Arctic convoys, the killing fields of Kursk and the London Blitz, their voices are heard. Mr Hastings’s achievement in organising this unwieldy mass of material into a narrative that sweeps confidently over every contested corner of the globe is impressive.

马克斯•哈斯丁的动作比安东尼•比弗快。七个月前，《人间地狱》一书出版（现在出了平装本），理所当然地引起了人们的热议。不论是那些积极参与还是被迫卷入二战的人，马克斯•哈斯丁都会搜集他们留下的文字资料，这是他的技巧。他的二战见证者包括下令杀死几百万人的人、执行其命令的普通士兵和默默承受苦难的平民，范围极广。犬儒主义与理想主义、苦难与愉快、勇气与恐惧、残暴不仁与多愁善感，以上种种都能在他们留下的文字里读到。从滇缅公路到北极行动、库尔斯克的杀戮战场再到伦敦的闪电战，现在世人已听到了他们的心声。马克斯•哈斯丁将这些浩如烟海的资料整理成了一部叙事体历史，几乎囊括二战时期地球上发生过战事的每一个角落，实在令人惊叹。

Less so are some of his judgments. Although delivered with verve and economy (Mr Hastings is, above all, an accomplished journalist), they are often unfair. For example, he argues that the decision by Britain and France to declare war because of the German attack on Poland was an act of cynicism because they knew they could do nothing to help the Poles. That was never in doubt, but the Allies hoped the stand against Germany’s naked aggression would persuade Hitler to step back from the brink of all-out war, a motive that was neither base nor ridiculous.

但相比之下他的一些观点则稍显逊色——措辞简洁，充满激情（毕竟他是个出色的记者），却大多有失偏颇。例如，他认为英法两国因德国闪击波兰而向其宣战是犬儒的表现，因为两国都深知自身无法援助波兰。这点历来毋庸置疑，但当时盟军希望通过采取立场反对德国赤裸裸的侵略行为，以迫使希特勒放弃全面发动战争，这个宣战动机绝不卑劣或荒唐。

Mr Hastings’s repeated admiration for the fighting qualities of German, Japanese and Soviet soldiers compared with British and American forces is especially trying. Germany and Japan were militarised societies that glorified war and conquest, held human life to be cheap and regarded obedience to the state as the highest virtue. Russian soldiers were inured to the harsh brutalities of Soviet rule and driven on by the knowledge that they were fighting “a war of annihilation” against an implacable enemy. If they wavered, they knew they would be shot by NKVD enforcers. More than 300,000 were killed pour encourager les autres..

马克斯•哈斯丁多次表示，相较于英军和美军，自己很欣赏德、日、苏军的作战水平。这个观点特别令人讨厌。德日两国都是军事化社会，崇尚征战，视人命如草芥，认为服从国家就是最高的美德。俄罗斯士兵已习惯了严格、无情的苏联纪律，是心怀正在和无法和解的敌人“打一场‘歼灭战’”的想法上战场的。他们知道，一旦退缩，自己就会被内务人民委员部的执行委员枪杀。超过30万人死于督战官以及其他（军纪人员）之手。

The majority of the civilian soldiers of the Western democracies, by contrast, just wanted to survive and return to normal life as soon as possible. That also meant that American and British generals had to eschew the dashing aggression of their Russian and German counterparts, who could squander lives with impunity. Thanks to the bloodbath in Russia, where the Wermacht was broken and nine out of ten German soldiers who died in the war met their end, they could permit themselves to be more cautious.

相比之下，西方民主国家的民兵大都只想保住性命，尽快回归正常生活。这也意味着英美两军的将军不得不避开那些为了不受惩罚而不顾生死的好斗的俄国和德国士兵。要不是德国国防军在俄罗斯的大屠杀中被击溃，十个德国士兵中有九个牺牲，他们可能得更加谨慎。

Mr Hastings excessively admires two German field-marshals: Gerd von Rundstedt and Eric von Manstein, whereas only Bill Slim and George Patton rise above the general mediocrity of Allied field commanders. Luckily, the tactical virtuosity of the Germans and Japanese was more than matched by their strategic incompetence in declaring war against Russia and America. Less hubristic and more informed leaders would have realised that both countries had the manpower and industrial resources to prevail in a war of attrition.

