Amen-Moses

Of course it was uncharacteristic, it wasn't what he would have done if he had been in charge! Market Garden, just like the Dieppe raid, was a political move not a military one. The object of Dieppe was to prove to the US and Russia that a second front could not possibly be feasible against the North Sea wall and in that it worked admirably if a little cold bloodedly for the troops involved. The upshot of the raid was the complete change to a fake against Calais with the real raid against Normandy.

Market Garden was a bold move in order to appease Stalin, we had to make it look like we were trying harder in order to keep him on side (had he sued for peace at that point allowing German forces to flood west we would have been in big trouble) and far from being a complete failure it was a huge advance in a short period and caused much chaos in the defending German lines. Monty was a meticulous planner and Market Garden was a forced response to political pressure had he had his way it would have been postponed at least another month so that he could get sufficient forces in place.

After saying all that Market Garden could have worked given a small bit of luck (especially with the weather which changed dramatically against predictions) and no other military mind at that time could have even conceived of such a bold move.

The losses were tiny in comparison to the fuck ups from US generals (who had zero experience but still bucked against more experienced heads at every opportunity) who seemed hell bent to replicate Russian tactics in every theatre.

If it hadn't been for Monty's cool head (amongst others) allied losses on the western front could have been much higher.

From a British pov WWII was a long series of "we told you so's" against bullish and very often suicidal US plans, just contrast the losses in the European theatre with those from the Pacific!.

Amen-Moses

sullster

Dear Amen-moses,

Your theory that Market-Garden was motivated by a desire to appease Stalin is your own and no one else's. Granted, the Dieppe raid was a bone to Stalin, when the Red Army was retreating to the Volga and the Causausus Mountains, during the German offensive called Case Blue in the summer of 1942. That old cynical Churchill killed off a bunch of Canadians, to make it look like he was ready to cross the channel.

Nonsense, that Market-Garden was an appeasement to Stalin. Stalin's Army had just completed the destruction of German Army Group Center and was approaching the Vistula River and Warsaw. At this stage in the war, there was no way in hell that he going to make a separate peace with Hitler, or leave the war. He winning and winning big.

Market-Garden was Monty all the way and the tragedy is that Eisenhower fell under its spell. The idea of winning the war before the end of 1944 was intoxicating and Monty knew that Ike wanted to get the US 82 and 101 airborne divisions in the fight again. Shame that he ended up destroying his own British 1 Airborne. (Fortunately there were plenty of expendable Canadians in the division)

Your criticisms of US generals as being overly aggressive has some merit. The problem with British generals was a lack of aggression. Some historians claim this was caused by the fear of high casualties and horrendous memories of WW1. Montgomery sat on his ass for a month in Normandy and let the Germans build a dense defense in depth. Operation Goodwood was a Monty failure because of it. I say that without some US aggressiveness, the Allies would still be in Normandy to this day.

I maintain that Monty was partially a fraud who had the British public in awe of him because of one battle against a spent German force in Egypt.

I will always love George Patton's line to General Omar Bradley during the battle of the Falaise pocket. "Let me swing around and we can Dunkirk the Limeys a second time". Monty was steaming when he heard that one. HA ha ha.

John Hancock

I haven't read in of this thread any French bashing bastards care to recall the United States would still be an English Colony if it were not for both French Troops and French Arms.

Martin Buber

Amen-Moses

Monty wasn't steaming at all because it never happened. Where the hell do you get your history from? Hollywood perhaps?

Amen-Moses

Amen-Moses

Not forgetting the French Navy, a great pity Trafalgar wasn't a few years earlier!

Amen-Moses

Rousseau_CHN

You may not believe but yes! More immigrants to the US came from of these three countries than the whole of Asia and Mexico combined.

And yet it is not surprising that there is hardly any uproar over this flood of immigrants from the other side of the Atlantic.

Why no uproar? let me answer that by twisting an old racist joke: Uproar? All white men look alike.

Vorkosigan

Actually, El Alamein (technically, Second El Alamein) was a disaster redeemed only by the fact that Monty's material resources were too great to be defeated by Rommel. Monty won in spite of his own incompetence; indeed he came narrowly close to choking and losing the battle. Corelli Barnett, the British military writer, has a series of works on British performance in WWII. His study The Desert Generals, on the British desert campaigns shows this decisively. I highly recommend it. As Barnett points out, El Alamein was completely unnecessary, as the Americans landed at Rommel's rear four days later, sealing his fate regardless of fighting. The real reason for El Alamein was so that the Brits would have one victory all to themselves prior to their war effort being joined to, and swallowed by, the US. Barnett's views were controversial when it appeared, but time has vindicated all his judgements. Not only was El Alamein's importance wildly exaggerated, but the poorly handled battle was unnecessary.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

What is your point? The Pacific War was a lot bloodier; any given front-line grunt had a much higher chance of death or injury in the PTO, although losses were higher in the ETO; not surprising, when you consider the number of troops engaged.

BTW one poster asked about WWII forums, there are several. The best is the email list WWII-L, which you can locate through the LISTSERV system.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

Monty sucked

I personally have never understood people who thought Monty was great.

Vorkosigan

Amen-Moses

I'm currently reading "Feuding Allies" by William B. Breuer (apparently an american historian) prompted entirely by this thread (hooray for the UK library system).

Although it is extremely US biased (as it is written by an american using info from the american participants in WWII I would expect no less) it has been a real eye opener for me. I already appreciated that the US commanders were rather gung-ho but this work has really brought home to me just how moronic they were as well!

I suggest anyone who wants to really get a feel for WWII should read this work, it amazes me that given the total incompetance of the US commanders outlined in this work we ever actually won WWII!

One of the things that really hit home was how the original plan for victory outlined by Brooke in mid-1942 was, against all the machinations of the US, the exact outcome of WWII in Europe, I never realised before reading this work just what a genius Brooke was!

Some nice quotes from the book:

"The war department (of Eisenhower) is just like the alimentary canal. You feed it at one end. and nothing comes out of the other end but crap." Admiral King (US commander of the navy)

"In many ways, MacArthur is as big a baby as ever. But we've got to keep him fighting." Eisenhower.

"King is an arbitrary, stubborn type, without too much brains." Eisenhower

The book is fascinating stuff and shows how the US command structure was filled with people who basically hated each other and spent more time back-stabbing than collaborating. It depicts Roosevelt as a moron that changed his mind hourly (and had absolutely zero appreciation of political matters), Marshall as a useless moron with absolutely no knowledge of tactical matters, Patton as a glory hunting bully and Eisenhower as an unexperienced commander who basically just vacillated between whatever he was told last by his advoisors.

Luckily Brooke engineered the situation so that Eisenhowers immediate military advisors were all proven British commanders, fuck knows what the outcome would have been had Patton or King been involved!

Amen-Moses