Supreme Commander (99 page)

In his second cable of January 10, which was eight pages long, Eisenhower raised a new possibility: what if the ground commander were someone other than Montgomery? Eisenhower still thought having a ground commander in chief a poor idea, for all he could do would be to duplicate work SHAEF and Eisenhower were already doing. He would have to exercise his command through Bradley, Montgomery, and Devers, who were “already in such high position that for their respective sections at the front they are, each, a ground commander in chief.” Besides, given “the personalities involved,” Eisenhower did not think it would work out. He thought that the command system as it already existed was logical and did not see how anyone could exercise more control than SHAEF and the Supreme Commander already were. He did admit that, because of the great size of the land forces under his command, it would be “more convenient” for him if his deputy supreme commander were an experienced ground officer, rather than an airman. If he could have someone whom both Bradley and Montgomery would respect, he would be glad to have him, but “I am afraid it would be impossible to find such a deputy as I describe.” The only general he could think of was Alexander, who had just become Supreme Commander in the Mediterranean and thus was unavailable.
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The almost casual way Eisenhower raised Alexander’s name was a probing, an attempt to see how Marshall would react. Churchill and Brooke had raised the possible transfer of Alexander from the Mediterranean to northwestern Europe at their meeting with Eisenhower on January 3. They desperately wanted the British to play a greater role in the development of strategy, thought Tedder and Whiteley and the
other British officers at SHAEF too much under Eisenhower’s influence, and realized that Montgomery would never do. It was not just a case of national pride, although that played a part. They, or at least Brooke, sincerely believed that Eisenhower’s strategy was faulty. Since Montgomery could not influence him, it was time to try someone else. Eisenhower liked Alexander personally, and said that if the CCS assigned him to SHAEF he would be glad to have him. He almost welcomed the idea, for with Alexander at SHAEF the British could no longer complain. He did not however intend to give Alexander sole ground control.

Marshall suspected Churchill and Brooke had gotten to Eisenhower, and he was fearful that Eisenhower was weakening under the intense British pressure to put one of their officers in charge of the ground forces. Knowing that the British would gladly pull Alexander out of the Mediterranean if his new assignment were land command in Europe, he wired Eisenhower to warn him that Alexander’s appointment would mean two things: “First, that the British had won a major point in getting control of the ground operations in which their divisions of necessity will play such a minor part and, for the same reason, we are bound to suffer very heavy casualties; and second, the man being who he is and our experience being what it has been, you would have great difficulty in offsetting the direct influence of the P.M.” In the face of Marshall’s feelings, Eisenhower backed down. He admitted to Marshall that he had not thought of these disadvantages, but assured the Chief of Staff that he would seriously object to having any officer named “deputy for ground operations.” Eisenhower had thought that Alexander might serve as deputy without portfolio; he was not willing to go back to the committee system that had prevailed in AFHQ. He said he had made that clear to Churchill.
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Since Montgomery could not move Eisenhower, and since Eisenhower—with Marshall’s backing—had stood firm against Brooke, it was now up to Brooke to convince Marshall. The dispute had moved to higher levels. Within the AEF, relations between the British and Americans were improving. Montgomery helped matters greatly when, just prior to First Army’s return to Bradley’s command on January 17, he wrote Bradley a warm letter. He said it had been a great honor to command such fine troops, praised Simpson and Hodges for their good work, said the corps commanders (Gerow, Collins, and Ridgway) had been “quite magnificent,” and—most important—said he greatly admired the way Bradley had conducted operations on the southern flank of the salient. “If you had not held on firmly to Bastogne the whole situation might
have become very awkward.”
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It was difficult to remain angry with such a man.

But if Montgomery was ready to play by Eisenhower’s rules, the CIGS was not. As Brooke prepared for the Malta meeting, however, he realized how weak his position was. The point at issue went beyond the relatively simple problem of choosing a ground commander, and even beyond the nature of the final offensive. Certainly the issue was also much more important than Montgomery’s ambition and bad manners. In their related demands for a single offensive north of the Ruhr and a single ground commander, the British were trying to assert themselves. They were, they felt, being ignored.

