CHAPTER XXVII — THE LOST OPPORTUNITY

AS the exhausted survivors of the 1st Airborne Division were arriving Lin Nijmegen on the afternoon of September 26th, the road from the south was reopened. On the right flank of Second Army, VIII Corps reached the Maas at Boxmeer and compelled the Germans on this side to withdraw. The shaft of the Allied spear was now secure, but the point had already been blunted. Instead of a corridor running right through to the Zuider Zee, Second Army had to be content with a salient extending only to the south bank of the Neder Rijn. This salient, 60 miles deep, was of immense tactical value for the purpose of driving the Germans from the area south of the Maas and thus removing the threat of an immediate counter-stroke against Antwerp; strategically, however, it was in danger of becoming a blind alley, unless the bridgeheads over the Maas and the Waal could be quickly exploited. As soon as the autumn rains came to freshen the rivers, the Germans would be able to flood the polder, thereby blocking the northward route through Arnhem and making still narrower the neck between the Waal and the Maas, which was already constricted by the Reichswald. Thus, although Montgomery’s troops were deployed beyond the northern end of the Siegfried Line, these defences had not been effectively outflanked. Moreover, the barrier of the Rhine remained and the threat to the Ruhr was neither as great nor as immediate as Montgomery had hoped.

Summing up the overall results of MARKET GARDEN, Montgomery subsequently claimed that “the battle of Arnhem was ninety per cent successful.” This claim is difficult to support, unless the success of the operation is judged merely in terms of the number of bridges captured. Eight crossings were seized but the failure to secure the ninth, the bridge at Arnhem, meant the frustration of Montgomery’s strategic purpose. His fundamental objective had been to drive Second Army beyond the Maas and the Rhine in one bound. “I was,” he says, “deeply impressed with the magnitude of the military problems of fighting an opposed crossing over these great water barriers and wanted to avoid it at all costs.”{450} His orders to Second Army were that it should “establish itself in strength on the general line Zwolle-Deventer-Arnhem, facing East, with a deep bridgehead to the Eastern side of the Ijsel. From this position it will be prepared to advance Eastwards to the general line Rheine-Osnabrück-Hamm-Münster.” Montgomery undoubtedly hoped that, if he could gain this position directly threatening the Ruhr, Eisenhower would realise the scope of the opportunity and give him the resources to exploit it.

Although the results of MARKET GARDEN fell so far short of what Montgomery wanted, this does not mean that the plan was over-ambitious or that the objectives were inevitably beyond his reach. If the operation had been as daring in tactical execution as it was in strategic conception, there is little doubt that it would have been a complete triumph. It was only at Arnhem that there was any serious miscarriage of Montgomery’s plans, but, as this was decisive, its causes must be examined in some detail.

The basic reason for the failure at Arnhem was that the 1st Airborne Division landed too far from the bridge, and, having landed, devoted too much of its strength to securing a ‘firm base,’ too little to capturing its objective. In his official report on the lessons of Arnhem, Urquhart wrote:

We must be prepared to take more risks during the initial stages of an airborne operation. It would have been a reasonable risk to have landed the Division much closer to the objective chosen, even in the face of some enemy flak....Initial surprise was gained, but the effect was lost because it was four hours{451} before the troops could arrive at the bridge. A whole brigade dropped at the bridge would have made all the difference....Both the Army and the R.A.F. were over-pessimistic about the flak. The forecast about the impossibility of landing gliders on the polder country was also wrong. Suitable DZs and LZs could have been found south of the bridge and near it.

The root of the trouble would appear to have been that Urquhart, as one of his staff said, was “over-concerned about a safe approach and a tidy drop.” Many of Urquhart’s officers considered that in 1st Airborne’s planning there was a lack of bold and clear thinking. Even if it had been true, they felt, that the polder south of the Neder Rijn was unsuitable for the mass landing of gliders, there was no good reason why a small coup de main force should not have landed by glider and parachute at the southern end of the bridge on the first day. In Normandy, by doing just this, Gale had seized the Orne crossings in the face of much heavier flak. Nor is it clear why 4th Parachute Brigade (instead of dropping even farther west than its predecessor) should not have been put down on the south bank close to the bridge on D plus 1, for it was precisely here that Urquhart planned to drop the Polish Parachute Brigade on the following day. It would have been reasonable for him to argue that, if the flak defences in this area were subdued by D plus 1, the risk would be small; and if they were not, it would mean that the bridge was not held and, therefore, it would be essential to take the risk of dropping a brigade there in order to ensure the capture of this vital objective.

