The Second World War.

[hslc]

I heard that one to, told to me by a family friend, who was Hungarian and left after the 56 revolt. He allways beleved the Russians beleved there were Nazis on the ship posing as Jewish refugess, they made sure and wanted no witneses.

[Rendell]

Originally Posted by hslc

I heard that one to, told to me by a family friend, who was Hungarian and left after the 56 revolt. He allways beleved the Russians beleved there were Nazis on the ship posing as Jewish refugess, they made sure and wanted no witneses.

Scarily, there is another school of thought that suggests the Soviets were "doing it as a favour to the British over immigration to Palestine".

The site on which this opinion was found had the word "Zionism" in the title...

Sounds like complete Bollocks to me.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by tygrkhat40

Palo, how would you consider Patton "strategically stupid?"

Palo doesn't seem to be around at the moment. I suspect it might be a matter of Patton's seeming enthusiam for a transfer of hostilities from the defeated Germany in 1945 to the erstwhile brother-in-arms, Russia. Given the disparity of land forces, this would have been...er...unwise, Atom Bomb or no atom bomb.





But, whatever his ideological and political weaknesses, and it was politics which did him in soon after the war ended, Patton was a first class strategist. He understood the basic principles.

• Know your enemy. Patton read Erwin Rommel's training manual, Infantry Attacks many times when he was aware that he had been chosen for deployment in Operation Torch. The value of this was that time and again he guessed right what Rommel would do next; because he knew why Rommel made logical choices, knew the underlying logic.
• Understand how to exploit the enemy's weaknesses. Patton was a master-tactician.

  Good tactics can save even the worst strategy. Bad tactics will destroy even the best strategy. A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.

• Patton advocated the prime importance of seizing and retaining the initiative.

  Fixed fortifications are monuments to man's stupidity. In case of doubt, attack. Inflict the maximum amount of wounds, death and destruction in the minimum time. Casualties vary directly to the amount of time you are exposed to effective fire. Rapidity of attack shortens the time of exposure.

• People often think of Patton as stubborn and bloodyminded, but this is a misunderstanding. He was brutally determined, uncompromising and a really formidable character, but though his goals were fixed, his methods were flexible.

  Always have a plan. But make your plans to fit the circumstances, not the other way around.

• A vital principle of war, which we British learned much more slowly than we should have, is: Make your enemies fear you. For example, on October 23rd 1942, the British Army made the Germans fear them for the first time in WW2. The soldiers of the British 8th Army had taken untold amounts of stick from the Afrika Korps for much too long, and were in the mood to hand some of it back again. They advanced in the dead of night, tanks and infantry in close mutual support for the first time, straight through minefields (Zhukov would have liked that); all the infantry advanced with fixed bayonets and the advance was spearheaded by all the pipers of the highland regiments in theatre, because we wanted the Germans and Italians to know that we were coming to get them. Patton was naturally intimidating anyway but he understood the value of intimidation and consciously worked at it. Many of his notorious off-the-cuff comments were made to serve this purpose, of conveying that he was pitiless and would never let up.

  May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won’t.

  In even the little things, he observed this principle; for example he both spoke and wrote fluent German, but he never used German when speaking to prisoners, always making them use English or speak to him via an interpreter. He gave no concessions.

Patton was a successful general. Strategically stupid men make failed generals; the French high command of 1940, Gamelin, Weygand and Petain especially, are perfect cases in point. In 1940, Britain had no shortage of equally "strategically stupid" generals, men such as the idiot Douglas Brownrigg, ordering Brigadier Nicholson with three infantry battalions, part of one armoured regiment and some stragglers from searchlight batteries, to advance on and intercept Guderian's armoured divisions; Nicholson ignored Brownrigg completely and established a perimeter defence of Calais which lasted for 3 days and significantly affected the German advance on Dunkirk.

