soc.history.war.world-war-ii

In article <76a7v3td8m1bbnkqj9f7jq685ltp0j8upf@4ax.com>,
Die Whigphilosophie der Geschichte im Hefeweizen wrote:
>On Sat, 29 Mar 2008 10:01:10 -0400, thornley@visi.com (David Thornley)
>wrote:
>
>>Alexander exerted no grip on the situation in Sicily, except at
>>Montgomery's request.
>
>What do you mean by 'no grip', though? Who should have have sacked
>and why?

Who said anything about sacking? What I said was that Patton and
Montgomery fought their own little wars, except for Alexander
messing Patton up at Montgomery's request. What did Alexander
do?

Meanwhile, his record in Tunisia and Sicily can arguably be
>taken to indicate that he was open-minded enough to change plans at
>both Montgomery's and Patton's request.

Tunisia wasn't all that impressive, and Sicily was less so.

If you're going to cite his record, shouldn't you find campaigns
he succeeded well in?

Where can we distinguish the
>difference between 'lack of grip' and 'responsiveness to subordinate's
>initiative'?
>
By examination. By finding cases where subordinates disagree and
watching what the commander does. By looking for what happens
when subordinates do the wrong thing.

Please find a few cases of that for Alexander.

>>He completely failed to control Clark,
>>and was extremely frustrated by the man.
>
>He was, but then my thesis is that Alexander - correctly - understood
>that Clark was irreplaceable and essentially uncontrollable for
>political reasons, as Eisenhower correctly judged Monty in a similar
>context.

I don't agree.

Montgomery was far more competent than Clark, and more manageable,
and Eisenhower was on the verge of asking the Combined Chiefs of
Staff to choose between them at one point.

Further, Clark's insistence on fighting his way jeopardized
Allied plans, and had the potential of costing a large number
of Allied lives. Of all the army commanders in Europe,
Clark was the most important to rein in. What did Alexander
try?

Meanwhile Alexander showed a propensity to facilitate the
>removal of US Corps commanders on a scale which would have caused
>severe post-facto criticism if Monty had summoned the temerity to try
>it....
>
Who cares? The corps commanders were in general not the problem,
Clark was. What do you mean, "facilitate the removal of US
Corps commanders"? Facilitate what? Clark's requests? Could
you be more specific?

Look, why don't you go out and find cases where Alexander actually
did more to advance his own plans than a life-sized cardboard
cutout could have. I don't buy this idea that his subordinates
were either politically uncontrollable or doing exactly what
he wanted at all times, because that never happened anywhere
else. Montgomery did follow Eisenhower's orders, mostly, and
almost got into real trouble.

--
David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
david@thornley.net | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-