All these solutions involved the acceptance of considerable risks, but Urquhart’s parachute battalions were composed of men who had volunteered, and had been trained, to accept such risks. There were no finer troops in the British Army. That was shown by the way they fought at Arnhem, but they were never given the chance to earn the success that should have been the reward of the sacrifices they were willing to make—and did make, in full measure.

The price of a daring, direct assault upon the bridge could hardly have been greater than the cost of the vain endeavour to fight through to that bridge a force large enough to hold it. Although the Germans in the Arnhem area were much stronger than had been expected, they would not have been strong enough to overwhelm Urquhart’s force if it had been concentrated. As it was, it took them more than three days to destroy the battalion at the bridge,{452} and, when the last three thousand were driven back into the Hartenstein perimeter, thrice that number of Germans could not subdue them. But the opportunity that was lost by initial caution could not be made good by subsequent courage.

The Arnhem story makes sad reading, but the real tragedy lies in the fact that with reasonably good fortune even this plan might have succeeded. If it had not been for the double mischance that the 9th SS Panzer Division and Model himself were in the Arnhem area on the 17th, a very much larger force would have reached the bridge that night. Once the advantage of surprise had been lost, the inherent weaknesses of the plan were accentuated by the speed and strength of the German reaction, by the sudden worsening of the weather, and by the virtual breakdown of radio communications.

Of these factors the most important by far, in the opinion of both Montgomery and Student, was the weather.{453} It was only on the first afternoon that the weather allowed the airborne landings to proceed according to plan. On D plus 1 Urquhart’s second ‘lift’ was five hours late. On D plus 2 the major element of the third ‘lift’ could not leave its bases. On D plus 3 it was still grounded. On D plus 4 the aircraft took off, but less than half of them found the DZ. On D plus 5 the weather prevented any operations. By D plus 6 the situation at Arnhem was beyond redemption by airborne forces.

The decisive day was Tuesday, the 19th (D plus 2). By that morning there was little chance of Urquhart’s main force breaking through to the bridge, but Frost’s men were firmly established at the northern end, and it was reasonable to expect that they would soon be relieved either by the Poles, who were due to be dropped south of the bridge that afternoon, or by the Guards, who had reached Nijmegen that morning. Both these calculations were upset by the bad weather, which prevented the dispatch of the Poles and of Gavin’s three glider infantry battalions. Without the aid of the Poles, Frost could not complete the capture of the Arnhem bridge. Without the glider-borne infantry, Gavin could not press home the attack on the Nijmegen bridge that night. By the time this bridge was taken the Germans had regained control of the Arnhem crossing and were able to delay the British advance to the Neder Rijn until the chance of making a successful assault across it had gone.

The crowning irony of this day of bitter frustration was that among the aircraft which could take off were 160 carrying supplies for 1st Airborne. In the face of heavy flak, they dropped their loads with daring precision at the prearranged point, but it was in enemy hands. This was the last day on which the division was holding an area large enough for accurate dropping or effective recovery. Thereafter, although the R.A.F. transport planes continued, as one of Urquhart’s officers{454} put it, “to fly straight into a flaming hell,” and suffered heavily (on one day 29 aircraft were lost out of 114) very little of the supplies they dropped reached the troops on the ground.

Nevertheless, the situation at Arnhem might yet have been saved if the weather had permitted the flying in of the Polish paratroops and the American gliders on Wednesday, the 20th—the day the Nijmegen bridge was captured—or if Horrocks and Browning had known then what the situation really was. That day Major-General E. Hakewill Smith, the commander of the 52nd Lowland Division (Browning’s only reserve), offered to take one of his brigades by glider to Urquhart’s rescue. Browning replied, “Thanks for your message but offer not repeat not required as situation better than you think.”

Browning could not have sent this reply if he had been able to get first-hand information from 1st Airborne. But, as already noted, Urquhart had no radio contact with the force at the bridge or with Browning or with Airborne Base in England from the evening of the 17th until the morning of the 20th, and, when communications were restored, they were spasmodic and unreliable. If during these two days of silence Urquhart had been able to report even what he knew of the position in and around Arnhem, substantial glider-borne reinforcements might have been flown to him on the 20th and 2 1st. On both these days the airfields from which the R.A.F. transport groups operated were ‘open’ and there were plenty of gliders in reserve.

