Comments by "" (@lyndoncmp5751) on "TIKhistory"
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@brucebartup6161
Well Montgomery did not ignore Antwerp. He even proposed an alternative to Market Garden on the 8th/9th September. Market Garden was not yet settled on. This alternative was to be a paratroop operation around Walcheren Island to clear the Scheldt. However, General Lewis Brereton, commander of First Allied Airborne Army automatically said a flat out "no" to a paratroop operation to clear the Scheldt. He rejected the idea as being totally impractical for a paratroop drop operation. Instead, Brereton very much liked the Market Garden idea and decided on that. Brereton was convinced it would work. So Market Garden got the go ahead.
Even had Market Garden not occurred, opening Antwerp would still have taken time. It took three weeks just to clear the mines in the waterways alone. Had British 2nd Army not advanced over the ground to Nijmegen in the 2 days in September, its very very likely a later advance after Antwerp was open would have been met by tougher German defences and in far worse weather. Half the place would have been underwater. Almost certainly taking longer (nobody advanced nearly 100km in 2 days October 1944 to Feb 1945) and very likely suffering more killed and wounded than Market Garden did. Nearly half of Market Garden casualties were POWs.
Montgomerys 4 army thrust would have involved the same 4 armies that were already in the northern section. 1st Canadian, 2nd British, 1st US and 3rd US. The difference is, instead of being diverted and dispersed to the Lorraine and into the Hurtgen they would have been concentrated shoulder to shoulder aiming at the Rhine and the Ruhr. The Canadians sticking to the Antwerp section. If Eisenhower had agreed to this already on August 23rd when Montgomery spoke to him face to face there would have been no dilly dallying in the first two weeks of September. Nor would Patton have been wasting his time against Metz.
Metz could have been bypassed. The Ruhr was far more important than Metz.
I didn't say the Germans would have capitulated if the Ruhr was taken in autumn 1944 but the Germans would have been severely hampered. It was Germanys industrial heartland. If the Ruhr was attained in, say, October there is no way they could have continued fighting for another six months. Not a chance. A vital reason why Germany was able to keep producing and keep fighting up to May 1945 was because the Ruhr didn't fall into allied hands until late March 1945. Even then it remained a pocket, not totally taken for weeks after.
You say Eisenhower was wrong to let Market Garden pass but it had more potential 'end the war sooner' benefits than the Hurtgen Forest and Lorraine campaigns, which Eisenhower also let pass and those two campaigns suffered nearly a hundred thousand casualties combined, for no real important strategic advantages gained. In fact the Hurtgen Forest was a strategic disadvantage because casualties suffered in it then lead to a thinning of the front line..... which the Germans drove through and caused another near 100,000 American casualties in the Ardennes.
Seen in this light, Market Gardens failure to reach the Rhine was practically a success story.
Cheers yourself. Enjoy the Sunday 👍
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John Lucas
And the German opposition in September/October to this powerful concentrated northern thrust would have been powerless to stop even the flank, 3rd Army.
Remember, the Germans were able to send in reinforcements from Germany to counter Market Garden because no other allied attacks towards the Rhine were being made at the same time. They could throw all their eggs into one basket. Had the American 1st Army opened up a diversionary attack towards Aachen (instead of probing into the Hurtgen Forest) at the same time the Germans would have been in a quandary, not being able to counter everywhere at one at that point in time. As an example, Sturmgeschutz Brigade 280 was entrained en route to Aachen on September 17th. It was ordered to divert towards Arnhem instead because there was no pressure against Aachen.
The fuel 'crisis' had passed by September 10th.
The Germans would not been able to stop a concentrated northern thrust in early autumn 1944.
Gunther Blumentritt :
""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. Germany's strength is in the north. South Germany was a side issue. 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. Berlin and Prague would have been occupied ahead of the Russians. There were no German forces behind the Rhine, and at the end of August our front was wide open. There was the possibility of an operational break-through in the Aachen area, in September. This would have facilitated a rapid conquest of the Ruhr and a quicker advance on Berlin. By turning the forces from the Aachen area sharply northward, the German 15th and 1st Parachute Armies could have been pinned against the estuaries of the Mass and the Rhine. They could not have escaped eastwards into Germany. A direct attack on Metz was unnecessary. The Metz fortress area could have been masked. In contrast, a swerve northward in the direction of Luxembourg and Bitburg would have met with great success and caused the collapse of the right flank of our 7th Army. By such a flank move to the north the entire 7th Army could have been cut off before it could retreat behind the Rhine. Thus the bulk of the defeated German Army would have been wiped out west of the Rhine. ""
Gunther Blumentritt in The Other Side Of The Hill by Liddell Hart.
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""Notice that Montgomery hardly got a mention ,""
Why would he? Beyond the initial general idea of Market Garden Montgomery had to take a back seat and was superseded in its planning, specifically Market, by the air commanders Brereton, Williams, Hollinghust and the individual divisional commanders. He even backed down from suggesting the 101st be dropped either side of the canal at Son in a wider zone, after Taylor disagreed. A decision that later came back to bite Taylor on the bum.
Interestingly, Major Richard Winters of Band of Brothers fame called Taylor, his own commanding general, a "phony" but Montgomery "the real deal, an example!".
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