Another blockhead was General Ironside, commander of UK Home Army until July 1940, whose big idea was to build concrete pillboxes all over Southern England and spread his forces in penny-packets to defend every inch of English soil. When he was sacked (Churchill understood the Army and sacked Ironside personally, knowing Sir Charles Dill would never have the heart or the strength of character to do the right thing), his successor, General Brooke sought him out and asked for a personal handover. Brooke expected to briefed on strategic plans and invasion preparations, what reserves existed, their state of equipment and where they were. Ironside gave Brooke the keys to his official staff car and left without another word. There were no plans. There was no official report on the state of our reserves. There was nothing. Brooke had to take care of all of that himself, from scratch.

Now Ironside did have some good qualities but "strategically stupid" fits him like a glove.

[palo5]

Originally Posted by tygrkhat40

Palo, how would you consider Patton "strategically stupid?"

He was a good tactical, short-term actor, Comrade - I think of him as a sort of "mini-Rommel", capable of skillful surprises with comparatively modest-sized formations

But he was no strategist, and nowhere near in Ike's class. Not even close

He was an ego-man, like MacArthur and Lemay, obsessed with his power

And he betrayed his complete strategic ignorance by saying the US should attack the USSR in 1945. It really doesn't get dumber

Is that enough?

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by palo5

And he betrayed his complete strategic ignorance by saying the US should attack the USSR in 1945. It really doesn't get dumber

Is that enough?

This has to do with politics rather than strategy. Politics is about what we should do, about policy. Strategy is about how we should get it done. Tactics is about problem-solving, improvisation and the implementation of strategy. Others had made the decisions concerning policy in 1942-5. Patton was the most capable man in the US European theatre forces on the strategic level of getting the policy enforced on an enemy who declines to submit meekly. Eisenhower was really the Carnot, the organiser of victory, who also exercised great diplomatic skill in coordinating the efforts of egotistical men who did not like each other. Eisenhower was much more vital to the success of the western allies in the NW Europe theatre between June 1944 and May 1945 than either Patton or Montgomery; but even Patton recognised Montgomery as a key asset, and Montgomery recognised Patton likewise.

Patton hated the Russians, and thats not fairytales. British generals weren't terribly enamoured of the Russians either, but most British and Americans realised that Russia was impossible to defeat on land in 1945 and it would be a great folly to try. Patton allowed his detestation to cloud his judgement. He was in closer contact with Russian forces than most on the allied side, because his men were deployed in Czech and Austrian territory. On the British side, our 8th Army, based at Klagenfurt, was involved in contact with Russian forces in Corinthia; this must have been a troubling experience, as in line with Yalta we were turning over thousands of prisoners to the Russians and to Tito's partisans, and we knew that their fate was not going to be a happy one. There are always reasons for things, and there was a reason for Patton's hostility to Russian forces. We British felt exactly the same way. To know the Russians was not necessarily to love them, not in 1945.

But although there may be reasons, bad judgement is still bad judgement. It would have been much smarter to remove Patton to the Pacific asap and keep him well away from the murky politics of Europe in the summer of 1945. He was the wrong man in the wrong place there and at that time.

[Mal Hombre]

Before Palo points it out,I think You mean it was hard to love the Soviets in 1945.After all Stalin wasn't actually Russian ..

[palo5]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

...It would have been much smarter to remove Patton to the Pacific...

The Aleutians would have been fine

[Ennath]

Originally Posted by Mal Hombre

Before Palo points it out,I think You mean it was hard to love the Soviets in 1945.After all Stalin wasn't actually Russian ..

Just as an aside, I read that one of the reasons Beria was dumped in 1953 was that all the Russians in the government were sick and tired of Georgians in control.

[deepsepia]

Question:

I was watching a World War II newsreel, made in anticipation of the invasion of Europe. This was an American newsreel, but it had German footage of their Atlantic Wall.

How did folks in the West get German film in WW II?

[DTravel]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

Question:

I was watching a World War II newsreel, made in anticipation of the invasion of Europe. This was an American newsreel, but it had German footage of their Atlantic Wall.

How did folks in the West get German film in WW II?

Just a guess but, from German newsreels? Both sides were putting out propaganda aimed at the other side and there was communication and exchange of material thru various neutrals. (I don't mean to imply there was deliberate trading between combatants. But there was various smuggling and intelligence operations.)