# The Offensive that Never Was



## Old Sweat (27 Nov 2009)

The following was forwarded to me by a friend, who received it from his brother. It apparently was published in the New York Times and is reproduced under the fair comment provisions of the copyright act.

I must admit I have never heard of the incident. I also can not offer a reasoned opinion without studying the strategic and operational situations at the time, including the ability of the Allies to reinforce and maintain a force on the east side of the Rhine in fairly difficult terrain during the winter. Having said that, my gut reaction is that Devers should have crossed and informed Ike that he had done so. In the worst case, the bridgehead would have been eliminated by the Germans, perhaps using the troops earmaked for the Ardennes offensive. That would have provided a blow to Allied morale, but perhaps no wores than the Battle of the Bulge. In the best case, the German front might have collapsed and the history of the next half century could have been very different. 

However I am not sure the war would have ended much sooner, but that again is a guesstimate.

New York Times, November 23, 2009

Op-Ed Contributor

How World War II Wasn’t Won 

By DAVID P. COLLEY

Easton, Pa.

SIXTY-FIVE years ago, in November 1944, the war in Europe was at a stalemate. A resurgent Wehrmacht had halted the Allied armies along Germany’s borders after its headlong retreat across northern France following D-Day. From Holland to France, the front was static — yet thousands of Allied soldiers continued to die in futile battles to reach the Rhine River. 

One Allied army, however, was still on the move. The Sixth Army Group reached the Rhine at Strasbourg, France, on Nov. 24, and its commander, Lt. Gen. Jacob L. Devers, looked across its muddy waters into Germany. His force, made up of the United States Seventh and French First Armies, 350,000 men, had landed Aug. 15 near Marseille — an invasion largely overlooked by history but regarded at the time as “the second D-Day” — and advanced through southern France to Strasbourg. No other Allied army had yet reached the Rhine, not even hard-charging George Patton’s.

Devers dispatched scouts over the river. “There’s nobody in those pillboxes over there,” a soldier reported. Defenses on the German side of the upper Rhine were unmanned and the enemy was unprepared for a cross-river attack, which could unhinge the Germans’ southern front and possibly lead to the collapse of the entire line from Holland to Switzerland. 

The Sixth Army Group had assembled bridging equipment, amphibious trucks and assault boats. Seven crossing sites along the upper Rhine were evaluated and intelligence gathered. The Seventh Army could cross north of Strasbourg at Rastatt, Germany, advance north along the Rhine Valley to Karlsruhe, and swing west to come in behind the German First Army, which was blocking Patton’s Third Army in Lorraine. The enemy would face annihilation, and the Third and Seventh Armies could break loose and drive into Germany. The war might end quickly.

Devers never crossed. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander, visited Devers’s headquarters that day and ordered him instead to stay on the Rhine’s west bank and attack enemy positions in northern Alsace. Devers was stunned. “We had a clean breakthrough,” he wrote in his diary. “By driving hard, I feel that we could have accomplished our mission.” Instead the war of attrition continued, giving the Germans a chance to counterattack three weeks later in what became known as the Battle of the Bulge, which cost 80,000 American dead and wounded. 

Garrison Davidson, then Devers’s engineering officer and later a superintendent of West Point, believed Devers’s attack would have succeeded and pre-empted the Bulge, writing, “I have often wondered what might have happened had Ike had the audacity to take a calculated risk, as General Patton would have.” Patton wrote in his diary that he also believed Eisenhower had missed a great opportunity; the Seventh Army’s commander, Lt. Gen. Alexander Patch, felt the same way.

Why did Eisenhower refuse to allow Devers to cross? Eisenhower disliked Devers — a prim teetotaler who rubbed many gruff Army commanders the wrong way — and refused to include him among the generals fighting in northern France. Devers was appointed to lead the southern invasion by the Army chief of staff, George Marshall. Eisenhower would likely have fired Devers once the Sixth Army Group fell under his command in September 1944, but Devers had powerful patrons in Marshall and President Franklin D. Roosevelt. 

Eisenhower was also a cautious, some would say indecisive, commander who favored a “broad front” strategy with all Allied armies moving in tandem on a solid front. His military objective was Germany’s main industrial area to the north, the Ruhr. Devers was operating too far south to help that effort. 

True, the Germans knew the Ruhr was vital to them and fiercely defended it. But, as we know from several of their generals’ postwar memoirs, what they really feared was an incursion across the Rhine, which would have been a military catastrophe and a devastating symbolic blow to the German people. 

The Rhine wasn’t crossed until March 1945. Had Eisenhower let Devers make his attack, we might now be celebrating the 65th anniversary of a cross-Rhine attack that quickly ended the war in Europe. Instead, we will soon mark the anniversary of the costliest battle in American history, the Battle of the Bulge. 

