Free The End of War - A Novel of the Race for Berlin - [World War II 02] by David L. Robbins Page B

east, the Reds are massing on the Polish border along the Vistula River. They’re supposed to jump off any time now. That’ll take even more pressure off us.”
     
    The General looks up to Bandy. He winces behind a puff. Bandy sees the chiseled face go grim, like staring out of Abilene at a twister coming. “I’ve got almost four million American, British, Canadian, and French soldiers. Hitler’s got one million facing me, tired, cold, and beat to hell. I’m ten-to-one in tanks. Three-to-one in planes. Three-to-one in artillery. We can’t lose to the Germans.”
     
    Bandy studies Eisenhower a beat.
     
    “General. You don’t mind my saying so, you don’t look too happy about it.”
     
    “I am most days, Charley. Right now, I’m not.”
     
    “Can I ask why, sir?”
     
    “Because we still might lose to the British.”
     
    “Monty.”
     
    Eisenhower lets Bandy say the name. The General nods.
     
    Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery. The English hero of El Alamein, the most popular general with the British people since Wellington and the least liked of all the Anglo officers among the Americans.
     
    In the American press corps, the enmity between Montgomery and Eisenhower—including Ike’s general officers, mainly Patton and Bradley— is well known, even if it goes unreported. Monty is viewed by the American brass as something far less than the Great Captain the British press makes him out to be. The Americans remember past battles: Sicily, Falaise, and particularly the debacle of Market-Garden, Monty’s brainchild, where he was thwarted in a spectacular land-air effort to clear a path through Holland into northern Germany. That collapse was costly and embarrassing. Given the responsibility of opening the Dutch port of Antwerp, Monty captured the city but failed to open the port approaches in the Scheldt estuary, leaving them in German hands. Because of this all Allied forces are suffering logistical shortages. Field Marshal Montgomery is thought by the Americans to be too considered and cautious in his conduct of battle. He is a master of the “set piece” strategy, where every item of combat is subjected to a timetable and prescribed course of action. Patton, the old warhorse who gallops at every opportunity, has called Monty a “tired old fart,” a general who always wants more and accomplishes less than any other officer in the Allied forces. The American style in battle is to probe and exploit. Monty tends to be inflexible and tidy. But Montgomery is Prime Minister Churchill’s favorite, and he does possess a record of valor from the years before the Americans joined the war effort. Monty has lobbied Churchill to be named the single commander of all land forces in western Europe, the role he filled with success during the Normandy campaign. But once the Americans were fully in the war and supplying the lion’s share of men and materiel, it was deemed inappropriate in Washington and Paris for their troops to be commanded by an Englishman. In September Monty was forced to hand land forces command over to Eisenhower and accept relegation to army group command, on an equal level with General Bradley. Ike, the Supreme Commander in Europe, has kept the role of ground forces C-in-C for himself and will not surrender it to Monty. Or Churchill. He won’t have it.
     
    The greatest difference between Monty and Ike, besides their personalities, is Monty’s desire to press toward Berlin in a concerted strike through northern Germany. His mighty Twenty-first Army Group is assembled north of Aachen. That force includes the American First and Ninth Armies; these were assigned to Monty under duress when they were caught north of the German bulge in December. Churchill, Montgomery, and the British Chiefs of Staff together harangue Eisenhower, General Marshall, and Roosevelt to assign the northern route a priority of men and materiel. They want a quick end to the war, surely, and they want the British to be