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889  36  Mission Fulfilled In early January Churchill, in one of his ebullient moods as the emergency in the Ardennes abated, wrote to Roosevelt claiming that 1944 “yielded us results beyond the dreams of military avarice.” He spoke of his “complete confidence in General Eisenhower” and of the amity binding the supreme commander with Montgomery “and also Bradley and Patton.” He felt animated by “an intense new impulse, both of friendship and exertion, to be drawn from our bosoms and to the last scrap of our resources.”1 This effusion of sentiment was motivated not by the glowing prospects of victory in 1945 but by the dread that triumph would leave him marginalized . The British expended their last scrap of resources for the coming campaign. Prompted by the Bulge crisis, the British government had called up an additional quarter million men, slashing deeply into Britain ’s remaining industrial manpower and putting at risk well-laid plans for postwar recovery.2 Three months later, after failing to reverse Eisenhower ’s decision to abandon the drive on Berlin, he ended another letter to the president with the Latin phrase Anantium irea amoris integration est—“Lovers’ quarrels are a part of love”—but love did not fill his bosom. Eisenhower’s decision ended one destiny and inaugurated a second. It marked the passing of one global power and the rise of another. The bitter irony could not have been lost on Churchill. His great forebear Marlborough ’s military genius had catapulted Britain into the ranks of the great powers, and despite the dint of all his efforts, another Churchill presided over a victory that led to the dissolution of the British Empire. Berlin versus the Redoubt SHAEF did not have long to wait for Churchill’s rejoinder. As expected, Churchill and Montgomery reacted sharply to Eisenhower’s decision to 890  BEETLE deflect the main thrust from the north. Immediately upon learning of SHAEF’s 29 March revised orders to Montgomery, the prime minister got on the phone and registered his complaints to Eisenhower. Montgomery wrote a pleading note to Eisenhower: “I pray you not [withdraw Ninth Army from his command] until we reach the Elbe.” Promising Whitehall he would not get directly involved, Montgomery again asked de Guingand to work through Smith for a revision. Montgomery suggested that Fifteenth Army complete the investment of the Ruhr, allowing Montgomery and Bradley’s army groups, as presently constituted, “to race on while the Germans were in disarray”—Montgomery toward Berlin, and Bradley toward Saxony. According to Montgomery, Smith agreed with Montgomery’s alternative plan and promised to present it in a conference scheduled for the morning of 2 April.3 Smith, Bull, and Strong weighed the military merits of Montgomery’s argument, but in the end they rejected his scheme. After the meeting, SHAEF issued orders for the command shift of Ninth Army, effective at midnight on 3 April.4 The prime minister made an impassioned appeal, asking that Eisenhower reconsider the command shift of Simpson’s army. Without an attached American army, the British would not possess the strength to carry out any offensive action of significance, resulting, in Churchill’s words, in “the relegation of His Majesty’s Forces to an unexpected restricted sphere.” Eisenhower’s decision to turn Simpson and Hodges eastward to eliminate the Ruhr meant a delay in driving in force for the Elbe. “If the enemy’s resistance should weaken, as you evidently expect,” Churchill wondered, “why should we not cross the Elbe and advance as far eastward as possible? This has an important political bearing.” If the Soviets took both Berlin and Vienna, “will not their impression that they have been the overwhelming contributor to our common victory be unduly imprinted in their minds, and may this not lead them into a mood which will raise grave and formidable difficulties in the future.” The prime minister disagreed that Berlin had lost its military significance . “Whilst Berlin remains under the German flag,” he argued, “it cannot in my opinion fail to be the most decisive point.”5 Eisenhower never conceded that he had altered his basic strategy. As he pointed out to Churchill, the strategy in Europe unfolded precisely as mapped out in May 1944.6 He made his case to Marshall: “The Prime Minister and his Chiefs of Staff opposed ‘ANVIL’; they opposed my idea that the German should be destroyed west of the Rhine.” By launching “one main attack calculated to accomplish, in conjunction with the Russians...

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