Titans of History

Stalin used Zhukov as a troubleshooter, as the Germans thrust deep into Russia, taking millions of prisoners. When Minsk fell and Stalin almost lost his nerve, Zhukov—the toughest general in Russia—burst into tears. In July, after a row with Stalin, Zhukov was sacked as chief of staff. But he went on to command and save Moscow and Leningrad. In the latter, he bolstered the besieged city’s defenses so that the city did not fall. In Moscow, he took over the defenses as the Germans advanced. With the loss of one quarter of the 400,000 men at his disposal, Zhukov managed to halt the German blitzkrieg in the freezing winter of 1941, just saving the capital and driving the Germans back 200 miles (320km). It was a vital victory.

The next task was to organize the Soviet counter-attack in the most dreadful battle of the war—Stalingrad. Zhukov, along with Marshal Vasilevsky and Stalin himself, conceived of the plan to lure German forces into Stalingrad. With a million men, more than 13,000 guns, 1400 tanks and 1115 planes, Zhukov oversaw the encirclement of the German Sixth Army. The average life expectancy of a Soviet soldier brought into the long battle was little more than twenty-four hours, and around a million men from both sides were killed. But Stalingrad turned the tide of the war.

Promoted to marshal, Zhukov next led the Red Army to victory in the greatest tank battle ever fought, at Kursk in 1943. The Red Army pushed ever westward, into Poland and then into Germany itself, where the last great battle of the European war was fought through the streets of Berlin. Stalin typically took overall command of the Battle of Berlin himself, forcing the two commanders, Zhukov and Marshal Konev, to compete in the race to the Reichstag. In the early hours of May 1, 1945 Zhukov telephoned Stalin to inform him that Hitler was dead. The next day the city surrendered.

When the war was over, Zhukov was a national and international hero. The Soviet military rank and file idolized him, and Western generals thought extremely highly of him. Ironically, all this made him a political threat: Stalin had him accused of Bonapartist tendencies and demoted him, but he ensured Zhukov was not arrested.

After Stalin’s death in 1953, Zhukov was brought back to the center of Soviet politics as defense minister. He helped Nikita Khrushchev become Stalin’s heir by arresting Lavrenti Beria, the head of Stalin’s secret police, but he was independent and had a fractious relationship with the new leader. In 1957 he again supported Khrushchev, helping to defeat the old Stalinists, but afterward he was sacked, once more accused of Bonapartism.

Zhukov, who died in 1974, was tough and brutal and sometimes made costly mistakes. He believed in Stalinist methods and was arrogant about his own ability. But as Eisenhower was to put it, “no one did more to achieve victory in Europe than Marshal Zhukov”—he was undoubtedly the outstanding general of the Second World War. As his colleague Marshal Timoshenko noted, “Zhukov was the only person who feared no one. He was not afraid even of Stalin.” Ultimately, he represents native Russian military genius and now his statue on horseback stands just outside the Kremlin near Red Square.

CAPONE

1899–1947

You can get much further with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.

Al Capone

Al “Scarface” Capone epitomized the murderous American Mafia mobsters who ran their rackets with impunity during the Prohibition era. Ironically, despite his deep involvement in organized crime and murder, the only charge he was ever convicted of was income-tax evasion.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Alphonse “Al” Capone was the son of Gabriele Capone, an Italian barber who had arrived in America with his wife Teresina in 1894. Al embarked on his career in organized crime when he left school at just age fourteen, and fell under the influence of a gangster boss, Johnny “the Fox” Torrio. From there he graduated to the Five Points Gang in Manhattan. It was during this period that he was slashed in the face after a bar-room brawl, leaving him with the scar by which he would later be known. He was also suspected of involvement in two killings, though witnesses refused to come forward and nothing was ever proven.

Capone’s mentor Torrio had left New York for Chicago in 1909 to run a brothel racket. Ten years later he sent for his protégé, and it was probably Capone who was responsible for the murder in 1920 of Torrio’s boss, “Big Jim” Colosimo, with whom Torrio had fallen out. Torrio subsequently emerged as the undisputed kingpin of crime in the Windy City.