Eisenhower in War and Peace

by Jean Edward Smith

  The evident closeness between Eisenhower and Summersby continued to fuel gossip and speculation. When Churchill and Brooke visited SHAEF in mid-November, Brooke expressed surprise that Kay was seated next to the prime minister at dinner. “I was interested to see that she had been promoted to hostess,” wrote Brooke. “In so doing Ike produced a lot of undesirable gossip that did him no good.”40

  Rumors of Eisenhower’s affection for Kay inevitably made their way to Washington and did little to improve his relations with Mamie. As the wife of the supreme commander, Mamie was always on public view and she bore the strain with remarkable dignity. On occasion, she vented her concern to Ike, and in the autumn of 1944 her anxiety was intensified by the fact that John, who had just finished the platoon leaders course at Fort Benning, had been assigned to the 71st Infantry Division and was soon to ship out for Europe. Evidently Mamie lashed out in a letter to Eisenhower in early November, prompting what granddaughter Susan described as Ike’s “testiest” response.41

  “I fully understand your distress when contemplating [John’s] departure,” wrote Eisenhower.

  But it always depresses me when you talk about “dirty tricks” I’ve played and what a beating you’ve taken, apparently because of me. You’ve always put your own interpretation on every act, look or word of mine, and when you’ve made yourself unhappy, that has, in turn, made me the same.

  It’s true we’ve now been apart for 2½ years, and at a time that made separations painful and hard to bear. Don’t forget that I take a beating every day. Entirely aside from my own problems, I constantly receive letters from bereaved mothers, sisters, and wives that are begging me to send their men home, or at least out of the battle zone.

  So far as John is concerned, we can do nothing but pray. If I interfered even slightly or indirectly he would be so resentful for the remainder of his life that neither I (nor you, if he thought you had anything to do with it), could be comfortable with him. It’s all so terrible, so awful, that I constantly wonder how “civilization” can stand war at all.

  I truly love you and I do know that when you blow off steam you don’t really think of me as such a black hearted creature as your language implies. I’d rather you didn’t mention any of this again.42

  On December 15, 1944, President Roosevelt nominated Eisenhower for promotion to the five-star rank of General of the Army, along with Marshall, MacArthur, and “Hap” Arnold of the air force. They were joined by Leahy, King, and Chester Nimitz, who were named to the equivalent naval five-star rank of Admiral of the Fleet. Ulysses S. Grant was the first general in American history to wear four stars as a full general. George Washington wore three as a lieutenant general. And John J. Pershing had worn six as General of the Armies. The five-star rank was introduced to place senior American commanders on a par with their British counterparts who were field marshals, air chief marshals, and fleet admirals.

  The following day, December 16, 1944, the world of SHAEF turned upside down. Out of the snow and freezing cold of the Ardennes four German armies—two panzer and two infantry—some twenty-eight divisions with more than 300,000 men and close to 1,500 tanks, smashed through the lightly held Allied line in the forest. On D-Day, it was the Germans who had been taken by surprise. Now it was the Americans who were caught napping.

  As a result of Ike’s broad-front strategy, Allied troops were spread thin, but nowhere so thin as in the Ardennes. No one expected a German attack, and Bradley had deployed just four divisions, two of which were newly arrived, to hold an eighty-five-mile sector of the front. It was the Battle of Kasserine Pass redux. Little had been done to prepare a defensive position: No wire or minefields had been laid; few foxholes had been dug in the frozen ground; and night patrolling had been perfunctory. Green frontline troops bolted at the German approach, and American commanders initially underestimated the magnitude of the onslaught. For two days, Bradley and Simpson, commanding Ninth Army, failed to react, and Hodges at First Army suffered a nervous collapse similar to that sustained by Fredendall at Kasserine.

  For the Germans, it was the breakthrough of May 1940 all over again, except that the Wehrmacht of 1944 was a pale copy of the panzer legions loosed against the French. In 1940, von Rundstedt’s army group deployed more than three thousand newly minted tanks in perfect running order, the panzer divisions possessed an abundance of fuel and ammunition, and the troops had never known defeat. In December 1944, the German Army was a patchwork of understrength units, battered equipment, and chronic shortages of artillery shells and diesel fuel. von Rundstedt and Model had requested 500 gallons of fuel for each tank; they received 150.

