soc.history.war.world-war-ii

Gavin Bailey wrote:
> Louis C wrote:
>
> >I'm not aware of Alexander telling one of his subordinates "you can't
> >talk to me like that, I'm your boss", let alone "you can't act like
> >that, I'm your boss".
>
> The fact that he didn't have to is a reflection on his capacity;
> Eisenhower may deserve some credit for diplomatically drawing a line
> in front of Monty verbally, but he doesn't deserve any for letting the
> situation get to that point to start with (neither does Monty; in fact
> he deserves far more criticism than Ike for that situation).

Montgomery was obnoxious, so anyone acting as his superior was going
to have to draw the line at some point.

Montgomery was British, which means that the line couldn't be drawn by
simply firing him for much less.

Alexander doesn't seem ever to have drawn the line. In the Tunisian
example that you mentioned, Montgomery started with a very cheeky
letter along the lines of "there will have to be an overal commander,
and I suppose it must be you, so here is the plan that I think should
be followed". For once, he got a rather abrupt answer from Alexander
though even then that didn't amount to drawing a firm line.

So I'm afraid I just can't see what exactly that capacity of
Alexander's consists of that Eisenhower (or other people) didn't have.

> Meanwhile
> Alexander played a decisive role in in the removal of Fredendall,
> Dawley and Lucas; so he was entirely capable of sacking subordinate
> commanders.

Fredendall and Lucas were such obvious scapegoats that they were going
to be fired anyway. Reports about the former were coming back from all
corners and Eisenhower was taking flak for not using a firmer hand in
the first place. Regarding Anzio, Marshall was more or less openly
wondering whether he should sack Lucas, Clarck, or both. Dawley was a
similar case, IIRC Clark was the one telling Alexander that he should
be relieved, not the other way around.

I do agree that, if memory serves, Alexander was the one asking Clark
to relieve Lucas though that hardly counts as valid generalship: the
problems were the general concept of Anzio and Clark, in that order,
with Lucas' management of the battle a distant third.

> I definitely believe his appointment to North Africa was partially in
> response to Auckinleck's failure to find somebody other than himself
> to manage the operational battle against Rommel. In other words, the
> loose rein was a deliberate option in tandem with the appointment of a
> subordinate commander to manage the distasteful necessity of winning
> the land battle without excessive disruption of the Army-Group-level
> staff's dinner menu in the Cairo restaurants.

Alexander had a definite edge over Auchinleck (or Montgomery, don't
know about Patton) as far as arranging good dinners for his staff, no
question about that.

I'm less persuaded by the loose rein implication. After all, the
Alexander - Montgomery team wasn't significantly different from the
Auchinleck - Ritchie one in terms of organization: one was in charge
of running the actual battle, and the other was supposed to run the
back-office business. The only difference was that Alexander no longer
had to worry about his northern flank. But Auchinleck had mainly been
blamed for not involving himself more directly - Churchill had urged
him time and again to do so - as soon as Ritchie could be found
lacking. Indeed, Auchinleck was blamed (rightly so IMO) for not taking
over quickly enough from his failing subordinates. So his replacement
by a new team doesn't by itself mean that Alexander was supposed to
let Montgomery goof up.

If Montgomery had started behaving Ritchie-like, Alexander would
definitely be expected to take over more quickly than Auchinleck had.

> One aspect of
> that situation (at least in Tunisia and then Sicily) is that
> subordinate American commanders such as Patton felt they couldn't
> openly jockey against Monty (or perviously, Anderson) under a British
> superior. Monty had no such qualms, so Alexander's indulgence of him
> was - in part - due to the relatively less-assertive approach of the
> US commanders involved, who were making a sincere attempt to make
> integrated combined allied command work, regardless of the spleen they
> vented to one another at the time or in later memoirs.

I'm not sure I follow here.

