Patton being told to shut up shows PC was already in play in 1945. Patton wanted to take on the Russians.
He was a nut out in left field in many ways. That was one of his moronic ideas, like reincarnation. Imagine telling the US soldiers that now they had to fight the Red Army, to protect Germany from their revenge.
That’s a very hard sell to guys who just reached the goal line after a brutal fight. The army was being careful in how it was handling sending them from Europe to fight Japs without provoking mutinies.
Patton was great at one thing. But thank god he was shut down on that.
Thank God cooler heads prevailed.
“...PC was already in play in 1945. Patton wanted to take on the Russians.” [Terry Mross, post 30]
George S Patton Jr was a good field commander, but he was indifferent concerning the larger strategic picture.
The Western Allied leaders were aware of Soviet intentions and mischief; the general US public was not. There was a deal of concern over Soviet actions as the Red Army closed in on eastern Germany. Winston Churchill ordered the UK Imperial General Staff to prepare campaign plans with the major objective of pushing the Red Army out of Poland; he was told the requisite forces did not exist. On VE Day, the Red Army had 480 divisions afield; at their peak, the Western Allies could muster only 130 or so (my memory is less clear on the Allied figures; it’s in _Winston’s War_ by Max Hastings).
All this was quite apart from internal politics in USA, UK, France, and the smaller powers. By late 1944 war-weariness was mounting; there was significant doubt about governmental stability inside the United States as the Feds were running out of money. It was remedied in part by the iconic photo of the second flag-raising on Iwo Jima; survivors went on a bond tour which became the most successful of the war.
To sum up, the public in the West was losing its nerve, while the national governments had not generated the forces needed. Patton was overestimating Allied capabilities to deal with the Soviets.