Bridge Too Far (9 page)

Yet, in spite of the critical logistic situation, no one was ready to admit that the armies must soon halt or that the pursuit was over.  “Every commander from division upwards,” Eisenhower later wrote, was “obsessed with the idea that with only a few more tons of supply, he could rush right on and win the war.  … Each commander, therefore, begged and demanded priority over all others, and it was quite undeniable that in front of each were opportunities for quick exploitation that made the demands completely logical.”  Still, the optimism had infected even the Supreme Commander.  It was obvious that he believed the impetus of the advance could be maintained long enough for the Allied armies to overrun the Siegfried Line before the Germans had a chance to defend it, for he saw Signs of “collapse” on the “entire front.”  On September 4 he directed that Bradley’s “12th Army Group will capture the Saar and the Frankfurt area.”  Montgomery’s “21/ Army Group will capture the Ruhr and Antwerp.”

Even Patton seemed appeased by the announcement.  Now he was sure that, given adequate supplies, his powerful U.s. Third Army could, by itself, reach the industrial Saar and then dash on all the way to the Rhine.  * And in the unparalleled atmosphere of * Patton’s weekly press conferences were always newsworthy, but especially memorable for the General’s off-the-record remarks, which, because of his colorful vocabulary, could never have been printed anyway.  That first week of September, as a war correspondent for the London Daily Telegraph, I was present when, in typical fashion, he expounded on his plans for the Germans.  In his high-pitched voice and pounding the map, Patton declared that, “Maybe there are five thousand, maybe ten thousand, Nazi bastards in their concrete foxholes before the Third Army.  Now, if Ike stops holding Monty’s hand and, gives me the supplies, I’ll go through the Siegfried Line like shit through a goose.”

victory that prevailed, Montgomery, with his coded message of September 4, once again doggedly pressed his case.  This time he went far beyond his proposal of August 17 and his conversation with Eisenhower on August 23.  Convinced that the Germans were broken, the commander of the British 21/ Army Group believed that he could not only reach the Ruhr but race all the way to Berlin itself.

In his nine-paragraph message to Eisenhower, Montgomery spelled out again the reasons that convinced him that the moment had come for a “really powerful and full-blooded thrust.”  There were two strategic opportunities open to the Allies, “one via the Ruhr and the other via Metz and the Saar.”  But, he argued, because “we have not enough resources, two such drives could not be maintained.”  There was a chance for only one—his.  That thrust, the northern one “via the Ruhr,” was, in Montgomery’s opinion, “likely to give the best and quickest results.”  To guarantee its success, Monty’s single thrust would need “all the maintenance resources … without qualification.” He was now clearly impatient of any other considerations.  He was going on record both as to the worth of his own plan and his skill and belief in himself as the one man to carry it off.  Other operations would have to get along with whatever logistic support remained.  There could be no compromise, he warned the Supreme Commander.  He dismissed the possibility of two drives, because “it would split our maintenance resources so that neither thrust is full-blooded” and as a result “prolong the war.”  As Montgomery saw the problem it was “very simple and clear-cut.”  But time was of “such vital importance … that a decision is required at once.”

Acrid and autocratic, the most popular British commander since

Wellington was obsessed by his own beliefs.  Considering the acute

logistic situation, he reasoned that his single-thrust theory was now

more valid than it had been two weeks before.  In

his intractable way—and indifferent as to how the tone of his message might be received—Montgomery was not merely suggesting a course of action for the Supreme Commander; the Field Marshal was dictating one.  Eisenhower must halt all other armies in their tracks—in particular Patton’s—so that all resources could be put behind his single drive.  And his Signal No.  M-160 closed with a typical example of Montgomery’s arrogance.  “If you are coming this way perhaps you would look in and discuss it,” he proposed.  “If so, delighted to see you lunch tomorrow.  Do not feel I can leave this battle just at present.”  That his closing words bordered on the insolent seemed not to occur to Montgomery in his anxiety that this last chance to finish off the Germans must not be lost.  Limpetlike, he clung to his single-thrust plan.  For now he was sure that even Eisenhower must realize that the time had come to strike the final blow.