Alexander didn't draw the line with Montgomery because his
(Alexander's) other subordinates were far better-behaved and therefore
the overal noise level remained within acceptable limits for
Alexander, is that your argument?

If so, this hardly counts as an endorsement, just the opposite in
fact.

> It becomes sounder when the ability of commanders in his position to
> actually influence their subordinates into doing (convincingly) what
> they didn't want to do comes into question; Anglo-American commanders
> had considerably more autonomy and capacity to 'do their own thing'
> than either the Germans or Russians did.

Sorry, but I'm not buying.

Leaving aside the fact that strong-willed German subordinates
repeatedly managed to have it their way against the wishes of their
superiors (the May 1940 drive to the sea is a succession of examples,
Rommel's North African campaigns another), how come that Montgomery as
Army Group commander could keep his subordinates on a tight leash
while Alexander in the same position couldn't?

If this was something to do with institutional culture, then surely
Dempsey could have ignored those of Montgomery's orders that he didn't
like?

> Alexander's failings (and
> they are failings) take place at the intersection of these
> responsibilities, where most allied commanders made more obvious
> efforts than Alexander, but were rewarded with similar problematic
> results.

Like...?

> In Sicily whoever took on the main German defence lines
> south of Etna was going to have a hard time, while whoever over-ran
> the country to the west was going to have an easier job, and and
> easier time making subsequent speculation about what they could have
> done if only the situations had been reversed. Who had access to what
> road before butting into the German defences was, in my view,
> irrelevant, and only useful to determine the nature of the personal
> antagonisms between the commanders involved at the time.

I'm not claiming that letting Patton have the road that Montgomery
wanted would have wrapped up the campaign there and then.

I generally agree - as I wrote - that the Germans were the main reason
why things were so slow.

On the other hand, Montgomery's decision was clearly harmful because
it forced a reshuffle of the Allied positions and LOC's with no
tactical or operational gains to show for it. To play armchair
general, I would add that Patton could have swept up the western half
of Sicily with less than the force he historically used whereas more
Allied pressure on the main front would have been more useful.

So no, I'm not claiming that Montgomery's decision lost the Allies the
opportunity for a quick and decisive victory in Sicily, but I do
believe that Monty shouldn't have been allowed to get away with it.

> And yet Alexander did make decisions against Monty's interests; e.g.
> opting for using the First Army rather than the Eighth for VULCAN and
> STRIKE.

There was very little choice: 8th Army had tried and failed,
Montgomery himself so much as admitted it by giving a very pessimistic
timetable for progress.

Montgomery, being the good general that he was, did send his best
units to someone else's command because he had the greater picture in
mind. In that, he was in marked contrast with generals like Clark or
even Bradley. On the other hand, Patton doesn't seem to have minded
being sent to someone else's help either so that's not of particular
interest in the comparison of all these generals.

> Described as '...a blunt Yorkshireman quite without charm..' by one of
> his subordinates at AEAF HQ in 1944, and openly detested by some of
> his US counterparts.

Are there charming blunt Yorkshiremen, I wonder?

> For once that detestation does seem to be based
> on the actual (as opposed to the assumed) attitude of the British
> officer in question.

Ok, there are a few of these described in Shelford and Bidwell's "Tug
of War" as well IIRC.

> >My impression is that de Guingand saved Montgomery's job, not
> >Eisenhower's.
>
> That de Guingand could save Monty (according to his memoir, at any
> rate) speaks volumes about the nature of the Ike-Monty relationship
> absent the presence of such subordinates.

Both Eisenhower and Montgomery had able staff commanders.

Are you claiming that Alexander's staff was inferior (and if so, why,
and why doesn't it reflect on his generalship?) and that would be one
of the reasons behind his lack of grip?

> > Absent his diplomacy, Monty would probably have been
> >kicked upstairs to another posting.
>
> If Eisenhower had thought his authority could have standed it, I
> expect he would have been kicked upstairs anyway.

