Its not even close to being one of the worst.
It was costly in losses for the Paratrooper units and it didn’t achieve its main objective of outflanking the Rhine, but it advanced the front line by nearly 90 miles in this sector and it cut off the German forces north of the Scheldt.
This operation cost the Allies 17,000 casualties ( mostly British). In two US operations at around the same time it took the US First Army over 35,000 casualties to take the Huertgen Forrest ( a bunch of trees of little strategic value) and Patton’s 3rd Army over 50,000 battle casualties to advance 50-60 miles in 3 months during the campaign around Metz ( but failing to break through the Seigfried Line)
All 3 operations were set backs for the Allied campaign in late 44, but for some reason its only the Market Garden operation that is highlighted
Thanks for that info, which changes what little I know about Market Garden outside the usual generalities which are of gloriously courageous failure, but which from your info seem to ignore its tactical and strategic value.
Is there an interesting contrast between Patton’s modest rate of advance and the oft heard American complaints about the slow British advance, especially where British armour was involved?
This, from your link to the US Army Command and General Staff College, doesn’t exactly enhance Patton’s reputation, does it?
Few of the Germans defending Lorraine could be considered first-rate troops. Third Army encountered whole battalions made up of deaf men, others of cooks, and still others consisting entirely of soldiers with stomach ulcers. The G2 also identified a new series of German formations designated volksgrenadier divisions. (See Figure 1.) These hastily constituted divisions numbered only 10,000 men each and possessed only six rifle battalions; in theory they were to be provided with extra artillery and assault guns to compensate for the quantitative and qualitative inferiority of their infantry. Two to 3 panzer divisions faced Third Army in a mobile reserve role, but these units had managed to bring only 5 or 10 tanks apiece out of the retreat across France. http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/gabel3/gabel3.asp
The Huertgen Forest, and I agree it was an absolute debacle, is largely ignored only because it was eclipsed by the Ardennes Offensive or “Bulge.” But it should not be as the idea of handing over to the increasingly immobile Heer the astronomical US advantages in mobility and firepower are wholly unforgivable. The premise was idiotic and I can only surmise that the American general involved in the operation believed he could achieve something of a tactical surprise along the lines of “Sickle Cut.” But it should have been called operation “Self Knacker.”
Market Garden was certainly not the greatest in terms of casualties and certainly there was some positive outcomes to the battle despite the disappointment of failing to achieve the objectives of a cataclysmic puncture of the Third Reich’s Western defenses guarding the Ruhr. I would add even a heroic, moral one of the paras stand. But it was clearly a lost opportunity. If the Guards had at least tried to break through, it very well could have spelled an earlier end to the conflict…
But yes, it would have been difficult and resulted in serious Allied casualties. But it was far from impossible nor implausible…
I would add Monty’s failure in his attention to detail in the proper clearing the Scheldt Estuary at the start as one of the Allies’ most serious blunders. This delayed the proper deep water port the Allies desperately needed – and Market Garden did have an impact as it devolved his attentions and turned Antwerp into a bit of an after thought, and an unforgivably sloppy one…
Many of Patton’s problems around the Metz involved fuel and supply shortages of the broad front strategy, and yes, diversion to Market Garden operations…
In his famous General Order Number 98, issued the day after the end of the war, Patton stated that his Third Army ‘had advanced further in less time than any other army in history’-just over 1,300miles in 281 days
He seems to have forgotten about Monty and his Eighth Army, they advanced from El Alamein to Tunis, a distance of 1,850 miles, in 201 days
ps, To be fair to Patton, the terrain around Metz was totally unsuitable for the type of mobile warfare he was fond of.
The soviet troops would not be ready for combat either by 18-20 june 1941 or 18-20 june 1942.
The average russian trooper was a peasant who barely knew how to hold a rifle, a third of professional officers was dead via Stalins purges and replaced with people who often were even illiterate.
There existed no defence plans, logistics of the army were horribly tangled to a point where a tank regiment could be housed in some village and their tanks in another twenty miles away.
Its worth to add that the russian army of 1941 was basically an uncoordinated horde which did not act professionally on ANY front, the lesser successes of North and South army groups come from the fact that they had less equipment and by 1942 they were drained even further to a point where the major part of siege of Leningrad was conducted without any tanks.
The very survival and victory of Russia comes from three factors, Russians could and did trow men and equipment at Germans squandering lives at a horrible rate but slowing the Germans in the process.
Hitler meddling with his field commanders.
Stalin line which while overrun did slow down the Germans and provided an important breathing space.
