The defeat of Germany had been inevitable from the moment the United States had been forced into the war three years earlier. Once the breakout from the Normandy beachhead had been achieved and four Allied armies were in forward motion across France, that defeat clearly would not be long delayed. With that in mind, Churchill had begun concentrating with ever greater urgency on postwar prospects. He was profoundly concerned about the threat to Western interests that could be posed by a triumphant Soviet Union.
The Russians were well placed to seize and retain mastery in Eastern and Central Europe by virtue of the territory that was likely to fall to the Red Army in the months ahead, before Germany was finally crushed. Churchill believed that, properly supported, American and British forces in Italy would be able to accelerate their trek up the Italian peninsula despite stubborn enemy resistance, cross the Alps through the Ljubljana Gap, push into Austria, and estabish a presence in parts of the the Balkans before Stalin could take control of the entire region.
But Marshall was more than ever convinced that the Allies were stuck in "a blind alley" in Italy. And Eisenhower was now
Determined that the launching of Operation Anvil, the disputed invasion of southern France, should no longer be delayed. Three American divisions were being reassigned from the Italian campaign to take part in Anvil. Churchill was furious. He snarled that no one but himself appeared capable of seeing that the Russians were spreading across Europe like a tide.
That fearsome prospect was not the only factor provoking the prime minister's rage and influencing his strategic thinking. Britain's prestige was on the line. Eisenhower was Allied Supreme Commander in Europe. British deputies were working closely under him, but the Americans were making the key decisions. The landing in the south of France, despite strong support from the RAF and Royal Navy, would be primarily an American and French affair. The British, who had uninterruptedly fought the Germans the longest, and part of the time all alone, were being well and truly elbowed from center stage.
Eisenhower should have been shielded from Churchill's anger by a chain of command that went through the Combined Chiefs of Staff. But he was on hand in England and the prime minister never stood on ceremony. Eisenhower became the direct target of the prime minister's harangues against Anvil. Their discussions on the subject were sometimes heated in the weeks following D-Day, when Eisenhower feared the battle for Normandy was getting nowhere. He grew angry when Churchill accused the United States of trying to play the "big strong and dominating partner" in the alliance and of "bullying" the British. That wasn't the way he saw it.
He was unmoved by Churchill's warnings about what the Soviets might get up to after Germany's defeat. So was Roosevelt, who believed the United States could deal amicably with "Uncle Joe" Stalin. The president's primary concern remained bringing the war quickly to an end with the fewest possible casualties. The U. S. Joint Chiefs of Staff were firm in their belief that the Italian campaign had already consumed far too much of the resources that could have been more wisely expended elsewhere against the enemy. Not only was Eisenhower supported by Washington in his determination to mount Anvil; he
Was now specifically admonished not to succumb to unrelenting British pressure to abandon it.
Concern persisted in the American capital that the Supreme Commander bent too far backward not to antagonize the British. He protested to Marshall that it wasn't true. But the fact remained that he had developed a very special personal relationship with the British. He had become close to several of his senior British subordinates at SHAEF and had gotten to know some members of the British Chiefs of Staff well. Despites persisting doubts about him at the War Office, at this stage theirs was for the most part a relationship marked by mutual respect and admiration.
He was enormously popular among the British people, and he admired them for what they had endured. He was flattered to be received almost as a friend by King George, to be accepted as an honorary member by London's exclusive Athenaeum Club, and to receive countless other honors in London and around the country. Unlike most other American generals, for whom the British experience was almost incidental, Eisenhower was unable to think reflexively in nationalistic, confrontational terms with regard to Britain, even when American and British interests and views diverged.
His insistence on Anvil despite British objections was not based on American preferences but on his views as Allied Supreme Commander. The logic was the same as it had been before. If the Germans had to contend with invaders in the south of France as well as in the Norman countryside, their lines were bound to crack sooner rather than later, and through the great port of Marseilles he would be able to rapidly introduce "between 40 and 50 divisions" from the United States and from French North Africa for the final showdown with the forces of the Third Reich.
