De Gaulle leading the victory parade down the Champs-Élysées. General Leclerc is over de Gaulle’s left shoulder. (illustration credit 14.6)
On his own authority, Eisenhower initialed a civil affairs agreement “to provide a secure rear area,” which effectively transferred civil power in France to de Gaulle.99 He also said he planned to establish SHAEF headquarters at Versailles, to which de Gaulle readily agreed. “I thought it was advantageous to have the Allied commander in chief not lodged in Paris but useful that he be nearby.”100 De Gaulle asked Ike’s help with food and fuel for the city, and said he would like to retain the 2nd Armored for several days to ensure order. He also asked for two American divisions to parade through the city as an additional show of force, to which Ike agreed. The following afternoon, the 28th Infantry Division and the 5th Armored marched down the Champs-Élysées on their way through Paris to engage German forces north of the city. De Gaulle took the review, flanked by Bradley and Leclerc.101
In the end, Paris was saved by the actions of five men: Model, who ignored Hitler’s order to defend the city and moved Army Group B north to the Marne and the Somme; von Choltitz, who reached out to the Resistance and disobeyed the Führer’s instruction to demolish the city; Leclerc, who moved more than a hundred miles in two days and provided a massive show of force that snuffed out any potential Communist insurrection; de Gaulle, who steadfastly exerted every ounce of influence as president of the provisional government to save Paris; and Eisenhower, who rejected textbook military doctrine and let common sense prevail. Ike may not have understood Montgomery’s strategy in Normandy, but when confronted with the most important decision of his career to that point, he made it without flinching.102
* * *
a The failure of Allied intelligence to properly locate the 352nd Infantry Division, and the subsequent cover-up, is treated as a case study in historiography by Professors Jacques Barzun and Henry Graff in The Modern Researcher 140–41, 6th ed. (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 2004).
b American GIs were grotesquely overloaded. In addition to his weapon, each soldier carried 68 pounds of military impedimenta, whereas the British and Canadian troops going ashore at Sword, Juno, and Gold carried between 15 and 20 pounds. Max Hastings, Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy 90 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984).
c During the run‑up to OVERLORD, Britain’s Major General Sir Percy Hobart developed a veritable menagerie of tanks to assist the landing. One variety, labeled “Crabs,” flailed steel chains in front and alongside to clear minefields. Another, called “Crocodiles,” were simply armored flamethrowers that could approach an enemy pillbox undamaged and then destroy the occupants. Duplex drive (DD) tanks were amphibious vehicles. AVREs (armored vehicle, Royal Engineers) were tanks with a blade mounted in front, in effect armored bulldozers for demolishing fortifications. Bradley and Gerow were given demonstrations of the vehicles, but Bradley took only the DDs, and when they were launched so far offshore by V Corps, virtually all sank to the floor of the Bay of the Seine. Wilmot, Struggle for Europe 265–66; David Eisenhower, Eisenhower at War 269.
d VII Corps, which landed on Utah beach, was commanded by J. Lawton “Lightning Joe” Collins, who had commanded the 25th “Tropic Lightning” Division on Guadalcanal, and who was well versed in amphibious assault. VII Corps quickly surmounted the beach defenses and lost only 197 men on D-Day even though the spearhead 4th Division had never seen combat. Omar Bradley and Clay Blair, A General’s Life: An Autobiography 224, 249 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983).
e Gerd von Rundstedt, the son of a military officer, was born in Aschersleben on December 12, 1875. That made him five years older than Marshall and MacArthur, and fifteen years older than Eisenhower. He joined the Army as an officer cadet at the age of sixteen, fought with the German contingent of the international force that suppressed the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900, served in the infantry during World War I, was decorated for gallantry (Iron Cross, first class) in 1914, and was a major when the war ended. Selected as one of four thousand officers for the 100,000-man Reichswehr, he rose steadily through the ranks and was promoted to general officer in 1927.