Kicking Montgomery out was a risky undertaking and that would cost
Eisenhower heavily even if successful. Which is why he was reluctant
to do it. It doesn't mean that he wouldn't have confronted his pest of
a subordinate had he not been forced to (e.g. absent diplomatic staff
officers).

(snip)

> Billotte = 'lousy'. No disagreement here. Two reasons the BEF and
> French got along reasonably well before 10 May 1940 were the
> realisation at all levels on both sides of the political importance of
> working together (regardless of the relative military unimportance of
> the BEF), and the fact that there was no major operational strain
> until the Germans put some pressure on the relationship.

Note that Billotte's inadequacy can also be shown in some of the
respects that have been outlined above e.g. part of his own "lack of
grip" over his non-French subordinates came from the fact that his HQ
was inadequately staffed, both quantitatively (too small) and
qualitatively. This had much to do with the fact that he was
considered a "difficult master to serve" (i.e. he had a lousy temper)
so officers did their best not to be assigned to his staff.

On another level, the British and the French did manage to work
relatively well together under great strain in June 1940. Alexander
was absolutely hated by the French commanders at Dunkirk but I won't
count that against him, the position was just too difficult.

> Rommel = 'successful'. Within limits, agreed. Although he did
> irritate the Italians considerably at times, and exploit them for the
> benefit of the DAK more than once.

So what?

The Italians were as useful under his command as they would have been
under someone else. None of his Italian subordinates jeopardized his
plans by ignoring orders, shirking or whatever. So I'm counting that
as a successful inter-Allied command even though, at a personal level,
I'd much rather have Alexander as a boss than Rommel.

> >Then we have Alexander's record in North Africa, Sicily and Italy:
> >generally not very satisfactory.
>
> And yet he still did better than Rommel.....

Rommel wasn't in Sicily and didn't command operationally in Italy. In
North Africa, Montgomery beat Rommel.

> >Clark as Alexander's successor was no better, but as with Billotte
> >this will come as no surprise.
>
> I'd say Clark was significantly worse; his relationships with his own
> American subordinates could be poisonous in a manner that Alexander's
> never seem to have been.

Yes, my "no better" only meant that there was no point discussing him.

There is no question that Montgomery, Patton, Alexander and a lot of
other Allied generals were better than Clark in most respects.

> >Not sure how Montgomery rates as an army group commander in Normandy.
> >He didn't really try to manage Bradley,
>
> The Alexander approach in action; you say incompetence, I say
> 'intelligent understanding of the limitations present in the context
> of inter-allied command'. Except I suspect Alex's dinner parties were
> more convivial than Monty's.

Neither Montgomery nor Bradley had a taste for the better aspects of
life, so I would expect your last sentence to be true.

We can't know if Montgomery behaved Alexander-like in Normandy or not
because there never was a crisis of the kind that the Allies in Italy
faced. On the other hand, it's true that in both cases the army group
commander saw his two armies stuck.

> Which US commanders did Monty play any role in sacking?

I don't know of any, though when he did have US commanders under his
command the Americans proved more than willing to sack their own
subordinates. Probably even more so than Montgomery naturally would
have.

Note that he didn't have to fire Simpson because the latter was both
competent and never questioned Montgomery's authority.

> [Devers vs De Lattre = good].
>
> OK. But I question the scale and complexity of the problems at hand.

You need to read some of the memoirs of the American commanders
involved to get acquainted with how much of a pain de Lattre was.
Leclerc's famous 2nd Armored Division pulled strings to revert to US
command after a brief stint under de Lattre. The other "Free French"
division in his army had no such luck and ended up garrisonning the
Alps against the Italians for its troubles. As I wrote, one of the
main reasons why things went comparatively well was the unwillingness
of interpretors on both sides to do too perfect a job.

But I agree that even de Lattre wasn't as much of a problem as someone
like Clark. For one thing, he wouldn't have deliberately jeopardized
Patch's progress in order to make himself look better.