Similarly it was a signals failure that was largely responsible for denying Urquhart the close support which the R.A.F. could have provided. On the 21st, communications were re-established through the 64th Medium Regiment, but during the next few days the air effort was curtailed by the weather. Throughout the operation, however, it was also curtailed by decisions of policy. On the one hand, the Americans insisted that 2nd T.A.F. should not operate during airborne missions, lest there should be a clash between American and British fighters. On the other hand, 2nd T.A.F. was reluctant to engage targets unless these could be very accurately pin-pointed. The pilots were naturally concerned about the danger of attacking friendly troops, but Browning was prepared to accept this risk. In a subsequent report he complained that of 95 requests made for air support during MARKET GARDEN, only 49 were accepted by the R.A.F.{455}

The other factor that must be considered is the inability of the ground forces to advance as quickly as was hoped. In a report to the U.S. Chiefs of Staff after the battle Brereton wrote: “It was the breakdown of the 2nd Army’s timetable on the first day—their failure to reach Eindhoven in 6 to 8 hours as planned—that caused the delay in the taking of the Nijmegen bridge and the failure at Arnhem.”{456}

Is this criticism justified? The Guards, breaking out along one road, met strong opposition nearly all the way to Eindhoven, and yet they drove their armour through these twelve bitterly contested miles in twenty-four hours. When they reached the southern end of the ‘airborne corridor’ on the evening of D plus 1, they were halted for the night by the blown bridge at Zon. This bridge might have been captured intact if the 101st Division had agreed to Montgomery’s proposal that it should drop paratroops on either side of the objective, as was done at Grave. Finally, when the Guards reached Nijmegen on the morning of D plus 2 —remarkably early in the circumstances—the Waal bridge was firmly blocked by the Germans. Sufficient forces could not be mustered to seize it that day, because Gavin’s eastern flank was under considerable pressure and his glider battalions did not arrive as planned.

Where the relieving forces did fail was not in the break-out or in the advance to Nijmegen, but in the drive from the Waal to the Neder Rijn on September 22nd. The reason for their failure lay in what was at this stage of the war the gravest shortcoming of the British Army: the reluctance of commanders at all levels to call upon their troops to press on regardless of losses, even in operations which were likely to shorten the war and thus save casualties in the long run. It was this which prevented the timely advance of the 43rd Division, just as it had led Urquhart to shrink from the cost which he feared would be incurred in a direct assault on the Arnhem bridge.

 

It was most unfortunate that the two major weaknesses of the Allied High Command—the British caution about casualties and the American reluctance to concentrate—should both have exerted their baneful influence on this operation, which should, and could, have been the decisive blow of the campaign in the West. This was no time to count the cost, or to consider the prestige of rival commanders. The prize at issue was no less than the chance of capturing the Ruhr and ending the war quickly with all that meant for the future of Europe.

When Eisenhower placed the Airborne Army at Montgomery’s disposal on September 4th, he was committing his strategic reserve, the only major force he could throw in to clinch the victory that had been won in France. But he did not make available to Montgomery the supply resources necessary to ensure that the maximum advantage was drawn from the commitment of this precious reserve. Montgomery, it will be recalled, reached the Meuse-Escaut Canal, the start-line for MARKET GARDEN, on September 10th without any logistic help from Bradley or Eisenhower, apart from some five hundred tons a day which had been delivered by air during the previous week.{457} This help continued, but the American ‘Red Ball’ Express—carrying another five hundred tons daily from Bayeux to Brussels—did not begin until the 16th. Not one ton of these ‘Red Ball’ supplies reached Montgomery before the start of the Arnhem offensive, and even the truck companies sent up for the U.S. airborne divisions arrived three days after it began.

Additional resources were not provided for Montgomery, or for Hodges, because Eisenhower still thought in terms of advancing to the Rhine on a broad front with a succession of thrusts, of which Montgomery’s was to be merely the first. On September 8th he wrote to Montgomery: “We must push up [to the Rhine] as soon as possible all along the front to cut off the retreating enemy and concentrate in preparation for the big final thrust.”{458} Eisenhower’s adherence to this policy (which he reaffirmed in another letter written only two days before the start of MARKET GARDEN) was due very largely to the consistently sanguine reports he received through Bradley from Patton.

Throughout the campaign the natural optimism of the Americans was a source of great strength, but it became dangerous when, as at this time, it led commanders to represent the military situation too favourably In some cases this optimism was a matter of policy as well as temperament. Ambitious American generals, like Patton and MacArthur, habitually represented their progress and prospects in the rosiest light, for they believed that they were then likely to be given greater resources.

Reinforcing success is sound military practice, provided that the success is advancing the strategic plan, but, in war as in life, the Americans tend to value success for its own sake. Consequently, it was extremely difficult for an American commander to deny support to a subordinate like Patton who was being so successful. Already the fact that Montgomery had been given the Allied Airborne Army, had drawn from Patton’s staff the jibe, “Eisenhower is the best general the British have!”

