I am currently watching The History Channel’s excellent series, Global View. The subject of tonight’s episode: WWII’s Eastern Front. The consensus amongst the panel seems to be that WWII in Europe was fought and decided on the Eastern Front.

I beg to differ. To make a chess analogy: The Eastern Front was a battle of knights and pawns, the Western Front, bishops and rooks, with Germany bringing out her queen in the Ardennes, and then having her captured.

And, of course, we cannot discount the fact that Eisenhower stopped at the Elbe, to allow Zhukov to take Berlin. (Nor must we discount the fact that this decision wasn’t entirely political.)

If you look at gross carnage, of course the Eastern Front is the greater. But, if you look at overall war-making capacity, I think the Western Front takes the fore.

All this aside, this is still a great show. Of particular interest is the virtual civil war among factions in Ukraine and Romania.