soc.history.war.world-war-ii

On Thu, 03 Apr 2008 08:05:47 -0400, thornley@visi.com (David Thornley)
wrote:

>>What do you mean by 'no grip', though? Who should have have sacked
>>and why?
>
>Who said anything about sacking?

I did, as an illustration of the ultimate sanction of an army or army
group commander over subordinates of a different nationality. So far
Alexander's success in this area (at least as I claim it...) seems to
be strangely ignored.

>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?

He intervened to assure the supremacy of Montgomery's little war over
Patton's, mistakenly, but for justifiable reasons.

> 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.

And yet his experience in Tunisia reveals a significant improvement
over his immediate predecessor as multi-national land forces
commander, and again this seems to be air-brushed out of the equation.
Were Tunisia or Sicily examples of pure military genius? Of course
not. But that's not what I'm asserting. They remain allied
victories, and as such I think denial of credit to the army/army group
commander involved demands a substantive factual explanation rather
than just assertions about superficial character impressions.

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

Steady on; I could have used Dunkirk or Burma to illustrate the
operational genius involved, but even my sense of satire has limits. I
don't think any allied campaign in Europe or the Mediterranean in WW2
was a blinding success, so I don't think it's reasonable for
criticising Alexander alone for failing to deliver such a victory.
What he did deliver were successes, albeit successes flawed by missed
opportunities.

> 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.

I've already quoted one; and he backed Montgomery. Here's another,
where he denied Monty - using US II Corps to move on Gabes in support
of the 8th Army advance to Wadi Akarit on 22 March 1943. The burden
of proof doesn't just rest on me however.

[Clark irreplaceable for political reasons]

>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.

And yet he never did. So no advance on Clark under Alexander as I can
see it.

>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?

Relieving the subordinate commanders in command of apparently failing
defensive battles. Alexander certainly seems to have played a
constructive role at Salerno, intervening in person and denying the
wildest of Clark's reactions.

[removal of subordinate commanders]

>Who cares?

The people involved at the time who agreed with these removals as
necessary command decisions. You might not find them significant, but
they did and I do.

>The corps commanders were in general not the problem,
>Clark was.

Clark wasn't responsible for the perceived failures at Kasserine,
Salerno or Anzio - the Corps commanders running the battles were.

> What do you mean, "facilitate the removal of US
>Corps commanders"? Facilitate what? Clark's requests? Could
>you be more specific?

Alexander's intervention was decisive in the removal of three US Corps
commanders; Fredendall, Dawley and Lucas. These removals were not
made at Clark's request, although he agreed with them.

>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.

Well, if you're advancing the cardboard cutout thesis, I suggest the
burden of proof is upon you. You could start by comparing the
demonstrated command capacity of Lt. Gen Cardboard-Cutout against
Alexander in the instances I have already quoted in this thread.

> 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.

That's not my thesis (well, the second part isn't). I'm claiming that
the ability of commanders to control their subordinates in a
multi-national alliance was complicated by political factors. This
required more subtle management than simply ordering the senior
generals of the nationality concerned around. I'm contending that
Alexander did display some ability to assert himself which has been
under-appreciated due to the style of command that he employed. I am
not claiming that he was an unknown genius whose strategic judgement
and command ability eclipsed every other allied general, or that his
subordinates were either doing exactly what he required or were
instantly sacked.

Alexander certainly had failings, but my assertion is that these were
largely (but not exclusively) explicable by the political context that
his commands existed within.

> Montgomery did follow Eisenhower's orders, mostly, and
>almost got into real trouble.

And Slim/Montgomery/Clark/Leese/McCreery/etc did follow Alexander's
orders, mostly, and almost got into real trouble.

Gavin Bailey

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