On to Bastogne, WWII

When looked at closer, WWII becomes a larger narrative of mass Allied surges and counter surges.  Following more specifically the testy relationship between Eisenhower and Patton, WWII tells the story of two forces constantly at odds with one another: Eisenhower, the coalition builder, who always had to administer to all Armies, Navies and Air Forces at all times; and Patton, the old Olympic athlete, who wanted to single-handedly (with his 3rd Army) win the war not by holding any ground in Europe but by gaining it as fast as possible, keeping sights on the throat of the industrial center of Germany itself.

Knowing this conflict all too well by the time of D-Day at Normandy, Eisenhower, Bradley and Montgomery decided not to allow Patton in on the initial storming of the beaches for fear that Patton would not heed caution and certainly would not be tactically inclined to merely storm German fortresses in and around Omaha Beach.  Patton was not let loose with his Third Army until later, but from that point on he made the greatest and most positive impact of all the other commanders.

Patton's Third was commanded differently – sometimes, supplies willing, taking fifty miles in a day, town after town in France. The Third took the offensive and kept the retreating Germans so off guard that all the chief German commanders on the Western Front came to most fear Patton's resolve.  The German Army had been badly dismantled at Normandy and were in complete disarray.  Patton knew this.  While the rest of the Armed Forces literally had to wait for each other on their way toward Germany, Patton took ground quickly and gobbled up German positions.  Over and over again, when looking back at the D-Day (+) days of the War, German soldiers admitted the Allies could have taken virtually as much as they wanted through more like-minded forceful initiative.

A case of terrible irony for Patton, though, was that he outran not only his supply line and the rest of his Allied commanders, but he outran Eisenhower's 'broad-front' war strategy: the coalition as a whole was to attack the Rhine and German industrial center.  Days, weeks, months might go by for the Third Army without nearly enough fuel to continue Patton's offensive and he became bogged down in the dreadfully rainy Lorraine Region of France and there lost the initiative.  Some 1,800 troops died during this slog from Trench Foot alone.  Patton quipped that he hoped after the War that the Germans be given this part of the country as due punishment it was such an inhospitably muddy terrain.  Allies would learn later that this was the worst winter in 38 years.  Worst of all, and the very thing Patton anticipated, was that the Germans, sensing an ease of tension due to lack of Allied supplies, formulated the largest counteroffensive in the entire war at the Ardenne Forest, which would later come to be known as the Battle of the Bulge, where, again, Patton would heed the call, take the initiative, and roll north in what would become the Third Army's finest hour.