Churchill was deeply upset by the failure of his effort to browbeat Eisenhower. He informed him "with considerable emotion" that he might request an audience with the king in order to "lay down the mantle of my high office." His resignation would impose additional strains on the American-British
Alliance, but Eisenhower stood his ground. He told Churchill that though British views may have justifiably prevailed in many Allied undertakings, that did not mean they were right all the time.
Despite his threat the prime minister did not step down, but he did take his case to Roosevelt. However, the president was no longer as easily influenced by him as he had once been. Eisenhower was pleased to learn that he had told Churchill they both would have to abide by the decisions of the Supreme Commander in military matters. It was not something the prime minister wanted to hear, nor was it something he intended to quietly abide by. He continued to press for Anvil's abandonment. The strong language he at times employed threatened the warm rapport that Eisenhower had established with him. Several times, the Supreme Commander felt called upon to make the firmness of his position absolutely clear, even warning him of the dangers of a rift.
In two years [he told him] I think we have developed such a fine spirit and machinery in our field direction that no consideration of British versus American interests ever occurs to any of the individuals comprising my staff or serving as one of my principal commanders. I would feel that much of my hard work over the past months had been irretrievably lost if we now should lose faith in the organisms that have given higher direction to our war effort, because such lack of faith would quickly be reflected in our field command.
Churchill knew the dangers but fought his corner as long as he thought there was a chance he might win. He finally accepted that he could not and grudgingly gave his blessing. In the predawn hours of August 15, American paratroops dropped almost completely unopposed near the small inland southern French town of Le Muy. Soon afterward, troops of General Alexander Patch's U. S. Seventh Army began going ashore east of Toulon. They were joined by elements of General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny's French First Army. The Germans had been
Expecting a possible landing elsewhere in the south, and the meager opposition the invaders met was quickly overwhelmed.
Churchill was on hand, aboard a destroyer offshore, to see the troops land. He cabled Eisenhower, congratulating him on how efficiently and effectively Operation Dragoon, as Anvil had been renamed, had been organized and launched. Eisenhower replied that now that the prime minister had apparently adopted the operation, he was sure it would "grow fat and prosperous" under his watchfulness.
Within two weeks the major ports of Toulon and Marseilles were seized and almost 60,000 prisoners captured. The American and French forces, comprising the newly formed 6th Army Group under U. S. General Jacob Devers, began pushing northward to link up with the troops of Patton's Third Army fanning out from Brittany after the Normandy breakout.
The Anvil controversy had been the most difficult diplomatic-military issue with which Eisenhower had had to deal. Wavering and indecisive at first, bending this way and that, he had subsequently come to a hard-and-fast decision and had stuck to it in the face of Churchill's persistent, forceful, bitter, and sometimes personal challenge. It had been a wearying but ultimately satisfying experience and had earned him additional respect in London, even, grudgingly, from the prime minister. However, he still did not know how to get Montgomery to do what he wanted him to do.
Rarely in war do things happen as expected. None of the Overlord commanders—not Eisenhower, not Montgomery, not Bradley—had believed German resistance south of the Seine would collapse as comprehensively as it did once the Allied forces had broken out of the Normandy bridgehead. It had been assumed that the Germans would gradually fall back to the river, where they would regroup and establish new defensive positions in France from which they would have to be forcibly ejected.
The Allied plan was clear. "Anticipating the Germans would make a textbook retreat to the Seine," Bradley said, "we would
Draw up our combined ground forces opposite the river. There we would pause for several weeks to rest up and refit our divisions, fully open our supply ports in Cherbourg and Brittany, create logistical lines to our front and stockpile gasoline, ammunition and food. When all was ready we would cross the Seine and strike toward Germany."
But that plan had been overtaken by events. It had been made obsolete by Hitler's refusal to permit his forces to undertake a strategic withdrawal once the Allies had secured their Normandy bridgehead and by Montgomery's steadfastness in drawing the enemy's armor to destruction. The British commander's pre-invasion phase line forecast was for the Allied forces to reach the Seine by ninety days after D-Day. Though that prediction had been much derided over the previous weeks, they had in fact gotten to the river before the end of August—by D + 79.