The political difficulty of restraining Patton, the universal optimism of the American High Command and the desire to form a coherent front from Switzerland to the North Sea—a front broad enough for the ultimate employment of the thirty divisions still waiting in the United States—were, it seems, the real factors behind Eisenhower’s reluctance to provide Montgomery with sufficient resources to capture the Ruhr.

Since the war, however, Eisenhower has contended that the resources were not available. In Crusade in Europe he says that “a strong bridgehead definitely threatening the Ruhr” might have been established “had we stopped in late August all Allied movements elsewhere on the front...However, at no point could decisive success have been attained.”{459} He insists that for this operation no more than “ten or a dozen divisions...could have been supported even temporarily.”

At the start of September the Allied supply situation was certainly difficult, but it was not as serious as Eisenhower suggests, nor were the needs of his divisions as great as he asserts. Eisenhower says that “a reinforced division in active operation consumes 600 to 700 tons of supplies per day.”{460} This figure he quotes not from his own personal experience in command but from the U.S. War Department’s Staff Officers’ Field Manual, and it includes all manner of ordnance and engineer: stores which are normally carried but need not be immediately replaced in a short, swift campaign. It includes also ammunition for heavy and medium artillery, most of which was grounded in September because it was not needed so long as the momentum was maintained. At this time Allied divisions, and their supporting troops, could be, and were, adequately maintained in action and advancing with a daily supply of 1,500 tons. (The fact that he was receiving only 3,500 tons a day did not prevent Patton attacking with eight divisions on the Moselle.) In a defensive role Allied divisions needed only half this amount.

When Eisenhower and Montgomery met in Brussels on September 10th, the Allied supply columns and transport aircraft could deliver from dumps in Normandy and bases in Britain to the front on the Moselle, the Meuse and the Dutch border some 10,000 tons a day for Patton, Hodges and Dempsey. The port of Dieppe was open and by the middle of the month had a daily intake of 3,000 tons, which was more than enough for First Canadian Army. In the last ten days of September with little help from air transport, the supply capacity was increased to 14,000 tons a day. Of this total ‘lift,’ 2,000 tons would have been ample to support Third Army if it had assumed the defensive. This would have left 12,000 tons a day to maintain the 20 British and American divisions with which Montgomery proposed to capture the Ruhr. Even on the basis of Eisenhower’s inflated figure, this would have been sufficient, for in the wake of the advancing armies the supply facilities were being steadily improved. The petrol pipe-line from Cherbourg had reached Chartres by September 12th and was being laid at a rate of 25 miles a day. Rail communications were open from the Normandy bridgehead to Sommersous, 100 miles east of Paris, by September 7th, to Liége by the 18th, and to Eindhoven ten days later. At the end of September the port of Dieppe had a daily intake of 6,000 tons and by this time Ostend was also working, Although the supply statistics of the period do not support Eisenhower’s contention that no more than “ten or a dozen divisions could have been supported even temporarily” beyond the Rhine, this view has gained general acceptance, and is even endorsed by Montgomery’s Chief of Staff, de Guingand. In his book, Operation Victory, de Guingand says: “If he [Eisenhower] had not taken the steps he did to link up at an early date with ANVIL and had held back Patton, and had diverted the administrative resources so released to the north, I think it possible that we might have obtained a bridgehead over the Rhine before the winter—but not more.”{461}

De Guingand admits, however, that in expressing this opinion he is not speaking from first-hand experience, because, like Eisenhower, he was far from the front. During the first half of September he was, he says, “away sick in England“ and so “was not in close touch with the existing situation.”{462} He has accepted, apparently without question, the assurance of Bedell Smith and others at SHAEF that “Patton was getting very little during this period.”{463} We now know that this was not the case, except during the first four days of September when Third, Army was allocated only 2,000 tons a day. In the next three weeks the tonnage which Patton actually acquired, by one means or another, was greater than that delivered to Hodges.

When Patton was given authority to drive on from the Meuse to the Moselle and to sweep south to Épinal, he was amply supported. “On 4 September,” says the official U.S. historian of Patton’s campaign in Lorraine, “the gasoline drought started to break...and by 10 September the period of critical shortage was ended.”{464} On the 11th air transport delivered to Patton a bonus issue of nearly a thousand tons of petrol. Next day, “adequate stocks of gasoline were available and all fuel tanks and auxiliary cans were full.”{465} Moreover, “on 12 September the Third Army was given a special allocation of 3,554 long tons of Bailey bridging, and this was moved by separate bridge trains directly from Normandy to the front.”{466} Throughout the week that began on September 10th, while Third Army was attacking in Lorraine with eight divisions, the critical supply situation in the north curtailed First Army’s assault on the Siegfried Line and halted Second Army on the Meuse-Escaut Canal.

