Eisenhower
Page 12
Up to this point, the British had been right about strategy. This suggested that they probably would be right the next time their leaders pressed for assaults on Europe’s “soft underbelly.” Marshall’s power to influence FDR and Allied strategy in Europe was weakened—with important implications for what would happen when and if the British and American forces conquered Tunisia. From this point on, the British were in the driver’s seat on high strategy and on battlefield tactics. Alexander, who quickly took a firm grip on his command, resolved to keep the Americans in a subordinate position through the rest of Churchill’s Mediterranean campaign. As the American and British forces advanced, Alexander assigned Patton a secondary role: defending Montgomery’s army from a flank attack.91
Victory
Reorganized and rearmed under Patton, however, the II Corps quickly became a more disciplined and aggressive force pressing toward the Tunisian coast with an eye on splitting the German armies. Montgomery’s British Eighth Army advanced up the coast, and to the north, Anderson’s combined British, American, and French troops and armor fought their way to the crucial port cities of Bizerte and Tunis. General Alexander ordered the II Corps to advance and then stop so as not to interfere with Montgomery’s attack. But Patton objected and forced his corps ahead. After the fact, Alexander yielded to Patton’s and Marshall’s fierce objections and authorized the II Corps to do what it was already doing.92 Moved next to the northern attack on Bizerte, II Corps—now under Bradley—played an important role in the final days of the Tunisian campaign.93 Broken and trapped, the German and Italian forces surrendered in May 1943, ending the North African campaign.94
Eisenhower with General George C. Marshall in Africa in the summer of 1943. Army Chief of Staff Marshall was Ike’s strongest supporter from 1941 through World War II.
Eisenhower had leaned very far toward the British position. According to Generals Patton and Bradley, he had been too quick to support Alexander and too hesitant to buck the British tactical decisions.95 They railed against war by committee. But Eisenhower, who had developed a “necessary veneer of callousness,” continued to bend to British authority.96 Knowing his American generals would grouse but not rebel, he applied some of his newfound cunning on the situation. His mantra was unity, not nationalism. What was important to him was the fact that Patton and Bradley had wrangled victory from a difficult situation and begun by their performance to undercut the deeply planted British prejudices.97 It would take time to change the attitudes of the British officers and men. Some would never change their minds. In the meantime, Ike had to drive forward while holding the Allies together as a fighting force.98
Sicily
Ike’s next challenge was to invade Sicily, but by the time his armies launched their new assault, he was no longer on the steep part of his learning curve. He now had the team of combat leaders he needed. He had gently and successfully worked to dislodge General Anderson, who had disappointed Eisenhower in the Tunisian campaign.99 He had Bradley and Patton guiding the primary American forces, with General Montgomery—that is, “Monty”—responsible for the Eighth Army and the drive up the eastern side of the island. Montgomery’s victories in North Africa had not mellowed his personality. Instead, he became ever more troublesome to Ike and to his ground commander, Alexander. Still, both officers recognized that Monty was an accomplished tactician, the most experienced officer in the force. He was methodical to a fault but dependable and resilient under fire. His great victory at El Alamein was still the centerpiece of his military reputation, and as the campaign in Sicily got under way, none of Ike’s other commanders could match that accomplishment.
The amphibious and airborne landings on July 10, 1943, were flawed but successful. Poor coordination between the invading fleet and air forces resulted in tragic losses from friendly antiaircraft fire. Still, Ike’s two armies made it ashore and were able to hold their beachheads. Monty led the major assault force on the southeast coast and started a steady, forceful drive toward the vital port city of Messina, the link between Sicily and the mainland. Alexander once again assigned Patton and Bradley secondary roles covering the flank of Monty’s Eighth Army by advancing on the west of the island.100
German resistance to both attacks was fierce, and Montgomery’s advance slowed to a walk and then stopped. In the middle of the island, however, Patton’s tanks were able to drive deeply inland, and soon they captured Palermo.101 He and Bradley then sent their infantry and tanks to fight their way east into Messina.102 For Patton and the US media, the victories of his Seventh Army were a personal, professional, and national triumph that started to erase the painful memory of the American defeat at Kasserine Pass.
