soc.history.war.world-war-ii

On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 06:49:38 -0400, Louis C
wrote:

Some random deletions follow. In an Alexanderesque fashion, I shall
just say these may or may not be intellectually dishonest attempts to
avoid contradictory points which I can't deal with (rather than the
Montgomeryesque approach of brusquely dismissing your entire posting
as 'useless bellyaching' after recognising that it defeats my argument
out of hand).

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

The question is - how? A different style of rejection shouldn't mask
the fact that Alexander could and did deny Monty when he considered it
necessary.

>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.

Yet Alex remained in command, and remained able to approve or deny
Monty as he deemed fit. Meanwhile at roughly the same time Eisenhower
was fuming over a turf battle with the Combined Chiefs of Staff,
extolling Fredendall more than once before being compelled to replace
him, and even contemplating resignation over a puerile slanging match
between Patton and Coningham which took Tedder's immediate reaction to
stamp out.

>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.

I think the reality of the Tunisian campaign is that Alexander's style
of leadership (which is certainly questionable) evidenced a 'firmer
grip' than Eisenhower's.

>Fredendall and Lucas were such obvious scapegoats that they were going
>to be fired anyway.

But not before Alexander got involved, exercising his unique ability
to play a direct role in sacking US commanders by getting his US
contemporaries to do the dirty work for him while retaining plausible
deniability. We can add Ward to that list; which makes three Corps
commanders and one divisional commander.

>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.

And yet Eisenhower hung on to him until it became clear that not only
did his subordinates detest him (via Bradley) but the British wanted
him relieved (Alexander). While criticism was confined to the
American side, Eisenhower defended Fredendall for weeks. When it
became clear the British had no confidence in him, it all changed.

>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.

Nicholson, Alexander's biographer, includes text of an interview with
Clark in 1970 which makes it clear that Alexander took the initiative
with Clark over relieving Dawley; D'Este refers to US official history
oral interviews with Alexander as demonstrating Alexander's desire to
relieve Dawley even earlier. In keeping with my 'velvet-gloved
assassin' theory, I'm stating that Alexander's low opinion of many of
his American colleagues was masked by the diplomatic skill to ensure
that any sackings of American subordinates were performed by his US
contemporaries, allowing him plausible deniability. Otherwise, any
overt move to sack US subordinates by a British commander would be
politically impossible.

>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.

The concept of Anzio was flawed, but only with the
inevitable-with-hindsight appreciation that the Allies weren't going
to break through in the south in January. Alexander (or Harding using
Alex as a glove-puppet) was well aware that the Anzio force would
require reinforcement if the initial plan of manoevering the Germans
out of Cassino by threatening their rear failed. The point about
sackings is that they do demonstrate the ability to implement a
commander's will, and sacking subordinate commanders of an allied
force was politically difficult, as the traditional Eisenhower-Monty
scenario indicates. And yet Alexander managed this four times by my
count. This may not indicate brilliant generalship, but I will assert
that this indicates Alexander's ability to assert his will as an Army
Group commander in a way that Montgomery never managed, and belies his
laizzez-faire reputation.

>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.

Not to mention some tasteful dinner-table conversation.

>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.

Yet Ritchie was Auchinleck's creature; there was little doubt that
there would be no clash of wills or ego between the two (although in
part that was down to both Auchinleck being a competent C-in-C and
Ritchie a competent subordinate; I will maintain that Ritchie's
failures were largely down to his inability to manage his subordinates
at Gazala). The issue with Monty was always going to be how to manage
his egomania constructively. The miracle is that Eisenhower managed
so well with him, even with De Guingand as a buffer, which reflects
well upon Eisenhower (I think we can safely deny Monty any credit in
this context), but even better on Alexander who managed him even more
successfully.

> 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.

And yet Churchill was apparently unable to reduce the C-in-C-level
strategic responsibilities which ensured Auchinleck couldn't
concentrate on Rommel alone, and in fact increased them. The only
time he did try to reduce the scope of Auchinleck's commitments was by
giving him the lesser half of his old command after relieving him as a
rather undiplomatic consolation prize for finally doing what Churchill
wanted and stopping Rommel after a series of defeats achieved by his
subordinates.

>Indeed, Auchinleck was blamed (rightly so IMO) for not taking
>over quickly enough from his failing subordinates.

I'd agree, but the blame also attaches to Churchill - Auchinleck was
C-in-C in the Middle East, and had similar (if less complex) issues of
overstretch to deal with than Wavell before him.

> So his replacement
>by a new team doesn't by itself mean that Alexander was supposed to
>let Montgomery goof up.

Of course he wasn't; and that wasn't part of my argument.

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

Indeed; but Monty was significantly better than Ritchie as an army
commander, and more importantly, his subordinate commanders had
appreciated the dangers of doing their own thing against Rommel.

[US subordinates biting their tongues in Tunisia/Sicily]

>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?

Something like that; Monty's obnoxiousness and juvenile claims about
ignoring Alexander's orders were designed more to appeal to the
inflamed prejudices of the US commanders involved, chafing under the
novel restrictions of Eisenhoweresque restraint, than they reflected
what he actually did on a daily basis. Meanwhile, why should
Alexander be critiqued for rewarding the initiative of one of the few
commanders to display any? (yes, I'm asking for it here...)

>> 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.

Not even if I press some of this delightful Italian white on you?

>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?

Did he though? How did his treatment of Bradley and Simpson actually
compare with how Alexander would have treated them? It looks like a
case of uncharacteristic Monty tactfulness in the first instance,
while Simpson seems to have glided under the radar entirely while
performing an effective job without obvious controversy and
histrionics, unlike most of his British and American contemporaries.