There was no question of Montgomery’s waiting unnecessarily in order to build up a vast administrative reserve. He launched the offensive into Holland with nothing in hand at all, except what was immediately necessary to take XXX Corps to the Zuider Zee and to support limited advances by the corps on either flank. He was not able even to establish those corps in position to render the maximum assistance. Owing to the shortage of transport for troops and ammunition, XII Corps could secure only one small bridgehead beyond the Meuse-Escaut Canal before the 17th, and VIII Corps could not join the offensive until the 19th. Even then this corps had only two divisions, for the 51st Highland was grounded throughout the Arnhem operation so that its transport could be used to supply the forward troops. On the first two days of MARKET GARDEN Dempsey was able to employ offensively only three of the nine British divisions available, and, as already recorded, the actual break-out was made by two battalions advancing along one narrow road. This í was the direct result of Eisenhower’s policy. If he had kept Patton halted on the Meuse, and had given full logistic support to Hodges and Dempsey after the capture of Brussels, the operations in Holland could have been an overwhelming triumph, for First U.S. Army could have mounted a formidable diversion, if not a successful offensive, at Aachen, and Second British Army could have attacked sooner, on a wider front and in much greater strength.

The week’s delay on the Dutch frontier gave Model and Student the opportunity of reorganising and strengthening the defences of Holland. During this week 2nd SS Panzer Corps was moved into the Arnhem-Apeldoorn-Deventer area; Corps Feldt (with two divisions) was deployed along the Maas from the Reichswald to Roermond; the scratch formations of paratroops, provided by Göring, were organised into divisions; and three divisions of Fifteenth Army were withdrawn from Flanders across the Scheldt Estuary. Within this week, therefore, the strength of the German forces in the MARKET GARDEN area was more than doubled.

When the offensive was launched the 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions (each with the strength of a brigade plus some thirty tanks and assault guns){467} were sent into action at once. In Arnhem 9th ‘SS (Harzer) took under command the local garrison and two SS training battalions, and was reinforced from the Reich by a panzer grenadier regiment and a heavy tank battalion with 45 Tigers. With these additions Harzer’s force was very much too powerful to be ‘seen off’ by the dispersed and lightly-armed troops of 1st Airborne. Nevertheless, by holding the northern end of the Arnhem road bridge for three days, the paratroops imposed on 10th SS the laborious task of ferrying across the Neder Rijn the two battalions it sent to reinforce the Nijmegen garrison. On the eastern flank of the corridor, however, the Germans were able to build up their strength more quickly. Here, by the 22nd, First Parachute Army had been augmented by the arrival of the 6th Parachute Division from Cologne, two depot divisions from the Home Army, the 107th Panzer Brigade and a battlegroup of 10th SS. That day the defence of the western flank was taken over by Fifteenth Army which had now brought two more divisions safely across the Scheldt Estuary. Thus it was that on September 24th Second Army found itself opposed by fourteen German divisions,{468} a force very much larger than it would have had to engage if its momentum had been maintained or if the weather had allowed the Allied air forces to interfere with the movement of German reserves.

That day—one week after the start of the Allied offensive—Model reported to von Rundstedt: “The position of Army Group B in the northern sector has progressively deteriorated since the air-landings....Our own reinforcements proved inadequate...[and] apart from firmly holding Arnhem the enemy’s aims could not be obstructed.” He said that he had tried to relieve the pressure on the “sorely-menaced front of First Parachute Army” by attacks against the corridor and at Nijmegen, but had not had the forces to make a lasting impression. He now feared that, as further airborne reinforcements had been landed south of Nijmegen on the previous day (these were Gavin’s long-delayed glider battalions), the Allies had “the intention of effecting a penetration to the south-east between the Rhine and the Maas.” “The threat to this area.” said Model, “is particularly grave, since there are no permanent strongpoints in the presumed path of the enemy offensive. In view of the substantial reinforcements thrown in by the enemy, our own forces are not strong enough to hold up the threatened advance.”{469}

Model was right. That was the plan, for Montgomery had no intention of surrendering the initiative just because he had been thwarted at Arnhem. He was determined to exploit the advantage he had gained to the very limit of his strength. He proposed, therefore, to drive through the Reichswald into the Rhineland before the Germans had time to recover from the onslaught that had so nearly overwhelmed them. His plan was that Second British Army should “develop a strong left hook against the Ruhr,” in close conjunction with a right hook by First American Army. “It was my idea,” he wrote later, “that as we progressed along the west bank of the Rhine we should take any opportunity afforded us of jumping the river; if enemy opposition made this impossible, the Allies would be in a position to undertake an opposed crossing operation once we had cleared the sector between Düsseldorf and Nijmegen.”{470}

The execution of this plan depended on the acceptance by Eisenhower (and Bradley) of the proposals which Montgomery had repeatedly put forward during the past month: namely, that Patton must be compelled to assume the defensive; that the drive for the Ruhr must have complete priority in supply; that Hodges should shift his weight northwards and integrate his operations with those of Dempsey: and that one man should have direct operational control over both Second British and First U.S. Armies until the Ruhr was captured.

