Eisenhower’s spirits soared. Patton had broken out, the British and Canadians were moving ahead, and it would only be a matter of time until the ports of Brittany were under Allied control. “I am extremely hopeful about the outcome of our current operations,” he cabled Marshall on August 11. “If we can destroy a good portion of the enemy’s army now in front of us we will have a greater freedom of movement in northern France and I would expect things to move very rapidly.”74
Once again, Hitler came to the aid of the Allies. Von Kluge and his commanders planned to fall back to a shorter line roughly along the Seine and the Yonne to the Swiss frontier. But Hitler, ever more irrational since the July 20, 1944, attempt on his life, rejected the plan and ordered an all-out counterattack at Mortain, the shoulder of Third Army’s breakout. If successful, Patton’s armored columns would be cut off. For twenty-four hours, the German attack wedge of four panzer divisions moved forward. But the heroic stand of the U.S. 30th Division outside Mortain, which Collins called “one of the outstanding small-unit actions of World War II”75—combined with the round-the-clock bombardment from the air—forced the Germans to fall back. Hitler ordered the attack renewed and forbade any retreat. After a week of some of the most desperate fighting of the war, the remnants of the German Seventh Army and Fifth Panzer Army were almost completely encircled in the Falaise pocket. Von Kluge ordered a retreat without Hitler’s permission, and some forty thousand soldiers made their escape before the Allies closed the gap. On August 19, the tanks of the French 2nd Armored Division, under General Jacques Leclerc,l serving with Patton’s Third Army, met the oncoming units of the Canadian First Army, trapping more than fifty thousand German troops and ending the battle for Normandy.
The battlefield at Falaise was one of the greatest killing grounds of the war in the West. “Forty-eight hours after the closing of the gap,” Eisenhower wrote, “I was conducted through it on foot, to encounter scenes that could only be described by Dante. It was literally possible to walk for hundreds of yards at a time, stepping on nothing but dead and decaying flesh.”76 A veteran officer who had fought in the battles of the Aisne-Marne, Saint-Mihiel, and the Meuse-Argonne in World War I, said,
None of those compared to what I saw yesterday [at Falaise]. It was as if an avenging angel had swept the area bent on destroying all things German. As far as my eye could see, on every line of sight, there were vehicles, wagons, tanks, guns, prime movers, rolling kitchens, etc., in various stages of destruction. [But] I saw no foxholes or any other type of shelter or field fortifications. The Germans were running and had no place to run. They were probably too exhausted to dig. They were probably too tired even to surrender.77
The fighting in Normandy had raged for seventy-five days. The German Army Group B, commanded initially by Rommel, then by von Kluge,m had committed two veteran armies, the Seventh and Fifth Panzer, some forty divisions (600,000 men), and 1,500 tanks to the battle. The Allies deployed four armies, also totaling about forty divisions, 600,000 men, and 3,000 tanks. The vital difference was in the air. The Allies brought more than 12,000 aircraft to the battle; the Germans had almost none. When the fighting ended, the Germans had lost almost 500,000 men, killed, wounded, or captured, and virtually all of their equipment. Allied losses totaled almost 200,000, two-thirds of whom were American.78 The Allied losses were quickly replenished; the German losses were irreplaceable.
As the battle for Normandy wound down, von Kluge was recalled to Berlin, and having been implicated in the July 20 plot on Hitler’s life, committed suicide on a side road near Valmy, France, on August 17, 1944. He was succeeded by Field Marshal Walther Model (sometimes known as “Hitler’s fireman”), who had successfully restored the German battle line on the eastern front after Operation BAGRATION.
As Model attempted to reestablish a defensive position, Alexander Patch’s Seventh U.S. Army and Jean de Lattre de Tassigny’s First French Army landed on the Riviera (DRAGOON) and began to move quickly up the Rhône Valley. Both armies were controlled by Sixth Army Group, commanded by General Jacob Devers. The port of Marseilles was captured by the French in undamaged condition, easing the Allies’ supply problem, while Patch’s Seventh Army, advancing up the Route Napoléon, reached Grenoble on August 20, 1944, aided substantially by the work of the Resistance (FFI), which was at its strongest in the region.
