On September 26, 1942, Stalin named General A.M. Three Soviet fronts were involved in the Battle of Stalingrad: the Southwest Front, the Don Front, and Eremenko’s Stalin-grad Front. But, as Ipointed out, his book creates confusion about the command structure at Stalingrad because of deep flaws in his understanding of the battle and the winter campaign. Beevor is right that Eremenko had the official title of commander of the Stalingrad Front. Epstein says that he believes that military historians “should get their facts right.” I believe that this also applies to critics before they launch intemperate attacks. General Vasilevsky was the Stavka representative and supervisor of the front, as I too make clear. So does John Erickson, so does Samsonov, and so does every historian on the subject, to say nothing of the Stalingrad Front documents in TsAMO, the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense at Podolsk. Worst of all, he focuses his attack on “a careless error on page 321 in which Eremenko as ‘commander of the Stalingrad Front.”‘ Indeed I do. Epstein clearly has no idea of the size of the former Soviet military archives at Podolsk, otherwise he would not expect me to read up every detail on what was happening in the Vyazma-Rhzev sector as well as my own subject.

He still taxes me with not knowing the contents of David Glantz’s book, which was published over a year after Stalingrad in the United States and has not yet appeared here in the UK. Jason Epstein’s reply cannot be allowed to pass without comment.

Stalingrad by Antony Beevor