For Ike, the American accomplishments and the clear evidence that they still needed to improve coordination of their land, air, and sea forces shaped his vision of the immediate future. His confidence in Bradley had grown immensely, and he noted about Montgomery that “I have learned to know him very well, feel that I have his personal equation, and have no lack of confidence in my ability to handle him.”103 Convinced that “every commander is made, in the long run, by his subordinates,” Eisenhower was satisfied with his team’s performance in Sicily. He understood the flaws in their efforts and was especially concerned about Alexander’s failure to provide decisive coordination once the action got under way. Neither Ike nor Marshall could be pleased that so many of the German defenders had been allowed to escape into Italy. But when it was understood as a rehearsal for the coming amphibious invasion of France, the attack on Sicily boded well for the Allied cause and for Eisenhower’s future as a commander. He had systematically and successfully turned away every effort to bypass his authority.104 When Patton’s forces arrived triumphantly in Messina on August 17, 1943, it had been only six months since Ike’s position had been seriously endangered at the Casablanca conference.
Eisenhower understood that he needed Patton’s aggressive leadership in combat even though both Ike and Bradley were repeatedly angered by Patton’s outrageous behavior.105 Personal friendship aside, Eisenhower had every reason to fight to keep his swashbuckling general in action. Shortly thereafter Patton tested Ike’s protective shell in the infamous slapping incident at an army hospital. Convinced that soldiers suffering mental collapse in combat were malingering, Patton accused them of cowardice and actually hit two of them—clearly court-martial offenses. Eisenhower rejected the screams for Patton’s demotion and put his own leadership on the line, as he had in the flap over Darlan.106 The commander was a much tougher leader than he had been in 1930 or even 1940. Once more he was able to hold his position with Marshall and Roosevelt.
Ike had endured, learned, and preserved the unity of an Allied force that frequently resembled a dysfunctional family.107 His conciliatory style had been severely tested, and he had yet to earn the respect of Generals Montgomery and Brooke. After the Casablanca conference, Eisenhower certainly understood how fleeting his status could be, and that may have made him more tolerant of the shortcomings of his fellow officers, including Patton, than he had been. Throughout the campaign in Africa and Sicily, Eisenhower had deeply and repeatedly angered his own commanders. There was, indeed, a Machiavellian touch in the manner in which he handled Patton and Bradley. They frequently sputtered with anger over Eisenhower’s support for the British positions on tactics and strategy. But the hard-fought victories in Tunisia and Sicily left them solidly aligned with their commander and ready for the next phase of the crusade. The victories in the Mediterranean also left his critics harping to one another and Ike securely in control of the most important American and British forces in the field.
Seven
Eisenhower speaking with paratroopers on June 5, 1944, just before the D-Day invasion of Normandy.