In the bedroom of his villa at Granville on the western side of the Cherbourg peninsula, the Supreme Commander read Montgomery’s Signal No.  M-160 with angry disbelief.  The fifty-five-year-old Eisenhower thought Montgomery’s proposal “unrealistic” and “fantastic.”  Three times Montgomery had nagged him to exasperation about single-thrust schemes.  Eisenhower thought he had settled the strategy conflict once and for all on August 23.  Yet, now Montgomery was not only advocating his theory once again but was proposing to rush all the way to Berlin.

Usually calm and congenial, Eisenhower now lost his temper.  “There

isn’t a single soul who believes this can be done, except Montgomery,”

he exploded to members of his staff.  At this moment, to Eisenhower’s

mind, the most urgent matter was the opening of the Channel ports,

especially Antwerp.  Why could Montgomery not understand that?  The

Supreme Commander was only too well aware of the glittering

opportunities that existed.  But, as he told the Deputy Supreme

Commander, Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Tedder, and

SHAEF’S assistant chief of staff

Lieutenant General Frederick Morgan, for Montgomery “to talk of marching to Berlin with an army which is still drawing the great bulk of its supplies over the beaches is fantastic.”

The Field Marshal’s message could hardly have come at a worse time.  The Supreme Commander was propped up in bed, his right knee in a cast, as a consequence of an injury of which Montgomery, at the moment, was unaware.  Eisenhower had more cause than this, however, to be edgy.  Leaving the main body of SHAEF in London, he had come to the Continent to take personal control on September 1, four days earlier.  His small advance command headquarters at Jullouville near Granville was totally inadequate.  Because of the phenomenal movement of his armies, Eisenhower was stranded more than four hundred miles from the front—and there were, as yet, no telephone or teletype facilities.  Except for radio and a rudimentary courier system, he was unable to communicate immediately with his commanders in the field.  The physical injury which added to these tactical discomforts had occurred after one of his routine flying visits to his principal commanders.  On September 2, returning from a conference at Chartres with senior American generals, Eisenhower’s plane, because of high winds and bad visibility, had been unable to land at the headquarters airfield.  Instead, it had put down—safely—on the beach near his villa.  But then, trying to help the pilot pull the plane away from the water’s edge, Eisenhower had badly wrenched his right knee.  Thus, at this vital juncture in the war, as the Supreme Commander tried to take control of the land battle and with events happening so fast that immediate decisions were necessary, Eisenhower was physically immobilized.

Although Montgomery—or, for that matter, Bradley and Patton—might

feel that Eisenhower “was out of touch with the land battle,” only

distance made that argument valid.  His excellent, integrated

Anglo-American staff was much more cognizant of the day-to-day

situation in the field than his generals realized.  And while he

expected combat commanders to display initiative and boldness, only the

Supreme Commander and his staff could view the over-all situation and

make decisions accordingly.  But it was

true that, in this transitional period, while Eisenhower was assuming personal control, there appeared to be a lack of clear-cut direction, due in part to the complexity of the Supreme Commander’s role.  Coalition command was far from easy.  Yet, Eisenhower, maintaining a delicate balance, and following to the letter the plans of the Combined Chiefs of Staff, made the system work.  In the interest of Allied amity, he might modify strategy, but Eisenhower had no intention of throwing caution to the winds and allowing Montgomery, as the Supreme Commander later put it, to make a “single, knifelike drive toward Berlin.”  * * In all fairness to Montgomery, it must be said that he, himself, never used this phrase.  His idea was to throw forty divisions together and drive toward Berlin—certainly no knifelike thrust—but he has been credited with the remark and in my opinion it hurt his cause at SHAEF during the many strategic meetings that took place.

