Chapter XXIV
Lost Opportunities

By the end of November, Devers' 6th Army Group had shattered Wiese's Nineteenth Army in a series of hammering blows, Haislip's XV Corps had led off on 13 November in the north, followed one day later by Bethouart's II Corps in the south. In the center, Brooks' VI Corps had already begun the first of several preliminary attacks to set up his main thrust over the Vosges. Nowhere did the initial Allied assaults meet any effective German resistance. By 19 November, the day that de Lattre's forces reached the Rhine, the 3d Algerian Division had finally occupied Gerardmer deep in the Vosges; Brooks' 100th Division had taken Raon-l'Etape; and Haislip's infantry had advanced nearly to Sarrebourg. Two days later, on the 21st, Leclerc's armor had begun exploiting north and south of both Sarrebourg and Saverne nearly unopposed; Brooks had ordered his infantry divisions to begin a pursuit across the High Vosges; and du Vigier's French 1st Armored Division had taken Mulhouse and Altkirch deep in the German rear. All this had been accomplished in cold and extremely wet weather over terrain that was either heavily forested and mountainous or laced with innumerable rivers, canals, and other small but flooded waterways.

The two major German counterattacks, the excursions of the Panzer Lehr in the north and the 198th Division in the south had been ad hoc affairs, poorly planned and never reinforced. The German high command and control system was incapable of keeping pace with the tempo of the Allied operations and was unable to respond effectively. As a result, the U.S. Seventh Army and the French First Army were slowly squeezing the German Nineteenth in a giant vise: Haislip's XV Corps reached the Rhine on the 23d, and Brooks' VI Corps began pouring down the other side of the Vosges on the 25th; de Lattre's First French Army occupied Belfort and the entire gap area during the same period. In the process, six of the Nineteenth Army's eight infantry divisions were nearly destroyed: the 553d and 708th on the approaches to Saverne; the 716th and 16th in the High Vosges; and the 338th and 198th around Belfort. Only the 269th and the 159th remained in fair condition, ensconced in the heart of the Vosges Mountains immediately west of Colmar. For the moment it appeared that only these two divisions (to be

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joined shortly by two more from the Netherlands) and a large mishmash of personnel and units--the sweepings from both the Vosges-Alsatian battlefields and the German trans-Rhine military regions--were left to defend the borders of the German Reich against the still relatively undamaged 6th Army Group.

The Colmar Pocket

By 24 November the German high command was constantly reevaluating the rapidly deteriorating situation of Wiese's Nineteenth Army. Both it and Army Group G faced severe difficulties. In the north, the Allied breakthrough to Strasbourg had opened a gap of fifteen to twenty miles between the First and Nineteenth Armies; in the south, French forces had made a similar penetration, thus threatening Wiese's army with a double envelopment. Isolated and beset by major attacks from the Seventh Army's VI Corps in the center, Wiese knew that his forces were once again close to complete collapse. Fresh units as well as more replacements and more equipment were desperately needed if the Nineteenth was to survive this new crisis intact.1

Initially both the Nineteenth Army and Army Group G had lacked timely, accurate information about the situation in the south, especially the status of the 198th Division in the Seppois area. Early on the 24th the two headquarters apparently assumed that the 198th still held blocking positions from Suarce to the Swiss border, not realizing that the area had been lost to the French that morning. However, even without full knowledge of the 198th Division's operations, General Wiese, commanding the Nineteenth Army, understood that the situation in the south was rapidly deteriorating. The last defenses in and around Belfort were about to collapse, and the operations of the 106th Panzer Brigade in the Mulhouse area were achieving little. With no more reserves and no reinforcements expected, Wiese recommended to Balck that Army Group G's southern boundary be pulled back to the east and north immediately.

Balck agreed with Wiese's assessment. The Army Group G commander judged that the attacking Allied army group would probably attempt to encircle and destroy the Nineteenth Army as quickly as possible by means of concurrent drives south from Strasbourg and north from Mulhouse. During the morning of 24 November, he therefore suggested to von Rundstedt at OB West that the Nineteenth Army withdraw on its southern front to the line Ballon d'Alsace-Dolleren-Rougemont-le-Chateau-Montreux. Although the proposed withdrawal would surrender the city of Belfort as well as the last German strongpoints in the region, it would also shorten and consolidate the Nineteenth Army's southern front.