Von Rundstedt exuded the courtly demeanor of old Prussian nobility, spoke French and English fluently, and was one of Germany’s five representatives at the state funeral of George V in 1936. When Hitler sought to appoint Walther von Reichenau, an outspoken pro-Nazi officer, to be the Army’s commander in chief, von Rundstedt stepped in to block the appointment. When General Werner von Fritsch, the Army’s chief of staff from 1934 to 1938, was falsely accused of homosexual behavior by the Gestapo, von Rundstedt intervened with Hitler and demanded a court-martial on Fritsch’s behalf at which he was acquitted. (Hitler had asked von Rundstedt to come to the back door of the Chancellery in the evening wearing civilian clothes.) Shortly after the Fritsch verdict, von Rundstedt was placed on the retired list. He was recalled to active duty in 1939 to command Army Group South in the invasion of Poland. Charles Messenger, The Last Prussian: A Biography of Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, 1875–1953 (London: Brassey’s, 1991); Günther Blumentritt, Von Rundstedt: The Soldier and the Man (London: Odhams Press, 1952).
f By the evening of June 7, 1944, both von Rundstedt and Rommel were convinced that the landings in Normandy represented an all-out effort by the Allies but were unable to convince either Hitler or OKW in Berlin to deploy Fifteenth Army south of the Seine. According to ULTRA code intercepts, this brought both von Rundstedt and Rommel to the brink of tendering their resignations. Hans-Adolf Jacobsen and Jürgen Rohwer, eds., Decisive Battles of World War II: The German View 337 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1965); Frederick William Winterbotham, The Ultra Secret 137 (New York: Harper and Row, 1974).
g Short for Vergeltungswaffe-1—Retaliation Weapon 1.
h The Bayeux Tapestry, eighty-four square yards of fabric, was embroidered by the ladies of the court of William the Conqueror to commemorate the conquest in 1066.
i General Alfred Jodl testified before the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal that “no Field Marshal other than von Rundstedt could have told Hitler this.” 21 The Trial of German Major War Criminals: Proceedings of the International Military Tribunal Sitting at Nuremberg, Germany 129 (London: HMSO, 1949).
j “I told Ike that if he had any feelings that you were not running operations as he wished, he should most certainly tell you. That it was far better to put his cards on the table. He evidently is a little shy about doing so.” Brooke to Montgomery, July 28, 1944, quoted in Arthur Bryant, Triumph in the West: A History of the War Years Based on the Diaries of Field-Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff 192 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1959).
k General Lesley McNair, commander of Army Ground Forces, was visiting the front and was one of 111 American servicemen killed by bombs falling short of the intended impact area.
l Unlike the Free French forces that were fighting in Italy, and the First French Army that would land on the Riviera (DRAGOON), which were primarily African troops, the French 2nd Armored Division was composed of native Frenchmen, a smattering of white legionnaires (Spanish, Italian, Czech, and Polish), plus the Régiment de Marche du Tchad and a battalion of Moroccan Spahis. It was formed especially for OVERLORD and to represent France at the liberation of Paris. The division was transferred from North Africa to Yorkshire in April 1944, and landed in France as part of Patton’s Third Army on July 29.
General Jacques Leclerc (raised posthumously to the rank of marshal of France) was the nom de guerre of the Viscount Jacques-Philippe de Hauteclocque, a career French Army officer who had joined de Gaulle in 1940 and had assumed the pseudonym “Leclerc” to protect his family in France. A legendary battlefield commander, Leclerc was most famous for fighting his way north with a Free French force 420 miles from Fort Lamy in Chad to join the British Eighth Army in the Sahara in February 1941. John Keegan, Six Armies in Normandy: From D-Day to the Liberation of Paris, June 6th–August 25th, 1944 300–301 (Ne
w York: Viking Press, 1982).
m On July 17, 1944, Rommel was seriously injured in an automobile accident after his car had been strafed by Allied aircraft. He returned to Germany to convalesce, and was succeeded by von Kluge, who assumed the command of Army Group B as well as continuing as commander in chief west.
n Laval proposed to reconvene the French National Assembly, which had not met since 1940, and officially welcome the Allies to Paris, instituting direct Allied military rule through local Vichy officials and undercutting de Gaulle and the French Committee of National Liberation. Allen Dulles, heading OSS efforts in Bern, Switzerland, was allegedly in contact with Laval’s agents. The plot imploded when Laval could find no French notables to cooperate. See de Gaulle, 2 War Memoirs 324–33; David Eisenhower, Eisenhower at War 415.
o The day after von Choltitz dispatched Nordling, he was visited at his office in the Hotel Meurice by four SS officers from Berlin. Von Choltitz assumed they had found out about Nordling’s mission and had come to arrest him. Instead, they said they had been sent by Heinrich Himmler to take possession of the Bayeux Tapestry and bring it to Germany. The tapestry had been evacuated from Bayeux and for safekeeping was stored in the Louvre.