David P. Colley is the author of “Decision at Strasbourg: Ike’s Strategic Mistake to Halt the Sixth Army Group at the Rhine in 1944.”


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## vonGarvin (27 Nov 2009)

I have to admit that this part of the West Front has escaped my own study as well.  Though I focus more on East Front in my studies of WW2 history, this is quite interesting.


As an aside, Ike's "broad front strategy", in my 60+ year later opinion, was flawed.  Though a narrow front attack across France would have been subjected to savage counter attacks by German forces, in the end, the Allies' abilities to negate most German efforts to supply and support such counter attacks would have, in the long run, caused the Germans to fail.  But that is for the "What If" column of history, and exactly why I play war games.


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## AJFitzpatrick (27 Nov 2009)

I wonder what the supply line situation would have been like without access to English channel ports.


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## mariomike (27 Nov 2009)

http://efour4ever.com/44thdivision/bridgehead.htm


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## Old Sweat (27 Nov 2009)

AJFitzpatrick said:
			
		

> I wonder what the supply line situation would have been like without access to English channel ports.



Dever's Army Group may have been resupplied through Marseilles, but the logistic challenges did spring to mind. The lines of communications for the main effort were organized in a north-east direction and there probably would have been massive goat f----- doing a "Change Direction Right, . . . " Having said that, if the crossing had worked and the front collapsed, there might not have been a requirement to do so.

The challenges of mobility and basic survival in an European winter for troops without winter kit or training cdould have turned into a genormous PR problem. That may have been in Ike's mind. Or, more likely, he had made a plan that he felt was going to work, and he did not want to change it. Still, I wonder if DDE Dwight David Eisenhower reacted the way he did in part because he was now faced with two, not one, teetotaling azzholes army group commanders in the ETO.


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## Blackadder1916 (28 Nov 2009)

Though not having done a "detailed" study of Sixth Army Group's operations in that area, some aspects did have my interest years ago when I was in Lahr since it was the French with Devers' army group who first occupied that area.  (_I once attended a French Army study day that mainly focused on First French Army operations of that period.  From what I gathered, they won the war with minimal assistance from some unnamed parties._)

A quick glance at Weighley's Eisenhower's Lieutenants refreshed my memory slightly.  

Though there may be something to be said about Eisenhower's cautiousness and perhaps keeping too much focus on the north, it may be a bit disingenuous to suggest that dislike of Devers (an artilleryman and USMA classmate of Patton) was a significant factor in refusing permission for Devers to cross the Rhine in late November.  After (Leclerc) taking Strasbourg with the Kehl bridge intact (for a day at least), it was not a suddenly quiet sector with no push back by German forces on the western side of the Rhine.  Additionally the terrain facing them across the Rhine was not particularly hospitable.  There is not a lot of room to maneuver between the river and the Schwarzwald escarpment.  Anyone who has driven the Schwarzwald Hochstrasse would not describe it as tank country.

But it was probably the “Colmar Pocket” and the capabilities of the French First Army that may have been a major source of Eisenhower’s concern.

Here are a couple of excerpts from Chapter 22 of Eisenhower’s Lieutenants


> That Friday, November 24, Eisenhower and Bradley entered the 6th Army Group zone on their way to consult with Devers about the further development of the offensive.  Their cars rolled up to Haislip’s headquarters as Haislip came running out to shout to Eisenhower: “For God’s sake, sir, I was on my way down to tell you not to come.  Please go on.  We don’t want you.  There is a report of an armored breakthrough on the front held by our cavalry.”  Staffs and drivers noted that Haislip’s headquarters group were preparing to make its own defense, and drivers commented that when the headquarters troops had to fight, it was time indeed for generals to get out.
> 
> But Eisenhower laughed and said to Wade Hampton Haislip, “Dammit, Ham, you invited me for lunch and I’m not going to leave until I get it”. 2
> 
> Ike and Bradley stayed for lunch, yet the experience may have reinforced the cautious mood the Supreme Commander displayed later in the day with Devers and Patch.