Apparently OB West made no immediate reply to this recommendation, which was probably just as well because, during the course of the day, Balck learned that French troops had seized the Ballon d'Alsace2 and were

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nearing Dolleren. This news, together with more information about the worsening situations in the Belfort and Seppois sectors, evidently impelled Balck, during the afternoon of 24 November, to suggest an even deeper and more extensive withdrawal along Nineteenth Army's southern flank. Balck recommended to von Rundstedt that a new, southward-facing defensive line be established ten miles farther back, anchored at Thann and extending through Route N-66 and Mulhouse and then east across the Harth forest to the Rhine. With such a withdrawal, Balck concluded, the 198th Division, the 106th Panzer Brigade, and the 654th Antitank Battalion could be released from the Mulhouse-Seppois area and dispatched northward to deal with the Saverne Gap-Strasbourg penetration of the U.S. Seventh Army.

Balck's second recommendation created some consternation at OB West and OKW, for it clearly implied that Balck was proposing to give up the Nineteenth Army's presumed hold on the Swiss border as well as a considerable chunk of German-controlled real estate in southern Alsace. Reflecting a lack of accurate information, von Rundstedt still believed that the major threat to the Nineteenth Army came from the Allied drive through the Belfort Gap; he could not understand how Army Group G could consider redeploying the 198th Division northward, when all indications were that the Nineteenth Army's southern flank needed reinforcement. The situation in the north, he felt, could be better handled by the Panzer Lehr Division and other units already in the Sarrebourg-Saverne-Strasbourg area.

During the course of the late afternoon, as information on the situation in the Saverne area arrived at OB West, von Rundstedt began to reconsider the matter. With the apparent failure of the Panzer Lehr to accomplish its mission, he became pessimistic and notified OKW that only immediate reinforcements--at least two panzer divisions and one infantry division, all fully up to strength--could salvage the situation in northern Alsace. But OKW, husbanding all German reserves for the Ardennes counteroffensive, had little to offer, as von Rundstedt must have expected. That being the case, the OB West commander informed his superiors that further efforts to close the gap between his two armies would have to be abandoned, and that the Nineteenth Army would have to fall back to avoid destruction.

Although von Rundstedt still hoped that Wiese's endangered army could hold at least temporarily along its southern flank, both he and Balck had come to the obvious conclusion that the only solution to the Nineteenth Army's difficulties was a complete withdrawal across the Rhine, and they passed that evaluation on to OKW. As they expected, however, Hitler had no intention of voluntarily giving up reannexed Alsace to the French and refused to discuss the matter; the German political leader even ordered his army planners to assess the possibility of canceling the Ardennes counteroffensive in favor of a major counterattack in Alsace and Lorraine.

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Although he quickly abandoned this idea, Hitler remained adamant in his refusal to authorize a withdrawal to the east bank of the Rhine in the south, and he insisted that the areas of Alsace still under German control be held at all costs. However necessary or logical from a purely military standpoint, the Fuhrer would countenance no withdrawal across the Rhine. Wiese's army would either survive or die.

In the face of Hitler's decision, von Rundstedt had difficulty authorizing any withdrawals for Wiese's reeling forces. Between the evening of 24 November and the afternoon of the 26th, he approved a series of local boundary changes based on individual tactical situations, but felt he could go no further. Forbidding Balck and Wiese to redeploy the 198th Division northward, he emphasized that southern Alsace was to be held at all costs and that only minor adjustments within their defensive zones would be considered.

With Hitler's reluctant consent, OB West issued orders late on 24 November authorizing the Nineteenth Army to fall back on a new defensive line that more or less reflected the gains the Allies had made. The boundary between the First and Nineteenth Armies was again moved south, this time to Erstein, on the Ill River about twelve miles south of Strasbourg and four west of the Rhine. The defenses were to extend westward nineteen miles past Barr to Le Hohwald, located in a particularly rugged section of the Vosges. From Le Hohwald, the new westward defensive line was to slant southwest thirteen miles to Ste. Marie-aux-Mines on Route N-59 and then south about thirty-five miles, generally following the Vosges Ridge Position, to Dolleren, deep in the upper reaches of the Doller River and five miles east of the Ballon d'Alsace. The realignment would generally affect only the LXIV Corps and the XC Corps, the redesignation given the IV Luftwaffe Field Corps on 22 November. The situation on Nineteenth Army's southern flank still remained vague, as did the positions of the First Army above Erstein. Until the battlefield became clearer, little more could be done.