“Ach, Kinder,” said a visibly relieved von Choltitz. “How wonderful of you to help save these valuable objects from destruction. While you are at it, why not take the Mona Lisa and Winged Victory as well?”
“No, no,” the senior SS officer replied. The only thing Himmler and the Führer wanted was the Bayeux Tapestry.
Von Choltitz led the four men to the balcony and showed them the Louvre across the Tuileries Gardens. It was occupied by the Resistance, but if they wished, von Choltitz said he would put an armored car and a squad of soldiers at their disposal. The SS officers saluted and withdrew. They would radio Berlin for instructions. Von Choltitz never saw them again. Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, Is Paris Burning? 197–99 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965).
p Dietrich von Choltitz was released from Allied captivity in 1947, and died at Baden-Baden in 1966. In his later years, von Choltitz was shunned by his fellow Wehrmacht officers, but became warm friends with General Pierre Koenig, who attended his funeral together with the ranking military officers of the Fifth Republic in full regalia.
Walther Model commanded Army Group B for the remainder of the war. As the curtain came down in April 1945, he discharged the oldest and youngest soldiers under his command so they could return to their homes. Model then walked into the woods near Duisburg and committed suicide.
Army Group B had three wartime commanders: Rommel, von Kluge, and Model. All three committed suicide.
FIFTEEN
Germany
It’s all so terrible, so awful, that I constantly wonder how “civilization” can stand war at all.
—DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER,
November 12, 1944
Eisenhower’s decision to liberate Paris marked the end of his apprenticeship and his entrance onto the world stage. On his own authority, without seeking the approval of the Combined Chiefs of Staff, the British war cabinet, or Washington, he had installed a new government in France, saved Paris from destruction, and received the adulation of the French people. By providing de Gaulle the opportunity to occupy the Palais de l’Élysée, he outmaneuvered FDR and the State Department so skillfully that he left no fingerprints.
Eisenhower was still a Kansas original. He talked too loudly, peppered his conversation with sports-page aphorisms, smoked excessively, and made no effort to conceal his relationship with Kay Summersby. Yet he was no longer just George Marshall’s protégé—the too-young general officer catapulted ahead of 263 more senior soldiers; the inexperienced supreme commander who had never seen combat; the American interloper shunted ahead of more seasoned British allies. Like de Gaulle, Eisenhower arrived on the world scene unheralded. But whereas de Gaulle made his way by forcing his iron will on others, Ike moved by subtlety and indirection. His amiable personality and avuncular enthusiasm concealed a calculating political instinct that had been honed to perfection.
Ike’s political dexterity stood in marked contrast to his grasp of military strategy. On strategic issues he remained a prisoner of the doughboy dogma of John J. Pershing and George Marshall that all-out-attack-all-along-the-line was the way to win wars. That was the lesson the Americans (but not the British, French, or Germans) took from World War I.a It was propagated at Leavenworth and the War College, and Ike was a disciple, as were most American officers.1 George Patton and Douglas MacArthur were the exceptions. Said differently, no one who wore the uniform of the United States or Great Britain during the Second World War possessed the political acumen of Eisenhower. But Ike’s understanding of the battlefield was abstract and academic.
The contrast became evident immediately after the liberation of Paris. On September 1, 1944, Eisenhower assumed direct command of the ground war. Montgomery reverted to command of Twenty-first Army Group (the British Second Army and First Canadian Army); Bradley commanded Twelfth Army Group (the First and Third U.S. armies); and Jacob Devers commanded Sixth Army Group coming up from the south (the First French Army and U.S. Seventh Army). The very qualities that made Eisenhower successful as supreme commander militated against his success on the battlefield. As a military statesman, Ike’s emphasis on team play, his willingness to compromise, and his ability to reconcile diverse interests were unique assets. But as a field commander, where decisiveness is essential, Eisenhower’s preference for consensus became a liability. A slightly ambiguous directive at the headquarters of an Allied coalition may facilitate agreement; an ambiguous order in the field will lead to confusion and perhaps even disaster.
