The year ends.
I'm not much on the "big story" baloney. Most would have said that the stock market crash of 1929 was the story, yet the real story was the "Talkies." From that technological advance came a string of motion pictures that moved and shaped the world as nothing else before or since.
There were many stories in 1944, yet THE story was the reining in of Patton in favor of Monte's pipe dreams. The result being "The Battle of the Bulge" with 20,000 killed and the Soviet Union being allowed a full share of Germany. God only knows what misery that ultimately caused.
Later the stories were the defeat of the US in Vietnam by its own Congress but even there we find only a smidgen of truth. Goldwater may have midwifed conservatism and Reagan took it to the altar but it was the Left's antiwar actions that allowed the simmering hatred of them to take a political child and turn him into a man.
So pardon me if find the stories about the evil Bush and the glorious Hussein both juvenile and boring. Come back in a few years and we can talk. In the meantime, I find myself continually reminding my Leftie friends of some of the oldest saws in the world.
Success, dear chums, is getting what you want.
Happiness is wanting what you get.
Many people will soon understand the truth of that.
And while it is true that Bush has been all but destroyed by the hater's of the Left, especially those in the media. He, like Truman, will see his presidency ascend over time.
I myself find him flawed, as was Truman. He has been too loyal to those who weren't capable and he failed to fight back at the utter nonsense spewed by the Left over the war on terror. Failing to do this has allowed the Left's unpatriotic attacks give comfort to an enemy who became convinced that they could, like the communists in Vietnam, win a political battle given to them by the Left's hand maidens in Congress.
In the meantime only 20% approve of a Democratic Congress, less than the approval of Bush. That it is Democrats who control Congress is why you hear almost nothing about this.
But now the Democrats have it all and it is their right to govern. It is their war on terror. Their recession. Their housing crisis. Their failed energy policy. Their failing school systems. Their "homeless" sleeping under bridges. Their "everything."
There is no evil Repub in charge and no racist in the White House, although the new occupant was elected because of his race. All the claims of the Left, all the charges, all the social theories can now be tested.
In the meantime all we know for sure is we have a youth going to the White House that has never been tested. He is the first of the "no one loses, everybody wins" generation. As such his natural narcissism gives us a man who has never lost so he doesn't know how to win. He will be too gracious to our enemies and too harsh on his critics, He will confuse our allies and enemies alike. The results will most likely be death and destruction here in the US.
We truly suffer from the Chinese curse. We live in interesting times.
God help us all.
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Except that Eisenhower disagreed with you about the B of the B being a disaster:
ReplyDeleteEisenhower, realizing the Allies could destroy German forces much more easily when they were out in the open and on the offensive than if they were on the defensive, told the generals, "The present situation is to be regarded as one of opportunity for us and not of disaster. There will be only cheerful faces at this table." Patton, realizing what Eisenhower implied, responded, “Hell, let’s have the guts to let the bastards go all the way to Paris. Then, we’ll really cut ’em off and chew ’em up.” Eisenhower asked Patton how long it would take to turn his Third Army (located in northeastern France) north to counterattack. He said he could attack with two divisions within 48 hours, to the disbelief of the other generals present. Before he had gone to the meeting, however, Patton had ordered his staff to prepare three contingency plans for a northward turn in at least corps strength. By the time Eisenhower asked him how long it would take, the movement was already underway.[17] On 20 December, Eisenhower removed the First and Ninth U.S. Armies from Bradley’s 12th Army Group and placed them under Montgomery’s 21st Army Group.
Patton is one of my favorites, but his troops called him “Blood and Guts.” Their blood and his guts. But he prepared them to fight and fight they did. The rescue is unparalleled in military history.
ReplyDeleteBut my point is that if Eisenhower had not slowed Patton down in the fall, none of this would have happened.
And although I understand the political pressure to try and stop the rockets raining down on London I still think it was bad strategy to rein in Patton.
There would have been no battle of the bulge.
Oh well, Monday morning qbacking football games is fun but military history even more so.
Of course my main point remains. We rarely recognize the truly important events when they happen. I seem to remember something happening 2008 years and one week ago that really made no particular splash that had major long term changes.
