A perspective on Eisenhower's Broad Front Strategy

[Imad]

Hello

Just came across an interesting article:

http://www.armchairgeneral.com/a-linger ... rategy.htm

The above seems to make a case for Ike's Broad Front Strategy being more or less inescapable giving the political imperatives of the time.

What do you think?

[Carl Schwamberger]

Ike has my complete sympathy. As a artillery battery XO I once went thru several high pressure months with several subordinates squabbling over short resources and each imagining all sorts of insults and slights.

It appears to me Montys 'thrust straight through' to Berlin and Ike's envelopment of the Ruhr have their roots deep within the doctrines and operational thinking of their respective armies. ie: the literature and lecture texts at the US Staff & Command School and US Army War College are littered with refrences to industry, population differences, and warmaking capacity. In field exercises the envelopment was the prefered course of action for the US Army tactician of the 1920s & 1930s. I dont know much about the British army, so can only speculate on the origins of Monty's methodical preperations, Colossal Cracks, and Full Blooded Thrusts....

[Imad]

I dont know much about the British army, so can only speculate on the origins of Monty's methodical preperations, Colossal Cracks, and Full Blooded Thrusts....

Not too sure about the origin of the last two terms (I'm similarly at a loss regarding the origin of his Cricket analogy of "hitting them for sixes"), but Monty's pachydermal preparations probably had more to do with his and his country's horrific bloodletting of the Great War and a desire to economise on blood and treasure, something very understandable considering the British Empire's situation in 1944.
One thing I do not agree with in the article is the writer's ready presumption that the conflicting strategies of these two men somehow shaped post-war Europe. He seems to be taking it for granted that if Monty were given full rein the war could have been either shortened or indefinitely prolonged depending on the soundness of his strategy. IMO what really shaped post-war Europe was Ike's later wild goose chase of the Alpine Redoubt at the expense of Berlin.
But that is another story

[Graeme Sydney]

It's an interesting read although I don't think it says anything new or particularly persuasive.

The jury is still out on the military arguments. I can see the One Thrust northern axis working given a number of proviso's one of which would be how do the Brits protect their LoC over such a long exposure? I think speed could unbalance the opponent but I wouldn't like to bet on it with a foe proven to be resourceful and determined.

Politically, at all levels, military politics, national politics, Allied politics, etc etc, I can't see a single thrust 'knock out blow' from either Ally being politically acceptable or sustainable. In this sense Ike was right and in this sense he didn't have the choice.

Ike was the man of the moment and luckily for all of us he was up for it (probably also reflects well on those who choose him for the job).

Cheers, Graeme.

[Carl Schwamberger]

On the game board which strategy works depends on exactly how bad off the German side is as summer 1944 fades. If the German player truly is in a bad way a single axis of advance is better. If the German is not off balance then multiple axis of advance are better. The Soviet army found several initial axis better at the start of its offensives. A single axis tended to simplify things for the Germans in dealing with the situation, whearas multiple thrusts took advantage of the thin mobile reserves and Hitlers micromanaging. One thing I am certain of is with the historical Allied supply situation it does not matter which strategy is chosen. The Allied transportation service did not have enough ports open, and could not bring enough fuel and artillery ammunition across France to keep any sort of decisive offensive going.

[Imad]

Good point. I wonder if there is any literature from the German side that presents their point of view on the situation. That might just close the lid on the whole issue

[Carl Schwamberger]

The little commentary I've read does not go into deep analysis. Perhaps there is something out there, but I've not seen it yet. The remarks describe corralling the refugees and turning them into ad hoc combat units. Most of the leaders were veterans of the Eastern Front and had seen something like this before, or had talked to someone who had. Some refer to declining morale, but there were no large scale desertions. Skimmed thru Guderians chapters on this period. His focus is on the much larger catastrophe in the East. Not much about the situation in the West in September 1944.

[Imad]

I'm going to try and get a hold of Siegfried Westphal's book. I've been meaning to for a while, now I am even more motivated to.

[Tom from Cornwall]

Gents,

For opinions from the German side:

Liddell Hart: "The Other Side of the Hill" - "All the German generals to whom I talked were of the opinion that the Allied Supreme Command had missed a great opportunity of ending the war in the autumn of 1944. They agreed with Montgomery's view that this could best have been achieved by concentrating all possible resources in a thrust in the north, towards Berlin."

von Rundstedt: "the best course of the Allies would have been to concentrate a really strong striking force with which to break through past Aachen to the Ruhr area. Strategically and politically, Berlin was the target. Germany's strength is in the north. He who holds northern Germany holds Germany. Such a break-through, coupled with air domination, would have torn in pieces the weak German front and ended the war."

von Manteuffel: "I am in full agreement with Montgomery. I believe General Eisenhower's insistence on spreading the Allied forces out for a broader advance was wrong. The acceptance of Montgomery's plans would have shortened the war considerably. Above all, tens of thousands of lives - on both sides - would have been saved."

Right from the start of the war the British regarded the Ruhr as the highest priority target in Germany - hence Bomber Command's concentration on damaging the Ruhr, and hence Montgomery and Brooke's concentration on the capturing the Ruhr.

Regards

Tom

[Imad]

Thanks for that Tom. If that's the case, then it's hard to believe Ike's intelligence sources didn't catch on to how weak the enemy actually was. One is tempted to think that politics played an ulterior motive here, in other words, Ike acted against his better judgment.