In the Vosges and north of Colmar, the German units that were still intact began occupying the new line on the night of 24-25 November without incident. Meanwhile, on the Nineteenth Army's northern and southern flanks, the situation continued to deteriorate. By late afternoon of 26 November von Rundstedt, with accurate and up-to-date information finally at hand, concluded that the southern flank of the Nineteenth Army had to be withdrawn immediately, and he finally persuaded OKW to approve a new defensive line somewhat short of the trace that General Balck had originally proposed. The new southern main line of resistance was to begin at Masevaux, about six miles southwest of Thann, and extend generally eastward along the axis of the Doller River to Mulhouse and then on to Hombourg and the Rhine. Further discussion between OB West and OKW provided for the redeployment of the 198th Division and 106th Panzer Brigade to the Nineteenth Army's northern flank, not for Balck's avowed purpose of striking at XV Corps' penetration to Strasbourg, but rather to help hold the new Erstein-Barr-Le Hohwald

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line north of Colmar. Von Rundstedt's earlier decision to halt further attempts to close the gap between the First and Nineteenth Armies went unchallenged.

During the night of 26-27 November Hitler gave his reluctant assent to the withdrawal in the south, and about 0200 on the 27th von Rundstedt issued the necessary orders. At the time, Wiese retained some faint hope of driving the French out of the Mulhouse area, and German troops near Seppois were still threatening the French supply route on N-463. But time was running out. The German forces holding out in the Belfort city area had already withdrawn during the night of 24-25 November; during the 26th, French forces reached the outskirts of Masevaux, threatening the Nineteenth Army's new Doller River line before it was firmly established. Wiese had no time to consider further attacks against the French flanks or rear.

The Hitler-approved directives of 24 and 27 November committed the Nineteenth Army to the defense of a vast bridgehead west of the Rhine, a bridgehead that soon became known in the Allied camp as the Colmar Pocket. Initially, the salient had a base along the Rhine River forty-five miles long between the Erstein and Mulhouse areas; in the center it extended more than twenty-five miles westward from the Rhine into the High Vosges. Both OKW and OB West estimated that, without major reinforcements, the Nineteenth Army could hold the Colmar Pocket bridgehead for about three weeks, a time span probably dictated by the date set for the launching of the Ardennes offensive. Even this task, however, was dependent on the influx of thousands of replacements for the army's eight hollowed-out infantry divisions and at least some antitank, artillery, and assault guns. If successful, the bridgehead would keep the Allies at arm's length from the German border and would threaten both flanks of the 6th Army Group's two penetrations. But the creation and maintenance of the pocket would also consume steadily diminishing German military resources that might be used more profitably elsewhere.

A Dubious Decision

On 24 November, the Allied high command initiated a series of decisions that would have a major impact on the course of the war in Europe. At the time, Patch's Seventh Army, elated by the success of its advance through the Saverne Gap to Strasbourg and the Rhine, was planning more ambitious undertakings. Despite some uncertainties regarding the security of XV Corps' flanks both east and west of the Vosges, and despite the fact that forward elements of the Panzer Lehr Division were scarcely six miles away from the XV Corps' command post at Sarrebourg, planners from the 6th Army Group, Seventh Army, and XV Corps staffs were speeding preparations for a Rhine crossing in the Rastatt area north of Strasbourg. Rather than move south, Devers still preferred to have the Seventh Army strike north across the Rhine against all German expectations. Orders had already gone out alerting specialized river-crossing units to start moving to forward assembly

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areas, and by the afternoon of 24 November, amphibious truck (DUKW) companies were rolling toward the Rhine from rear area depots and training centers.3

As yet no firm date had been set for the Rhine River assault. Before the November offensive, however, Devers and Patch had looked forward to a Rhine crossing between 10 and 20 December, and they now accelerated the projected effort to the first week of December. A VI Corps exploitation north through a XV Corps bridgehead would begin no later than the second week of the month. The project, however, immediately ran up against serious opposition within the Allied camp.

