Maybe, but if we had gone with Patton, then there would have been less risk! Monty's plan was not very good, and a lot of men were killed because of it. It was a mistake, and the Allies paid for it, in blood. Unfortunatly, you Brits are too proud to even fathom that one of your generals made a mistake! The Americans didn't want to do it, but like someone else had said, they were pressured into it.
We didn't join the war because we had no reason to! Besides, we were giving you Brits a LOAD of supplies, and you would never have survived without them. America's politics were very neutral, and we didn't want to get into it without good reason.
btw, my mouth isn't dirty, it is very clean, I brushed my teeth this morning!

____________________________________
Some questions I have...
If you throw a cat out a car window does it become kitty liter?
If it's tourist season, why can't we shoot them?
Why did kamikaze pilots wear helmets?
Why do people who know the least know it the loudest?



Edited by - ww2jacob on 9/14/2004 4:59:54 PM

i gotta go with ww2 on this one, Arch.

Montgomery wasn't a particularly talented general, but he was lucky, usually. His real strength lay in preparation and good intelligence, although his tactics were never on a par with his contemporaries onboth sides. He wasn't given to flights of inspiration except on this one occasion, and it failed because he hadn't prepared carefully enough and ignored his intelligence, and the same is true of his senior planning officers like Gen Browning.

There isn't really a question of had it worked, because it never could. You can't whisk the SS-Panzers away, they were there for a reason, you can't speed up XXX corps along a too narrow road thats being defended, you cant not cast off divs fto protect the corridor, you can't prevent 1 Para from dropping outside Arnhem, cos they have to; given even that all the accidents and misunderstandings don't happen, it's still just not possible to cut through to the last bridge in the circumstances that existed. It was over-ambitious and impractal.

An attack into C Germany at this time by the Americans would have been far more serious to the Germans who'd only stopped retreating because the Allies had run out of petrol. With the best German units in the north, resting, the war might not have been over by Christmas but the Allies would be on or even across the Rhine, and as ww2j says, no Battle of the Bulge.

Edited by - Tawakalna on 9/14/2004 5:38:18 PM

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We didn't join the war because we had no reason to!

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Tell me, if you will, when exactly America started needing reasons to go to war.

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America's politics were very neutral, and we didn't want to get into it without good reason.

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The murder of millions of innocent civilians isn't a good enough reason, then?

No Battle of the Bulge in that such area of the Ardennes became the site, maybe, but there is not telling what other cockamamie master strategy the Schickelgruber would have demanded of the high command in its place. Even Patton would have had to slow down at some point.... giving someone with the right kind of mental imbalance to think that, rather than throw all assets at the Russians, he'd rather strike a blow in the Western Front to avoid lord knows what.

@Code,

C'mon. You know we can't go there without invoking the wrath of the Click God.

Edited by - Indy11 on 9/14/2004 5:53:09 PM

@ CODE- America had a depression to deal with! They couldn't jump into a World War if they didn't have a VERY good reason.

According to the History Channel, here are the historical events for today.

1814 Key composes "The Star-Spangled Banner
1847 Scott captures Mexico City
1975 American canonized as saint
1920 First radio dance music
1974 Eric Clapton first tops the charts
1862 Battles of South Mountain and Crampton's Gap
1959 Soviet probe reaches the moon
1964 Steinbeck wins the Medal of Freedom
1944 Americans launch Operation Stalemate
1901 Theodore Roosevelt becomes president of the United States

Don't know if any of these are what kimk is talking about.
Market Garden didn't start today, or the 17th, so I'll have to look it up.

____________________________________
Some questions I have...
If you throw a cat out a car window does it become kitty liter?
If it's tourist season, why can't we shoot them?
Why did kamikaze pilots wear helmets?
Why do people who know the least know it the loudest?

September 14, 2001: LYNCHBURG, Virginia (CNN) -- The Rev. Jerry Falwell said late Thursday he did not mean to blame feminists, gays or lesbians for bringing on the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington this week, in remarks on a television program earlier in the day.

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C'mon. You know we can't go there without invoking the wrath of the Click God.

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Sorry. I tried to resist the temptation, I really did.

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America had a depression to deal with! They couldn't jump into a World War if they didn't have a VERY good reason.