While Sixth Army Group came on from the south, Patton continued his relentless advance toward the Seine. Le Mans, Orléans, and Chartres fell to Third Army as German resistance collapsed. Patton’s columns moved so quickly, and his corps were so widely dispersed, that he resorted to flying forward in artillery spotter planes. “This Army covers so much ground that I have to fly in [Piper] Cubs most places,” he wrote his wife on August 18. “I don’t like it. I feel like a clay pigeon.”79 In Washington, Secretary Stimson chortled that Patton had “set his tanks to run around France like bedbugs in a Georgetown kitchen.”80
On August 19, the day the gap closed on the Falaise pocket, the 79th Division of Third Army reached the Seine, thirty-five miles west of Paris. There they found an undamaged hydroelectric dam with a footbridge on top, and quickly established a bridgehead on the other side of the river. Patton paid a flying visit and proudly told Bradley, “I pissed in the Seine this morning.”81
Eisenhower and Montgomery planned to bypass Paris and accelerate the pursuit of the retreating Germans. Patton’s Third Army would swing south of the city, cross the Seine at Melum, near Fontainebleau, and move east toward Metz and the German border. Hodges’s First Army would pass north of the city heading for Reims, the Ardennes, and Luxembourg. Meanwhile, Twenty-first Army Group would assault the V-1 and V-2 launching sites in the Pas-de-Calais, move into Belgium, and take the port of Antwerp. Eisenhower feared that if the Germans defended Paris, the street fighting would consume the Allies for a month. Casualties would be high and the collateral damage would be unacceptable. Paris was still undamaged. The bridges across the Seine had been spared in the bombing campaign Harris and Spaatz waged to isolate the Normandy battlefield, and the rail yards likewise had not been struck. There was also a serious logistical problem of providing food and fuel for a city of four million people. The primary Allied supply line stretched 250 miles to Cherbourg, and was already overburdened. Until the linkups to Marseilles and Antwerp were achieved, Eisenhower thought it best to leave the Germans saddled with supplying Paris. Fearing a repeat of the premature popular uprising that had just taken place in Warsaw, General Pierre Koenig, commanding the French Forces of the Interior, issued firm instructions to the Resistance to stand down until notified.
But Paris would not wait. On August 12, French railway workers walked off the job, paralyzing the city’s transportation net. On the fifteenth, the Paris police force went out on strike. On the eighteenth, the postal service shut down, the Communist newspaper, L’Humanité, called for an insurrection populaire, and three thousand policemen, armed but wearing civilian clothes, seized the préfecture de police and hoisted the tricolore. Two days later, a Gaullist group took possession of the Hôtel de Ville, the seat of the city government.
De Gaulle, still in Algiers, monitored the situation closely. On August 15 he advised General Jumbo Wilson, the overall Allied commander in the Mediterranean, that he wished to return to France in the next day or two. (The trip required Allied approval.) Wilson forwarded the request to Ike, who informed the Combined Chiefs that he had no objection, and that he thought de Gaulle wished to be present at the liberation of Paris. Eisenhower pointedly asked whether de Gaulle’s “rather premature arrival will in any way embarrass the British or American governments.”82
At the War Department, Eisenhower’s query was fielded by John McCloy, who raised no objection. Neither the White House nor the State Department was consulted.83 The British were more than eager for de Gaulle to return, and had already begun to worry about a possible Communist insurrection in Paris.84 With the way cleared, de Gaulle arrived at Eisenhower’s headquarters in Tournières
on August 20. Ike greeted him warmly.