On 24 November, as the German high command debated its options, Eisenhower and Bradley began a tour of the Allied southern front. The two American generals first visited the Third Army command post at Nancy, where they found Patton's attacking forces roadbound and nearly halted. Abominable weather, flooding, and military traffic were breaking up what few good roads remained passable in Patton's sector, and elsewhere the ground had turned into a sea of mud. Additional factors delaying Patton's troops just to the north of the Seventh Army included a high rate of nonbattle casualties (with trench foot predominating), lack of infantry replacements, extensive German minefields, a growing shortage of artillery ammunition, and miscellaneous other supply problems.4

During the brief stopover, Patton urged that either a portion of his seventy-mile front be assigned to Devers or the XV Corps be returned to Third Army control, preferably the latter.5 Bradley was also anxious to have his main effort against the Saar basin gather some momentum, but judged that a transferral of forces would be too time-consuming. Instead he favored narrowing Patton's front so that the Third Army commander could concentrate his attacking forces against a smaller number of objectives; reassigning the southern portion of Patton's zone to Patch's Seventh Army would best satisfy this requirement. Although Eisenhower was apparently noncommittal, he also seemed to have made up his mind that something drastic had to be done to assist Patton.

Eisenhower and Bradley next traveled to Luneville. There, after joining Devers and Patch, they proceeded first to Haislip's new XV Corps headquarters at Sarrebourg and then to Brooks' recently opened command post at St. Die.6 At Sarrebourg the energetic Haislip proved an anxious host, exuberant over the capture of Strasbourg but concerned over the

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southward progress of the Panzer Lehr through the Sarre River valley. At St. Die, the usually serious Brooks was more relaxed, elated over his success in finally pushing his command over the Vosges and urging all of his scattered forces to continue the pursuit. Within both headquarters Eisenhower and Bradley found the corps staffs busily planning to push their forces farther east, seize bridgeheads over the Rhine, and cross into Germany itself. Eisenhower, however, quickly ended these preparations. Concerned about Patton's flagging offensive, he wanted the Seventh Army's axis of attack reoriented from the east to the north, through the Low Vosges and against the First Army's southern flank. At Haislip's command post, he even issued verbal orders on the 24th directing the XV Corps to halt all preparations for a Rhine crossing, change direction immediately, and advance generally northward astride the Low Vosges Mountains in close support of the Third Army. Supporting Patton's advance into the Saar basin was to have first priority.

Somewhat stunned by the new orders, Devers was determined to challenge them. Returning to the 6th Army Group headquarters at the Heritage Hotel in Vittel that evening, the three principal American ground commanders had a late formal dinner and then retired to Devers' private office to talk over the entire matter. The ensuing discussion lasted until the early hours of the following day and saw a heated argument between Eisenhower, Bradley, and Devers.7

Eisenhower continued to insist that Devers halt all preparations for a Rhine crossing and turn the Seventh Army north to assist Patton's forces as quickly as possible. Although current SHAEF directives had provided for the opportunistic seizure of bridgeheads across the Rhine during the November offensive by all participants,8 the Supreme Commander now ruled firmly against a Seventh Army crossing. Furthermore, he proposed transferring two divisions from the 6th Army Group to Bradley's 12th and extending the boundary of Haislip's XV Corps to the northwest. Devers objected bitterly to each of these measures, arguing that the Seventh Army was the force that ought to be strengthened and not the Third. If assisting Patton was the primary objective then, he contended, a Seventh Army Rhine crossing at Rastatt followed by a drive north to envelop the Saar basin was the best solution. On this point, however, Bradley strongly disagreed: attempting to force the Rhine against the prepared defensive positions of the West Wall was foolhardy and would only lead to failure. Exasperated, Devers countered that the Germans currently had few if any troops in front of the Seventh Army and that Patch's reconnaissance patrols across the Rhine had found the defenses there completely unmanned. Eisenhower was unmoved. He instructed Devers to use whatever strength was necessary to clean up the area between the Vosges and the

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Rhine but to turn the Seventh Army north as quickly as possible, attacking west and east of the Low Vosges. There would be no Rhine crossing. Eisenhower did compromise, however, promising Devers he would allow the 6th Army Group to keep its two divisions and even obtain a second armored division, if Devers agreed to keep his troops on the west bank of the Rhine. In the end, the 6th Army Group commander had no choice but to go along with the new directive, suggesting only that the XV Corps take over part of Patton's sector west of the Low Vosges in order to give Haislip more room to maneuver (not wishing him to be limited to the mountains). But none of the three commanders was fully satisfied with the results of the meeting, and all were stung by the tenor of the discussions. The Supreme Commander reportedly came out of the conference "mad as hell" over Devers' open criticism of his operational strategy, while Devers emerged equally angry, wondering if he was "a member of the same team."9 Thus, instead of abating, the tension between Eisenhower and Devers seemed only to have grown.

