NO REAL ALLIED CUTTING EDGE

Southland Times, Issue 25564, 6 January 1945, Page 5

NO REAL ALLIED CUTTING EDGE

COMMENT ON GERMAN SURPRISE MOVE (Special correspondent, N.Z.P.A.) LONDON, January 4. ’ Why did Field-Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt break through? Why did he fail in his attack? Are there going to be changes at Supreme Headquarters? Were the Allies over-confident? Why should winter delay our forces but allow Field-Marshal von Rundstedt to win the battle? Those are some of the questions now being asked about the western front. Several attempts are being made to answer them. It has long been admitted that the Allies were completely surprised by Field-Marshal von Rundstedt’s attack in the locality used by the Germans, not only in 1940, but also in 1914. The military commentator of The Daily Express, Allan Moorehead, discussing these queries says: “After the Normandy break out, General Eisenhower made two prodigious decisions: First, to take the field command himself; and, second, to bring all his armies |up to the Rhine together. While the German line was solidified, the Allied armies toiled painfully up to the Rhine, and Supreme Headquarters found itself conducting the battle from 150 miles away. “From the Mediterranean to the English Channel, six armies were deployed and there was no real cutting edge anywhere. Soon individual commanders found that, even if they did make a breach in the German line, they had no reinforcements on hand to back it up and go through. EVENLY-SPREAD PRESSURE “Faced with this evenly spread pressure, the German line was able to hold intact, which was the state of affairs by the end of November. It then became difficult for the Allies to get news out of Germany and follow the rear movements of the Wehrmacht, while von Rundstedt with Germans and German sympathisers behind the Allied lines, found it easy to get information,” continues Moorehead. “He marshalled the 6th Panzer Army north of the Ardennes and discovered that green American troops had been moved into the lines in the American Ist Army sector. “In the second week of December, when there was no moon he took the sth Panzer Army from the line opposite Liege and slipped it quietly down opposite Luxembourg, while the 6th Panzer Army moved into the positions vacated by the sth. I “When the weather was suitable, he [struck at the weak spot in the AmeriI can line and, largely due to our policy iof keeping divisions well forward, he found he had at one burst got through into the comparatively vacant rear areas.” Moorehead praises the reaction of the Americans, and goes on to comment: “For many months now we have abandoned the use of surprise in our planning. We simply packed troops up to the line and slogged ahead in fairly obvious directions. SPEARHEAD NEEDED “There is much support for these two ideas: First, the appointment of a field commander, British or American, would do a great deal towards getting quicker decisions and more adaptability into the line; second, the need one day to mount and supply one definite spearhead to pierce Hie German front and exploit beyond it.” Other correspondents also comment on the fact of the Supreme Command being too far back and on the dispersal of Allied strength. It is pointed out that if the earlier system of the fighting command being in the hands of a specialist, like Field-Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, as in Normandy, had been maintained, the setback might have been averted. At the same time it is generally remarked that there is every confidence in General Eisenhower.

Discussion on these lines seems fairly general, but messages from New York declare that the chances of FieldMarshal Montgomery being promoted commander of the Allied land forces, under General Eisenhower, are “remote.”

As regards other questions, “Strategicus” in The Spectator remarks: “What was at fault was the absurd self-con-fidence which has characterized the Allied outlook ever since the exploitation of the Battle of Normandy, and a tendency to be convinced by one’s own propaganda. “What save this self-confidence can explain the ease with which the Germans concentrated in secret and then over-ran some 70 miles of the Allied front?"