If Eisenhower had remained above the fray and left the ground war to Montgomery, would the fighting in Europe have ended sooner? Would the Western Allies have taken Berlin before the Russians? Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, chief of the imperial general staff, certainly thought so. “Eisenhower’s decision to assume command in the field is likely to add another 3 to 6 months on to the war,” Brooke confided to his diary on August 28. “He [Eisenhower] straight away wants to split his forces, sending an American contingent toward Nancy whilst the British army group moves along the coast. If the Germans were not as beat as they are, this would be a fatal move. As it is, it may not do too much harm.”2 As Brooke suggests, Eisenhower’s assumption of command may have made little difference. After the fall of Paris and the rout of the German Army in France, Allied victory was inevitable. It was merely a question of time. A more pertinent question is whether, if Ike had not assumed control of the ground war, would he have received the victor’s acclaim that led him to the White House?b
The German collapse in France caught SHAEF by surprise. The planning for OVERLORD assumed the Germans would be forced back to a defensive line on the Seine roughly four months after D-Day. At that point the Allies would pause and regroup. But Model’s decision to withdraw the German Army created an unanticipated vacuum. “An orderly retreat became impossible,” wrote General Hans Speidel, Model’s chief of staff. “The Allied motorized armies surrounded the slow and exhausted German foot divisions in separate groups and smashed them up. Weakened remnants of the Fifth Panzer and Seventh Armies reached the Meuse on September 5th. Only a hundred armored vehicles and heavy guns crossed the river.”3
On the left of the Allied line, Montgomery’s Twenty-first Army Group outstripped Patton and advanced two hundred miles in less than a week. While the Canadian First Army mopped up the Channel ports, Bimbo Dempsey’s British troops entered Belgium on September 2, 1944, liberated Brussels a day later, and captured the vital port of Antwerp on September 4. To Montgomery’s right, Courtney Hodges’s First U.S. Army rolled northeast through Soissons to Mons and on to Namur in Belgium. In the center, Patton’s Third Army took Reims and then wheeled east through Verdun toward Metz. Another column of Patton’s army headed due east and captured Nancy. Farther south, Devers’s Sixth Army Group linked up with Third Army at D
ijon. Alexander Patch’s Seventh Army went into position next to Third Army, while the French First Army held the extreme right of the Allied line from Vesoul in the foothills of the Vosges Mountains to the Swiss frontier.
From the breakout at Saint-Lô on July 26, Allied forces had advanced three hundred miles in little over a month. The greater part of France, Belgium, and Luxembourg had been liberated, and Patton’s Third Army stood within eighty miles of the German border.4 But it was in Belgium that opportunity beckoned most urgently. The British Second Army had halted on the Meuse-Escaut Canal, 280 miles north of the Seine, with Antwerp, the Belgian airfields, and an undamaged rail net securely under their control. A SHAEF intelligence report indicated that the Germans possessed only two weakened panzer divisions and nine badly battered infantry divisions north of the Ardennes.5 According to Model’s own estimate, the Allies held a ten-to-one advantage in tanks, three to one in artillery, and an “almost unlimited” superiority in airpower.6
One hundred and thirty miles to the northeast of the British Second Army was the Ruhr—Germany’s industrial heartland. The terrain between the Meuse-Escaut Canal and the Ruhr was open and rolling. It was a classic invasion route that had been used (in reverse) by Alfred von Schlieffen and Helmuth von Moltke in planning the German assault in 1914. Beyond the Ruhr, across the unobstructed North German plain, lay Berlin—another two hundred miles away. Rarely in any war has there been such an opportunity.7
Montgomery urged Ike to strike quickly. The end of the war in Europe was within reach. The Twenty-first and Twelfth army groups should advance side by side north of the Ardennes—“a solid mass of some forty divisions which would be so strong that it need fear nothing.”8 As Monty wrote later, it was “the German Schlieffen Plan of 1914 in reverse, except that it would be executed against a shattered and disorganized enemy. Its success depended on the concentration of Allied strength on the left wing.”9
Eisenhower in War and Peace Page 44