Eisenhower in War and Peace
Page 48
IF THE ENEMY’S RESISTANCE SHOULD WEAKEN, AS YOU EVIDENTLY EXPECT AND WHICH MAY WELL BE FULFILLED, WHY SHOULD WE NOT CROSS THE ELBE AND ADVANCE AS FAR EASTWARD AS POSSIBLE? THIS HAS AN IMPORTANT POLITICAL BEARING.…
I DO NOT CONSIDER MYSELF THAT BERLIN HAS LOST ITS MILITARY AND CERTAINLY NOT ITS POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE. THE FALL OF BERLIN WOULD HAVE A PROFOUND PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECT ON GERMAN RESISTANCE IN EVERY PART OF THE REICH. WHILE BERLIN HOLDS OUT, GREAT MASSES OF GERMANS WILL FEEL IT THEIR DUTY TO GO DOWN FIGHTING.… WHILE BERLIN REMAINS UNDER THE GERMAN FLAG IT CANNOT, IN MY OPINION, FAIL TO BE THE MOST DECISIVE POINT IN GERMANY.92
The following day, April 1, 1945, Easter Sunday, Churchill escalated the furor by writing to FDR. “There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies,” he told Brooke, “and that is fighting without them.”93 In his message to Roosevelt, Churchill expressed his complete confidence in Eisenhower, but repeated his concern about not pressing on to Berlin. He called FDR’s attention to the fact that Ike “has changed the plans that had been agreed upon” by moving on Leipzig and Dresden. “This is surely a matter upon which a reasonable latitude of discussion should be allowed to our two Chiefs of Staff Committees before any final commitment involving the Russians is entered into.”94
Roosevelt, whose health was failing rapidly, was at Warm Springs when Churchill’s message arrived, and the reply (over FDR’s name) was evidently written by Marshall. “I do not get the point,” said the president. “Leipzig is not far removed from Berlin and is well within” the scope of what had been agreed upon. Why the concern? “I regret that the phrasing of a formal discussion [at Malta] should have so disturbed you but I regret even more that at the moment of great victory by our combined forces we should become involved in such unfortunate reactions.”95 Roosevelt’s support for Eisenhower ended the debate. Ike and Churchill exchanged cordial messages backing away from a confrontation. “I regard all this business as smoothing itself down quite satisfactorily,” said the prime minister, although he repeated his view that “I deem it highly important that we should shake hands with the Russians as far to the east as possible.”96
On April 3, 1945, Ike sent Tedder to London to make peace with the British chiefs of staff. The only reason Eisenhower wrote Stalin, Tedder told them, was to forestall Montgomery’s advance. Brooke was incredulous. For the BCOS, this was one of the more bizarre episodes of the war. “I said that I was astonished Ike found it necessary to call on Stalin in order to control Montgomery,” Brooke noted in his diary. Since the boundaries of Simpson’s Ninth Army did not change, the only difference was that Ninth Army was transferred from Monty to Bradley. “Surely Stalin’s help need not be called in for such a transfer.”97 Earlier in the war, such an issue would have led to a full-scale debate between the British and American chiefs of staff. But with Germany’s collapse imminent, it scarcely seemed worth the trouble. The British chiefs accepted Tedder’s explanation and gave way gracefully.98
Eisenhower, accompanied by Patton, visits the horror of Buchenwald. (illustration credit 15.6)
Churchill ended the contretemps with a final telegram to Roosevelt on April 5. “The changes in the main plan now turn out to be much less than we at first supposed,” said the prime minister. “My personal relations with General Eisenhower are of the most friendly character. I regard the matter as closed, and to prove my sincerity I will use one of my very few Latin quotations: Amantium irae amoris integratio est”—which Churchill translated as “The wrath of lovers hots up their love.”99
The decision to bypass Berlin and meet the Russians on the Elbe was the last major issue Eisenhower confronted during the war. President Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, Hitler committed suicide on April 30, and on May 7 General Jodl formally surrendered the last elements of German resistance to Ike at Reims. In the ceremonial photo taken to mark the occasion, Kay Summersby stands in the second row, directly behind Ike and Smith. In the War Department’s official photo Kay has been airbrushed out, just as she was soon to be airbrushed out of Eisenhower’s life. As Henry VIII might have observed, a passion lasts a thousand days, and with the end of the war, Kay’s thousand days were coming to a close.