He had been more than tolerant with Montgomery, granting him concession after concession, often incurring the anger of his own American generals.  Yet, it seemed that Monty “always wanted everything and he never did anything fast in his life.”  * Eisenhower said he understood Montgomery’s peculiarities better than the Britisher realized.  “Look, people have told me about his boyhood,” Eisenhower recalled, “and when you have a contest between Eton and Harrow on one side and some of the lesser schools on the other, some of these juniors coming into the army * To the author.  In a taped interview, President Eisenhower almost relived for me his emotions at the time of this bitter argument with Montgomery.  When I told him I had interviewed the Field Marshal, Eisenhower cut me short and said, “You don’t have to tell me what he told you—he said I knew nothing about war—right?  Look, I’m interested only in getting this thing down truthfully and logically, because any historian has to make deductions.  … Personally, I don’t believe I would put too much weight on what generals remember, including me.  Because memory is a fallible thing … Goddammit, I don’t know what you heard in Britain, but the British have never understood the American system of command.  … When the whole damned thing [WW II] was done … I never heard from the British any goldarn paeans of praise.  And you’re not going to hear it now, particularly from people like Montgomery.  … His associates—they’ve said things about him that I would never dream of repeating.  … I don’t care if he goes down as the greatest soldier in the world.  He isn’t, but if he goes down that way it’s all right with me.  … He got so damn personal to make sure that the Americans and me, in particular, had no credit, had nothing to do with the war, that I eventually just stopped communicating with him … I was just not interested in keeping up communications with a man that just can’t tell the truth.”  The reader is urged to remember that never, during the war, did the Supreme Commander publicly discuss the Field Marshal, and his views expressed here are revealed for the first time.

felt sort of inferior.  The man, all his life, has been trying to prove that he was somebody.”  Clearly, however, the Field Marshal’s views reflected his British superiors’ beliefs on how the Allies should proceed.

Understandable as this might be, Montgomery’s arrogance in presenting such views invariably set American commanders’ teeth on edge.  As Supreme Commander, armed by the Combined Chiefs of Staff with sweeping powers, Eisenhower had one prime concern: to hold the Allies together and win the war swiftly.  Although some of SHAEF’S staff, including many Britishers, considered Montgomery insufferable and said so, Eisenhower never commented on him except in private to his chief of staff, Bedell Smith.  But, in fact, the Supreme Commander’s exasperation with Montgomery went far deeper than anyone knew.  Eisenhower felt that the Field Marshal was “a psychopath … such an egocentric” that everything he had ever done “was perfect … he never made a mistake in his life.”  Eisenhower was not going to let him make one now.  “Robbing the American Peter who is fed from Cherbourg,” he told Tedder, “will certainly not get the British Paul to Berlin.”

Nevertheless, Eisenhower was deeply disturbed at the widening rift

between him and Britain’s favorite general.  Within the next few days,

the Supreme Commander decided, he would meet with Montgomery in an

effort to clarify what he considered to be a misunderstanding.  Once

more he would attempt to spell out his strategy and hope for agreement,

however grudgingly it might come.  In the interim before the meeting,

he made one thing clear.  He firmly rejected Montgomery’s single-thrust

plan and his bid for Berlin.  On the evening of September 5, in a coded

message to the Field Marshal, he said, “While agreeing with your

conception of a powerful and full-blooded thrust toward Berlin, I do

not agree that it should be initiated at this moment to the exclusion

of all other maneuvers.”  As the Supreme Commander saw it, “the bulk of

the German army in the west has now been destroyed,” and that success

should be exploited “by promptly breaching the Siegfried Line, crossing

the Rhine on a wide front and seizing the

Saar and the Ruhr.  This I intend to do with all possible speed.” These moves, Eisenhower believed, would place a “strangle hold on Germany’s main industrial areas and largely destroy her capacity to wage war.  …”  Opening the ports of Le Havre and Antwerp was essential, Eisenhower went on, before any “powerful thrust” into Germany could be launched.  But, at the moment, Eisenhower emphasized, “no relocation of our present resources would be adequate to sustain a thrust to Berlin.  …”

Eisenhower’s decision took thirty-six hours to reach Montgomery, and then only the last half of the message arrived.  The concluding two paragraphs were received by Montgomery at 9 A.m. on the morning of September 7. The opening section did not arrive until September 9, another forty-eight hours later.  As Montgomery saw it, Eisenhower’s communication was one more confirmation that the Supreme Commander was “too far removed from the battle.”

From the first fragment of the message that Montgomery received, it was abundantly clear that Eisenhower had rejected his plan, for it contained the sentence, “No relocation of our present resources would be adequate to sustain a thrust to Berlin.”  Montgomery immediately sent off a message disagreeing heatedly.