Here's an analysis of Eisenhower's situation:
ReplyDeleteHowever, Eisenhower was almost certainly right in rejecting the "single thrust" plans offered by his subordinates. They underestimated the Germans' ability to recuperate and the Allies supply and engineering problems. The success of the logistics people is supporting more divisions than expected in the drive to the Seine supported a tendency to underestimate the difficulty of supplying a continued advance. SHAEF's own investigation of the possibility of a quick attack by the Third Army across the Rhine showed that only a dozen divisions could be sustained in such a move and that only by stopping all other Allied movements, opening Antwerp, and using bombers as well as troop carriers for supply. Even this effort would peter out by the time Frankfurt was reached; the effort would leave exposed flanks for a length of
300 miles and bring logistical disaster if the enemy were not shocked into giving up. LT Colonel Herbert Ehrgott, the Chief of Staff of IX Air Engineer Command, later
declared that Patton could not have received close air support and would've gotten little supply by air past Reims.
D-Day to Berlin: The Northwest Europe Campaign, 1944-1945, Page 96.
A good point and I have heard it before.
ReplyDeleteBut I tend to go with the guy on the ground and Patton disagreed, believeing that the Germnans were demoralized and ready to surrender.
Unfortunately, being the guy on the ground doesn't solve the problems of supply, lack of air cover, and stretched flanks.
ReplyDeletePage 98:
In any case, not enough got forward, especially on the American front. The First Army estimated its needs as 5,500 tons a day, the Third Army at 6,600. Both together were allocated 7,000. Both armies strongly critical of JCH Lee and his organization, insisted that the real figures were a good deal less, and some of what did arrive were neither wanted nor needed. As September arrived, American equipment and combat vehicles were badly worn.
Patton also didn't understand the German psychological make-up, given the fact that the military men took a personal oath promising loyalty to Hitler, who himself wasn't at the point of being demoralized and ready to surrender at that point in time. Some commentators believed the oath was one of the reasons the German military remained obedient to Hitler until the very end. The troops on the ground were subject to the Stippenhaft law implemented soon after D-Day(page 104):
On August 1 the Nazis announced the "Stippenhaft law", under which family members would be held responsible if a man deserted or surrendered.
which, as long as there were family members of the soldiers under the control of the Nazi regime, was a strong deterrence to Pattons' idea that the ground forces were ready to surrender.
As I said, you have a good point and I have heard it before. Fortunately, or unfortunately, we will never know who is right.
ReplyDeleteI am cheered by the thought that many of those who say reining in Patton was right also thought that he could not turn his troops and save those engaged in the Battle of the Bulge.
Patton's belief was that the German Army was in a state of collapse and he wanted to take advantage of that. He was, after all, a calvary man, and calvary men believe that when you have the enemy scattered and running you don't stop killing them.
I play poker and understand Patton, I think, better than you.
Further down I have a post about a poker hand. (Poker grumbles) In it I moan about a player drawing out on me as if I had a right to do the wrong thing and still win. What I did was try and trap a player who still had enough chips to hurt me. Greed is a terrible thing. If my first bet had been enough to put him all in he would have folded. Instead I trapped him and gave him enouugh of a reason to call and beat me on the river.
Fortune favors the bold.
I play poker and understand Patton, I think, better than you.
ReplyDeleteI have Germanic roots and I think that I have a greater knowledge and understanding of them better than you, and I got an A in statistics on the college level, which is useful when playing a game in part dictated by numerical laws of probability.
I moan about a player drawing out on me as if I had a right to do the wrong thing and still win. What I did was try and trap a player who still had enough chips to hurt me. Greed is a terrible thing.
That's why one should think of the possible highest hand any opponent can have given the 1st three cards and proceed from there.
"Fortune favors the prepared mind"
Louis Pasteur
You have Germanic roots and you think?
ReplyDeleteSigh.... and we were having such a nice rational conversation.
You do realize that you have just advanced the same argument that racists have used......
As for poker, there is one, and only one way to find out if you know Jack...or Sue or Charley... and that is to play.
I have invited Kdog to the big show in January. Can you come??