The following day Eisenhower and Bradley concluded their visit, touring the French front before returning north via Vittel on the morning of the 26th. Nothing Eisenhower saw in the southern sector of the 6th Army Group altered his decisions. Therefore, between 25 and 26 November, Patch's Seventh Army staff drew up new plans based on Eisenhower's instructions. As quickly as possible the XV Corps was to advance generally northward with its right on the crest of the Low Vosges and its left along a boundary between the 6th and 12th Army Groups, which would be pushed westward and northward in order to narrow Patton's front. Ultimately, the Seventh Army's VI Corps would also head northward on the eastern side of the Vosges, clearing the area from the Low Vosges Mountains to the Rhine.10 Satisfied that they had no alternative, Patch and Devers wanted to turn the Seventh Army north as rapidly as possible before the Germans could move reinforcements into the area, especially in the sector west of the Low Vosges along the German border.

The new army group boundary, effective 26 November, ran north roughly along the Sarre River, from Fenetrange to Ramstein in Germany; there it turned east to cross the Rhine near Mannheim, about seventy-five miles north of Strasbourg (Map 30). Both Devers and Patton were displeased with the arrangement. The 6th Army Group commander felt that the natural boundary was the Saar River itself between Fenetrange and Saarbrucken, while Patton believed that the Vosges chain was the more logical dividing line. Both were undoubtedly

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Map 30
The 6th Army Group Front
26 November 1944

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interested in the politics of the matter: Patton's XII Corps might have been transferred to Devers if the Sarre River boundary had been chosen, and Devers' XV Corps could have been lost to Patton had the Vosges been selected. The 26 November boundary was thus a SHAEF-imposed compromise that satisfied no one.11

Whatever the influence of the boundary arrangements, Eisenhower's basic decision against an early Rhine crossing by the Seventh Army had a profound effect on the course of operations along the western front. The specific results are, of course, debatable. At the time, however, Devers, Patch, and Haislip were certain that the XV Corps could seize a bridgehead in the Rastatt area with relative ease and that the VI Corps would soon be ready to exploit northward through that bridgehead, thereby outflanking German fortifications west of the Rhine. Devers was also confident--mistakenly, as it turned out12--that the First French Army, with the aid of one or two Seventh Army divisions, would make short work of the battered Nineteenth Army in the Colmar Pocket. At the time neither he nor his staff appears to have been aware of Hitler's determination to hold on to lower Alsace.

Devers was clearly upset over the results of the meeting with Eisenhower and Bradley. The 6th Army Group commander regarded Eisenhower's decision as a major error, holding that he ought to have reinforced success--that is, the Seventh Army's breakthrough to the Rhine--and that Eisenhower was more concerned with territorial objectives than with destroying the enemy. Devers judged that Patton had started his armored exploitation too early and without due regard for the terrible weather conditions.13 Furthermore, he believed that Patton's Third Army logically belonged in the 6th Army Group and that the Third and Seventh Armies working closely together could easily crack the German Saar basin defenses, if that was what Eisenhower wanted.14

Obviously these sentiments were not shared by Eisenhower and Bradley. The Supreme Commander appeared extremely reluctant to capitalize on the Seventh Army's unexpectedly rapid breakthrough to Strasbourg and the Rhine, and he seemed to attach little or no significance to the concomitant First French Army drive through the Belfort Gap to the Rhine and the possible collapse of the Nineteenth Army. Instead, Eisenhower held to his policy that called for destroying all German forces west of the Rhine, from the Netherlands south to the Swiss border, before initiating any major operations east of the river. His operational concept also dictated that the main Allied effort take place in

