Broad front versus narrow front controversy in World War II information
Wartime debate among Allies
Senior Allied commanders in February 1944. Left to right: Lieutenant General Omar Bradley; Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay; Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder; General Dwight D. Eisenhower; General Sir Bernard Montgomery, Commander in Chief 21st Army Group; Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory; and Lieutenant General Walter Bedell Smith
The broad front versus narrow front controversy in World War II arose after General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, decided to advance into Germany on a broad front in 1944, against the suggestions of his principal subordinates, Lieutenant Generals Omar Bradley and George S. Patton and Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, who argued instead to stage competing advances on narrow fronts. The decision was controversial initially because the British government wanted to raise the profile of the minority British contingent in what was by then an overwhelmingly American army, and they perceived that a British-led thrust to Berlin would achieve this aim. Montgomery's strident advocacy raised political and nationalistic complications that strained the wartime alliance. During the subsequent Cold War, suggestions were made that the Soviet presence in Eastern Europe may have been reduced had Eisenhower sent a narrow-front thrust to race the USSR to Berlin in 1945.
Eisenhower's decision was based on both political and military factors. There were serious reservations in the autumn of 1944 about whether the Allied logistical system could support the narrow-front strategy, because at that time there were insufficient working ports to support large formations far from the coast, the road and rail transport network was already under severe strain, and there were concerns about being able to protect the narrow supply lines deep into enemy territory, through terrain that included crossing many rivers, in weather which hampered air support. In addition the Allied occupation zones in Germany had been agreed upon in February 1944, and a faster Allied advance in the autumn of 1944 would not have altered this. The Soviet Union would have also benefited from a rapid German collapse, and its participation in the war against Japan was greatly desired. The staff at Eisenhower's Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) considered Montgomery's proposed advance on the Ruhr and Berlin and Bradley's proposed advance on Metz and the Saar, and assessed both to be feasible, but only on the assumptions that the port of Antwerp was brought rapidly into service, that considerable additional air, rail and road transportation became available, and that the other Allied armies were already poised on the German border. These assumptions were not met until very late in the year, by which time circumstances had changed. The consequences if the narrow front advance had failed, would have been severe.
The British historian A. J. P. Taylor credited Chester Wilmot's The Struggle For Europe (1952) as the work that "launched the myths that Eisenhower prevented Montgomery from winning the war in 1944".[1] Few historians on either side of the Atlantic accept ending the war in 1944 was possible. "Wilmot's book", American historian Maurice Matloff wrote, "must be taken for what it represents—a suggestive, provocative work on the war written from a British point of view in a period of disenchantment."[2] Montgomery's Chief of Staff, Major-General Freddie de Guingand, stated in his post-war account that he had opposed Montgomery's narrow front strategy on political and administrative grounds, but Montgomery's wartime Chief Administrative Officer, Major-General Miles Graham defended his contention that the narrow front advance was logistically feasible.
^Taylor 1965, p. 647.
^Matloff 1971, p. 127.
and 26 Related for: Broad front versus narrow front controversy in World War II information
with WorldWarII, the First WorldWar is often thought to be "a wrong war fought for the wrong reasons"; it lacks the metanarrative of good versus evil...
United Kingdom inWorldWarII covers the Second WorldWar against the Axis powers, starting on 3 September, 1939 with the declaration of war by the United...
in WorldWarII. New York: Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-1-57181-232-2. Higgins, Trumbull (1966). Hitler and Russia: The Third Reich in a Two-FrontWar, 1937–1943...
First WorldWar of 1914–1918. They fought against the Central Powers, mainly Germany. The armed forces were greatly expanded and reorganised—the war marked...
Viet Cong (VC), a South Vietnamese common front under the direction of the north, initiated a guerrilla warin the south. The People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN)...
Second WorldWar, the study and production of history in the US was expanded by the G.I. Bill, which funding allowed "a new and more broadly-based generation...
following WorldWarII. On the other hand, it is known that Mussolini early on heard lectures about Nietzsche, Vilfredo Pareto, and others in ideologically...
reference in his book Mein Kampf, would and eventually did take on a global character, as he found his country fighting wars on many fronts across the world. The...
atrocities in the Auschwitz concentration camp by destroying it or its railways by air during WorldWarII has been a subject of controversy since the...
atrocities committed by the Japanese Army inWorldWarII. Among these were General Nagano Shigeto, a WorldWarII veteran and a former chief of staff of...
barbarism" of Paraguay ruled by López. The war's long duration was justified by emperor Pedro II's obstinacy in seeing López defeated for despising him by...
Africa, in what is called the Scramble for Africa. The dismantling of European empires following WorldWarII saw the process of decolonization begin in earnest...
collaborationist Vichy régime in France during the Second WorldWar. Resistance cells were small groups of armed men and women (called the Maquis in rural areas) who...
issue (gold versus silver), the protective tariff, the role of labor unions, child labor, the need for a new banking system, corruption in party politics...
Man versus Social Forces". Social Forces. 5 (2): 225–231. doi:10.2307/3004769. JSTOR 3004769. Retrieved 18 March 2022. Hook, S. 1943. The Hero in History...
consensus among historians held that in India British imperial authority was quite secure from 1858 to WorldWarII. Recently, however, this interpretation...
participants see home front during WorldWar I. For a longer-term perspective see international relations (1814–1919) and causes of WorldWar I. For the following...
committed during WorldWarII. Serbian historian Jelena Djureinovic states in her book The Politics of Memory of the Second WorldWarin Contemporary Serbia:...
2307/3234954. JSTOR 3234954. S2CID 201392052. Martin, Ruhr (1995). "Cohen versus Gouldner: historical materialism as a determinism". South African Journal...
Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 August and 9 August 1945 at the close of WorldWarII (1939–45). On 26 July 1945 at the Potsdam Conference, United States President...
sees benefits: In many ways, this was highly beneficial: it encouraged the study of the dynamics of social history rather than a narrow formal institutional...
studies of the memory of atrocities from WorldWarII, notably the Holocaust in Europe and Japanese war crimes in Asia. British historian Heather Jones argues...
many Jews were saved by Franco's government during WorldWarII is a matter of historical controversy. Franco has been credited with saving anywhere from...
Global Information