Baghdad will be no Stalingrad, says historian Beevor

Saddam Hussein may hero-worship Joseph Stalin but he has little chance of repeating the Russian leader's success in Stalingrad by turning a siege of Baghdad into a decisive victory, the historian Antony Beevor believes.

As coalition forces continue to build outside the Iraqi capital and bombs rain down on the Republican Guard divisions defending it, comparisons are already being drawn with the historic turning point of the Second World War.

Almost exactly 60 years ago, Russian forces in Stalingrad, now known as Volgograd, withstood a five-month siege by better-equipped German troops and eventually broke out, encircled and routed them. Many view it as the defining moment of the war, which paved the way for eventual German defeat in Europe and the post-war dominance of Stalin and the Red Army. It still resonates in Russian culture.

To Saddam Hussein, said to admire the political and military skills of Stalin as well as to replicate his use of repression, the parallels must seem irresistible. But to coalition forces, a drawn-out siege is, with house-to-house fighting, the nightmare scenario, spelling disaster for Messrs Bush and Blair. Even the use of the word siege is rigorously avoided when coalition forces are talking of events at Basra, although that appears to be close to what is happening.

Mr Beevor, author of the definitive and much-lauded account of the siege, Stalingrad, said yesterday: "Saddam is obsessed by Stalin ... He would love to see Baghdad as a Stalingrad on the Tigris."

But to Mr Beevor, the chances of history repeating itself are slim. "Saddam is imitating Stalin ... but it does not appear the battle for Baghdad will follow the patterns of Stalingrad. There may be a brief siege, but it won't be a battle lasting five months. And there is no chance of the Republican Guard encircling the attackers in the way the Red Army encircled the Germans."

But the similarities are mounting. At Stalingrad, the Red Army turned fire on their own, killing an entire division to make their comrades fight. Saddam Hussein's militias are widely reported to have fired on their own people in Basra and are known to have, at the very least, intimidated conscripted soldiers to fight.

But Mr Beevor does not believe the comparisons go much further. "The Iraqi Army is most definitely not the Red Army. The regular Iraqi Army and the Republican Guards' training is ultra-conventional. All they can do is defend fixed positions."

He believes it would be "idiotic" to predict how long the conflict would last. "There are many dangers ahead," he said.

Sieges have not been part of recent conflicts fought by United States or British forces. The last time American forces fought a pitched battle for a city was in Hue, during the Tet Offensive in South Vietnam in 1968, when 142 marines died.