[Tom from Cornwall]

Imad,

Or, just perhaps, that Eisenhower's judgement, in this one particular period at least, was not good from a military point of view!!

BTW Ike's intelligence was telling him how weak the Germans were - the description of the "Broad Front" as a cautious policy was dreamt up by SHAEF when it failed to win the war in the Autumn of 44, it was in fact based on the fact that SHAEF thought the Germans were totally defeated and all that was required was to continue the pursuit.

I have major issues with some of the statements made by Carlo d'Este in this article [although he does provide a more balanced view than most anti-Montgomery historians] and will have a go over the weekend at producing a reply to some of the issues which IMHO he glosses over or doesn't fully explore.

One question for all those who regard that Patton was correct to push for priority for the thrust through Metz, is to ask what he would have recommended if the Third Army had been directed through the Aachen gap with the First Army to the south. Does anyone seriously think he would then have argued that the thrust through Metz was more important than the opportunity to push through to the Rhine in the region of the Ruhr?

Regards

Tom

[Delta Tank]

The problem with the single thrust of 40 divisions is that when Monty made that recommendation "we" did not have 40 divisions on the continient! Has anyone or did Monty ever draw a graphic that depicted this "single thrust" so everyone could look at it? How many divisions would guard his flanks? His line of communications? Contain by-passed German garrisons? Would the road network support the logistics that would carry this huge amount of supplies? Would there be adequate space to maneuver?

RichTO90 responded to a thread that eventually went onto this single thrust controversey and it looked as if it could not be done. I will try to search for it.

Mike

[Carl Schwamberger]

The problem with the single thrust of 40 divisions is that when Monty made that recommendation "we" did not have 40 divisions on the continient! Has anyone or did Monty ever draw a graphic that depicted this "single thrust" so everyone could look at it? How many divisions would guard his flanks? His line of communications? Contain by-passed German garrisons? Would the road network support the logistics that would carry this huge amount of supplies? Would there be adequate space to maneuver?

RichTO90 responded to a thread that eventually went onto this single thrust controversey and it looked as if it could not be done. I will try to search for it.

Mike

The other half of this is the complete lack of fuel and ammunition for such a operation. I can pass over the Germans quoted above for not knowing the the reality of the Allied supply situation, but one has to wonder where Monty's head was. He of all he Allied army commanders should have had a firm grasp of the Allied supply situation. After all he had been at the centre of planning Neptune and Overlord. Did he never read the data on French port capacity? the estimates for restoring that capacity? the estimates for tranportation capacity from the ports to the battle front? the schedulles for delivering railway equipment? the reports on overall supply delivery withing the 21st Army Group? Did, Monty think the US armyhad a magical fariy dust it was using to bring all it needed to the battle? The projections for Overlord had between 30 & 35 division "slices" operating in north western France by D +90 (6 September), and those were to be supplied not much further east than Paris. The reality on that date is the Allied supply reaching to foward battle zone near the Meuse or Alsace was insuffcient for a dozen divisions. A close reading of the combat in September strongly suggests the real reason for the Allied advance stalling was not congealing German resistance but rather a severe lack of artillery ammunition, and fuel to bring the full weight of US and British fire power to bear.

I strongly suspect that if the supply for even thirty divisions & Corps/Army slice (950+ tons per day per div HQ) had been available at the battle line either a single or a multiple axis attack would have suceeded in September/October with allied armys well across the Rhine by 1 Nov.

[Delta Tank]

Another part of the problem that I have never understood was that the British (Monty) were always insisting on being the Main Effort in the ETO and at the same time knowing that they could not suffer significant casualties because the British were out of men. If they were the Main Effort they would also suffer the Most casualties.

Mike

[Tom from Cornwall]

Gents,

I think we are getting ahead of ourselves here. There are two separate questions that I think are important:

1. Given the state of port capacity and transportation resources available on the continent during September 1944 was the use made of them by SHAEF the most profitable, or could a different allocation of resources have avoided some of the hideous attritional battles of Autumn 1944; if not perhaps allow any thrust to reach all the way to Berlin.

2. Was the reason that Eisenhower insisted on splitting his resources between a northern thrust and a southern thrust due to his military philosophy, political pressure from Washington, national pressure from the American contingent in SHAEF or his natural tendency to compromise between the demands of his rather strong-minded subordinates.

Mike,
The British were not arguing that they should have priority but that the thrust to the Ruhr should have priority. By this time you must realise how utterly exhausted Britain was, in terms of manpower, finance and even emotionally. Yes, they wanted to retain a high profile but the most important thing was to get the bloody war finished.If Eisenhower had ensured that his orders to Bradley to give 1st US Army supply priority in its drive through the Aachen Gap were followed, Montgomery would have been quite happy to see Hodges army drive through to the Rhine and beyond. Instead, despite what Ike ordered, from 5 Sep and all through the rest of Sep and into Oct, 12 US Army group split its resources 50:50 between its two armies, thus dooming both to attritional campaigns.

Carl,
I have a 21 Army Group assessment written in Sep 44 that describes the transportation requirements needed to support the British 2nd Army during a thrust to Berlin. Montgomery wasn't off his head, but he was frustrated to the point of anger by what he saw as the throwing away of a great opportunity. Just like Patton really!

Regards

Tom