There was a good reason for British feelings of relative inferiority. The United States had replaced Great Britain as the dominant power bordering on the Atlantic Ocean. By 1945 American production was reaching levels that were scarcely believable. The United States was producing forty-five per cent of the world’s armaments and nearly fifty per cent of the world’s total goods. Some two thirds of all the ships afloat in the world were American-made. Under the circumstances, what the Americans wanted, if they wanted it badly enough, they got. Montgomery knew that, if Eisenhower threw before the CCS the mutually exclusive choice of himself or Montgomery, Eisenhower would win because the JCS dominated the CCS, just as Eisenhower dominated the AEF. This American domination reflected a newly arrived era in the world’s history.

Brooke knew that, for good or ill, the Americans were determined to claim their rightful position. In 1942 and even in 1943 he had been able to shape CCS decisions, but now that power had slipped away. It was galling but, more important, the strategy the Americans insisted upon was hurting Britain more each day because it delayed the final victory. The War Department’s refusal to give Eisenhower any more replacements during the Bulge illustrated this point. The Americans had made, in 1942, a basic priority decision—the United States would concentrate on industrial production as her chief contribution to victory. The implementation of this decision involved holding the number of U.S. combat divisions to ninety. In denying Eisenhower his replacements, the War Department was holding firm to the original priority.
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Churchill, meanwhile, had impulsively called up another quarter of a million men, so that while American production and wealth increased, Britain’s, due to the resultant decrease in the industrial work force, decreased. A number of high-ranking British officials were critical of Churchill for overtaxing his
country by putting too much of a strain on the economy in order to win the war.
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No one accused Roosevelt or the Americans of making that mistake.

Even though the British strained to the limit of their power, American strength in the AEF at this time was so great that Eisenhower could do almost as he wished. That he had such great patience with Montgomery was, in fact, as much a mark of human courtesy as of need. The British contributed only about one quarter of his troops. Churchill, realizing this, and realizing that Britain would no longer be able to play a lone, powerful hand in world politics, but could exert an influence only through association with the United States, was much more inclined to tread lightly with the Americans than Brooke. It was the Prime Minister, for example, who told the British press that in the Ardennes the Americans engaged thirty or forty men for every British soldier in the battle, and had suffered sixty to eighty casualties for every British soldier killed or wounded. Churchill told the British press to be careful not to give too much credit to the British Army for victory in the Bulge, for he did not want to irritate the Americans.
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Still, of course, the Prime Minister did want his nation to have a voice in making strategic decisions, and he was also concerned about British prestige. At a meeting with Brooke on January 2, Brooke noted that “Winston … then propounded strategies based on ensuring that British troops were retained in the limelight, if necessary, at the expense of the Americans”; that is, that Twenty-first Army Group make the drive across Germany alone.
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As Forrest Pogue points out, the British realized that they were no longer full partners in the alliance. “Their only hope for controlling the course of events … was to gain over-all ground command or to get a substantial portion of the Allied resources allocated to offensives led by British commanders. It was difficult under these circumstances to determine whether the British were advocating a course of action because they believed in it or because it would best serve British interests.”
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Brooke and Churchill wanted to get Alexander transferred to Eisenhower’s headquarters so that he could have an influence on Eisenhower’s thinking. Brooke also wanted the CCS to send Eisenhower a directive that would force him to concentrate north of the Ruhr, where as he saw it lay the only hope of a quick victory. He was disturbed at what he felt to be an absence of a sense of urgency on the part of the Americans, especially Eisenhower, and was shocked at Eisenhower’s statement before the Bulge that the Rhine might not be crossed before May. The British were dipping deeper and deeper into their human and material resources
and it was imperative for them, if they were to have any position at all in the postwar world, to end the war as soon as possible. As Arthur Bryant puts it, “With their manpower and resources all but exhausted after five years of war and with no possibility of making good further losses, they [the British] had staked everything on an early victory in the West and had seen it, as they felt, thrown away by the inexperience of the American High Command. The war, instead of ending in 1944, had been prolonged into another year and, unless a very different method of conducting it was now to be adopted, seemed likely to continue until, not only their own position, but that of Europe was desperate.”
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But the real point at issue was not what Brooke sometimes thought it was. Eisenhower was just as anxious to end the war as the British, and was willing to take any reasonable risk to do it. The disagreement was over strategy. All through January 1945 Montgomery protested to Brooke that Eisenhower was up to his old tricks, promising to make the major effort in the north but meanwhile allowing Bradley and Patton to operate as they wished. “The real trouble is that there is no control and the three Army Groups are each intent on their own affairs,” Montgomery complained on January 22. “Patton to-day issued a stirring order to Third Army, saying the next step would be Cologne.… One has to preserve a sense of humour these days, otherwise one would go mad.”
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Eisenhower continued to insist on closing to the Rhine all along his front before crossing the river north of the Ruhr. He felt that if he could destroy the Germans west of the Rhine he could walk across the rest of Germany. Brooke thought that closing everywhere would take strength from Montgomery’s drive and thus delay the victory. That was the real issue.

