Posted on 09/12/2014 4:17:03 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
No doubt. But the question to be answered is whether Ike’s decision to give Monty the supplies and starve Brad/Patton was strictly a military call or more political. Or both.
It was late November before Antwerp was in operation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Scheldt
“Once the German defenders were no longer a threat, it was a further three weeks before the first ship carrying Allied supplies was able to unload in Antwerp (on November 29, 1944) due to the necessity of de-mining the harbours.”
It was only three weeks later that the Battle of the Bulge began and ruined Allied strategy altogether.
Terrible Victory: First Canadian Army and the Scheldt Estuary Campaign ...
By Mark Zuehlke
Looks like a good source
Browning did, however, as others have noted, get his "bridge too far" comment right.
Thanks.
Appears to be killing Jews for sake of killing them. Shows the Satanic and diabolical heart of Hitler and his Nazi regime.
bump
To me, it looks like Monty was like a nagging wife and Eisenhower, at least partially politically motivated in trying to keep the Allied effort unified, gave in.
From the excellent analysis I’ve read on these excellent threads, it appears that the key to Antwerp was clearing the marshes and delta area surrounding Antwerp. It appears that, at least in some respects, Ike and Monty overlooked that. Although this is 20-20 hindsight, I wonder if at least Eisenhower later acknowledged the need to clear the delta first was foreseeable and he blew that call.
It comes across to me that IF FIRST, the delta had been cleared, and SECOND, Antwerp was then commandeered as an Allied supply terminal, THEN THIRD, maybe Market-Garden might have worked.
In my mind the question is, would Monty’s own weaknesses and ego blind spots have screwed up the plan some other way. I know Monty was successful in North Africa, but he has seemed more like a squeaky wheel ever since.
I will probably address this some in my post-mortem, but can also do so now. I think there was a fundamental flaw in the American command set up that I would have addressed.
The Ardennes was a natural dividing point splitting the Allied front. Yet Bradley’s 12th Army Group straddled it with 1st and 9th Armies north and 3rd Army south. This led to cumbersome command, control and logistic arrangements. Marseilles was capable of supplying all of the Allied requirements south of the Ardennes while Antwerp could supply all forces north.
To me, the logical solution would have been to bring 9th Army on line when Antwerp was opened, and have Bradley’s 12th AG command those two formations north of the Ardennes and act in concert with Monty’s 21st AG operating toward north Germany. We had the 1st Allied Airborne Army, and it was going to be used somewhere. Might as well use it breaching the northern wing of the Siegfried line in a large set piece battle. Had the Scheldt Estuary been opened in late September or early October, the operation could have taken place in mid to late October, although weather may have been an issue for airborne operations. The idea is that the airborne troops drop close behind the front so that the ground units can reach them quickly. This is the sort of thing I would do better at illustrating on a map. (I really like maps.)
Meanwhile, south of the Ardennes, 6th AG comprises American 3rd and 7th Armies and makes a concerted push in Lorraine with the two Armies acting in concert. Instead, 6th AG was never really integrated into a comprehensive strategy, and 7th Army and 3rd Army never really worked together. A look at the map makes this appear an obvious arrangement. Why was it not done?
Much as I admired Ike, the blame here rests entirely on him and was for personal and not military reasons. Ike despised Devers, the 6th AG commander. Devers had ben a rival and contender for the SHAEF job. During the campaign in Western Europe, Devers was repeatedly treated as a red-headed step child. Bradley was very much Ike’s pet. So there was no way he would take Patton’s army from Bradley and give it to Devers. This showed plainly in an incident in November 1944, just after Devers had broken the German line and seized Strasbourg. Ike and Bradley came to visit Devers, and brought Patton along. Instead of being there to support the one success on the entire front, it became clear to Devers that Bradley and Patton were there to poach units from his command.
There is more to this situation than is widely known, but I believe that Ike’s personal animosity clouded his military sense, and resulted in a flawed command structure.
1. Thank you for your thoughtful and generous time-and-effort expenditure, again, in attempting to combat my woeful ignorance.
2. Seldom have events been so thoroughly scrutinized in retrospect as were WWII's command decisions. You'd think anticipating that would have kept the leaders from such folly, even in the absence of their own internal moral compass. But "All have sinned..."
3. It's certainly telling, and very much a shame, that these generals allowed such petty personal differences and agendae to ENDANGER HUMAN LIVES!!! Good thing we have a President currently who is above all that.
From the online excepts I read, that looks like a really interesting book, and one I’ll put on my library list. The one part that really stuck out was Ike’s order to Monty of September 12 (today) to place priority on clearing the Scheldt Estuary. However, Monty put it at the bottom of his agenda, and gave the job to Crerar’s 1st Canadian Army. He then told Crerar to put it on the bottom of his agenda, and clear Bologne, Dunkirk and Calais first. Monty thought he could pull off Market-Garden without Antwerp.
Monty disobeyed orders, and in pursuit of his own glory hampered the operations on the entire western front. And that cost how many lives? I think a good many British mothers might have reconsidered the prevailing British public opinion of Monty.
We can revisit this issue again in December during the Battle of the Bulge. It then becomes a military necessity to use the Ardennes as a dividing point in the line. Ike appoints Monty command of US 1st and 9th Armies to conduct operations on the northern half of the bulge, and Bradley becomes superfluous as he only commands Patton’s 3rd Army south of the Bulge. Devers is ordered to thin and lengthen his line to free troops for Patton’s counterstroke.
The obvious solution would have been to appoint Bradley to command 1st and 9th Armies in the north, and Devers to command 3rd and 7th Armies in the south.
But noooo.....
Imagine the flip side...if Hitler had tolerated Jews and therefore had 6 million Jews in a conscripted German Army fighting 4 million Soviet soldiers on the Eastern Front.
Germany deserved to lose.
“what should have been done instead”
Use the Navies as they had done successfully several other times. Land troops, etc. north of the Rhine between The Hague and Amsterdam. The Germans would not have expected another landing. You cannot tell from Google maps, but the coastline does not look any worse that Normandy.
Love the first column article. Hope we can repeat it this November. It unfortnately did not presage the upcoming election as per the axiom, “As Maine Goes” which is derived from the fact that Maine (and VT) use to hold its elections in September. From Wiki:
“”As Maine goes, so goes the nation” is a phrase that at one time was in wide currency in United States politics. The phrase described Maine’s reputation as a bellwether state for presidential elections. Specifically, Maine’s September election of a governor predicted the party outcome of the November presidential election in 19 out of the 26 presidential election years from 1832 to 1932, or 73 percent of the time. The accurate years were from 1832 (if not earlier) through 1844, in 1852, from 1860 through 1876, in 1888, from 1896 through 1908 and from 1920 through 1932.”
We have moved our elections to Novemember and now elect them to 4 years terms on the midterm cycle.
Landings at Normandy were in fairly close proximity to Britain. Where would the Allies have found either the troops or the transports for such northern landings?
Thanks.
Interesting analysis. I guess Ike was human after all.
Wow. I didn’t know that. I had read that Ike had ignored the Scheldt Estuary issue.
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