German losses in troops and equipment had been immense. SHAEF reported to the Combined Chiefs of Staff, "The equivalent of 5 Panzer Divisions have been destroyed and a further 6 severely mauled. . . . The equivalent of 20 Infantry Divisions have been eliminated and a further 12 very badly cut up and have suffered severe losses. Included. . . are 3 of the enemy's crack Parachute Divisions. . . . Total enemy casualties amount to over 400,000. . . . The total continues to mount."
Of 2,300 tanks and assault guns, the Germans had been able to bring only about a hundred back across the Seine. The German commander-in-chief in the west had twice been changed and a score of German army, corps, and division commanders had been killed or captured. It appeared that the Allied forces would not after all face stiff resistance as they fought their way to and across the natural barrier of the Seine and sped on toward Germany.
Weeks before, Montgomery had drawn up plans for such a contingency. If the strong German resistance that was expected at the Seine did not materialize, the plan for a pause during which the Allies would regroup and prepare logistically before attempting to cross the river would be dropped. The enemy would not be given "a chance to catch his breath." Instead,
''Every endeavour [would] have to be made to force the crossing without pause."
That had been hypothetical at the time and considered unlikely. But now the point had come to review the situation and for new decisions to be made. The moment had also arrived for planned changes in the Allied command structure to be instituted. Montgomery was to lose out on both.
Once the Normandy bridgehead had been secured and the breakout from it had begun, Eisenhower, while remaining Supreme Commander, was supposed to take over from him as ground-forces commander. Criticism in American newspapers of "British dominance of the command and conduct of the invasion" when the Americans outnumbered the British on the field of battle would alone have been enough to make sticking to the changeover plan inevitable. The Washington Times-Herald complained, "It is generally recognized in congressional circles and common gossip in military circles that General Eisenhower is merely a figurehead and the actual command of the invasion is in the hands of the British General Staff."
It was 1944, an election year in the United States, and the direction of the war was the key issue. Eisenhower was once more served notice by Washington that he must not be seen to be overly influenced by Churchill or his British subordinates. Marshall told him, "[T]he Secretary [of War Stimson] and I and apparently all America are strongly of the opinion that the time has come for you to assume direct exercise of command. . . . [T]he reaction here is serious and will be, I am afraid, injected into the debates in Congress."
Montgomery was, of course, disappointed at being relieved of ground-forces command. Aside from his natural desire to remain in charge, he was perplexed by the continuing failure of Eisenhower and others at SHAEF to appreciate, or even understand, how brilliantly he had masterminded the Normandy campaign. He had hoped that, in recognition of that achievement, the plan for him to hand ground-forces command over to the Supreme Commander would not be implemented. He agreed with Brooke that "Ike knows nothing about strategy" and was afraid that the Supreme Commander would make a
Mess of the great opportunity with which the Allies were now presented. '
He also believed that Eisenhower had no idea "of the trouble he was starting" by making command changes when things of great significance could be made to happen if the moment were seized without disruptive changes. He told Brooke that he had explained "very clearly to Eisenhower that the direction and control of the land battle in France is a whole-time job for one man" to which he would be required to "devote his whole and undivided attention."
Montgomery's concern about that was fully justified. The Supreme Commander was still required to devote much close attention and a great deal of his time to a variety of other matters. They included coordinating strategy with the Russians, responding to an assortment of proposals from the British Chiefs of Staff and Churchill personally about possible operations elsewhere in Europe, dealing with De Gaulle, fielding a flood of communications from the U. S. chiefs of staff and the War Department, and badgering Washington for additional troops and equipment to wind up the war in Europe at a time when Congress, which considered Hitler effectively beaten, was already pressing for the conversion of some war-production factories to civilian production. In addition, an endless flow of senior American visitors, including members of Roosevelt's cabinet, passed through London to confer with him on crucial issues—including how Germany was to be dealt with after the defeat of its armies and even demobilization plans for the largest army the United States had ever put in the field.