At Versailles on September 22nd this plan and its implications were examined in detail at the largest and most important conference that Eisenhower had held since D-Day. It was attended by twenty-three generals, admirals and air-marshals, including Eisenhower’s deputy (Tedder), his Air and Naval Commanders-in-Chief (Leigh-Mallory and Ramsay), the commanders of the American Army Groups (Bradley and Devers) and of the U.S. Strategic Air Forces (Spaatz), Lee, the American supply chief, Bedell Smith and the senior staff officers at SHAEF (Gale, Strong, Morgan, Bull and Whiteley), de Guingand and Graham of 21st Army Group: everyone of importance, in fact, except the man whose name was uppermost in the minds of all—Montgomery.

 

The conference at Versailles on September 22nd was the culmination of a week of renewed argument between Eisenhower and Montgomery concerning strategy. On the 14th, Eisenhower, still isolated at Granville on account of his injured knee, had received a very sanguine report from Bradley about Patton’s progress. On the following day, therefore, he wrote Montgomery and Bradley a letter which began: “We shall soon, I hope, have achieved the objectives set forth in my last directive [of September 4th] and shall then be in possession of the Ruhr, the Saar and the Frankfurt area.” Having gained these objectives, he said, he intended to move on Berlin with the forces of both Army Groups “all in one co-ordinated concentrated operation.” The question was whether to advance via the Ruhr and Hanover, or through Frankfurt and Leipzig or by both routes.{471} What did they think?

Montgomery was amazed at Eisenhower’s optimistic assumption that Patton and Hodges would soon reach the Rhine. His reply challenged this assumption and re-stated in the clearest terms the arguments he had been labouring since August 23rd. Time was the vital factor. There were not sufficient supplies to maintain the advance of all armies. One route must be chosen and given full priority. The northern route offered the best opportunity, but, if Eisenhower favoured the southern, he should give Bradley three armies and all the maintenance. Whatever the decision it must be made at once.

The burden of Eisenhower’s next letter, written on the 20th, was that he completely agreed with Montgomery’s idea of concentrating on the northern approach to Berlin, but that he did not intend to do this until Antwerp was open and the Allies had marshalled their strength along the western borders of Germany, if possible along the Rhine. This letter, and the degree of enemy opposition provoked by MARKET GARDEN, convinced Montgomery that the chance of making a deep penetration into Germany had gone. He hoped, however, that it might still be possible to capture the Ruhr that autumn, if only he could gain full support for the ‘left hook’ plan which he now put forward in a signal to Eisenhower.

The conference at Versailles on September 22nd offered Montgomery the opportunity of presenting his plan in person and impressing his views by the very force and clarity of his presentation, as he had done so effectively before D-Day. Then, however, he had been stating his intentions, not pleading his case. Now he would have to appear as an advocate, almost as a suppliant—a role for which he knew he was ill-cast. He decided, therefore, to send de Guingand as his representative. This action caused considerable resentment among many of those present, who regarded it as an affront to Eisenhower, if not to themselves. But Montgomery’s refusal to go to Versailles was not, as some thought, due to pique or arrogance; rather it was a tacit acknowledgment of his own limitations.

The month-long argument about command and strategy had imposed a considerable strain upon him. On August 23rd he had believed he was on the point of gaining a victory which would end the war rapidly and save tens of thousands of lives. The chance of gaining that victory had been denied to him, and, since he was only human, this denial had been a bitter personal disappointment—the more so because of past criticism. He had so often been accused of being ‘defensively-minded,’ being too deliberate, preparing too diligently for his attacks and neglecting opportunities of exploitation. With his armies on the Seine, the time had come to prove that he had created the conditions for delivering the knock-out blow. With one bold stroke he would silence the critical and sceptical. This was the occasion for which he had trained and nursed his forces all the way from Alamein; the occasion for which he had given his life, schooling himself with rigorous devotion until he had become confident of his own mastery of the art and practice of war. But the cup of triumph had been dashed from his lips by men who, according to his standards, had hardly begun to understand the profession of arms. Now when all his warnings had been fulfilled, when the great opportunity that he had foreseen so clearly had been cast away, he did not trust himself to meet them at so ‘public’ a gathering as this conference in Versailles. He feared, that, if he did go, he might do more harm than good. On the other hand, de Guingand was a skilful diplomat, popular with the Americans and trusted by them. The plan, Montgomery thought, was more likely to be accepted if presented by his Chief of Staff.

