Comments by "" (@lyndoncmp5751) on "Why did Eisenhower stop Devers from crossing the Rhine?" video.

@washingtonradio Antwerp was only crucial for the advance across Germany, once Germany was broken into. That never happened until February 1945. Antwerp was not crucial for the westwall battles getting INTO Germany. These campaigns were well supplied without Antwerp. Eisenhower just squandered the supplies in the Hurtgen, Lorraine, Alsace. Antwerp was fully open by late November. Operation Queen and the Lorraine continued to fail and then the Americans were pushed back into a retreat in the Ardennes nearly a month after Antwerp was open.
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Market Garden was only a limited operation. It's only objectives were a bridgehead across the Rhine and, if that was achieved, an advance north to the coast to cut off the Western Netherlands and Belgium. The American 1st Army would then still have to get beyond Aachen to the Rhine in its own separate operation before any exploitation of (a successful) Market Garden towards the Ruhr could ever work.
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@FromPovertyToProgress Antwerp is a red herring. Antwerp was only crucial for the advance across Germany, once Germany was broken into. That never happened until February 1945. Antwerp was not crucial for the westwall battles getting INTO Germany. These campaigns were well supplied without Antwerp. Enormous amounts of supplies came in from Normandy, then Le Havre. Eisenhower just squandered the supplies in the Hurtgen, Lorraine, Alsace. Antwerp was fully open by late November. Operation Queen and the Lorraine continued to fail through December and then the Americans were pushed back into a retreat in the Ardennes nearly a month after Antwerp was open. Antwerp open changed nothing for the westwall battles.
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@user-tb9nr5id5y Instead of throwing supplies into Patton's Metz campaign (which began September 6th) and the Hurtgen Forest campaign (which began September 19th) the US 1st Army should have opened up an attack, even diversionary, towards Aachen at the same time as Market Garden. This would have given the Germans a quandary. Which attack to they decide to counter? They can't counter both at once.
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@christophersmith8316 Yes it was all geographical. From north to south the armies basically stayed on their assigned lines of advance. Canadian 1st Army at the very north, then 2nd British Army to its south, then US 1st Army, then US 3rd Army then US 7th Army and French 1st Army. US 9th Army came into the line in October, firstly between US 1st and 3rd then was moved between British 2nd and US 1st. I believe this shifting of the US 9th was the only major shifting between army boundaries in 1944/45. I might be wrong but offhand I can't recal when any of the other armies were swapped around like that.
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@FromPovertyToProgress You are incorrect. The Hurtgen Forest, Aachen attacks, Lorraine, Alsace, Operation Queen etc were EXTREMELY WELL SUPPLIED. They didnt fail due to lack of supplies. Masses and masses of supplies came in via the Red Ball Express, then the opening of the railways and Le Havre. People don't realise just how much the rebuilt railway network contributed to bringing supplies up. The westwall battles were very well supplied otherwise none of those massive campaigns could have occurred. Look how quickly the US was able to respond to the German Ardennes attack with massive redeployment, resources and supplies. This was late December. Its completely untrue to claim massive levels of supplies couldn't get to the front until February 1945. Massive levels of supplies got to the front all through October, November, December and January. Antwerp is a complete red herring. Antwerp was not crucial for the westwall battles. Antwerp was only crucial for the advance across Germany, once Germany was broken into. The Hurtgen Forest, Lorraine, Alsace, Operation Queen etc did NOT fail due to Antwerp not being taken. They failed because of poor strategy and stubborn German resistance. It was Eisenhowers broad front strategy that caused the stall. Eisenhower dispersed the supplies all along a 500km front and squandered them in pointless and unnecessary secondary campaigns, from the Hurtgen down to the Vosges. It was the SQUANDERING of the supplies, not LACK of supplies. Eisenhower should have listened to Montgomery and concentrated the effort only in the north.
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Antwerp is a red herring. Antwerp was only crucial for the advance across Germany, once Germany was broken into. That never happened until February 1945. Antwerp was not crucial for the westwall battles getting INTO Germany. These campaigns were well supplied without Antwerp. Eisenhower just squandered the supplies in the Hurtgen, Lorraine, Alsace. Antwerp was fully open by late November. Operation Queen and the Lorraine continued to fail and then the Americans were pushed back into a retreat in the Ardennes nearly a month after Antwerp was open. Antwerp open changed absolutely nothing for the westwall battles.
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@user-tb9nr5id5y The broad front most definitely prolonged the war. It wasted vast amounts of men and resources in pointless secondary campaigns of little strategic benefit and completely slowed and stalled the advance into Germany.
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"The failure to liberate the channel ports and the Scheldt estuary was all Monty's, and who could have possibly seen the Ardennes offensive coming?" The Scheldt wasn't a failure. It suceeded quicker than the Hurtgen Forest and Lorraine campaigns did, and with far fewer casualties. Eisenhower was both Supreme Commander AND the C-in-C of all allied ground forces from September 1st, so not prioritising clearing the Scheldt was on Eisenhower. He was the boss and the man in control of strategy. As for the Ardennes, on November 28th Montgomery warned Eisenhower that the American line in front of the Ardennes was too weak and thinly held and should be strengthed. Eisenhower didn't.