>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?

If you're referring to Monty's written restrictions on Goodwood
written on 15 July 1944, they didn't actually rule out the
exploitation that Dempsey hoped to achieve after managing a
breakthrough. Dempsey's plans to move his own HQ forward if there was
a breakthrough to initiateand manage any exploitation phase seem to
indicate that he thought nothing had taken place to substantially
limit the potential of his original plan.

>> 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...?

We can all observe the dynamic progress made in Italy by Clark and
Leese before Alexander got involved to arrrest their lightning-fast
advances; or Eisenhower's triumphant progress in North Africa before
February 1942, or the dramatic allied advances devoid of personal
animosity under his command in Normandy...

>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.

I'd agree, except that pushing US forces forward into the
German-defended areas at the eastern side of the highway was going to
to little to speed up the allied advance; whoever had to take those
areas was going to experience delays generated by German resistance.
Donning the stars of an armchair general for a moment, I'd agree that
the US 45th Division should have been committed to the
north/north-west anyway. But the real problem - according to D'Este
at least - was Patton's inability or unwillingness to challenge
Alexander's orders, and letting Monty's initiative go by default.

>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.

I do think Alexander could have let the US forces move north and then
threaten the German defences to the east; this wouldn't have speeded
things up dramatically, but I do think it would have speeded them up
slightly. Who got into Palermo was an irrelevancy beside locking up
and defeating the Germans in the east.

>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.

Even D'Este - who goes out of his way to castigate Alex in what must
be the classical critique of his 'lack of grip' - also blames Patton
for this, as Bradley did at the time.

>> 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.

Monty nonetheless gave Alex the option of backing further offensives
by the 8th Army or 1st, and Alex opted for the 1st.

>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.

After being ordered to do so by Alexander...

> 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.

That depends upon how far the generals in question saw this as a
slight on their own monumental egos. Patton does suprisingly well on
that score, at least in the early days, but Monty does even better.
Clark does... well, you know the rest.

>> 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?

To other Yorkshiremen I imagine there are. To the rest of the world,
I suspect the issue would be less certain.

>> 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.

This is where Alex seems to score badly, in that he was perceived to
need somebody like Harding by external observers.

>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?

I think his staff work was poor, and I can't think of a convincing
defence. More Chardonnay?

>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).

Can I use the same absence of evidence to demonstrate Alexander's iron
grip on his subordinates, though?

>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.

And this is where Alexander's social entertainment budget came into
its own....

>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.

Agreed.

[Rommel using the Italians]

>So what?

I doubt any British or American general could have been quite as
cavalier when it came to obviously shafting their allied nationality.

>> >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.

Montgomery wasn't in charge in Tunisa, though. Alexander was -
although Rommel managed to slope off almost quickly enough to avoid
any overlap with Alexander's operational genius.

[Clark]

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

OK, but his existance as a contemporary parallel with Alexander needs
to remain in view.

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

And some worse. Although I think I'll have to go to Burma to dig them
out.

>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.

There's certainly a post-facto perception of crisis and acrimony over
the Normandy breakout, Market-Garden, crossing the Rhine, etc;
although I personally believe this was driven by the competitive
jockeying of the post-war memoirs more than contemporary differences
(although those certainly existed).

>> 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.

Possibly; and yet here's an area of inter-allied Army Group Command
where Alexander's notoriously-lax 'grip' seems to have extended
further than Montgomery's.

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

Plus the progress of the campaign and future operations on the Rhine
in 1945 was so blindingly obvious that the only real areas for
disagreement had to be manufactured at the grand strategic level (i.e.
who got to Berlin first).

>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.

OK, I lack the knowledge to contest the point, so I'll just refresh
our glasses of Sauvingnon Blanc at this point.

[MacArthur]

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

And the respective position of the allies involved (Australians in
SWPA vs British/Americans in the MTO) made the relationships much
closer to one of equality in Alexander's case. The scale is an issue,
as I suspect Ironside and Gort would have been much bigger pains in
Gamelin's backside (and visa-versa) if the BEF had been less
microscopic in relation to the size of the French army in 1939-40.

[The importance of access to a decent Italian wine cellar for Army
Group-level command capacity]

>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!

A receptive and informed audience also would help here; I'm personally
convinced Alexander's looted ... err, I mean 'liberated' wine list
would be considerably superior to any competitor's.

>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.

I'm more sceptical; I really don't think Patton did outstandingly well
at any level. Mind you, I need to evade the consequences of applying
that yardstick to Alexander's career, so I'd better let the Patton
critique drop at this point. Where did I leave that corkscrew?

[Rommel vs Patton theatrics]

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

That was his hysterical reporting after the fact; Patton was much more
pro-active when it came to strutting about the forward edge of the
battle area to validate his own personal issues.

>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?

That was impetuous and vainglorious, sure enough. But at least Rommel
had the good taste to avoid doing it with a pearl-handled Luger on his
belt, and it wasn't _wildly_ impetuous considering the state of the
British forces at the time.

>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.

I doubt Patton would have pulled back. What Rommel was prepared to
abandon as a raid would have involved far more emotional investment
from Patton.

>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.

I'd give that to Monty myself.

[Clash of the wine cellars]

>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.

He certainly had problems of antagonism towards Georges which
Alexander would have been able to manage more diplomatically with the
aid of a refreshingly piquant Chablis or two.

Gavin Bailey

--

Solution elegant. Yes. Minor problem, use 25000 CPU cycle for 1
instruction, this why all need overclock Pentium. Dumbass.
- Bart Kwan En