Celebrating the German surrender, May 7, 1945. (illustration credit 15.7)
The broad-front strategy pursued by Eisenhower may well have prolonged the war six months—as many critics have charged. But during those six months Germany’s complete defeat became manifest. There was no “stab in the back” myth such as the one that poisoned German history after World War I, and in the midst of the destruction and desolation there was no nostalgia for Hitler or the Nazi regime. In many respects, Germany’s total defeat resembled the total defeat of the Confederacy in the American Civil War.
In 1878, on a world tour after his presidency, Ulysses Grant called on Chancellor Bismarck in Berlin. Bismarck commiserated with Grant about the Civil War, and lamented the fact that the war had been so terrible. It had to be terrible, Grant replied. “There had to be an end to slavery. We were fighting an enemy with whom we could not make peace. We had to destroy him. No treaty was possible—only destruction.”
“It was a long war,” Bismarck observed. “I suppose it means a long peace.”
“I believe so,” said Grant.100
* * *
a Some commentators suggest the head-on American strategy traces to Ulysses Grant in the Civil War. That is a superficial reading of Grant. When Grant saw the Confederate fortifications at Vicksburg in 1863, he eschewed a frontal attack, broke off from his supply base at Memphis, crossed the Mississippi south of Vicksburg, and besieged the fortress from the east—maneuver, not frontal attack. Similarly, after a fruitless charge at Cold Harbor in 1864 (which Grant always regretted), he broke contact with Lee, stealthily crossed the James River below Richmond, and moved on Petersburg. Indeed, throughout the entire 1864–65 campaign in Virginia, Grant continually sidled to his left to maneuver Lee out of his fortifications. Jean Edward Smith, Grant (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001).
b In a postwar interview, Montgomery confirmed his view that Eisenhower and SHAEF had been ill-prepared for running the ground war. “The whole command setup was fundamentally wrong. There was no one who could give his complete and undivided attention to the day-to-day direction of the land battle as a whole. Eisenhower had not the experience, the knowledge or the time. He should have been devoting himself to questions of overall strategy, to political problems, to problems of inter-Allied relations and military government.… Instead he insisted on trying to run the land battle himself. Here he was out of his depth and in trying to do this, he neglected his real job on the highest level.” “Allied Strategy After the Fall of Paris,” Montgomery interview by Wilmot, March 23, 1949, Wilmot Collection, Liddell Hart Papers, cited in D’Este, Eisenhower 596. Carlo D’Este, one of a new generation of historians, notes Montgomery’s observation was “not without justification.” His willingness to consider Montgomery’s critique objectively stands in marked contrast to the first generation of American historians of the war in Europe. Official Army historians Forrest Pogue and Martin Blumenson treated Eisenhower and Marshall as demigods, and early biographers such as Kenneth Davis, Stephen Ambrose, and Kevin McCann took their cue from them. All rejected Monty’s criticism as sour grapes.
c The strained relations between Eisenhower and Devers, and Ike’s decision to forestall Sixth Army Group’s advance, is treated in detail in David P. Colley’s Decision at Strasbourg: Ike’s Strategic Mistake to Halt the Sixth Army Group at the Rhine in 1944 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2008). Like Carlo D’Este, Colley represents a new generation of military analysts who question the conventional wisdom pertaining to Western strategy in Europe during World War II.
d “All Hitler wants me to do is to cross a river, capture Brussels, and then go on to take Antwerp,” said Nazi general Sepp Dietrich, commanding Sixth SS Panzer Army. “And all this at the worst time of the year through the Ardennes when the snow is waist-deep and there isn�
�t room to deploy four tanks abreast let alone armoured divisions. When it doesn’t get light until eight and it’s dark again at four and with re-formed divisions made up chiefly of kids and sick old men—and at Christmas.” Quoted in Max Hastings, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944–1945 198 (New York: Knopf, 2004).