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Wars are great when you are dealing with a depression, though. They distract the general populace from the troubles at home, unemployment ceases to be a problem becasue you can ship everyone off to the battlefields (and a lot will die there so you won't have to worry about them needing jobs later on) and people can be convinced to work for less because it's "for the greater good". So you see, even from a very selfish and cynical point of view, America should have jumped at the opportunity to go to war. All the president had to do was start talking about an "Axis of Evil" and...oh cr*p, I'm doing it again aren't I?

@Code.... seriously, though. Let the record show that you were cautioned.

However, if you want to go squirrelling around in conspiracy theories there are many concerning exactly how and why things got to the point that December 7 actually happened.

And what ww2 was referring to dovetails with some of these conspiracy theories. The fact of the matter is/was that there was a very very strong public sentiment against getting involved in "yet another European mess." The experience of WW1 did not have as salutary effect upon the voting public's opinion about getting involved with the Old World. This clearly became evident when Woodrow Wilson was humiliated by his own country when the US opted NOT to join the League of Nations because of the desire to stay away from foreign entanglements.

There was tremendous resistance to taking up the fight against the Axis.

AND there were many in the US with sympathies and admiration toward Germany. And some of these admirers were in relatively high positions of influence and authority.

America's reluctance in entering into a conflict with the Axis, while in retrospect may have proved to have been mistaken, only looks that way as a result of 20/20 hindsight. FDR moved heaven and earth to get America involved with England's war (as that is how many saw it at the time) as best he could. With the attack on Pearl Harbor, everything changed ....but for England, ONLY because Germany then dutifully declared war on America.





Edited by - Indy11 on 9/14/2004 6:27:43 PM

3 cheers for Indy!
Exactly what I was trying to say!

____________________________________
Some questions I have...
If you throw a cat out a car window does it become kitty liter?
If it's tourist season, why can't we shoot them?
Why did kamikaze pilots wear helmets?
Why do people who know the least know it the loudest?

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America's reluctance ... may have proved to have been mistaken ... as a result of 20/20 hindsight.

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Of course the same could be said for the Market Garden debacle. Hindsight is certainly a wonderful thing but it applies to everyone.

someone came extremely close. but i'll let you guys rant on about ww2.

and wasn't lithuania blown up by Uboats too ? erm, i mean the ship.. passenger cruiser. mighta gotten the name wrong. germans said it was an accident ?

imho hitler was a genius. so many countries, on his own. hungary and italy back then weren't highly cooperative were they ?

Lusitania. wasn't an accident, it was actually carrying contraband. and the Germans had previously warned about unrestricted U-boat attacks around Britain. By the *rules of war* the Germans were actually in the right.

however, this didn't stop them from being depicted in the Allied and neutral press as murderous monsters and it did focus American minds on taking an active part inthe war, as there were lots of Americans on the ship who got killed.

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Hitler was a genius? Maybe in some ways he was, kimk, but grand strategy and military competence weren't his strongpoints, by any means. The man was an evil little sh*t, a fantasist, an egomaniac, paranoid, manic depressive, unable to take responsibilty for his own actions and decisions, had a tenuous grip on reality at best, lacked the ability to form genuine relationships with other people, betrayed his friends and comrades-in-arms, and could neither tell nor face the truth. Oh btw he had a very unhealthy relationship with his niece (who killed herself)

As for his allies, well they were uniformly useless, unprepared, ill-equipped, poorly led, and the populations and most of the soldiery were generally not keen on the war or being buddies with the Nazis. Just about the only useful ally Hitler had in Europe was Finland, and that was because the Finns were fighting for national survival. Hitler's success was down to the professionalism of his military commanders, use of new tactics and weapons, and the unpreparedness and relative incompetence of his enemies.

ok fine, its his military generals then. i was referring to whoever was doing the tactics and strategy.

tell me about his niece now

@CodeL

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Of course the same could be said for the Market Garden debacle. Hindsight is certainly a wonderful thing but it applies to everyone.

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I would agree with you with the following exception. Market Garden was against type as far as Montgomery is concerned. Past performance indicated a General of great caution who didn't expose his assets in offensive ventures in which the outcome was 50/50 at best and in which the risk of casualties were as high as this one. This aspect isn't a hindsight matter.