  Planning for the Ardennes attack (HERBSTNEBEL, or Autumn Mist) originated with Hitler after the fall of Paris. The Führer wanted to drive a wedge between the British and American armies, recross the Meuse, seize the supply dumps on the other side of the river, capture Brussels and Antwerp, and compel the Western powers to sue for peace. It was the rosiest of rosy scenarios. Hitler hoped to gain time before turning anew against the Russians, and continued to insist that a military victory could be won. Von Rundstedt and Model, who were kept in the dark about the Führer’s plans until November, recognized the strategic brilliance of the attack but saw no hope of capturing Antwerp. Both argued for a more limited operation aimed at temporarily dislocating the Allied advance but were overruled.43 d

  The Battle of the Bulge was Ike’s finest hour as a military commander. While Bradley and Simpson dithered, and Hodges took to his bed, Eisenhower assumed control of the front and moved quickly to shore up the shoulders on either side of the German breakthrough. Patton was ordered to dispatch the 10th Armored Division to hold the line south of the penetration, and the 7th Armored of Ninth Army was given the same task to the north. With the width of the breakthrough restricted, Eisenhower turned to his strategic reserve: Matthew Ridgway’s XVIII Airborne Corps, which was refitting near Reims. James Gavin’s 82nd Airborne Division was rushed by truck to hold the vital road junction at Saint-Vith, and the 101st was sent south to hold a similar road junction at Bastogne: two important choke points essential to the German advance. John C. H. Lee, commanding the Army Service Forces, was ordered to defend the Meuse crossings with whatever engineers he could scrape up, and to prepare the bridges for demolition. The air force, the Allies’ most potent weapon, was unable to fly because of bad weather. The size of von Rundstedt’s attack was not yet clear. What was apparent was that the Allied front in the Ardennes had given way and that German panzers were heading west.

  On December 19, Eisenhower met with Bradley, Devers, Patton, Tedder, and Bedell Smith at Verdun. Montgomery was represented by his chief of staff, Major General Francis de Guingand. The German advance was continuing, although the pace had slowed, and the mood at Verdun was glum. The Allies had been taken by surprise and whipped decisively. Like a football coach whose team was behind with the clock running out, Eisenhower knew that he must rally his commanders. Alone among the downcast group, he exuded optimism. “The present situation is to be regarded as an opportunity, not a disaster,” said Ike. The German Army had exposed itself, and once their drive had been blunted, it could be destroyed while still in the open.

  “Hell,” replied Patton, “let’s have the guts to let the sons of bitches go all the way to Paris. Then we’ll really cut ’em up.”44

  Patton’s quip broke the tension. Ike explained that he wanted the Germans halted before they crossed the Meuse. When they were contained, the Allies would counterattack. “George, I want you to command this move. When can you attack?”

  “The morning of December twenty-first, with three divisions,” Patton replied. That was two days away. Eisenhower initially thought Patton was grandstanding, but the fact was that George had come to Verdun with three plans for Third Army already prepared, ready to comply with whatever Ike might direct. “This was the sublime moment of his career,” wrote biographer Martin Blumenson. Eisenhower told Patton to take another day. He didn’t want him to attack piec
emeal. “I want your initial blow to be a strong one.”45

  Patton’s readiness to attack electrified the meeting. It meant withdrawing his entire army from its eastward assault, turning ninety degrees north, and moving over icy roads to prepare for a major counterattack within seventy-two hours. “Altogether it was an operation that only a master could think of executing,” wrote Blumenson.46 Eisenhower had saved Patton’s career twice: first in Sicily after the slapping incident, then in Britain following his remarks in Warwickshire. Now Patton was helping to save his.

  It would be three days before Third Army could join the battle. Meanwhile, the German advance continued. Bradley, whose Twelfth Army Group headquarters was in Luxembourg, had lost contact with Hodges and Simpson, who were north of the breakthrough. Veteran units such as VII Corps (Collins) and V Corps (Gerow) were holding their ground, but VIII Corps (Middleton) had been overrun and First Army headquarters had ceased to function due to Hodges’s breakdown.e On December 20 Ike turned to Montgomery. Twenty-first Army Group headquarters was in the north, and it seemed logical to put First and Ninth armies under Montgomery’s command. It was, as one military historian has written, “a stroke of wisdom of the kind which justified all the Supreme Commander’s claims to his authority.”47 The personal relations between Ike and Monty were strained, but with German panzers racing toward the Meuse, Eisenhower knew he could rely on the prickly field marshal to steady the American forces north of the breakthrough. Ike called Bradley to break the news.