Eisenhower chose to ignore Montgomery's warning about commanding the ground battle being a full-time assignment, his presumption in lecturing him, and his insinuation that he was not up to the job. He knew the strategy he intended to employ. Once across the Seine, Allied armies would advance both north and south of the Ardennes Forest, "two massive, mutually supporting thrusts" toward the Rhine and the German heartland. That would require day-to-day coordination of what would be two separate campaigns. Eisenhower believed those campaigns would be integrated most efficiently, and with
The least confusion, by two separate army groups, both under his command. That was the way things had been tentatively planned before the invasion.
Montgomery would retain command of his 21st Army Group, which would proceed along the northern route. It consisted, as before, of Dempsey's British Second Army and Crerar's Canadian First Army. A new, all-American Army Group—the 12th—would be created for the drive south of the Ardennes toward the middle of Germany. Bradley would be its commander, deploying two armies, the First under General Courtney Hodges, and Patton's Third. The 12th Army Group became officially operational on August 1, 1944 (it was soon to gain another army, the U. S. Ninth, commanded by General William Simpson). Montgomery was to continue as Allied ground-forces commander until September 1, when he was to surrender that position to Eisenhower, a move Brooke thought "likely to add another three to six months to the war."
The handover was handled awkwardly. The attitude of the military authorities toward war reporting was much different from what it was later to become. There was no intention of "doing the enemy a favor" by giving correspondents as much information as they subsequently claimed a right to have. But the news of the command change leaked out and was interpreted by the press in a way that greatly offended the British public.
The groundwork for outrage had already been laid in Britain. Deputy Supreme Commander Tedder had found that "one of the most disturbing features of the campaign [in the British] press. . . had been the uninhibited boosting [in Britain] of the British Army at the expense of the Americans." Although the Americans far outnumbered the British in the field and were doing far more of the fighting, it was understandable for British newspapers to concentrate on the activities and achievements of British troops and far less so on those of the Americans. As a result, the British public had come to think that their soldiers were doing most of the fighting, or at least as much as the Americans. Tedder feared that this had been "sowing the seeds of a grave split between the Allies. . . . [I]f the British public
Believe all they are being, told now," he said, "they will not like being told a very different story by the Americans."
He was right. In mid-August, word spread in London that American newspapers were saying that Bradley, in taking command of an army group in France, was attaining "status equal to Montgomery." It generated much resentment in Britain, where it was seen as a humiliating and unwarranted "demotion" of the British hero. It seemed a shabby way to treat a general who had redeemed the reputation of the British Army in North Africa and whose battlefield achievements in France had been front-page news in the London press for weeks.
Denials from SHAEF that Montgomery had been demoted did not quiet the protests. British newspapers demanded to know what was going on, not only with regard to the command structure but with operations in France generally.
We feel it our duty [said the London Daily Mirror] to demand that General Montgomery be offered an apology. . . . Throughout the war much confusion has been caused by the issue of untrue statements and ill-advised "directives." . . . [SJomething is seriously wrong; something which cannot but have an adverse effect on the harmony of Anglo-American cooperation in the field. In general the handling of war news has been amateurish, inconsistent and confusing. One day official optimism runs high; the next, someone cautiously "plays it down." It is time efficiency was established in this vital matter.
Such impatience had long been brewing. The treatment of Montgomery brought it to a boil. Eisenhower sought to defuse British anger by telling a London press conference that anyone who thought Montgomery had been demoted misunderstood what was happening. He said that the British commander was a "great and personal friend" for whom he had great admiration. He called him "one of the great soldiers of this or any other war." He urged people to understand that the command change had been planned well before D-Day and that it was not a reflection on Montgomery's considerable skills.