e For the disarray at First Army headquarters, see J. D. Morelock, Generals of the Ardennes: American Leadership in the Battle of the Bulge, chap. 2, passim (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1994); David W. Hogan, Jr., A Command Post at War: First Army Headquarters in Europe, 1944–1945 212–15 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2000). Brigadier General Thomas J. Betts, SHAEF’s deputy G-2, who visited First Army headquarters three days after the attack, said, “I found the place a terrible mess. They just didn’t know what was going on. As far as fighting a war was concerned the First Army seemed to have no plan at all for meeting this attack.” Betts recommended to Bedell Smith that Hodges be relieved. Betts Oral History, EL. Also see D.K.R. Crosswell, The Chief of Staff: The Military Career of General Walter Bedell Smith 284–86 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1991).
f As was the case with the liberation of Paris, Eisenhower disguised his decision in purely military terms when he reported to Marshall. “I originally looked at the matter merely as a conflict between military and political considerations, and felt completely justified in handling the matter on a purely military basis. However, when I found that execution of the original plan would have such grave consequences in France that all lines of communication and my vast rear areas might become badly involved through loss of service troops and through unrest, it was clearly a military necessity to prevent this.” DDE to GCM, January 6, 1945, 4 War Years 2399–401.
g The full text of Montgomery’s notes for his press conference is published in his Memoirs. They support Brigadier Williams’s recollection. In fact, Monty went out of his way to praise Eisenhower, “who is the captain of our team.” Montgomery later regretted holding the press conference. “So great was the feeling against me on the part of the American generals [Bradley and Patton], that whatever I said was bound to be wrong. I should therefore have said nothing. The ‘best laid’ Press conferences of ‘Mice and men gang aft agley.’ ” Montgomery, Memoirs, 278–82.
h At Churchill’s insistence, France was added as an occupying power.
i After the war Bradley wrote, “I could see no political advantage accruing from the capture of Berlin that would offset the need for quick destruction of the German army on our front.” Omar Bradley, A Soldier’s Story 535–36 (New York: Henry Holt, 1951).
j “Dear Brookie,” Montgomery wrote the chief of the imperial general staff on March 3, 1945. “Delighted that the Alexander business has been postponed; and I hope this will lead to a cancellation. The change would have upset matters without any doubt. We are now on a very good wicket; Ike has learnt his lesson and he consults with me before taking any action.” Papers of Lord Alanbrooke, quoted in Andrew Roberts, Masters and Commanders 560 (New York: HarperCollins, 2009).
k The Combined Chiefs of Staff had authorized Eisenhower to deal directly with the Russians pertaining to the linkup in Germany, but assumed that he would communicate with the Soviet military, not with Marshal Stalin.
SIXTEEN
Chief of Staff
I expressed the hope that we would never have to use such a thing against any enemy because I disliked seeing the United States take the lead in introducing into war something as horrible and destructive as this new weapon was described to be.