It was accepted. The decision, as recorded in the minutes of the conference, was that “the envelopment of the Ruhr from the north by 21st Army Group, supported by the First Army, is the main effort of the present phase of operations.” In addition, however, 2 1st Army Group was “to open the port of Antwerp as a matter of urgency,” for Eisenhower insisted that “possession of an additional major port on the northern flank is an indispensable prerequisite for the final drive deep into Germany.” “This,” he said, “must be accepted by all.” Bradley suggested that the attack on the Ruhr should be postponed until the Scheldt Estuary had been cleared and there were sufficient resources to support a general advance, but this proposal was rejected. Bradley was ordered to send two divisions to take over the southern sector of Dempsey’s front and thus allow Second Army to concentrate greater strength north of the Maas. Hodges was to be “prepared to attack the Ruhr from the South in concert with 21st Army Group’s attack from the North.” The rest of 12th Army Group (the Third and Ninth Armies) would “take no more aggressive action.” Moreover, Patton’s southern corps was to be transferred to Seventh Army which was being maintained with supplies brought up from Marseilles.

That evening de Guingand signalled to Montgomery: “Excellent conference. Ike supported your plan one hundred per cent. Your thrust is main effort and gets full support.” This signal brought the news for which Montgomery had waited so long, but the Battle of Arnhem was already lost. Eisenhower’s decision had been made one month too late.

 

When the Battle of Arnhem ended the German forces guarding the Ruhr were extended to the point of exhaustion. On September 27th, the day after the British withdrawal across the Neder Rijn, Model reported to von Rundstedt on the critical condition of Army Group B, which was holding a line 300 miles long from the Scheldt Estuary through Arnhem and Aachen to Trier. On this front, now almost cleft in two by Montgomery’s offensive, Model had 33 of the 52 divisions then in the West, but many of these were divisions in name only and, even though they were filled out with scratch units and sundry battlegroups, their average strength was considerably less than 10,000 men. Model gave warning that, although morale was “improving every day,” his numbers were shrinking. “In the period from September 1st to 25th,” he reported, “our casualties amounted to about 75,000 men; in the same period we received only 6,500 replacements.”{472}

The crucial factor, however, was not man-power but fire-power. So many weapons had been lost and so few had been replaced that in his three armies Model had only “239 tanks and assault guns” and “821 light and heavy cannon,” less armour and artillery than had been available in Britain after Dunkirk. Model had barely sufficient tanks to refit one armoured division; the Allies on his front alone had the equivalent of twelve armoured divisions.

Model reported these facts to von Rundstedt so that they could be brought “to the direct notice of the Führer,” who kept in his own hands the control of all panzer replacements and reserves. On resuming command, von Rundstedt had proposed that, as new tanks arrived, they should be used to refit the panzer divisions which had fought in France, and that a reserve of armour should be built up in the Cologne Plain where it could best counter any break-through towards the Ruhr. Hitler insisted, however, that virtually all the 400 new Panthers and Mark IVs, which became available for the West during the first half of September, must be used offensively for the counter-stroke against Patton’s southern flank. Moreover, instead of giving these tanks to the experienced though depleted divisions already in the West, he allocated them to the new panzer brigades which had been formed in Germany within the last six weeks.

This decision was characteristic of Hitler. At a time when the lack of replacements for men and equipment was leading, as Model said, “to the exhaustion of whole divisions,” Hitler was desperately raising and equipping new formations. This frenzied policy sprang from personal, rather than military, considerations. By ‘creating’ divisions as fast as they were consumed in the fire of battle, he persuaded himself that his power was not yet exhausted. To maintain the fiction of his invincibility he had given orders in August that no divisions would be ‘written off.’ Thus, even remnants with the fighting value of little more than a battalion continued to rank as ‘divisions’ in the German Order of Battle and when the new formations were added the inflated figures sustained in him the illusion that the strength of the Wehrmacht was being expanded as the crisis grew more grave.