But going public did not remove doubts among the British about the quality of American military leadership. People asked questions about why Eisenhower remained Supreme Commander when they were led by their newsreel films, their newspapers, and War Office communiques to believe that Montgomery was one of the most oustanding military figures of modern times, as even Eisenhower himself had felt obliged to concede. Nor were hurt feelings soothed by the satisfaction expressed in the American press that the U. S. armies in France were finally coming under direct American command, which they effectively had been all along despite having been formally under Montgomery's orders.
The changes that were now taking place were of far greater significance than SHAEF tried to pretend, and the reasons went much deeper than adherence to an earlier planning decision. American preponderance over the British in the field was already recognized as a historic and irreversible changing of the guard. The Americans welcomed it with smug confidence; the British acknowledged it with regret and not a little bitterness. The Americans, barely feeling the strain, had twelve million men in uniform. The British, stretched practically to the limit, had less than half that number.
The Americans now had four armies in the field in France, including the Seventh Army that was thrusting north after having landed in the south. More U. S. divisions were en route across the Atlantic. The British were hard-pressed to keep their single Second Army up to strength. Montgomery was believed by the Americans to be "so conscious of Britain's ebbing manpower" that he hesitated to engage in an operation in which "a division may be lost" because it was practically impossible for the British to replace it. "When it is lost, it's done and finished."
The American breakout from the Normandy beachhead that had been blueprinted by Montgomery marked the moment that Britain conspicuously passed the baton of superpowerdom over to the United States. Under the circumstances now prevailing, it was a delusion to expect the Americans to permit a British general to remain in charge of the campaign in France.
But Montgomery was not one to graciously accept being re-
Lieved of a command believed it was essential for him to retain, and certainly not when he was to hand it over to a general he thought incapable of exploiting the great opportunity he had created. The Germans had been so thoroughly routed in Normandy that they were in disarray. Montgomery was convinced that only a general with his grasp of the equations of battle could provide the follow-up with the planning and close supervision that was required. What had earlier been planned as a measured advance against the enemy could be turned into hot pursuit.
The British commander had never liked Eisenhower's plan for a divided advance on Germany north and south of the Ardennes. After the rout of the Germans in Normandy, he considered it idiocy. "We have now reached the stage where one really powerful and full blooded thrust towards Berlin is likely to get there and thus end the German war." Instead of a divided advance against the routed German forces, he called for a concentrated northeastward thrust of "a great mass of Allied armies"—his own and Bradley's. Such a surge would clear the French coast as far as Belgium, establish forward air bases, and then push on across the Rhine into the Ruhr district, Germany's industrial hub.
It was a striking vision. Forty Allied divisions would form a solid phalanx that would thunder unstoppably forward before the enemy could recover balance and reestablish a stable defense line. Powerful armored and mobile columns would bypass enemy centers of resistance. Those would be mopped up by infantry following on. The momentum would carry the Allied forces into the heart of Germany. The war could be over before Christmas. It was a fascinating, imaginative proposal, and one that set the stage for a British-American dispute on strategy that would arouse much bitterness in the following months.
Montgomery, the military scientist, had produced what he was convinced any general with even half a brain could see was an imaginative and eminently workable plan. There were problems with it that he made no effort to point out. The terrain that would have to be traversed by his mass of Allied divisions
Was laced with canals and river tributaries. It might therefore prove unsuitable in places for rapid armored advance. What was more, the forces involved might be diminished during their advance by the need to protect their flanks against threats posed by bypassed enemy positions. By the time they were in a position for the proposed thrust into Germany to destroy the Third Reich, they might be too weakened to deal with the divisions Hitler might have desperately assembled to prevent that from happening.
But those arguments were not necessarily overwhelming. The Germans were for the moment in sufficient disorder for a daring surge against them to have made significant headway, taking the port of Antwerp, a target of highest priority for supplying the Allied armies on the continent, and overrunning the launch sites for Hitler's buzz bombs, which were continuing to bring death and terror to southeastern England.
Nor were even greater successes beyond the realm of possibility. General Gunther Blumentritt was "absolutely convinced" that the war could have been over within four months, "that there would have been a saving of Allied lives. . . had Montgomery's plan been carried out" while the German front was completely disorganized by the rout in Normandy.