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the north. Perhaps no one at SHAEF had expected the comparatively small 6th Army Group to achieve so much, especially in the tough Vosges terrain. Furthermore, a Rhine crossing by the Seventh Army might well have demanded that Eisenhower switch his main effort from the sector of Montgomery's 21st Army Group to that of Devers' 6th Army Group, an extremely difficult task. With these considerations in mind, Eisenhower may have simply concluded that he was having enough trouble dealing with Montgomery and the British without trying to force through such a major change of direction in the main Allied ground thrust. The political demands of waging a coalition war could not be denied.15

In balance, Devers was fortunate to escape from the conference with his command intact, having only narrowly averted the loss of at least two experienced divisions, and perhaps the entire XV Corps as well, to Patton's Third Army. Far from being reinforced, Devers had to face the extension of the army group boundary to the west and north, which would only limit the power that the Seventh Army, without reinforcements, could bring to bear. The Seventh Army, in turn, was to lose three more experienced divisions temporarily: Leclerc's French 2d Armored Division and Dahlquist's 36th Infantry Division to help de Lattre's forces clear the Colmar Pocket; and O'Daniel's 3d Infantry Division, which was tasked to guard Strasbourg and cover the gap between Devers' two widely separated armies. As a result, Patch had even fewer forces with which to continue his general offensive. Finally, Devers still faced the loss of two French divisions for operations on the Atlantic coast. Thus, just when he felt most strongly that his command should be heavily reinforced, Devers could foresee only a net dilution of his strength. His gloom was at least partially dispelled by the expected arrival of the remainder of the 14th Armored Division and all of the new 12th Armored Division in early December, although both units needed additional training before they would be ready to fight.16

The influence of Patton on Eisenhower's decision may have been incidental, and the threat of transferring two divisions from the Seventh to the Third Army may have been only a means to keep Devers in line. Subsequently, Patton confided his belief that Patch's Seventh Army should have pushed the VI Corps across the Rhine,17 indicating that he did not share the worries of his superiors regarding the security of the Third Army's right flank. Even if the VI Corps had crossed the Rhine, Patton would still have had the bulk of Seventh Army's XV Corps on his right flank west of the river,18 a point that Eisenhower and Bradley seem to

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have ignored. Another possibility, apparently dismissed with little consideration, was to have Patton's armor-heavy Third Army supply the exploitation force that would drive northward out of the XV Corps' projected bridgehead. Although the redeployments necessitated by cranking Third Army forces into the Rastatt bridgehead equation would have created difficult logistical and tactical problems, such a maneuver was not impossible.

Discussing the matter thirty years after the event, Lt. Gen. Garrison H. Davidson, the Seventh Army Engineer in 1944, who would have been largely responsible for moving Seventh Army units across the Rhine, still felt that Eisenhower's Sarrebourg decision was, to say the least, open to question.19 At the time, Seventh Army engineers were prepared to support an assault crossing of the Rhine on a two-division, or eight-battalion, front. Citing the thorough preparations undertaken by the Seventh Army engineers to support the effort, General Davidson wrote:

It is interesting to conjecture what might have been the effect of the exploitation of an unexpected crossing of the Rhine in the south in late November or early December and an envelopment of the Ardennes to the north along the east bank of the Rhine. . . . I have often wondered what might have happened had [Eisenhower] had the audacity to take a calculated risk as General Patton would have instead of playing it safe. Perhaps success would have eliminated any possibility of the Battle of the Bulge; 40,000 casualties there could have been avoided and the war shortened by a number of months at the saving of other thousands of lives.20

The Seventh Army, Davidson concluded, had "provided [Eisenhower] with an opportunity to depart from his broad front strategy . . . and make a lightning thrust across the Rhine in the Strasbourg-Rastatt area."21 Indeed, a strong push up the east bank of the Rhine toward Mainz and Frankfurt might have forced Hitler to commit his carefully husbanded reserves in order to prevent the complete destruction of Army Group G; and in the south the remnants of the Nineteenth Army could hardly have been expected to increase their strength in the Colmar Pocket in the face of such dangerous penetration.22 Almost thirty-five years to the day after Eisenhower's fateful decision, Col. Donald S. Bussey, then the ULTRA officer at Seventh Army headquarters, retained as his "most vivid recollection of that event . . . the long faces around the headquarters when we were denied the opportunity to exploit [the] breakthrough to the Rhine. . . . "23

