...remember major capital cities of Eastern Europe went through during and toward the end of World War II. Berlin, Vienna, and Warsaw suffered heavy and widespread destruction; Prague, thanks to circumstances and timing, escaped comparatively unscathed. Warsaw was almost one hundred percent destroyed. At Budapest the destruction was heavy, as "before and after" feature in the Illustrated London News reminded world opinion soon after the end of the war. Now, sixty years after events, in Ungvary's carefully researched and documented study of the siege of the Hungarian capital, we at last have a highly useful and, as it seems, reliable compte rendu of what took place.

Ungvary is a research fellow at the Institute for the History of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. His book, his doctoral dissertation at the Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest (see his Preface, xxvii), is a brilliant work of military and political history, written in meticulous detail and translated by a Hungarian with a good if not flawless command of English (Lob is an emeritus professor at the University of Sussex). Ungvary's Bibliography (433-455) is most impressive. In addition to the usual list of books and articles the author lists, under "Archival Material," sources at the Archive of Military History, Budapest; at the Federal Archive--Military Archive, Freiburg; at the National Szechenyi Library, Budapest; also private collections of writings, including, prominently, diaries of the siege, interviews, and letters. What Ungvary has pieced together, then, and written well, comes to a first book, one showing strong promise, indeed notable accomplishment.

How is it possible to write a careful, day-by-day, account of what transpired, preeminently of military operations, during those horrendous one hundred days? Ungvary adopts a dual, most admirable, method of carefully reconstructing events, of orienting the reader to the known facts and of maintaining, in the telling, political and emotional objectivity. To concentrate on the first-named aspect first: Ungvary's work is divided into six chapters and many sub-headings, treating the curious and brutal history of the siege, its preliminaries, and its aftermath. Following a thoughtful Foreword by the historian John Lukacs (xiii-xxiii) and a Preface (xxv-xxvii), we have: "1. Prelude" (1-47); "2. The Encirclement" (48-110); "3. The Siege, 26 December 1944-11 February 1945" (111-187); "4. Relief Attempts" (188-200); "5. The Break-Out" (201-256); and "6. The Siege and the Population" (257-373). An "Epilogue" (374-380) brings up the rear of a fascinating and highly complex account. Supporting materials to what may otherwise seem an excessively nominalistic narrative of military operations are to be found in a set of twenty tables (410-432) and in a number of carefully drawn military maps, scattered throughout the book (see "Maps and Map Key [specifying military units of various sizes, army through company]," x-xi). Fifty valuable photographs complement the account: of top military commanders, e.g., of Marshall Rodion Malinovsky, commander-in-chief of he 2nd Ukrainian Front, and colleagues (98); facing them, of Marshall Fedor Tolbukhin (99); of scenes of Budapest properly roughed up (169, 173, 273, 364); and of one affecting scene, "Soviet soldier feeding Hungarian children" (358). Note that of the six chapters, 3 and 6 are the longest; 6 is also the most complex. Here we are reminded that there were really two wars going on simultaneously: World War II itself, being mopped up, so to speak; and the war the fascist...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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