> I'm not sure the Australians were happy with him after the early phase
> of the 'defend Australia' relationship. There were certainly areas
> where he got their backs up, and he had disagreements with Blamey for
> the use of AIF forces in the Philippines, for example. How this
> percolated down or up from the operational level I don't know,
> however.

Yes, MacArthur wasn't particularly diplomatic (or such a great general
IMO) but he was an effective army group commander in that his main
subordinate commands functioned smoothly. That some of his
subordinates might hate him is irrelevant: a lot of people hated
Patton, Montgomery, Guderian, Rommel etc.

Now I do suspect that this had to do with the Australians being well-
behaved and keeping their misgivings private. Had a local Clark-
equivalent been in charge of the Australians, I don't know how much
better MacArthur would have fared. Part of the reasons why it's
difficult to compare him with Alexander is also that he was in a very
different situation, and had different qualities. He didn't lack grip,
drive or ideas, for instance. Obviously, self-confidence also had its
drawbacks as with his 1941 defense plan of the Philippines or when he
decided that all the islands of the Philippines had to be reconquered.

So we agree that he wouldn't necessarily have done better than
Alexander had he been appointed to Sicily & Italy.

(snip)
> Plus he had a good wine cellar. Or access to some unfortunate
> Italian's excellent wine cellar.

If the unfortunate Italian had amassed an excellent wine cellar, it
means that he had been a very fortunate Italian under Fascism so I
won't shed too many tears over the fate of some of his wine. Plus the
Italians are always so keen to demonstrate that they have good wines
(which they do) that I'm sure it helped somewhat!

> >I think that Montgomery was the better army group commander, Patton
> >was the better corps commander.
>
> But I suspect Monty was a better divisional commander.

Montgomery was indeed a very good divisional commander, but IIRC
Patton's record was also good, even if we only have field maneuvers to
test that proposition.

> >The interesting comparison would be between Patton and Rommel. Patton
> >would have been a very successful panzer commander had he served in
> >Wehrmacht uniform. He had the proper operational worldview.
>
> I think he lacked Rommel's tactical sensibility, and would have gone
> forward to indulge his personal sense of theatrics while Rommel went
> forward to achieve less vainglorious and more pragmatic ends, and did
> so.

I disagree.

Rommel very much acted theatrically, to the point where his rendition
of the Arras counterattack materially influenced OKH strategy.

See also his decision to pursue 8th Army following the fall of Tobruk,
is that going forward "to achieve less vainglorious and more pragmatic
ends"? What about the dash to the Wire?

In both cases, I actually agree with Rommel's decisions but not for
the reasons he did. And I'm not convinced that Patton would have been
worse.

Both Patton and Rommel exhibited a marked tendency to keep their
command moving until the fuel tanks were dry, something which
Montgomery didn't. I'd chalk that one up as better generalship on
Monty's part though some have considered it a pro-Patton factor vs the
over-cautious Monty.

> Alex's wine menu was nonetheless restricted to the components
> available after the French/Italians/Germans had skimmed the best off
> the available stock, and he would then be compelled to make something
> presentable out of some dubious Italian white and some fiery but
> vulgar Algerian red. There's an analogy in there somewhere.

The Germans didn't have all that much time to loot Italian stocks, as
a lot of the country (including some of the wine-growing areas) went
from Fascist to Allied control in a short while, and the Germans
didn't have the administrative apparatus to fully loot the Italian
countryside. Even in France it took them time to milk the country dry.
The parts of Italy where they did a thorough job of plundering were
the northern areas, and I doubt that Alexander's wine list could have
make much impression if he had drawn on local resources after the
armistice.

Anyway, if you want to judge Alexander by his wine selection he risks
being outdone by Georges and Gamelin. The latter in particular had an
excellent table and a lively dinner conversation but would definitely
rate below Alexander as a multi-national commander.


LC