Attributing any sort of professionalism to an incompetent horde of 1941 that was the red army is downright wrong, the russian defence of 1941 was the largest show of incompetence in history of worlds warfare and is redeemed only by the courage of the individual russian soldier.
While there is some truth to the above, I think there is also some exaggerations as well. Your characterizations of the Red Army are a bit silly, certainly there were some good officers and leadership despite Stalin’s purges. And the Red Army generals even kept the doctrine of “Deep Battle” alive despite serious threats not only to their careers, but their lives as well.
Parts of the Red Army, as well as elite NKVD troops, fought stubborn, intractable battles and certainly held up the Wehrmacht. The Ostheer projected itself to have been in Moscow by November I think, but fierce holding actions, even with the massive losses the Red Army suffered, did slow down the Germans and bought time for the withdrawal of industry to the east and for reinforcements to be transferred from the Western districts. Hitler deserves some blame as do the Heer generals, who failed to have the Army ready for an earlier offensive that probably should have happened in May or even April. But the Red Army “peasant” soldiers also deserve credit for as often as not fighting fiercely in tactical engagements…
My characterizations of the Red Army are supported by history, i do not claim that every single russian soldier and officer was an incompetent, i do however claim that vast majority of them were, also as far as russian officers even the best were not comparable to their german counterparts squandering lives and equipment needlessly.
Which is ascribed to both the great courage of the russian soldier as well as the massive amount of men and material russians could afford to lose and did lost.
The fact that delaying actions were fought and successed in such a delay is not testimony to any sort of skill present at the time in the Red Army but to the numbers available.
Russians had the advantage in tanks more than twelve to one, more than thirty to one in trucks, more than twenty to one in artillery, Germans attacked using PZ IIs and Czech tanks, let me reitarate, any semi competent force would have squashed the Germans at these odds, Blitzkrieg or not.
There is no escaping the fact that the russian army was a mob rather than an effective fighting force, both Finnland and the offensive of 1941 prove it by sheer statistics.
The offensive would have succeded either way since Russia had milions of soldiers and weapons but no actuall army, Hitler with his meddling ruined one chance he had to effectively occupy Moscow which at that point could and would break the russian people and most importantly it would break Stalin.
This is off the top of my pointy little head, but my recollection is that Tom Phillips for all his belief in the immunity of battleships from being sunk from the air was rather careful to try to organise air cover but it wasn’t forthcoming from Singapore command, and that he altered his intentions because of it. And that his force would have survived, or had a much better chance of survival, if it had been available.
As for the fall of Singapore, that was caused long before in London by failing to provide even a reasonable part of the resources which were known to be necessary and by hamstringing Percival by stopping him going into Thailand to ensure that Britain was seen as the victim to avoid upsetting American support. Percival’s plans were capable of denying Malaya to the Japanese, but Churchill’s political plans ensured the loss of Malaya.
The British / Commonwealth operation in Greece, for predictably pointless political purposes as seen with Churchill’s characteristically dangerous military clarity, was a far bigger cock up than Malaya, for similar military reasons to Malaya and largely revolving around the absence of air support which was known to be necessary.
I’d exclude Malaya / Singapore from this topic as I think there’s a difference between an operation launched by a nation, such as Greece, and for which its planners are fully responsible and a defensive action responding to an operation initiated by another nation, such as the loss of Malaya.
The old Moscow or bust theory has been debated since the end of WW2 and no doubt will continue long after we’ve all karked it.
Whether or not Hitler would have taken Moscow and won the war if he had continued the advance to it after the “Battle of Smolensk” is one of the big “what ifs” of military history.
On one hand some say [especially the defeated German Generals, which is natural I guess] the capture of Moscow would destroy the Soviet Regime. They argued that Moscow was the political and logistical hub of European Russia, and if it was taken, the Russians would not be able to continue the war west of the Urals.
Others like Glantz take a different view.
On the decision to move on Kiev rather than press on to Moscow. Glantz seems to think that by doing this the Germans threw away their best chance of staging a decisive victory but he adds that it was a very slim chance. There was a chance that the Germans would have suffered a defeat far greater than the one incurred at the Battle of Moscow in December 1941.
In 1943 the Greek War Relief Association published a book of editorials, cartoons, articles and letter about the heroism of the Greeks in World War Two, first against Mussolini and then against Hitler. Though the book is long out of print these articles remind us of the days during the war when the world seemed such a dark place, and then the Greeks gave us hope. When the Italians invaded Greece it seemed as if yet another country would fall to the Axis powers. But the Greek army defied the expectations of the world and chased the Italian Army back into Albania. It was the first sign that Mussolini and Hitler could be beaten and their victory inspired the world.