马克斯•哈斯丁极为敬重两位德国陆军元帅：格特•冯•伦德施泰特（Gerd von Rundstedt）和埃里克•冯•曼施坦因（Eric von Manstein），相比之下他认为盟军的将领中却只有比尔•斯里姆（Bill Slim）和乔治•巴顿（George Patton）非泛泛之辈。所幸，德日两国的战略水平远低于其战术素养，对美苏宣战在战略上筑成了大错。更谦逊、见识更为广博的将领会意识到俄美两国都有足够的人力物力打一场消耗战。

Close connections
密切关联

Overall, however, Mr Hastings does an admirable job of weaving together deeply personal stories with great events and high strategy. This raises the question of whether another book covering essentially the same ground is necessary. The answer depends on what the reader is looking for. Mr Beevor, who is known for using the sometimes unbearably moving diaries and letters of ordinary soldiers to shed new light on old battles, is otherwise less generous than Mr Hastings in the space he gives to primary sources. He has written what is in many ways a more conventional military history. But where he is good, he is very good.

不过总体上，马克斯•哈斯丁在将人物故事、重大事件与高层决策编纂成书方面十分出色。这就让人有以下疑问：是否有必要再出另一本题材一样的书。答案取决于读者的诉求。众所周知，安东尼•比弗用了普通士兵的日记和书信（其中一些十分感人）重新诠释过往的战役，但他引用的第一手资料却比马克斯•哈斯丁少。在很多方面他的书都更像一本传统的军事史。但在他所擅长的方面，简直一流。

Mr Beevor is full of insight about the connections between things—he sets out “to understand how the whole complex jigsaw fits together”. Thus the relatively little-known Battle of Khalkhin-Gol, in which Japan’s plans to grab Soviet territory from its base in Manchuria were undone in the summer of 1939 by the Red Army’s greatest and most ruthless general, Georgi Zhukov, had profound consequences. The Japanese “strike south” party prevailed over the “strike northers”, ensuring that Stalin would not have to fight a war on two fronts when the Germans launched Operation Barbarossa in 1941. Mr Beevor decries the rebarbative “Bomber” Harris’s attempt to win the war by bringing death and destruction to every major German city as a moral and strategic failure. But he also points out that by forcing the Nazis to move squadrons of Luftwaffe fighters from Russia to defend the Fatherland, Harris’s campaign allowed the Soviet air force to establish vital air supremacy.

安东尼•比弗对于事物之间的联系有很多想法——现在他打算解读“整个复杂的二战是如何进行的”。在他眼里，比较少人知道的诺门坎战役对整个二战有着深远的影响。日军计划利用这场战役从满洲的据点夺取苏联的领土，但却在1939年夏天被苏联红军中最伟大、最无情的将军朱可夫（Georgi Zhukov）破坏了。日军的“南进派”压倒了“北进派”，确保了在1941年德国进行巴巴罗萨计划时斯大林不必同时在两条前线开战。在安东尼•比弗笔下，讨人厌的“炸弹”哈里斯试图通过轰炸所有德国主要城市以赢得战争的做法是道德上和战略上的失误。但他也指出，哈里斯的轰炸迫使纳粹将大批空中战斗机调离俄罗斯以保卫本土，让俄罗斯空军夺取了制空权。

Mr Beevor also has a surer hand than Mr Hastings in describing how the great land battles of the war unfolded. Although his judgments are less waspishly entertaining than his rival’s, they are also more measured. He is notably more generous about Britain’s contribution to defeating Hitler, which Mr Hastings at times appears to think was mainly confined to the code-breaking centre at Bletchley Park and, after defeating the Luftwaffe in 1940, providing an “unsinkable aircraft-carrier” for the build-up of American military power.

与马克斯•哈斯丁相比，安东尼•比弗对大型陆地战如何展开的描述更能令人信服。尽管他的观点没他对手的那么尖刻，但却也更有分寸。尤其是谈及英国在打败希特勒方面所作的贡献时，他更加宽容；而马克斯•哈斯丁却似乎一再认为英国的功劳不过是建立了布莱切利园的密码破译中心，以及在1940年打败纳粹空军后为美军发展空军力量提供了一艘“不会沉没的航空母舰”。

Mr Beevor is keener than Mr Hastings on detailing the horror. He is particularly vivid in describing the barbarities that became commonplace during the carnage on the Eastern front. Frozen German corpses littering the battlefield were frequently missing their legs, not because they had been blown off, but because Red Army soldiers wanted their boots and could only pull them off after the legs had been defrosted over camp fires. Outside the besieged city of Leningrad, amputated limbs were stolen from field hospitals and bodies snatched from mass graves as a source of food. Within the city, 2,000 people were arrested for cannibalism. Those most at risk were children, who were eaten by their own parents.

