Posted on 11/27/2009, 8:01:52 PM by neverdem
SIXTY-FIVE years ago, in November 1944, the war in Europe was at a stalemate. A resurgent Wehrmacht had halted the Allied armies along Germany’s borders after its headlong retreat across northern France following D-Day. From Holland to France, the front was static — yet thousands of Allied soldiers continued to die in futile battles to reach the Rhine River.
One Allied army, however, was still on the move. The Sixth Army Group reached the Rhine at Strasbourg, France, on Nov. 24, and its commander, Lt. Gen. Jacob L. Devers, looked across its muddy waters into Germany. His force, made up of the United States Seventh and French First Armies, 350,000 men, had landed Aug. 15 near Marseille — an invasion largely overlooked by history but regarded at the time as “the second D-Day” — and advanced through southern France to Strasbourg. No other Allied army had...
--snip--
Eisenhower was also a cautious, some would say indecisive, commander who favored a “broad front” strategy with all Allied armies moving in tandem on a solid front. His military objective was Germany’s main industrial area to the north, the Ruhr. Devers was operating too far south to help that effort.
True, the Germans knew the Ruhr was vital to them and fiercely defended it. But, as we know from several of their generals’ postwar memoirs, what they really feared was an incursion across the Rhine, which would have been a military catastrophe and a devastating symbolic blow to the German people.
The Rhine wasn’t crossed until March 1945. Had Eisenhower let Devers make his attack, we might now be celebrating the 65th anniversary of a cross-Rhine attack that quickly ended the war in Europe. Instead, we will soon mark the anniversary of the costliest battle in American history, the Battle of the Bulge.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Patton would have “scouted” across the river in force, and then taken up positions on the other side of the Rhine.
parsy, who has read some Patton
- the front was static — yet thousands of Allied soldiers continued to die in futile battles to reach the Rhine River.
War is never that simple. Think of all the men and material that got tied up there.
Plus the biggest problem wsa were do you concentrate the supplies that are vital for action?
The supply lines were so thinly stretched that there was really not a lot of options as can be guessed at now.
Patton should have been allowed to cut loose and win against the Germans and then go after the Sov. with rearmed Germans.
Monday-morning quarterbacking is so easy.
But Monty needed the gasoline so he could re-organize and run Market Garden.
parsy, who thinks in hindsight we blew it, just like at Anzio
Hate to bust a lot of bubbles, but Stalin was the only victor of WWII.
He started the war with Hitler to get half of Poland.
Instead, he couldn’t beleive his luck when he got ALL of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania half of Germany and got to keep the Baltics and pretty much the Balkans as well.
The most important battle of the war was lost by idiot FDR at Yalta.
Patton should have been given the gasoline to thrust forward, quickly, into Germany.
Would have saved 1,000,000 lives on all sides.
Ah, the military fiasco known as Market Garden. I’ve won it enough in BF1942 though. Monty is probably one the most overrated military minds of WWII. That isn’t to say he wasn’t intelligent and capable though.
Worth Repeating!
...............
Hate to bust a lot of bubbles, but Stalin was the only victor of WWII.
He started the war with Hitler to get half of Poland.
Instead, he couldn’t beleive his luck when he got ALL of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania half of Germany and got to keep the Baltics and pretty much the Balkans as well.
The most important battle of the war was lost by idiot FDR at Yalta.
.................
That is why there were several attempts on Pattons life.
Fuel supplies were the key issue. The real risk of a fast push like that would have been an over-stretched army with a narrow corridor for resupply.
Under the wrong circumstances, the German army could have turned their flank and cut them off from resupply over the Rhine. Once tanks have no gas, they are just static gun emplacements. Shermans needed to keep moving to have any chance against German armor.
Agree with that last line 100%
Hate to bust a lot of bubbles, but Stalin was the only victor of WWII.You are right, and yet that's only the tip of the iceberg. It's also true that Stalin is responsible for more deaths than Hitler (7,000,000 starvation deaths in the Ukraine alone) and yet he gets off scott-free in History, at least in History as taught by leftist faculty across America and the West.He started the war with Hitler to get half of Poland. Instead, he couldn’t beleive his luck when he got ALL of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania half of Germany and got to keep the Baltics and pretty much the Balkans as well.
The most important battle of the war was lost by idiot FDR at Yalta.
Operation Market Garden, 17-27 September 1944
Market Garden had already happened about two months prior to the 6th Army Group being told not to cross the Rhine.
Might that also be referred to an an "defense against flanking" strategy?
My WWII history is pretty lousy. As a kid I had a lot of the history down.
My comment was in response to Patton being cut short on fuel while he was on a roll. Not necessarily this particular situation. I recall from Patton’s book,(?) that he didn’t report when he captured german fuel, and did all kinds of things to keep his fuel supply coming.
parsy, who says it has been a few years since he read it
Especially when you're doing it 64 years after the fact.
I'll bet a lot of that "qb-ing" is done through the prism of today's technology: cell phones, GPS, satellites, etc.
You should see the looks I get when I tell folks that I did without TV during my 4 years in Germany (77-81). I lived 12 miles off base, ergo no AF Network. VCR's were just coming on line, but were very expensive.
Did a lot of reading, mixed many cassettes, and traversed the local area (Mosel River). There wasn't that much free time back in those days, though...60-70 hour weeks were the norm, more if we had field training/tac evals.
And that failure probably played on Ike's mind.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.