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865  35  The German Is a Whipped Enemy Not until 28 January 1945 did Allied forces regain the ground lost in the Ardennes. In both the Ardennes and Alsace, Hitler’s stubborn refusal to yield ground doubled German casualties, according to one estimate. The manpower and materiel losses debilitated German designs for holding the West Wall, but the greatest casualty of all was that inflicted on German morale. Ideological factors led to Hitler’s third fatal decision of the war in northwest Europe. The first, his insistence on the Mortain offensive, undermined any hope of holding in France; the second, his resolve to regain the strategic initiative in the west, grievously wounded his ground and air forces; the last, his determination not to surrender a yard of German territory without a fight, produced the biggest debacle yet, ending any legitimate hope of defending the Rhine and, with it, Germany. With Soviet forces on the Oder and Silesian war production lost, the end was nigh. In rapid succession, the events of the next three months brought the war to an end. “To Hell with the Planners” Within a day of the end of the Malta conference, the opening phase of the Rhineland campaign commenced. On 2 February Bradley renewed his drive in the Roer sector. Six days later Montgomery launched Veritable , on schedule, behind the largest artillery barrage of the war in the west. By 9 February U.S. XXI Corps and de Lattre’s I Corps completed the elimination of the Colmar Pocket. The next day the Roer dams fell into American hands, but not before the Germans opened the flood- 866  BEETLE gates, delaying Simpson’s offensive for two critical weeks. Aside from that lone setback, Allied successes gained momentum. As a preliminary, Twenty-first Army Group cleared the Roermund triangle (Operation Blackcock) before Crerar’s Canadian First Army, with XXX Corps under command, stepped off on the offensive from the Nijmegen salient. Montgomery’s forces breached the German defenses the first day and penetrated the West Wall on the second. Anglo-Canadian troops faced a very tough nut. Blaskowitz’s Army Group H contained some of the best units in the theater. German morale plummeted after the Bulge, but the paratroopers of First Parachute Army were the exception . On 13 February the Canadians closed the Rhine at Emmerich but encountered some of the heaviest fighting of the war clearing the Reichwald . The bitter fighting drew in many of the Germans’ better units; in the end, the Germans committed eleven divisions. Confronting several obstacles—a sudden thaw and heavy rain, coupled with German flooding of much of the area—Crerar made slow and costly progress. Eisenhower met with Bradley and Montgomery at Zonhoven on 14 February. Montgomery wanted two more divisions in Simpson’s attack, which Bradley adamantly rejected. As Summersby noted, “I fear however that there is no love lost between Bradley and Monty. How E. keeps his disposition I really am at a loss to understand.”1 Eisenhower entered the conference with a grim look on his face, prepared to do some table pounding. “There is no doubt that he was worried about something when he arrived,” Montgomery told Frank Simpson, now Brooke’s number two, “and appeared so during our talk. . . . I have even now no idea at what is at the bottom of his worry.” Eisenhower’s disquiet grew from his apprehensions about the impending command switch. The meeting produced some minor table pounding over the transfer of forces, but Montgomery got far more than two divisions. Eisenhower restated his determination to stage the main thrust in the north with Simpson’s army, with twelve divisions, placed under Montgomery’s command for the duration of the war. The quid pro quo was Montgomery’s assurance that he would oppose bringing Alexander into SHAEF as deputy supreme commander. As Montgomery reported to the War Office, “It was very obvious that as soon as I had said that I was very well satisfied with the present situation about command, he became a different man; he drove away beaming all over his face.”2 The field marshal also beamed. As he told Brooke, “All this is very good and I do believe that we are at last all well set with a fair wind to help us into harbour. We have had a few storms, but the sky is now clear.” Montgomery correctly guessed that Eisenhower and Smith [3.145.93.210] Project MUSE (2024-04-19 05...

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