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Montgomery had the plans. He laid them out. Unfortunately Eisenhower took over as C-in-C of all ground forces on September 1st and had different plans. The wrong ones.
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@FromPovertyToProgress It didn't. Supplies were pouring out of Antwerp more or less immediately. It didn't take months at all.
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@TotensBurntCorpse They still managed to supply all those campaigns though. Hurtgen Forest, Lorraine, Alsace, Operation Queen were all well supplied without Antwerp. Supplies came from Normandy, then Le Havre was open. Antwerp was crucial for the advance across Germany once Germany was broken into but Antwerp was not crucial for the west wall battles which went up to March 1945. Antwerp was fully open at the end of November, yet Operation Queen and the Lorraine continued to fail. Even worse, the Americans got pushed back into a retreat in the Ardennes nearly a month after Antwerp was open, so Antwerp being open changed nothing for the westwall battles.
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@johnhallett5846 There WERE enough supplies to support a concentrated northern thrust. There were not enough supplies to waste in pointless secondary campaigns all along a 500 mile front. This is my point. The broad front wasting supplies in the Hurtgen Forest, Lorraine and Alsace took away supplies that could have been concentrated in one single northern thrust. Eisenhower wasted supplies on armies that didn't even need to be there. The Vosges Mountains? Totally irrelevant sector. Eisenhower was more interested in all American armies getting a share of glory than finishing the Germans off in a powerful northern thrust. Nearly all prominent German generals after the war felt the allies should have ignored southern Germany and concentrated on first getting to the Ruhr then advancing across Northern Germany. A month before Antwerp was open, Patton had TEN well supplied divisions (3 of them armoured) for his attempt to get across the Saar at the start of November, which failed. There were PLENTY of supplies before Antwerp was open. Bad strategy and tactics just wasted them. This is fact not opinion. Stop believing the American revisionist narrative, blaming Eisenhower's broad front strategy on Antwerp not being open. That's childish nonsense.
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@fishingthelist4017 Actually a successful Market Garden would have facilitated an easier time clearing the Scheldt, because if Arnhem was taken then the immediate next phase was to head north to the coast and cut off the western Netherlands and Belgium. This would have made opening Antwerp somewhat easier. Antwerp would never have been quick to open. It took nearly a month just to clear the mines, and they were there already. Even if Market Garden didn't happen and the Scheldt was cleared first, Antwerp would still not have been open much before the end of October. The Americans would still have gone into the Hurtgen Forest and failed there and failed to get beyond Aachen. It didn't really make much difference. Antwerp was actually open at the end of November. Nothing changed. The Americans failed in the Lorraine and Operation Queen, then got pushed back into a retreat in the Ardennes. Finally, EISENHOWER was both C-in-C of all ground forces and Supreme Commander. Eisenhower was the big cheese and the man who decided strategy, and Eisenhower placed zero priority on Antwerp in September. Eisenhower wanted a bridgehead over the Rhine first. He thought it was a great idea at the time.
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@Swift-mr5zi You can read Eisenhower's or Montgomery's books or more specifically Mark Zuelhlke's Terrible Victory: First Canadian Army and the Scheldt Estuary Campaign, September 13 – November 6, 1944 and Robin Neiland's The Battle for the Rhine 1944 : Arnhem and the Ardennes : The Campaign in Europe.
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@FromPovertyToProgress What you have misconstrued is that at the end of December Antwerp had to cease unloading operations for a while because there was a backlog of supplies building up. This was completely because of the German Ardennes offensive and the calamity involving the US forces there, which was a disaster. Practically everything had to be put on hold to assist the Americans in the Ardennes. This meant transport that would have been used to disperse the supplies from Antwerp were being used elsewhere and diverted to rush troops and supplies from other places to the Ardennes. In essence, there was a lack of transport to move supplies from Antwerp for a while because of the German attack in the Ardennes and the priority given to stopping this. It had nothing to do with Antwerp itself or any lack of infrastructure forethought. Once the Ardennes was sorted out, Antwerp was back to its December 1944 level. All through December 1944 and from November 29th massive levels of supplies came pouring in from Antwerp. Only the Ardennes calamity interrupted this. So blame the Americans for falling asleep and allowing the Germans to push them back into a retreat forcing everything else to be dropped in order to help them out.
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@FromPovertyToProgress You literally wrote : "Yes, the port of Antwerp was open in late November, but it took a few months to get the supplies transshipped out of the port and into well-organized supply depots." That is not so. Supplies poured put of Antwerp immediately after it was opened and the first convoys unloaded on November 29th. It did not take months for those supplies to reach the front line forces. 11th Armoured Division, for example, already received its new Comet tanks from Antwerp in December.
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@openeroftheway8596 1st British Airborne also failed at Arnhem. Never took the bridge there or enough of Arnhem. The failure lies at the feet of Brereton, Williams and Hollinghurst.