In addition to military and personal reasons for promoting his plan, Montgomery had pressing national interests to consider. He had graduated to a position beyond that of mere general. He was Britain's major protagonist in the field. He now had duties well beyond the call of battle. His country, staggering under the impact of war costs, was on the brink of bankruptcy. He was obliged to weigh the implications in his calculations.
The British economy and man-power situation [he wrote] demanded victory in 1944: no later. Also, the war was bearing hardly on the mass of the people in Britain; it must be brought to a close quickly. Our 'must' was different from the American must; a difference in urgency, as well as a difference in doctrine. This the American generals did not understand; the war had never been brought to their home country.
Montgomery was convinced that unless the thrust he proposed was given the highest priority, any chance of ending the war before year's end would be forfeited and Britain's already desperate situation intensify.
However, in urging his plan on Eisenhower, he had lost contact with. the reality of his own status. He was behaving as if he still had the full confidence of the Supreme Commander. He knew Eisenhower planned a broad-front advance across France and into Germany in accordance with strategy that had been carefully worked out. But he had made little effort to bring Eisenhower in line with his thinking, or even to see him, while he had developed his plan. He sprang it on him full-blown, in effect peremptorily informing him that he was wrong and didn't really understand the situation. It had never been his style to consult if he could avoid it. He could not accept that consultations, even with generals he considered inadequate, were sometimes essential if only as a matter of courtesy. He also could not assimilate the fact that, even after he had been proved right in Normandy, others believed he had been wrong and was unreliable.
It might be said that he sometimes said things he knew were less than true for reasons of troop morale or to prevent outside interference with his operations as they matured. But he was often too closed up within himself to make a realistic reading of situations or the reaction of others. When he outlined his daring plan to Bradley, he received the impression that it had drawn his "complete agreement." But Bradley, who was reluctant to argue with a man given to lecturing him as if he were just out of West Point, believed the basic assumption of Montgomery's plan was not just mistaken; it was "downright crazy." He said, "We would be putting all our money on a horse that looked good in the paddock but had a tough time getting out of the starting gate and had never shown well on a fast track." Bedell Smith thought the proposal was "the most fantastic bit of balderdash ever proposed by a competent general." Eisenhower told Marshal, "Examination of this scheme exposes it as a fantastic idea." Morgan observed cynically, "Montgomery, principally celebrated hitherto for cautious deliberation, con-
Ceived the notion that, were he to be accorded every priority to the detriment of the [Americans], he could, in the shortest order, overwhelm the enemy, drive on to Berlin and bring the war to a speedy end."
Too many people at SHAEF felt they had been misled by Montgomery when he had impressed them with his pre-invasion explanation of how tidily the Normandy campaign would be wrapped up. They were not prepared to be bamboozled by him again, nor did they believe he was serious when he suggested that he was willing to serve under Bradley if necessary in the ambitious operation he proposed. The British chiefs of staff would never have permitted it.
Persisting with a fetish of requiring his superiors to visit him rather than the other way around, Montgomery sent De Guin-gand, his much-liked and respected chief of staff, to convince Eisenhower of the wisdom of his plan. When De Guingand was unable to do so, Montgomery tried it himself. He asked the Supreme Commander to come to his tactical headquarters in France to discuss strategy. Eisenhower had Bedell Smith fly over from England with him to take part in the discussion. But Montgomery, aware that Smith now was undisguisedly critical of his judgment, insisted that he not participate in the discussion, which offended both the Supreme Commander and his influential chief of staff. "What makes me so Goddamn mad," Smith growled, "is that Monty won't talk in the presence of anyone else. He gets Ike into a corner alone."
Montgomery did nothing to make up for this self-defeating act of discourtesy by lecturing Eisenhower on how a Supreme Commander should remain above the battle, supervising from on high but not interfering while "Someone must run the land battle for him." Eisenhower did not have to be told whom he thought that "someone" should be.