Hitler’s original plan for the counter-offensive in Lorraine was that it should be delivered by Manteuffel’s Fifth Panzer Army with three panzer grenadier divisions and at least four of the new panzer brigades. This plan was forestalled by Patton’s advance from the Meuse in the second week of September. The three panzer grenadier divisions were pinned down on the Moselle, and Patton’s forces, sweeping round their flank, reached the Lunéville-Épinal area before Manteuffel was ready to strike. In an effort to halt the American advance, two panzer brigades lost almost their entire strength before the real offensive began at Lunéville on September 18th.{473}

Although this offensive took Third Army by surprise, the Americans reacted so strongly that the Germans were thrown out of Lunéville the same day. Thereupon, Manteuffel sought to reach Nancy by outflanking Lunéville to the north. This manoeuvre brought his tanks head on against the 4th U.S. Armoured Division, commanded by Major-General John S. Wood, a bold, aggressive and original soldier. In four days’ fighting around Arracourt, north of Lunéville, Wood handled his armour brilliantly and dealt so severely with two of the new panzer brigades that by September 22nd these were both crippled. The 111th, having arrived in Lorraine with 98 tanks and two battalions of infantry, was now reduced to “seven tanks and eighty men.” The 113th had suffered as heavily but its exact casualties are not known. These losses could not be explained away with the excuse that the Germans were outnumbered, for this damage was inflicted almost entirely by a single combat command which contained only one tank battalion. At small cost to themselves the Americans gained a resounding victory.{474}

It is not surprising that the panzer brigades were outfought. Although many of their officers and men had considerable experience on the Eastern Front, they knew nothing of the entirely different conditions in the West, nor had their units had time to develop the cohesion that can come only with thorough training. The brigades had been hastily thrown together and equipped with tanks drawn direct from the factories. Many of these tanks had not even been run-in before they were committed to battle and a large proportion of the German casualties were the result of mechanical failures.

This defeat gave Hitler an excuse for dismissing the commander of Army Group G (Blaskowitz) who had long been politically suspect because he was personally independent. The command was given to General Hermann Balck, an experienced tank commander and a notorious optimist with a reputation for ruthless aggression. This appointment was not welcomed by von Rundstedt, for Balck had no experience of operations against the Western Powers. With Hitler, however, this was no doubt a point in his favour.

Balck arrived with instructions to renew the offensive against Third Army. Von Rundstedt protested at this order, arguing that the time for a counter-stroke in the south had gone and that the armour should be moved north to the Aachen sector which had become vulnerable because by far the greater part of Model’s panzer reserves were of necessity being committed against the British in Holland. Hitler brushed this protest aside and ordered Manteuffel to continue the attack, reinforced by the 11th Panzer Division which had covered the withdrawal up the Rhône Valley.

On September 25th, when the attack was resumed, Fifth Panzer Army was stronger in infantry, but very much weaker in armour, than it had been seven days earlier. The American outposts were driven in, but the Germans made no real progress and by the 29th the back of their assault was broken. That day, evidently alarmed at the weakness of Model’s armoured forces, Hitler gave orders that all the armour which could be spared should be concentrated to check the British drive for the Ruhr. Already, however, in the attempt to carry out Hitler’s original instructions the panzer reserves in the south had been thrown away. Of the 350 Panthers and Mark IVs which he had sent to Lorraine since the start of September at least half had been totally destroyed and many of the remainder were in workshops. At the end of the month on the entire Western Front from the Swiss border to the North Sea von Rundstedt could not muster more than five hundred tanks and assault guns.{475}

The combined effect of Montgomery’s offensive in the north and Hitler’s counter-offensive in the south was that von Rundstedt was left with an even more extended front and with no adequate reserve to restore any major breach. Only a comparatively small proportion of Eisenhower’s total strength had been engaged in Operation MARKET GARDEN and yet it had been all Model could do to prevent Second Army reaching Arnhem and breaking through to the Zuider Zee. For a week the Allied corridor south of the Maas had been only a mile wide and yet Model could not keep it cut, nor had he been able to wipe out the meagre airborne forces north of the Neder Rijn.

Since the war von Rundstedt and other German generals who can speak with authority (Student, Westphal, Blumentritt, Speidel and others) have all declared that a concentrated thrust from Belgium in September must have succeeded. These generals are agreed that if even fifteen divisions had driven on after the capture of Brussels and Liége, as Montgomery proposed, the Wehrmacht would have been powerless to stop them overrunning the Lower Rhineland and seizing the Ruhr. Indeed Blumentritt says: “Such a break-through en masse, coupled with air domination, would have torn the weak German front to pieces and ended the war in the winter of 1944.”{476}

In view of Hitler’s unbroken resolve to continue the struggle even into the streets of Berlin regardless of the cost, there is reason to doubt whether the capture of the Ruhr and Rhineland alone would have brought the war to an end that year. It is quite certain, however, that the loss of these areas would have deprived Hitler of the means of carrying out the grandiose plan which was already forming in his mind for a winter offensive in the West.