Posted on 10/10/2014 4:14:58 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
They will soon enough.
Oh, and wait till January, when the Eastern Front maps are available. For the Germans, they are downright depressing.
The Eastern Front is always depressing. One wants the Germans to lose, but one doesn’t want the Russians to win!
I am beginning to wonder how much the Morganthau Plan explains the tenacious defense of the West Wall? Did the soldiers think they were fighting for more than the avoidance of defeat, but the very existence of their country?
I also wonder how often Ike wishes he could relieve Montgomery? What an insubordinate sob!
What a crazy battle. Americans on top of the fort and Germans fighting from tunnels inside?
Those are places where Ike will send green and tired units. It is real quite in those areas, so it shouldn't be a problem.
Monty was an insufferable grade A pain in the ass, but Ike couldn’t fire him. He was a hero to the limeys. So Ike was stuck with him.
But in addition to putting Bradley in command of 1st and 9th Armies only, he could have taken away from Monty all of the American ground troops. All of Monty’s plans called on using Americans as cannon fodder. Once it was made clear he was never going to command an American soldier again, ever, he would have shut up. Monty knew his army was spent and no longer capable of offensive combat without American help.
Ike should have starved him and let him wither on the vine.
I agree, although I think Ike has finally concluded Monty can't clear the Scheldt without American help. So, he loaned 104th Infantry and 7th Armored to the British. The area west of the Arnhem salient had to be taken to protect Antwerp and the Canadian flank.
IIRC, those units went back to the U.S. fairly quickly, but in the Battle of the Bulge Ike let Monty glom onto more U.S. units, keeping Ninth Army through the Ruhr campaign. Guess who Monty assigned to attack the northern prong the the Ruhr envelopment?
I agree, Ike couldn't fire the Hero of Alamein. Brooke sure wouldn't want it to happen because then HE would have to deal with Monty!
Ike couldn’t, however, the British leadership were starting to see faults with Monty:
From the Guns at Last Light.....
Even Field Marshal Brooke had doubts about Montgomery’s priorities. “Antwerp must be captured with the least possible delay”, he told his diary in London. “I feel that Monty’s strategy for once is at fault.” Montgomery would acknowledge as much after the war, conceding, “a bad mistake on my part” in demanding too much of the Canadians. “I reckoned that the Canadian Army could do it while we were going for the Ruhr,” he added. “I was wrong.”
But in October 1944, the field marshal displayed no indulgence for those who questioned his judgement. Admiral Ramsay warned that to clear the Scheldt of mines would take weeks, even after German defenders were finally flicked from the banks of the waterway. “I think the army is not taking this operation seriously enough.,” he told his diary in early October. After another SHAEF meeting, Ramsay wrote, “Monty made the startling announcement that we could take the Ruhr without Antwerp. This afforded me the cue I needed to lambaste him...I let fly with all my guns at the faulty strategy we had allowed.” Montgomery took such criticism badly, and he accused the admiral of undercutting him. “Request you will ask Ramsay from me,” the field marshal wrote Eisenhower, “by what authority he makes wild statements to you concerning my operations about which he can know nothing.”
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