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@openeroftheway8596 Dont take my word for it. A German report shortly after the battle concluded that the biggest mistake made by the allies in Market Garden were dispersed drops and over a number of days. Those decisions rest squarely with Brereton, Williams and Hollinghurst. You can read the report in full in Market Garden Then And Now Volume 2 by Margry. I'll repeat, British 1st Airborne FAILED to take the Arnhem bridge and FAILED to take much of Arnhem. The plan was to take not only the bridge but much of Arnhem as well, a circular line that went from outside Oosterbeek and then to just beyond Hoogkamp then Alteveer, Paasberg and Presikhaaf. This was needed in order for XXX Corps to cross over, fan out and consolidate a bridgehead. This was never even remotely achieved, and the Germans always controlled the bridge off ramp plus 99.9% of Arnhem. Even had the 82nd taken the Nijmegen bridge on the first day and XXX Corps crossed over on the 19th and reached the south end of the Arnhem bridge it wouldn't have mattered. The Germans were too strong in Arnhem and 1st Airborne didnt have the bridge captured anyway. The wreckage of Grabners force was also strewn across the bridge causing a road block. XXX Corps would have merely been a huge traffic jam and sitting ducks for German fire if they even attempted to get their tanks on the bridge. Nor could artillery support have helped for fear of friendly fire on Frosts men as well as destroying the very thing they wanted, the bridge and its off ramp. Despite bravery in holding a small portion of the bridge and some buildings at that end, British 1st Airborne simply didn't do enough. They failed as much at Arnhem as the 82nd did at Nijmegen..... and I'm British. Brereton, Williams and Hollinghurst screwed the operation. All the events that followed were due primarily to the decisions made by those three men.
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Eisenhower was completely to blame for the failed broad front strategy all through autumn and winter 1944/45. This was nothing short of a disaster with hundreds of thousands of needless casualties for next to nothing gained. He was a great desk man, man manager and politician but a poor military grand strategist.
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@FromPovertyToProgress Its literally a FACT that the first supply convoy unloaded at Antwerp on November 29th 1944 and supplies poured through from then on. The infrastructure was already in place. Antwerp itself had already been captured on September 3rd. Antwerp became a major supply port from the end of November 1944. Its a disingenuous falsity to claim supplies didnt come through Antwerp until February 1945.
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@FromPovertyToProgress Allied supply lines WERE ready when the Germans attacked in the Ardennes. That's why it was stopped and then pushed back because the allies were COMPLETELY able to reinforce and resupply. Nearly a million men and all their equipment and supplies were thrown into the Ardennes. Quite quickly I might add. The Germans didnt attack in the Ardennes because of allied supply lines. They attacked there and were initially successful because the American front line was thinned down due to the US 1st Army squandering men and supplies in the Hurtgen Forest. There was enormous wastage in the Hurtgen Forest and Operation Queen. I'll just say it one more time. Antwerp was fully open on November 28th and the first convoy unloaded on the 29th. Masses levels of supplies poured through from that moment on. It was the major port for unloading supplies. Then everything was put on hold to assist the American retreat in the Ardennes, which took priority.
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@FromPovertyToProgress Nearly 3 million tons came through Antwerp. Considering it was only open end of November and there was a halt in January due to everything stopping to assist the Ardennes, that's a hell of a lot. Antwerp was most definitely unloading massive levels of supplies as soon as it was opened end of November. It didn't take months to get going which was your claim. It got going right away.
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@panzerdeal8727 Antwerp was only even reached in early September because Montgomery was 400km ahead of schedule. Only Paris was supposed to be reached by early September. Even if the Scheldt campaign started immediately, Antwerp still wouldn't have been open until the end of October, and the Hurtgen Forest, Metz etc with all those casualties and squandered supplies would still have gone ahead.
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@johnfleet235 Montgomery actually proposed to Eisenhower in August that if an American must be C-in-C of all ground forces then he should give the job to Bradley and he'd gladly serve under him if it meant the concentrated north thrust be chosen. Montgomery never argued he himself had to command it.
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Montgomery had sound and logical plans for the war post Germany. To concentrate all forces in the north and attain the Ruhr, then consolidate to build up supplies then advance towards Berlin across northern Germany. He was the only one who actually had a sound and logical plan which the Germans felt was the correct one. Its just that Eisenhower didn't listen to it.
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@billmoretz8718 A common myth. The Scheldt could NEVER have been cleared and Antwerp made operational quickly. It would have always taken a long time to clear the Scheldt and clear the mines. Antwerp would never have been made available before the end of October 1944. It was felt by everyone at the time (early September) that the idea of a quick strike at the Rhine with the possibility of a bridgehead across it was more important at the time when the Germans were in full retreat. It was seen as an opportunity too good to miss. Had a quick strike on the Rhine not been attempted and instead a halt been ordered to clear the Scheldt and open Antwerp then for the next 80 years people would have been complaining that Montgomery missed an opportunity to get over the Rhine in September. Seeing as Antwerp would never have been available before the end of October under any scenario this wouldn't have changed the misguided decisions to waste countless amounts of men and material in the Hurtgen Forest, Lorraine and Alsace. There were vast amounts of resources available in autumn 1944. They were just squandered in pointless secondary campaigns all along a 500 mile front.
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