Aside from everything else, it was the wrong time to suggest that American ground forces come once more under his command. The battle for Normandy behind them, Bradley, and particularly Patton serving under him, had ideas of their own for a rapid advance toward Germany, and they appeared to have done more to put them into practice. The irrepressible
Patton, with dazzled n6ys correspondents in tow, was plunging through the foundering enemy, seizing and creating opportunities. Headlines, particularly those in American newspapers, trumpeted his successes. He bragged that his army was advancing faster and farther than any in history.
The contrast with Montgomery's earlier tardiness in cracking through at Caen was glaring. Patton was meeting nothing like the resistance with which the British and Canadians had been forced to cope. He did not have to halt to regroup, a practice that Patton said "seemed to be the chief form of amusement in the British armies." Anxious to advance where Montgomery's forces had been fought to a standstill, he had pleaded with Bradley for permission to do so and "drive the British back into the sea for another Dunkirk."
If the deployment of forces had been different at the time— with the Americans positioned where Mongomery's troops were, and Patton ready to blaze northward through the routed German forces—it is possible the proposal for a concentrated drive to the north might have swayed Eisenhower. But the idea of a British general now taking command of the bulk of American forces in France was a non-starter. Eisenhower, under pressure from Washington, told him that he was obliged to take American public opinion into account. Montgomery replied, "Give people victory and they won't care who won it."
Eisenhower was faced with a conundrum. Though the Germans had been sent scrambling back, he was not as convinced as Montgomery that they were incapable of regrouping sufficiently to resist a concentrated Allied thrust. Nevertheless, at that stage the Allies—with their lines of communications stretching back to Cherbourg and the Normandy beaches— were logistically incapable of long sustaining the plan he preferred for mounting major offensives both north and south of the Ardennes.
Weighing the various factors, he produced a compromise. While not giving Montgomery all he wanted for the concentrated drive he proposed, he agreed to grant him "operational coordination" in the north. His northern thrust would have the support of Bradley's U. S. First Army. Indeed, Bradley was
Instructed that his "principal offensive mission" was to offer Montgomery that support. At the same time, however, as commander of the newly established U. S. 12th Army Group Bradley was to continue cleaning up the Brittany peninsula and to prepare to advance across the middle of France toward Metz and the German border.
That meant Montgomery would get priority in the allocation of supplies, but not nearly as great as he wanted. "[S]o we got ready," the frustrated British commander told Brooke, "to cross the Seine and go our different ways. . . . The trouble was we had no fundamental plan which treated our theatre as an entity."
Many of the Americans were also unhappy with Eisenhower's compromise. They were displeased that Montgomery had been able to extract as much as he had from the Supreme Commander. Some of Patton's officers were heard muttering, "Eisenhower is the best general the British have." Bradley was especially angry. He had to scrap the offensive plans he had drawn up for the divisions he was now instructed to commit to the support of the British drive. He was vexed for personal reasons as well. The war was coming to an end and he did not wish to be made to play a lesser role in the windup. He saw Eisenhower's compromise decision as having the effect of downgrading him from the equal status with Montgomery he had just attained. Though normally of a balanced temperament, and not usually caught up in the anxieties of military politics, he was becoming enraged by Montgomery's self-exaltation. He believed "Monty's plan sprung from his megolomania. He would not cease in his efforts to gain personal command of all the land forces and reap all the personal glory for our victory."
The war in Europe had taken a decisive turn by the late summer of 1944. The Germans were in full retreat across Eastern Europe. Finland, which had been allied to the Germans, had signed an armistice with the Russians. Hitler's forces had been pulled out of Greece. After consolidating their Operation Dragoon beachhead on the Riviera, the U. S. Seventh Army and French First Army were driving north into the Rhone valley.
The German military command was badly shaken by the ongoing arrests of officers believed to have been implicated in the plot to assassinate Hitler.
It was recalled that the First World War had come to an unexpectedly rapid conclusion in 1918 when the resistance of the German armies and the government in Berlin had suddenly collapsed. Was that about to happen again? Rumors were rife in the United States and Britain. People talked about it and prayed. Newspapers speculated about when it would happen. Eisenhower was subjected to repeated questioning about how many weeks or months it would take to wind things up in Europe. At press conferences, he repeatedly warned against excessive optimism.