  Bradley reacted badly. “By God, Ike, I cannot be responsible to the American people if you do this. I resign,” he protested.

  Eisenhower held firm. “Brad,” said Ike calmly, “I—not you—am responsible to the American people. Your resignation means absolutely nothing.”

  There was a pause. Bradley protested again, but Eisenhower cut him short. “Brad, those are my orders.”48

  In the late afternoon of December 20, Montgomery took command of all troops on the northern flank of the German penetration. Lieutenant General Sir Brian Horrocks’s battle-tested British XXX Corps was rushed to a blocking position on the Meuse, and Montgomery paid a lightning visit to Hodges and Simpson. Bradley had not seen them since the attack began. “They seemed delighted to have someone give them firm orders,” Monty reported to SHAEF that evening.49

  With Patton pulling most of Third Army out of the line and moving north, Eisenhower instructed Devers to shorten Sixth Army Group’s front and take up the slack. In particular, Seventh Army was to pull back from an exposed salient containing Strasbourg, and re-form at the foot of the Vosges Mountains.50 When de Gaulle learned of Ike’s plan, he protested immediately. Strasbourg was sacred soil, said de Gaulle, the heart of Alsace and a symbol to the French people of their ancient rivalry across the Rhine. To surrender it to the Germans voluntarily would not only imperil the lives of hundreds of thousands of French men and women residing in the region, but would threaten the stability of the government itself. “If we were at Kriegspiel [war games],” said de Gaulle, “I would say you are right. But I must consider the matter from another point of view. Retreat in Alsace would yield French territory to the enemy. In the realm of strategy this would only be a maneuver. But for France it would be a national disaster.”51

  The discussion, heated at times, continued for several hours, and eventually de Gaulle prevailed. When pressed on the matter, Ike saw de Gaulle’s point. He also realized that Allied supply lines, one from Cherbourg, the other from Marseilles, would be in danger without French support. He could not risk civil unrest or a collapse of the government. In de Gaulle’s presence, Eisenhower called Devers and canceled the order to retreat.52 Churchill, who happened to be visiting Ike at the Trianon Palace Hotel when de Gaulle arrived, said afterward, “I think you’ve done the wise and proper thing.”53 f

  By December 22 the crisis in the Ardennes had passed, although weeks of hard fighting lay ahead. In the north, Montgomery turned tactical control of his American forces over to J. Lawton Collins, who mounted a spirited counterattack against the advancing panzer spearhead of Hasso von Manteuffel’s Fifth Panzer Army. In the south, Patton’s troops made contact with the beleaguered 101st Airborne at Bastogne late in the afternoon of December 26. The weather cleared and Allied airpower entered the battle, pounding German tanks as they advanced. Manteuffel’s panzers were less than three miles from the Meuse, but had literally run out of fuel and were annihilated by Collins’s oncoming troops from the American 2nd Armored Division. At that point the German generals recognized their advance was spent. Von Rundstedt, Model, and Manteuffel all asked for permission to withdraw, but Hitler refused. “It was Stalingrad No. 2,” said von Rundstedt.54

  Eisenhower congratulates Patton for his drive to Bastogne. General Bradley looks on. (illustration credit 15.1)

  The Battle of the Bulge cost the Germans between 80,000 and 100,000 men, plus the bulk of Hitler’s armored reserve. The Wehrmacht might continue to fight a defensive war in the west, but it was no longer capable of offensive action. American losses totaled 80,987 (killed, wounded, captured, or missing), making it the most costly battle in American history since Grant’s campaign in northern Virginia in 1864.55

  Eisenhower is to blame for the broad-front strategy that stretched Allied lines so thin that German armor had little difficulty breaking through. With a candor that is rare among military commanders, Ike later accepted full responsibility. “If giving him [Hitler] that chance is to be condemned by historians, their condemnations should be directed at me alone.”56 Eisenhower can also be faulted for permitting the enemy to make a measured retreat from the Bulge without attempting to cut them off. Patton and Montgomery battered the Germans relentlessly, but little effort was made to prevent their retreat or to surround them.