The Decision
While Eisenhower and his armies were completing the conquest of Sicily, the Soviet Union was winning the single most important battle in World War II. Lieutenant General P. A. Rotmistrov described what happened in July
1943 at Kursk near the western boundary between Russia and Ukraine: “The tanks were moving across the steppe in small packs, under cover of patches of woodland and hedges. The bursts of gunfire merged into one continuous mighty roar. The Soviet tanks thrust into the German advanced formation at full speed and penetrated the German tank screen. The [Soviet] T-34s were knocking out Tigers at extremely close range, since their powerful guns and massive armor no longer gave them an advantage in close combat. The tanks of both sides were in the closest possible contact. There was neither time nor room to disengage from the enemy and reform in battle order or operate in formation. The shells fired at close range pierced not only the side armor but also the frontal armor of the fighting vehicles. At such range there was no protection in armor, and the length of the gun barrels was no longer decisive. Frequently, when a tank was hit, its ammunition and fuel blew up, and torn-off turrets were flung through the air over dozens of yards.… Soon the whole sky was shrouded by the thick smoke of the burning wrecks. On the black, scorched earth the gutted tanks burnt like torches. It was difficult to establish which side was attacking and which defending.”1
While most of the burning tanks were Soviet T-34s, the aggressive attack blunted the German offensive and left their army vulnerable to flanking attacks.2 On August 23, 1943, the Soviet forces broke through the German lines and forced a withdrawal. From that point on, the Wehrmacht would be unable to mount a major offensive on the Eastern Front, where most of their armies were concentrated. The battle for Stalingrad had started to shift the balance of military power in the east, and Kursk finished that process decisively. In the battles that followed, the Soviet army would be the aggressor. Even more ominously for the Nazis, Germany could not replenish its massive loses in tanks and fighting men in all of the divisions that had been decimated at Kursk. Hitler was forced to decide whether to send new troops to Italy or to the Eastern Front. He could no longer do both. Germany was running short of manpower and would soon be sending raw teenagers such as Günter Grass into battle.3 As the Soviets pushed forward on the road to Berlin, the future of both eastern and western Europe was being decided on the battlefield rather than in the conference room—FDR and Churchill notwithstanding.4
The Soviet military accomplishments would continue long after Germany was defeated and would provide Eisenhower with the primary challenge of his postwar career. The communist nation’s ability to produce in abundance the weapons of modern warfare and to deploy them with skill threatened the global balance of power. Soviet military and economic strength and communist aggression would leave Eisenhower struggling to protect America’s national security. He would work for the rest of his life to create and maintain a new balance of power in a world experiencing a series of cataclysmic political, technological, and economic changes.5
Italy
In the summer of 1943, however, Ike had too much to worry about in the Mediterranean to pay much attention to what was happening at Kursk.6 Eisenhower was entangled in the politics of the Italian attempts to surrender.7 His position throughout was consistent with his approach to the Darlan Deal: he would do almost anything possible to save the lives of Allied soldiers. In this case that forced him to try to maneuver around the doctrine of “unconditional surrender” that had been announced by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill at the Casablanca conference.8 Ultimately successful, the negotiations dragged on long enough to allow the Germans to rush troops into Italy and mount a fierce defense against the Allied invasion.9 The German commander in Italy was Albert Kesselring, a master of defensive warfare, and the skill and discipline of the German soldiers made every yard of Italian soil costly for Eisenhower’s forces.
The Allied landings at Salerno, Calabria, and Taranto had been initially successful. But the attempt to jump-start the campaign with an end run up the coast to Salerno was a tactical success and a strategic failure.10 Fierce German opposition at Salerno—a landing that was saved by powerful naval and air support—gave a clear forecast of what Ike and his Allied armies could expect in this next phase of the Mediterranean strategy.11 As the German army had already demonstrated in Sicily, it could make masterful use of mountainous terrain, and the rocky landscape of southern and central Italy was as inhospitable to an invading force as it was to farming. The Allies paid a dreadful price in lives for their slow advance toward Rome.
It soon was evident that Churchill and his commanders had thrown the Allies into a campaign that closely resembled the deadly trench warfare of 1914–1918. The fighting took place “in desolate mountains, creased by narrow valleys and deep gorges; on brush-covered heights, bald slopes, and high tablelands; along unpaved roads and mule tracks hugging mountain ledges. Late autumn weather would add fog, rain, and mud to the difficulties of the terrain.”12 Paradoxically, British military thought had long been dominated by an intense desire to avoid the incredible casualties of the First World War.13 General Montgomery’s methodical tactics were thus not peculiar to the man.14 Now, however, the British and their American allies were forced to fight mountain range by mountain range as they struggled to dig the German infantry and artillery out of their protected positions.