安东尼•比弗也比马克斯•哈斯丁花了更多笔墨详细描述二战所带来的恐惧。他对士兵暴行的描述特别生动，后来这些暴行在东部战线的大屠杀中司空见惯。冻僵的德军尸体遍布战场，其中很多没有腿，但那不是被炸掉的，而是苏联红军想要德军的靴子，但不用火烤脱不下来。在被包围的列宁格勒外，战地医院中被截下来的腿被人偷走，尸体被人争相从乱葬岗中挖出来果腹。在列宁格勒，有2000人因吃人而被捕。受害者大多是被父母吃掉的小孩。

The cruelties perpetrated by the Japanese against civilians in China (Mr Beevor sees the Sino-Japanese conflict that began with the Nanking massacre in 1937 as the true opening chapter of the second world war) and any of the countries unfortunate enough to come within the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” were nearly as systematic as any of the crimes committed by the Nazis. Japanese commanders actively encouraged the dehumanisation of their troops in the belief it would make them more formidable. Prisoners were burned on huge pyres in their thousands and killing local people for meat was officially sanctioned.

日军在中国（安东尼•比弗视1937年南京大屠杀后开始的中日军事冲突为第二次世界大战的真正开端）以及其他不幸被他们纳入所谓“大东亚共荣圈”的国家对无辜平民犯下的暴行与德国纳粹的行径一样是有组织有系统的战争罪行。日军的司令积极鼓励士兵采取灭绝人性的行动，相信这样会使士兵更加勇猛。数千战俘在大柴堆上被焚致死，杀死本地人取其肉为食的行为也得到日本军方的认可。

Mr Beevor also gives more attention than Mr Hastings to the appalling acts of violence suffered by women when invading armies arrived. Again, it was the Japanese who set about mass-rape with methodical zeal. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese and Korean girls were press-ganged into becoming “comfort women”; 10,000 women were gang-raped after the fall of Hong Kong. But revenge-fuelled Red Army soldiers were little better. Soviet forces looting and pillaging their way through East Prussia on their way to Berlin raped around 2m women and girls.

同样，安东尼•比弗也比马克斯•哈斯丁更关注妇女在侵略军到来时所遭受的残忍对待。日军还犯下了大规模强奸妇女的罪行。成千上万的中国和韩国女孩被强征为“慰安妇”；在香港沦陷后有一万名妇女被轮奸。不过，为报仇而来的苏联红军也没好到哪去。苏联军队穿过东普鲁士前往柏林时，一路抢掠，还强奸了近两百万名妇女。

This is, however, a less satisfying book than Mr Beevor’s earlier, more focused works. There is an unevenness of quality. The author has a tremendous grasp of the things he has written about before, in particular the titanic struggle between Hitler and Stalin. But he is dutiful rather than exhilarating when dealing with some other passages and theatres of the war. The account of the campaign in north Africa plods, and American readers may be disappointed by his handling of the war in the Pacific. The battle of Midway, arguably the defining naval engagement between Japan and America, gets two pages. At other times, there is too much detail: a succession of generals, armies and battles come and go. Second world war anoraks and students of military history will get more of what they are looking for from Mr Beevor, but less committed readers will find Mr Hastings’s work easier to get to grips with and a better read. Is there room for both books? Absolutely.

不过这本书并不如安东尼•比弗之前的那些内容更为集中的著作，其作品的质量参差不齐。安东尼•比弗对他以前所写的主题钻研得十分透彻，尤其是希特勒和斯大林之间的剧烈争斗。不过在处理一些其他章节和战区时，他采取了忠实的态度，而没有去取悦读者。他描写北非战役的笔墨十分沉重，而美国读者可能会他所写的太平洋战争感到失望。被公认为日美两国战事转捩点的中途岛战役只占了两页的篇幅，一些其他内容的细节却太多：一连串的将领、军队和战役如走马灯似地出现。二战发烧友和学军事史的学生会在安东尼•比弗的书中找到更多他们想要的东西，但没那么狂热的读者会觉得马克斯•哈斯丁的书更容易理解，读起来更舒服。能不能两本一起看？当然没问题。

from the print edition | Books and arts