  By the same token, Eisenhower is entitled to full credit for the victory. From the start of the German offensive, he showed a quicker grasp of the situation than any of his subordinates, and he acted decisively to contain the attack. The width of the breakthrough was restricted; the strategic reserves were quickly deployed at Bastogne and Saint-Vith, and when Bradley lost contact with the First and Ninth armies, Ike turned the American forces over to Montgomery. Perhaps above all, Eisenhower had the nerve to allow the German advance to continue until it ran out of steam, and then deliver massive counterattacks from the south under Patton, and from the north under Montgomery.

  Ulysses S. Grant, reflecting on his experience as a young lieutenant during the Mexican War, wrote the following appraisal of his commander General Zachary Taylor—“Old Rough and Ready”: “No soldier could face danger or responsibility more calmly than he. These qualities are more rarely found than genius or physical courage.”57

  Patton and Montgomery approached the level of military genius, and their physical courage was beyond doubt. But it was Eisenhower who accepted responsibility. “In all his career as Supreme Commander there was perhaps no other time when Eisenhower revealed so clearly the greatness of his qualities,” wrote historian Chester Wilmot, who had covered the Battle of the Bulge as a war correspondent.58

  Montgomery and Patton were consummate military professionals. Unfortunately, both suffered from terminal infections of foot-in-mouth disease. On January 7, 1945, after stabilizing the northern flank of the German breakthrough, Montgomery called a press conference to announce the fact. Ike, Churchill, and Brooke had approved, and Monty’s intent was to praise the American troops who had been placed under his command. “The text was innocuous,” said Brigadier Sir Edgar Williams, Monty’s intelligence chief. “But the presentation was quite appalling. Disastrous, really.”59 g Despite his best intentions, Montgomery came across as patronizing and condescending. He had rescued the Americans. The Yanks fought well when given strong leadership. Of course they were jolly brave. “It was a very interesting little battle. Possibly one of the most interesting and tricky battles I have ever handled.”60 Press coverage was initially favorable, but Bradley and Patton were disgusted with w
hat they considered Monty’s effort to steal the spotlight, and from that point on Eisenhower’s senior commanders were virtually at sword point.61

  The distinguished British military writer Sir Max Hastings draws a compelling contrast between Ike and Monty. Eisenhower was less genial than he appeared, wrote Hastings. “Yet the Abilene boy who grew up in classically humble rural American circumstances, the poker-player who retained a lifelong enthusiasm for dime Western novels, always behaved in public as one of nature’s gentlemen. Montgomery, the bishop’s son educated at St. Paul’s and Sandhurst, never did. He was a cleverer man and far more professional soldier than his Supreme Commander, but his crassness toward his peers was a fatal impediment to greatness.”62

  The original battle line in the Bulge was not restored until January 28, 1945, and it took another month for Allied armies to recover their balance. The British and Americans were still west of the Rhine, the Siegfried line remained largely intact, and manpower losses crippled the effectiveness of many frontline divisions. In the east, the Soviets launched their final winter offensive on January 12. As the Western Allies struggled to regain the initiative, the army groups of Field Marshals Georgy Zhukov, Ivan Konev, and Konstantin Rokossovsky, some four million men and ten thousand tanks, stormed forward along a two-hundred-mile front from the mountains of Bohemia to the Baltic. In six weeks the Red Army advanced from Warsaw, on the Vistula, to Stettin, Frankfurt, and Breslau, on the Oder. Zhukov’s troops established a bridgehead across the Oder on February 2. Berlin lay thirty miles away. The Russian armies paused to regroup and refit, but it was abundantly clear to Ike and everyone else at SHAEF that the Red Army would reach the German capital long before the Allies.

  On the eve of the Red Army’s attack, Eisenhower dispatched his deputy, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, to Moscow to consult with Stalin about Russian plans and to establish liaison arrangements to coordinate the eventual linkup of the two sides in Germany. A less obvious purpose was to inform Stalin of Ike’s planned broad-front advance and to gain Russian approval before the Combined Chiefs of Staff convened in Malta to review Allied strategy. (The Malta meeting was preparatory to the meeting of the Big Three at Yalta.) By sending Tedder to Moscow, Eisenhower sought to preempt the strategic discussion at Malta since the chiefs could scarcely reject what the Soviets had approved. Just as he had outmaneuvered FDR and the State Department by providing de Gaulle the opportunity to occupy the Palais de l’Élysée, Ike now sought to outmaneuver Brooke and Churchill by dealing directly with Stalin.63