> General Eisenhower’s cautious decision against crossing the Rhine also ensured that the advance of the 6th Army Group would be no longer be spectacular.  If the Supreme Commander had entertained any second thoughts about turning Devers’s forces away from adventurous designs, the experiences of the French First Army soon appeared to vindicate caution.  On his visit to Devers, Eisenhower warned even against any major effort to advance northward *until all resistance farther south in Alsace might be eliminated*  The Allies had already dropped off too many troops to contain rearward islands of Germans.  Eisenhower’s warnings referred specifically to the pocket of enemy soldiers holding out around Colmar, separating the French up the Rhine near Mulhouse from the French and Americans downstream near Strasbourg.  Eisenhower thought Devers should send the VI Corps to the aid of de Lattre’s army in destroying the pocket.  Devers argued that the remnants of the Nineteenth Army in the Colmar  pocket no longer formed a coherent tactical force, and that the French army was easily strong enough to allow the VI Corps to move northward.
> 
> Devers was wrong.  The impressive campaign to Belfort and Mulhouse notwithstanding, the French First Army had shot its bolt.  Its losses of African troops to the coming of autumn had never been fully repaired, the drains on its strength to police other faraway German pockets still persisted, its government remained unable to resolve the political complexities of integrating the FFI into the army.  Consolidated into a compact defensive mass, the supposedly defunct German Nineteenth Army repulsed de Lattre’s attacks toward Colmar in a manner suggesting it was ready to hold the French to a tactical deadlock indefinitely.



The attached map provides a simplistic overview of Devers’s plan.


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## Old Sweat (28 Nov 2009)

Blackadder1916

Thank you for the info. I still do not have enough information to draw any sort of conclusion, and I never served in Lahr, but from brief visits I recall the ground was not like the North German Plain. Having said all that, Allied troops on the east bank of the Rhine could have unhinged the whole front. While the German generals would have reacted professionally and objectively, the Fuhrer probably would have gone ape and pulled a plan out of the nether reaches of his brain. The results may well have been disastrous to the Germans. We shall never know.

We should also remember that the Germans had a doctrine for extracting troops from encirclements or envelopments that had been used on both fronts, for example at the Falaise pocket. Whether it could have been applied here is moot.

I will take a look at Eisenhower's Lieutenants.


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## Dog Walker (28 Nov 2009)

This is what Eisenhower had to say about operations at that time in his book “Crusade in Europe” (p 330 -333) published in 1948. 



> Still farther south there was much fighting in Devers' Sixth Army Group. During September it advanced northward through the Rhone Valley and came in abreast of the Third Army line, facing eastward in the difficult Vosges Mountain area. Devers attacked that formidable barrier on November 14, in an attempt to penetrate into the plains of Alsace. Once we could secure this region Devers' forces could concentrate the bulk of their strength on the left and the defenders of the Saar would have to resist powerful attacks on two fronts.
> The French First Army led the attack on Devers' front and breached the Belfort Gap within a week. Its leading troops quickly reached the Rhine. This turned the flank of the German position in the Vosges and forced a general withdrawal in front of the U. S. Seventh Army under General Patch. This force, attacking abreast of the French First Army, had found exceedingly tough going through the tortuous passes of the mountains. In Patch's army Major General Edward H. Brooks's VI Corps was on the right, and Major General Wade H. Haislip's XV Corps, formerly with Patton, was on the left When the German withdrawal started because of the French success, these troops made rapid progress. The U. S. 44th Division captured Saarebourg on the twenty-first, and on the twenty-second our troops broke out into the Rhine plain. Strasbourg, on the banks of the Rhine, was entered by the French 2d Armored Division on the twenty-second of the month. The enemy, as was his habitual practice, launched a counterattack almost instantly. Initially, our advancing troops lost some ground but the 44th Division fought off the enemy and regained its positions. The 79th Division now came abreast of the 44th and the two of them made rapid progress toward Haguenau, which they took on December 12.
> During the progress of these attacks I visited Devers to make a survey of the situation with him. On his extreme left there appeared to be no immediate advantage in pushing down into the Rhine plain. I directed him to turn the left corps of Patch's army northward to bring it into line connecting with the right flank of Patton's army, on the western slopes of the Vosges. That corps was to support the Third Army in its attacks against the Saar, which were soon to be renewed.
> On the remainder of Devers' front it was of course desirable to close up to the Rhine as rapidly as possible and then, by moving northward, to gain the river bank all the way northward to the Saar. However, I particularly cautioned Devers not to start this northward movement, on the east of the Vosges Mountains, until he had cleaned out all enemy formations in his rear.
> ...


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## Blackadder1916 (28 Nov 2009)

Clarke's Riviera to the Rhine is a history of 6th Army Group.  Found it available on-line.  It may be of interest.
http://ibiblio.net/hyperwar/////USA/USA-E-Riviera/USA-E-Riviera-24.html

These are some excerpts from Chapter XXIV .

