As most of you know my earlier 'Historical Thread' was a temporary measure pending a separate 'Historical Forum' which we now have. In the earlier thread I noticed that much of the discusion revolved around the different personalities in World War Two, including the Generals, Presidents and other leaders. Therefore I thought that now would be a good time to start a specific thread on the subject in our new forum.
Politics is sometimes a 'no go' area in forums together with sex and religion. However I feel we can have a 'reasonable' discussion about it (politics) if we confine the arguement to military areas and don't get to carried away with our own personal beliefs and passion.
World War Two remains the largest and most dynamic war to date. Where Generals, on all sides, often had a tenuous excistence based upon their success or failure in battles fought. However more often than not politics was often placed ahead of military necessity. In my opinion a prime example of this occured when Eisenhower was appointed Supreme Allied Commander for the Invasion into Western Europe instead of Sir Alan Brooke. Churchill had always wanted Brooke for this important position but pressure from the US, that was providing most of the material and men, meant Eisenhower secured the position. I mean no offence to Eisenhower but his military capacity was no match for Brooke. For example, many of the American Generals such as McArthur, Patton etc believed Eisenhower was more suited to administration than military strategy and tactics.
Eisenhower wanted advancement on a wide front following D-Day. Which was against the opinion of most of the Allied Generals who wanted direct thrusts towards Germany, although they differed on the direction of those thrusts. In any event two main thrusts evolved following the broad front stalemate and both subsequent thrusts (Montgomery's and Patton's) suffered as neither received the resources required to secure the objective(s). Many of the lost opportunties can be traced back to Eisenhower attempting to plan military strategy as well as playing politics.
US and UK relations were somewhat shakey before D-Day, the Americans rarely listenening to British advice obtained from past experience in the war. The alliance grew progressively worse as the Allied Forces advanced closer towards Germany. To increase newspaper sales, the newspapers in both countries seized on these differences. The articles promoted half truths, myths and even lies to support their country's Generals and Leaders, while denegrating the others. It can be no wonder that Hitler believed the alliance was going to collapse before it reached Germany.
Following misquotes of Montgomery's speech regarding the Battle of the Bulge which included comments made a Nazi sympathiser things came to a head. To protect his own position Eisenhower issued oders to sack Montgomery and was only talked out of this course after some discussion. One could imagine the fallout if that sacking had occured as despite his personal problems, Montgomery was a better General than most people recognise and well regarded in the Commonwealth countries.
Of course the conflict between Eisenhower and Montgomery escalated further after the war in the famous 'Battle of the Memoirs'. Where the antagonists caused disagreement and resentment between the American and British camps that continue to this day.The conflict caused many people to choose sides despite their personal opinion of both authors. One of the few Generals that saw both sides of the story and remained objective was General James Gavin, and I can recommend his book 'On to Berlin' for anyone interested in the late WWII battles.
Here are some articles about Monty, the misunderstood General.
Part 1:
http://www.armchairgeneral.com/articles.php?p=2240&page=1
Part 2:
http://www.armchairgeneral.com/articles.php?p=2271&page=1
Part 3:
http://www.armchairgeneral.com/articles.php?p&p=2293&page=1
