All Hell Let Loose, by Max Hastings. Published in hardback by Harper Press, priced £30.

THIS book’s purpose is revealed in its title – to describe what the globe’s greatest conflagration was like for those caught in its bloody path.

The Second World War books of Sir Max Hastings, acclaimed war correspondent, military historian and former national newspaper editor, tend to have names such as Apocalypse and Nemesis, reflecting the conflict’s dreadful impact.

His latest title, he says, is simply based on the pithy phrase many participants used to describe how they saw the events erupting around them.

The author’s purpose with this, his first general history of the war, as opposed to previous books focusing on specific periods or aspects of the conflict, is to explain what the experience was like for those taking part in it, from the horror of starving in besieged Leningrad to the upheaval for African soldiers recruited to fight for the British Empire in the distant jungles of Burma.

Both the story of the war and the personal testimonies of participants have proved well-trodden ground for writers recently; I have read two major general studies in the past year alone.

But Hastings, having honed his skills down the years in varied circumstances, covers the ground an awful lot better than most of his rivals, though the more detailed analysis of his previous books has had to be whittled down, simply because this time he has the whole six years of the global inferno to cover.

His account cleverly balances personal testimony with the “bigger picture”, so the story flows without becoming bogged in detail, reminiscence or the author’s own views; for example, moving from the individual tragedy of a seaman being lost in the Atlantic to the strategic dilemmas facing U-boat chiefs and the Allied navies with no discernible change of pace.

And readers hoping Hastings will expertly interpret the war for them will not be disappointed; he cuts through much mythology from these momentous years, making, for example, the intriguing point that Germany’s economics chief was warning Hitler the war could not be won as early as December 1941 – before many disasters that befell the Allies.

Whether as an introduction to the war’s history or an addition to an existing collection, this is a valuable contribution to our understanding of the Second World War.

Six Weeks, by John Lewis-Stempel. (Orion paperback £9.99, eBook £5.99)
Escape From Germany, by Neil Hanson. (Transworld hardback, £16.99

SOME people believe Britain’s involvement in the First World War was a deliberate conspiracy to trample the working classes underfoot.

If so, our ruling elite was even more incompetent than Blackadder Goes Forth suggested, because young officers – generally the sons of the upper strata – had one of the shortest average lifespans of all, the Six Weeks of John Lewis-Stempel’s title. Their sacrifice flowed from their assumed destiny as leaders; the first over the top and last to retreat. Lewis-Stempel reveals their moving personal stories, while suggesting it was their contribution that won the war.

If gentlemen were expected to show exemplary leadership at the front, they were also expected to make every effort to escape from captivity, as Neil Hanson reveals in his account of the biggest POW breakout of the war.

Yet, remarkably, gentlemen could go for a walk if they gave their word to return to the camp, and had orderlies to look after their needs, even while they were being mistreated by their captors.

Captivity was, as Hanson points out, much more dangerous for other ranks, who were literally worked to death in large numbers, so small wonder it was the officers who made escape attempts. The most spectacular of all, when nearly 30 men tunnelled out of the “escape-proof” Holzminden camp, is the centerpiece of his story.

These books reveal a world of sacrifice that is, though less than a century distant, also light years away from ours in terms of social attitudes.