—EISENHOWER TO HENRY L. STIMSON,
Potsdam, July 1945
When hostilities ended, U.S. and British troops were well within the territory that had been designated as the Soviet zone of occupation. Eisenhower saw this as a purely military problem, and as early as April 5, 1945, sought permission from the Combined Chiefs to allow his army group commanders (Montgomery, Bradley, and Devers) to work out arrangements with their Russian counterparts for a withdrawal to the agreed boundaries.1 The British had objected. As Churchill and the British Foreign Office saw it, the territory the Western Allies occupied would provide “a powerful lever to obtain concessions” from the Russians, and the decision to withdraw should be made at the governmental level. “There cannot be such a hurry about our withdrawing from a place we have gained that the few days necessary for consulting the Governments in Washington and London cannot be found,” said Churchill.2
Eisenhower had little sympathy for the British position. He was concerned about a possible clash with the Soviets as the Red Army approached and, when he received no instructions from the Combined Chiefs, accepted the responsibility and authorized his field commanders to negotiate directly with their Russian opposites.3
“Let’s put it this way,” Bradley told Simpson. “We would prefer to hold our present line until we can arrange an orderly changeover. But if the Russian insists on going forward to his line of occupation, we’re not going to start any trouble. Work it out as best you can and allow him to. We are not going to risk an explosion that might bring a sequel to the war and bring World War III.”4
Eisenhower’s order triggered another row with London. The back-and-forth continued throughout May. Washington backed Ike and insisted the withdrawal be handled at the tactical level; the British were adamant that the matter was political. “I do not quite understand why the Prime Minister has been so determined to intermingle political and military considerations,” Eisenhower cabled Marshall. “My original recommendation was a simple one and I thought provided for a very sensible arrangement.”5 Churchill responded with his famous “iron curtain” cable to President Truman.a “Surely,” said the prime minister, “it is vital now to come to an understanding with Russia, or to see where we are with her, before we weaken our armies mortally or retire to the zones of occupation.”6
Ike and Churchill having a postwar discussion in London. (illustration credit 16.1)
Churchill proposed that he and Truman meet to review the situation, but the president declined. “I could see no valid reason for questioning an agreement [on zonal boundaries] on which we were so clearly committed,” said Truman. “The only practical thing to do was to stick carefully to our agreement and to try our best to make the Russians carry out their agreements.”7 To accomplish that, the president dispatched Harry Hopkins to Moscow to arrange a postwar Big Three meeting with Stalin. “In the meantime,” he told Churchill, “it is my present intention to adhere to our interpretation of the Yalta agreements,” which meant that the United States would withdraw to its zonal area.8
The Yalta agreements to which President Truman referred not only delineated the zonal boundaries within Germany, but specified that the country would be governed jointly by the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and France acting through a quadripartite Allied Control Council (ACC). Technically, the four-power occupation of Germany could not legally begin until the Allied Control Council was established, and the ACC could not be established until each power was in control of its own zone. On May 16, 1945, Eisenhower visited Churchill in London to impress on him the urgency of the problem, but he made little headway. As Ike advised Washington afterward, the prime minister “did not appear to be in any real hurry” to have four-power occupation begin.9
By late May the problem was becoming critical. It was no longer a tactical question of meeting the Red Army, but the much larger issue of governing postwar Germany. The Allied armies were still holding their battle positions, and Eisenhower was still in supreme command. The issues pertaining to the occupation were not being addressed. On May 23, Eisenhower advised Washington that he “could not carry out his mission much longer” in the absence of four-power government. Ike suggested that SHAEF be abolished and that the withdrawal from the Russian zone begin immediately.10
The British continued to oppose any withdrawal, but suggested that the four military commanders in Germany (Eisenhower, Zhukov, Montgomery, and de Lattre de
Tassigny) meet in Berlin and establish the Allied Control Council. The ACC, said the British, could discuss the Allied withdrawal from the Russian zone, but until all outstanding issues with the Soviet Union were resolved, American and British forces should stand fast.
After a week of protracted negotiations at the governmental level, it was agreed that the four military commanders would meet in Berlin on June 5, 1945, to complete the paperwork necessary for the creation of the Allied Control Council and the assumption of supreme authority in Germany. But differences between Washington and London persisted. Eisenhower was authorized by the president to work out the withdrawal with Zhukov, but Montgomery was told by the Foreign Office that the continued occupation of large parts of the Russian zone was an “important bargaining counter for obtaining satisfaction from the Soviet government on a number of outstanding questions.”11
In desperation, Eisenhower again cabled Washington for instructions. The Russians, he said, were certain to raise the question of Allied withdrawal from the Soviet zone, and might even make that a prerequisite for establishing the ACC. Ike asked how he should respond. “Any cause for delay in the establishment of the Control Council due to delay in withdrawal would be attributed to us and might well develop strong public reaction.”12
Marshall cleared his answer with the White House, and then told Ike on June 3 that the question of withdrawal should not be a prerequisite for establishing the Allied Control Council. “If the Russians raise the point, you should state in substance that the matter of withdrawal is one of the items to be worked out in the Control Council. As to the actual movement of U.S. Forces, you should state that this is primarily a military matter; its timing will be in accordance with U.S. ability to withdraw their forces … and the Russian ability to take over.”13