While the difficulties in maintaining passable routes as noted were in Patton's sector, similar conditions would have existed in 6th Army Group's area.  For those of us who have driven the area (visiting vineyards more so than battlefields) it is important to remember that the road network (pavement, width, quantity) had improved considerably after the war.  Though there is some industry in the area it is (and 'was' more so) primarily an agricultural area - heavy traffic off the main roads (and the Autobahn running past the Lahr airfield was not the marvel that it is today) would have quickly turned the Rhine Valley into a muddy morass.



> On 24 November, as the German high command debated its options, Eisenhower and Bradley began a tour of the Allied southern front. The two American generals first visited the Third Army command post at Nancy, where they found Patton's attacking forces roadbound and nearly halted. *Abominable weather, flooding, and military traffic were breaking up what few good roads remained passable in Patton's sector, and elsewhere the ground had turned into a sea of mud*. Additional factors delaying Patton's troops just to the north of the Seventh Army included a high rate of nonbattle casualties (with trench foot predominating), lack of infantry replacements, extensive German minefields, a growing shortage of artillery ammunition, and miscellaneous other supply problems.4



It may not have been "two teetotalling azzholes" that Eisenhower had to deal with, even though he may have disliked both.  Perhaps maintaining relations with the azzhole to the north coloured his decision.



> Obviously these sentiments were not shared by Eisenhower and Bradley. The Supreme Commander appeared extremely reluctant to capitalize on the Seventh Army's unexpectedly rapid breakthrough to Strasbourg and the Rhine, and he seemed to attach little or no significance to the concomitant First French Army drive through the Belfort Gap to the Rhine and the possible collapse of the Nineteenth Army. Instead, Eisenhower held to his policy that called for destroying all German forces west of the Rhine, from the Netherlands south to the Swiss border, before initiating any major operations east of the river. His operational concept also dictated that the main Allied effort take place in
> the north. Perhaps no one at SHAEF had expected the comparatively small 6th Army Group to achieve so much, especially in the tough Vosges terrain. *Furthermore, a Rhine crossing by the Seventh Army might well have demanded that Eisenhower switch his main effort from the sector of Montgomery's 21st Army Group to that of Devers' 6th Army Group, an extremely difficult task. With these considerations in mind, Eisenhower may have simply concluded that he was having enough trouble dealing with Montgomery and the British without trying to force through such a major change of direction in the main Allied ground thrust. The political demands of waging a coalition war could not be denied.*15



While Devers was one of only a handful of American Allied army group commanders, he received litttle fanfare despite his accomplishments.  The following link, though not specifically discussing this incident, does analyse his career as a stategic commander. http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA389167 (pdf file)


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## mariomike (28 Nov 2009)

"He is indeed the very archetype of the man on whom the Nation completely and utterly depends when its life hangs in the balance."
Senator Henry Cabot Lodge
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=2995
Gen Devers is not well remembered. He only got 24 flowers at Find a Grave. Patton has 825.


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## Dennis Ruhl (29 Nov 2009)

Old Sweat said:
			
		

> Having said that, my gut reaction is that Devers should have crossed and informed Ike that he had done so. In the worst case, the bridgehead would have been eliminated by the Germans, perhaps using the troops earmaked for the Ardennes offensive. That would have provided a blow to Allied morale, but perhaps no wores than the Battle of the Bulge. In the best case, the German front might have collapsed and the history of the next half century could have been very different.
> 
> However I am not sure the war would have ended much sooner, but that again is a guesstimate.



Refusing to take ground when it is available for free has been done many times and is usually controversial.  I remember Douglas Fisher mentioning that the 12th Manitoba Dragoons were crisscrossing the Breskens Pocket without any sign of Germans but could not convince the Canadian Army to advance.  The Germans rearmed the pocket by sea and a large effort was required to dislodge them.  The basically unopposed landings at Suvla Bay and Anzio were classic examples of stalling when they faced minimal resistance.  The story in the movie is that a couple soldiers took a Jeep from Anzio to Rome and never saw a German, probably close to the truth.

Crossing the Rhine with an armoured division and spending a couple days shooting up Germany before withdrawing might very well have relieved pressure on forces in the Netherlands and Belgium.

You are right in saying that it might not have ended the war any sooner because the Germans proved themselves unwilling to surrender in large numbers until totally defeated.


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## mariomike (29 Nov 2009)

Dennis Ruhl said:
			
		

> the Germans proved themselves unwilling to surrender in large numbers until totally defeated.



They had good reason not to want to surrender to the Red Army.
Also they didn't want to surrender to FDR:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgenthau_Plan#Roosevelt.27s_support_for_the_plan
Goebbels used his propaganda machine to stiffen resistance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgenthau_Plan#Wartime_consequences
Also, there may have been some faith in Germany that some kind of last minute "Wunderwaffen" could turn the tide in their favour:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wunderwaffen


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