Instead of the mobile warfare Patton had conducted in Sicily and the Soviets had mounted after Kursk, the Italian campaign was a slow, deadly, grinding advance that favored the defenders and repeatedly bogged down the Allied forces.15 As Ike commented in his diary in November, “Our only recourse was to keep pounding away at the enemy’s rear-guards, seeking out weak spots and pushing forward.… This process is still going on,” he wrote, “but it is exceedingly slow.”16
As the Italian campaign inched forward, the incremental power shift between the British and Americans continued. A war of attrition was gradually recasting the alliance as well as its German opponents.17 While the ideas, personalities, and relationships of the two nations’ leaders seemed always to be the dominant factors shaping the alliance’s military and political policies, power was primarily a function of their ability to supply the men and equipment to carry the war forward.18 This would have an impact as the British approached the limits of their replacement manpower.19
This new setting encouraged Ike to be more forceful in expressing his opposition to Churchill’s latest proposal for another campaign in the Mediterranean.20 An additional reflection of that underlying shift was Eisenhower’s critique of the command structure implemented at Casablanca. He focused on the anomalous role of General Alexander, who was in command of the 15th Army Group but also deputy commander in chief. “Actually,” Ike said, “Alexander cannot possibly function as a Deputy.… The result is that I am the over-all ground Commander-in-Chief.” He wanted to get rid of “waste and … duplication.” The British command structure and process of committee decision-making, he said, “cannot work where sizeable U.S. and British forces are placed together in one theater to achieve a common objective.”21 By the end of 1943, Eisenhower had almost completed his “learning by doing” in command of a joint force in combat.
Meanwhile, subtle changes were taking place in the close relationships between Marshall and Eisenhower. Marshall had promoted Ike when he had yet to prove himself in command. As Chief of Staff, Marshall had found it necessary to defend Eisenhower through the troubled North African campaign. Now Marshall became more critical and slightly less supportive of his protégé.22 Meanwhile, Ike became more assertive and slightly less subordinate to the man who had given him the leading role in the Allied campaign. Ike’s experiences in that role had given him a sure grip on leadership and strong convictions as to how the Allies should move forward against Germany.
Less subtle changes were also starting to take place in the relationships between Stalin and the Allies. After Kursk, Stalin set out to exploit to the full his new position of strength. From his perspective, the Allies had delayed too long their much-discussed attack across the Channel. They had bogged down in an Italian campaign that occupied too few German divisions and promised little advantage after Italy
was conquered.23 Poland and Germany were the countries that interested Stalin, and in the Teheran Conference (November 28–December 1, 1943) he let FDR and Churchill know that he was already thinking very seriously about what, exactly, the postwar settlements would be. He wanted to know how much of Poland would be chopped off and added to the USSR. How would Germany be dismembered and the threat of a third world war averted? In the months ahead the Allies would hear more about these demands and would glimpse Stalin’s plans to expand a victorious Soviet empire. They would have new opportunities to reflect on Marxist ideology and the role it would play in the postwar order of Europe.
First, of course, they had to win the war against fascism. Soon after the Teheran meeting, Eisenhower got a new command that placed him in a central position to determine how quickly the Nazis would be defeated and how much of Europe would end up in Stalin’s control. Once again, FDR favored Churchill and unity by appointing Ike to command Overlord, the cross-Channel invasion of France.24 As with most such top appointments—in business, politics, and the military—the choices narrowed down to a few alternatives. This time it was three. Eisenhower had been chosen over Alan Brooke, his most ardent critic, and George Marshall, his most enthusiastic and reliable advocate.25 Marshall was an obvious choice for the post.26 But his dealings with Churchill had struck sparks and sometimes flash fires. The British leaned toward Ike.27 As a result, Marshall, Ike’s boss, was denied what likely would have been the crowning achievement of his military career.
Now Eisenhower would lead the Allied part of the great crusade against Hitler and the Nazi regime. For a third time, he and the Allied forces would have to defeat a well-trained German army that would be fiercely defending the doorway to its homeland.28 Ike was not cocky, but he was confident in his ability to lead this complex campaign. He had honed his capabilities as a leader in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy.29 He knew the commanders he needed and how to get the most out of his forces.30 He understood the enemy and respected the ability of the Wehrmacht’s generals and the discipline of their enlisted men. Having debated the cross-Channel attack since 1942, he was ready to go.