Eisenhower briefed de Gaulle quickly on the military situation, and explained that he intended to bypass Paris for the moment. De Gaulle expressed concern. “Why cross the Seine everywhere but Paris?” he asked. It was a matter of national importance. The population of Paris was already in revolt, and it was essential to send troops into the city as soon as possible. De Gaulle’s concern was twofold: the danger of a Communist takeover (the French Communists constituted the most active element of the Resistance in Paris), and the necessity to preclude a Darlan-type deal that elements of the American government appeared to be negotiating with Pierre Laval, the premier of the Vichy regime.n De Gaulle suggested that Leclerc’s 2nd Armored Division be ordered to Paris immediately, and gently hinted that if Ike delayed too long, he would order Leclerc to Paris himself. According to de Gaulle, Eisenhower was visibly embarrassed at the delay and agreed that when the time came, he would send Leclerc to Paris to lead the liberation. But he could not set a date.85
If the Germans defended Paris, Eisenhower’s strategy had merit. Hitler had ordered his new commanders, Field Marshal Model, now the commander in chief west, and General der Infanterie Dietrich von Choltitz, the military governor of Paris, to hold the city at all costs. “The loss of Paris always means the loss of France,” the Führer told Model. “Paris must not fall into the hands of the enemy except as a field of ruins.”86 Model was ordered to form his battle line on the Seine, with Paris as the Schwerpunkt. Von Choltitz was told “the fighting in and around Paris will be conducted without regard to the destruction of the city.” The bridges and monuments were to be wired for demolition, the waterworks and power plants to be destroyed, and the principal industrial sites leveled to the ground.87
There was nothing in the military backgrounds of Model or von Choltitz to suggest that Hitler’s orders would not be obeyed. Both were hard-bitten combat commanders—muddy boots generals with well-earned reputations for faithfully discharging their duty. If Rommel was Germany’s offensive beau ideal, Model had won acclaim as a defensive virtuoso in three years on the Russian front. Choltitz, for his part, had dropped with the first paratroop battalion on Rotterdam in 1940, and led the regiment that stormed the fortress at Sevastopol in 1942. He was appointed military governor of Paris on August 7, 1944, precisely because the OKW told Hitler that Choltitz was “an officer who had never questioned an order no matter how harsh it was.”88
Model was the first to recognize that Hitler’s orders would lead to the destruction of the German Army in France. Patton was racing across the Seine south and east of Paris, and Montgomery was crossing the river to the west. To hold Paris would mean another encirclement, and would open the door for the Allies to advance into the German heartland. Model told Berlin that he could hold Paris with two hundred thousand more troops and six additional panzer divisions. But without them he was withdrawing north of the city and would try to form a defensive line on the Marne and the Somme. “Tell the Führer that I know what I’m doing,” he told an incredulous Jodl in Berlin.89 On August 20, Model issued orders to the German First Army and Fifth Panzer Army to evacuate their position in front of Paris, cross the Seine using the bridges in the city, and move north. Paris would become von Choltitz’s responsibility.
With no battle to be fought in front of Paris, von Choltitz faced a difficult choice. He could carry out his orders and destroy the city, or he could surrender it. For a fourth-generation Prussian officer, married to the daughter of a general of William II, the choice was not easy. “I try always to do my duty,” he wrote his wife on August 21, 1944. “I must often ask God to help me find the path on which it lies.”90 To gain time, and to maintain a modicum of order in the city, von Choltitz struck a seventy-two-hour truce with the Resistance. Von Choltitz agreed to recognize the FFI as military combatants, and the Resistance agreed to allow the retreating columns of Army Group B to move through the city without being fired upon. Of one thing von Choltitz could be certain: Although the bridges and monuments of Paris were being wired for demolition, the discipline of the Wehrmacht was such that no one would set them off until he gave the order.
De Gaulle, who was triumphantly touring liberated France, increased his pressure on Eisenhower. On August 21 he wrote Ike from Brittany that serious trouble could arise in Paris at any moment. “I believe it is necessary to have Paris occupied by the French and Allied forces as soon as possible even if it means a certain amount of fighting and a certain amount of damage within the city.” If disorder broke out, said de Gaulle, it would be difficult to contain “and might even hinder subsequent military operations.”91
The Resistance and von Choltitz also mounted appeals. Representatives of the FFI made their way into the American lines on August 22, were shuttled from Patton to Bradley, and made clear that the way to Paris was open. The German Army was moving north, the city was running short of food, and the truce that had been negotiated was about to expire. The Allies must come quickly.
Equally important, Von Choltitz had resolved his dilemma. If a battle were to have been fought at Paris, he could accept its destruction. But he was not willing to go down in history as the man who destroyed Paris wantonly. On August 22 he deputized the Swedish consul general, Raoul Nordling, to inform the Allies of the danger hanging over Paris. Von Choltitz said he would not obey the orders he had been given to destroy it, and he wanted to surrender the city intact. But the Allies must come quickly. Hitler and the OKW were pressing him to commence the demolitions, and it was only a matter of time until he would be relieved of command. “Twenty-four, forty-eight hours are all you have. After that, I cannot promise you what will happen here.”92 o
The converging requests by de Gaulle, the Resistance, and von Choltitz caused Eisenhower to reconsider his strategic decision to bypass Paris. De Gaulle warned of a repeat of the Paris Commune of 1871 if the Allies did not arrive quickly. And after the civil affairs donnybrook in North Africa, Ike had learned to trust de Gaulle’s judgment. The Resistance said the road to Paris was open. If that were the case, could Ike refuse to take it? And then there was the message from von Choltitz.