German victory is arguable and purely theoretical, what remains a fact is that a force less than 50% of soviet size with much worse and much less equipment overran a gargantuan force in what was the largest and most humilitating defeat in history.
Uh huh. Because the Italians hadn’t already been slapped stupid by the British in the desert in 1940/41, right?
The first time the Greeks did anything more to inconvenience the Italians than the terrain was already doing was the 14th of November 1940.
The British counteroffensive in the Western Desert was launched on the 8th of December, and by the 15th they had taken 38,000 prisoners and 400 artillery pieces. By the end of the offensive in February 1941, they had taken 115,000 prisoners (over 75% of the Italian forces in North Africa) and 1300 guns for a cost of 500 dead and 1300 wounded.
I would suggest that merely holding an enemy who the British were comprehensively thrashing at the same time is unlikely to “inspire the world”.
Not to sure about that ‘‘force less than 50% of soviet size’’ either.
In manpower on the eve of Barbarossa on the German/Russian front, I think it was close to parity, although the Soviets had a big advantage in armour and aircraft.
True, that the Wehrmacht had huge successes in the first 6 months of the war, but the problem for the Germans, was that wasn’t the end of the Red Army by a long shot.
It reminds me of a historian who once said in comparing the Brits and the Germans efforts in warfare ‘‘the British lost a lot of battles but won the wars, the Germans won a lot of battles and lost the wars’’
And it was little wonder that the Wehrmacht, [with the best trained and led army in the world at that time,] ran rings around the Red army, which was more or less a large hamstrung, poorly positioned, badly led Army, still trying to recover from the officer purges, with hopeless commissars like Mekhlis interfering at every turn, and of course Stalin overseeing everything, much to the detriment of everyone.
Not be vague, Germany and friends had approximately 4 milion 300 thousand troops against russsian force of about 3 and a quarter milion, Russians did however have a further 1mlion 800 thousand troops deeper in the Soviet Union as well as about two milion reservists concentrated in various places between the Stalins line and the Ribbentrop-Molotov line, these men were civilians who needed to be armed and organised but they were already concentrated.
In tanks and armored vehicles Russia outnumbered the Germans 3 to 1, same in airplanes, from around 15.500 russian aircraft approximately six thousand were modern machines so its still 2000 more than the numbers available to Luftwaffe.
As far as guns are concerned Russians had approximately 25% more but this number does not include both stationary and field guns stationed in various strongpoints in and before Stalin’s line which would make a disparity even greater.
Nazi commanders stated clearly that they can and will break the Red Army but it will not happen in one summer, as long as the Generals had it their way they massacred the Red Army, then came mr unhappy aka Adolf Hitler ordering various meaningless operations which cost him the victory.
As for the Red Army by the end of 1945 there was perhaps half a milion actuall soldiers and another time that number makeshift troops, the Red Army was almost broken and another such summer would break it if not for Hitler.
However there are, in retrospection reasons which we can pinpoint, in this particular case the reason was Adolf Hitler.
Some time before that the Finns who while brave and determined were ceirtanly not on Wehrmacht level and had a very small and poorly equipped army firmly spanked a gigantic russian force, during the invasion of Poland russian forces struggled under Grodno for three full days losing over ahundred armored vehicles unable to capture a city defended by a regiment worth of troops.
There is no escaping the fact that the Red Army was inept and incompetent to the extreme.
These flood of Soviet tanks and aircraft were obsolete types. Had the Red Army been placed on high alert rather than its commanders fearing removal and court martial in they in anyway cause a “provocation” to the Germans, they may have put up a stiffer fight. Some did anyways, disguising preparations that against Stalin’s implicit orders, as local training alerts and exercises. And in many ways, the effectively barracks ridden Soviets fared little worse than the Poles, the French, and the low countries did before them…
Some time before that the Finns who while brave and determined were ceirtanly not on Wehrmacht level and had a very small and poorly equipped army firmly spanked a gigantic russian force, during the invasion of Poland russian forces struggled under Grodno for three full days losing over ahundred armored vehicles unable to capture a city defended by a regiment worth of troops.
There is no escaping the fact that the Red Army was inept and incompetent to the extreme.
The Finns were tops in training and motivation and were fighting a battle on their home turf that suited their Army; a woodlands fight in the middle of winter that favors the army with less mobility and firepower. One that dispersed the strengths of the Red armor cadres…
