Contrary to a notion popular at the time—a notion which has never quite died—the Wehrmacht was not a giant solid phalanx of tanks and armored cars, spitting flame and death as it clanked through whole nations. Hitler had a horse-drawn army. It was larger than Napoleon’s, but mainly it advanced into Russia as the Grande Armée had, by animal power and the march of men’s feet. He also had some armored divisions, spaced on the flanks of the three big groups invading the Soviet Union. The blitzkrieg worked so: the armored forces, the panzers, chugged ahead on either side of each attack front,
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