Eisenhower had lived in Paris for a year and a half. He knew the city better than any British or American general—and better than Churchill or Eden, better than Roosevelt or Stimson. If von Choltitz had refused to destroy Paris, Ike decided he was not going to give Hitler a second chance.
“What the hell, Brad. I guess we’ll have to go in. Tell Leclerc to saddle up.”93
Eisenhower’s decision was political and moral, but not military. Every West Point cadet is taught time and again that General George Meade erred in 1863 when he did not pursue Lee after Gettysburg. And by not devoting all of his resources to chasing the broken German Army, Ike was inevitably prolonging the war. His cable to the Combined Chiefs informing them of his decision is one of the most important he ever wrote: a masterpiece of subtlety and insinuation.
Eisenhower rejected making an overt political announcement about Paris because he knew it would carry little weight with the chiefs. And so he couched his decision in purely military terms. On the evening of August 22, Ike cabled Washington that from a logistics standpoint it would be wise to defer the capture of Paris. “I do not believe this is possible. If the enemy tries to hold Paris with any real strength he would be a constant menace to our flank. If he largely evacuates the place, it falls into our hands whether we like it or not.” Ike did not explicitly tell the Combined Chiefs he was going to take Paris, but the implication was clear.
The French 2nd Armored Division had just closed the door on the Germans in the Falaise pocket and was 122 miles west of Paris when Leclerc received Bradley’s order to move out. With sixteen thousand troops and four thousand vehicles, Leclerc advanced in three columns, overcame scattered German resistance, and arrived at the suburbs of Paris on the evening of August 24, 1944.94 The church bells of the city tolled his arrival. The next day, August 25, the 2nd Armored, supported by the U.S. 4th Di
vision, entered Paris. For reasons of military honor, the German garrison mounted a token resistance, and von Choltitz surrendered the city to Leclerc in the early afternoon.95 p De Gaulle appointed General Pierre Koenig military governor of Paris, and took up residence at the home of the president of France, the Palais de l’Élysée.
De Gaulle and General Leclerc at Leclerc’s headquarters at the Gare Montparnesse. (illustration credit 14.4)
On Saturday, August 26, de Gaulle relit the flame at the tomb of the unknown at the Arc de Triomphe, and then on foot, followed by Generals Juin, Koenig, Leclerc, and the notables of the Resistance, led the 2nd Armored Division down the Champs-Élysées to the Place de la Concorde. Two million Parisians lined the route—“a miracle of national consciousness,” in de Gaulle’s words, “one of those gestures which sometimes, in the course of centuries, illuminate the history of France.”96 From the Place de la Concorde, de Gaulle went to Notre Dame for the traditional Te Deum. Again, the route was lined with an exuberant tide of spectators, and the cathedral was jammed. At de Gaulle’s request, Monsignor Jacques Suhard, the cardinal-archbishop of Paris, a buttress of the Vichy regime, remained in his residence and the service was conducted by Monsignor Paul Brot, the next senior prelate.
Place de la Concorde, during the fighting on August 25, 1944. (illustration credit 14.5)
Eisenhower stayed away from Paris that day to avoid stealing the limelight from de Gaulle. “I desired that he, as the symbol of French resistance, should make an entrance before I had to go in.”97 But on Sunday, August 27, Ike and Bradley took a whirlwind tour of the city, after which Eisenhower paid a formal call on de Gaulle at the Palais de l’Élysée: the supreme commander of Allied forces paying tribute to the president of France. “I did this very deliberately as a kind of de facto recognition of him as the provisional President of France,” Eisenhower explained years later. “He was very grateful—he never forgot it—looked upon it as a very definite recognition of his high position. That was of course what he wanted and what Roosevelt had never given him.”98
Eisenhower in War and Peace Page 43