Patton’s desire to continue heading east after Germany’s surrender would have cost lives in the short run but in the long run would have had enormous benefits...worldwide!
Patton was far from perfect but I think he was basically an even better general than generally recognized. He studied war from his earliest days.
Both his Grandfathers were Confederate Generals. One a Colonel and one a General. Patton’s family moved to California after the war and Patton was raised in regular contact with John Mosby, probably the greatest guerilla leader ever.
Many years ago, I saw an interview with a German General who was in prison in England. He said the best allied generals were Patton and Montgomery.
How strange is it he dies just as WW2 ends, mere months after the Japanese surrender.
I’ve often wondered what the post-war would would have looked like if Patton had been around long enough to play a real part.
He certainly had his failings, but he did clearly see the communist threat for what it was. The western world’s blindness, and the willful action of traitors and fifth-columnists in western civilizations, both contributed greatly to the length and the overall bloodiness of the cold war.
Without such a high degree of acquiescence from the west, not to mention the aid and comfort of communist agents and ideologues in western nations, how many millions of lives could have been saved across the world during those years? The fact of the matter is the west was very good at throwing small nations under the communist bus in the decades following the second world war. There are plenty of mass graves out there that attest to the power of western blindness, so I wonder what would have happened if we’d had a few powerful, insightful, respected public figures take up the banner and press the fight against communism while most of the world was busy handing countries over to the Red leviathan.
“The bilious bastards who write that stuff for the Saturday Evening Post don’t know any more about real battle than they do about f-—ing.”
Victor Davis HAnson has it right. PC foolishness 50 years before its time....
He knew how to deal with Mexican Villistas. He killed them and strapped their bodies to his car much to General Pershing’s surprise.
He killed them in what was basically an old West style gun fight. Patton was the better shot and carved two notches in the grip of his Colt Peacemaker.
Ike was becoming a politician when he started to play politics with Patton.