The liberation of Paris fueled expectations. But it also added to Eisenhower's problems. Churchill later quipped that the heaviest cross he'd had to bear in the war had been the Cross of Lorraine, the symbol of Charles de Gaulle's Free French movement. But Churchill's dealings with De Gaulle were more straightforward than Eisenhower's.
The Free French leader remained offended by the refusal of the Allies to formally recognize his FCNL, as well as by the Allied issuance of special French currency for the liberation of his country. To defuse his anger and retain the cooperation of the Free French army, Eisenhower made friendly gestures to him. He accepted General Pierre Koenig, De Gaulle's chief military aide, as a senior Allied officer of equal rank with army group commanders Bradley and Montgomery. He helped persuade Washington to seek better relations with the Free French leader and to invite him to the American capital for consultations with Roosevelt.
De Gaulle was pleased finally to receive formal diplomatic recognition from the Americans, but not pleased enough to let things rest there. He announced in mid-August, as the German rout in Normandy gathered pace, that he was shifting his headquarters from Algiers to the French mainland to reestablish a sovereign government of France there. That presented a problem because, as Supreme Commander, Eisenhower was in charge of areas of the country liberated from German military
Occupation. He had not been authorized to transfer authority to anyone else.
That matter might have been tactfully sidestepped for the moment but for the question of the liberation of Paris. Toward the end of August, elements of Bradley's First and Third Armies were near enough to the French capital to take it. Its liberation would be a historic, joyous event. But militarily it would be inconvenient and costly. If the Germans decided to fight to hold the city, casualties both military and civilian could be heavy and destruction extensive. What was more, vast amounts of supplies and the appropriate transport would have to be diverted to feed two million Parisians. It was tactically advisable to bypass the city.
As a soldier, De Gaulle agreed. But as would-be leader of liberated France he could not accept it. Underground resistance fighters within the city were not prepared to wait. They had already disregarded instructions from the Free French command not to rise up yet against the German occupation forces. If they were able to seize control of the city, De Gaulle knew he might face a powerful political challenge from the Communists, who had a strong presence in the resistance movement.
When Eisenhower informed him that he had decided to bypass Paris, De Gaulle replied that if the Americans did not take the city. Free French troops attached to the U. S. First Army would be ordered to do so. The threat angered Eisenhower. He was Supreme Commander of all Allied troops in Europe, including the Free French. But De Gaulle was prepared to order them to act contrary to his instructions and there was nothing he could do but submit. He fabricated a military excuse for sending the U. S. Fourth Division and a British contingent, accompanied by French troops under General Jacques Leclerc, to liberate the French capital. De Gaulle was there to take the cheers of the ecstatic crowds when they entered the city on August 25.
Eisenhower asked Bradley to join him in celebrating the event with a visit two days later. He invited Montgomery to come along also, but Montgomery said he was too busy. It was plain to him that by succumbing to De Gaulle and diverting forces to
Take Paris when the Germans still could be decisively routed in the north, Eisenhower had again demonstrated his tragic limitations as Supreme Commander.
General Siegfried Westphal, who was about to become German chief of staff on the western front, shared the British commander's belief that the Allied forces could have gainfully employed much more aggressive tactics.
The overall situation in the West [Westphal observed] was serious in the extreme [for the Germans]. ... A heavy defeat anywhere along the front, which was so full of gaps that it did not deserve this name, might lead to a catastrophe, if the enemy were to exploit his opportunity skillfully. A particular source of danger was that not a single bridge over the Rhine had been prepared for demolition, an omission which took weeks to repair. . . . Until the middle of October, the enemy could have broken through at any point he liked with ease, and would then have been able to cross the Rhine and thrust deep into Germany almost unhindered.
As was soon to be demonstrated to Montgomery's detriment, that assessment was not completely accurate.
World History