The CCS meeting at Malta began on January 30, 1945. Two days earlier Eisenhower had flown to Marseilles to meet with Marshall. After discussing ETO problems they turned to the British demands for a single ground commander and a directive forcing Eisenhower to turn over all his offensive power to Montgomery. Marshall said he would never agree to any proposal to set up a single ground command. If it were done, he added, he would resign as Chief of Staff. He told Eisenhower he was right to want to fight a major battle west of the Rhine and to close to the river everywhere before crossing in the north. Eisenhower flew back to Versailles knowing that, with the support Marshall was giving him, he would have his way.
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Brooke arrived in Malta with the air of a man who has one last, desperate chance. Eisenhower sent Smith to represent him, giving Smith
two objectives—to retain the SHAEF plan for the campaign, and to hold the alliance together. The Americans might be dominant, but Eisenhower did not want to play the bully. All considerations of friendship and fair play aside, he still needed the British. He also believed, with Churchill, that Anglo-American co-operation was essential to a peaceful postwar world.

Smith got the job done. Brooke knew that the Americans were all against him, so he could not press matters too far. He did insist that it would be foolish to pass up an opportunity to cross the Rhine in the north if one presented itself, and Smith said that obviously Eisenhower would take advantage of any such opportunity. Brooke wanted it in writing, so Smith and Eisenhower exchanged cables in an attempt to find a satisfactory wording. The upshot was a cable from Eisenhower to Smith that Brooke accepted: “You may assure the Combined Chiefs of Staff that I will seize the Rhine crossings in the North immediately this is a feasible operation and without waiting to close the Rhine throughout its length.” Then Eisenhower added, “I will advance across the Rhine in the North with maximum strength and complete determination as soon as the situation in the South allows me to collect the necessary forces and do this without incurring unnecessary risks.”
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Reassured, although still suspicious because of Eisenhower’s last sentence, Brooke then talked privately with Smith. The CIGS said he doubted that Eisenhower was “strong enough” to do his job. “Goddam it,” Smith replied, “let’s have it out here and now.” He suggested that the two of them speak bluntly, off the record. He asked what Brooke meant. Brooke replied that Eisenhower paid too much attention to the desires of his field commanders, that he was too likely to be swayed by the last man to whom he talked. Going straight to the heart of the matter, Smith retorted by stressing Eisenhower’s cordial contacts with his commanders and pointed out that the Supreme Commander could hold the Allied team together only by a combination of diplomacy and sternness. He added that if the BCOS doubted Eisenhower’s ability they should put their cards on the table before the CCS. Brooke knew that would be hopeless. He lamely responded that Eisenhower had many abilities and conceded that there was no one else available and acceptable to Marshall who could hold down the Supreme Commander’s job.
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