The War Between the Generals
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THE WAR BETWEEN THE GENERALS DAVID IRVING F FOCAL POINT O Copyright © NVUN by David Irving Electronic version copyright © OMMP by Parforce UK Ltd. Excerpts from NVQM QR, by Martin Blumenson, are reprinted by kind permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. Copyright © NVTQ by Martin Blumenson All rights reserved á ABOUT THE AUTHOR David Irving is the son of a Royal Navy commander. Imperfectly educated at London’s Imperial College of Science & Technology and at University College, he subsequently spent a year in Germany working in a steel mill and perfecting his fluency in the language. In NVSP he published . This became a bestseller in many countries. Among his thirty books, the best-known include ; ; ; ! " #$ $; and % & ' (. The second volume of his ) appeared in OMMN; a third volume is in preparation. Many of his works are available as free downloads at www.fpp.co.uk/books. á CONTENTS PROLOGUE: Cover Plan.............................................................. N N Bedfellows ................................................................................ S O Uneasy Alliance....................................................................... NP P Alibi in Washington ...............................................................OV Q Stakes Incalculable..................................................................PS R Patton Meets His Destiny....................................................... RP S The Bomber Barons................................................................ST T Eyes and Ears ..........................................................................US U George, You Talk Too Much ................................................ VS V Gathering the Reins............................................................... NNN NM Ends and Means.....................................................................NOR NN Joan of Arc .............................................................................NPO NO Decision..................................................................................NQN NP Invasion................................................................................. NQU NQ Lord Mighty in Battle ........................................................... NSP NR Anything May Happen..........................................................NUP NS Headaches .............................................................................OMP NT Rain Check.............................................................................ONR NU Something Spectacular......................................................... OPT NV Banging Away .......................................................................ORQ OM Dragooned ............................................................................OSQ ON Loaves and Fishes .................................................................OTQ OO Crimes and Punishment ......................................................OVT OP Bottlenecks............................................................................PMV OQ Grit ........................................................................................ POP OR Grip ....................................................................................... PQR OS Mad as Hell ...........................................................................PSQ OT Hell to Pay............................................................................. PVN OU The Main Prize .....................................................................QMU OV Parting of the Ways .............................................................. QNS !$ ' .................................................................QOU ! *# ..................................................................... QPN + ......................................................................................QPU áá + ' , (-".-& - ' ' / '$ .+ ' , —GENERAL DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER & 0 $ - -' ' - ' " ,0 - & -$ , —FIELD MARSHAL SIR BERNARD MONTGOMERY ".+ ' ' 1 —LIEUTENANT GENERAL EVERETT S. HUGHES ááá éêçäçÖìÉ COVER PLAN May NM, NVQR, two days after the surrender of Nazi Germany. Five generals sit around an oaken table in the Frankfurt headquarters of one of the most powerful men in the world, Dwight D. Eisenhower. On his shoulders are the five stars of his rank as General of the Army. The other four generals have sixteen more stars between them – they are the commanders of the four American armies that, in one spectacular year, have penetrated the French coastline at Normandy, have hurled themselves at the Germans at Avranches, have battled forward through rains and mud and snow to the German frontier, have recoiled under Hitler’s counterattack, and have fi- nally, just three weeks before, shaken hands with Marshal Georgi Zhukov’s troops coming from the ravaged east. Five generals – Eisenhower, Hodges, Patton, Simpson, Patch. Their faces bear the congratulatory grins of men who have done a job they are proud of. But already there are worries clouding the minds of some. George Patton has relished the war, and he fears the peace that is now to come. He actually dreams of using the surviving German divisions in his army sector for a drive against what he now considers the true enemy – the Soviet Union. He is still furious with Eisenhower for restraining him, and for toadying to his particular bêtes noires, the British. The others in the room, while far more temperate, harbour their own grudges, disappoint- N ments, resentments. Alliance – with the British and especially the French – has often been an agony. So much misunderstanding, some of it willful; so much outright hatred. So many decisions that, in the minds of the dissent- ers, occasioned so many hundreds of thousands of needless deaths. Indeed, the running contest between the Allies on the cruelest issue – whose troops should bear the brunt and thereby perish – has caused deep psychic trauma. These five chiefs and their close colleagues must live their re- maining lives with knowledge too fierce to forget. After the meal is cleared away, Eisenhower pulls out a cigarette and rams it into his wide, expressive mouth. There is something important he wants to tell these generals – because they have shared his troubles, with him they have seen opportunities slip through American fingers, they have witnessed his rages and fury at the behaviour of America’s Allies. Yet Eisenhower wants history to remember him for the great Allied partner- ship that he has cemented, here on Europe’s blood-sodden soil. It would be a tragedy, he thinks, if the shameful realities should leak out. He has pledged himself to prevent it. White-jacketed flunkies rattle away the last plates and cutlery and scrape crumbs from the wine-splotched tablecloth. Brandy and liqueurs, captured from the Wehrmacht’s finest stocks, are served. Eisenhower clears his throat. What he is going to say now, he warns the men, is very confidential. Some of them, he says, may well be called before a congres- sional committee. He talks on the urgent need for continued solidarity, and says, without explanation: “Let’s agree on the right form of organisa- tion.” Patton’s clear blue eyes are expressionless. He does not speak, but he has realised suddenly what Eisenhower is saying: he is talking solidarity for one reason only – the big cover-up is beginning. There is to be no criticism of the strategic blunders that Eisenhower has unquestionably, in Patton’s view, committed during the campaign. There is to be no searching analysis as to whether these have been Eisenhower’s own fault, or whether too much cooperation with the British was to blame. Patton is not surprised. He has, he believes, personally suffered, for three long years, from Eisen- hower’s craven anglophilia. Eisenhower had indeed had an almost obsessive desire to be liked and admired by the British. During the Mediterranean campaigns, he had O searched the British newspapers in vain for references to his initiative and boldness but had found those words being applied only to generals Alex- ander and Montgomery; the British begrudged him any recognition except as a manager who had “welded an Allied team.” He thought of all the op- erations he had ordered which had seemed so daring at the time, like the invasions of Salerno and Pantelleria, and he sighed. “It wearies me to be thought of as timid,” he wrote on February T, NVQQ, “when I’ve had to do things that were so risky as to be almost crazy.” He bit his pencil, wrote, “Oh hum,” and laid it aside. And British criticism continued. Anglo-American tension, to be sure, was not the only variety to fray the sinews of the Grand Alliance. Just before the day of victory in Europe, Eisenhower warned General Charles de Gaulle: “I am deeply concerned . that the American public will become aware of what has actually tran- spired as I know this would awaken a storm of resentment which would be most unfortunate in its results.” But it was British hostility that concerned him most. There had in fact been one Briton who above all others had tried his patience sorely, a fact that Eisenhower strove to disguise. After the end of the war he tried to convince everyone that, in spite of occasional differ- ences of conviction, there existed between Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery and himself only mutual respect and friendly regard. From the official publication ' , 2 he expunged certain passages highly critical of Montgomery – for example,