For General Patch and all his staff the abrupt changes must have been particularly disappointing. Eisenhower's decision meant that the Seventh

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Army's principal effort was not to be directed at Germany east of the Rhine, but rather against German territory west of the river. The direction of Patch's main push would thus have to be changed from east and northeast to generally north, a switch that forestalled any chance to develop a shortcut into the heart of Germany east of the Rhine. In addition, the Seventh Army would lose most of its priceless momentum. Eisenhower's orders required major regroupings within both of the army's corps; as a result, neither corps would be ready to launch another major offensive until 5 December. These delays, in turn, would provide the First and Nineteenth Armies with a much needed respite, during which they would be able to rest and reorganize their units and absorb replacements and matériel.24

In the end, Eisenhower's Sarrebourg decision also reinforced Hitler's own plans. First, it confirmed the German leader's decision to adhere to a counteroffensive in the Ardennes instead of switching the main effort to Lorraine and northern Alsace. Second, the decision gave the Germans a free hand to continue the Ardennes buildup, which could proceed without facing the crisis that a Rhine crossing by the Seventh Army would have created. Finally, it allowed the Nineteenth Army to reorganize while continuing to maintain the Colmar bridgehead. Had the Seventh Army begun crossing the Rhine in strength, the reserves that were later poured into the Colmar Pocket would have been needed elsewhere, and Hitler might have been more amenable to a general withdrawal back across the upper Rhine if the Reich heartland were under a more immediate threat.

Explaining his decision in a letter to General Marshall on 27 November, Eisenhower once more revealed that he had only a limited role in mind for the 6th Army Group. All current 6th Army Group operations, Eisenhower told the American Chief of Staff, "are, of course, merely for the purpose" of cleaning up Devers' area before turning the bulk of Seventh Army northward to undertake, in conjunction with Patton's Third Army, "a converging attack upon the great salient in the Siegfried Line west of the Rhine." If only Devers could "hurriedly throw his weight north," then Patton's chances of success would be greatly improved, and he was "anxious," he admitted, "to get the thing speeded up."25 Once again Eisenhower had opted for an operational "strategy" of firepower and attrition--the direct approach--as opposed to a war of opportunistic maneuver. The Seventh Army was to have no opportunity to fully exploit the hard-won successes of the Saverne Gap and Strasbourg.

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Footnotes

1. German information in this chapter is based on von Luttichau, "German Operations," chs. 23-25.

2. Actually, troops of the French 1st Infantry Division reached the crest of the Ballon d'Alsace on 24 November, but they lost much of it to a German counterattack on the 25th. The Germans then held the Ballon until the afternoon of 26 November.

3. See Ltr, Engr Seventh Army to CO 40th Engr Regt, 21 Nov 44 (as cited in Seventh Army Diary, 21 Nov 44); Seventh Army OI 19, 24 Nov 44; Seventh Army Rpt, II, 418-19; comments of John S. Gutherie, former G-3, Seventh Army, on draft MS, Oct 88 (hereafter referred to as "Gutherie comments").

4. For further details see Cole, The Lorraine Campaign, ch. 12.

5. For an account, see Hansen Diary, 24 Nov 44, Chester B. Hansen Papers, MHI. (Hansen was one of Eisenhower's aides.)

6. The account of the Eisenhower-Bradley visit to the 6th Army Group is based on the following sources: Devers Diary, 24-25 Nov 44; Hansen Diary (first draft), 24-25 Nov 44, Chester B. Hansen Papers, MHI; Intervs, Thomas Griess with Devers, 29-30 Dec 69 and 17-20 Aug 70 (copy CMH); Seventh Army Diary, 24-25 Nov 44; and XV Corps AAR, Nov 44.

7. The Hansen diary only notes that the meeting took place, and the author has reconstructed the discussion from information in the Devers diary, the Griess-Devers interviews, and Memo, Bradley to G-3, HQ 12th Army Group, 26 Nov 44, Bradley Papers, MHI (copy CMH).

8. SCAF-114, 28 Oct 44; SCAF-118, 2 NOV 44.

9. This final material is based on notes taken by Brig. Gen. Daniel Noce, the AFHQ Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations (G-3), who visited the SHAEF theater 2-7 December and spoke with both Brig. Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, Eisenhower's chief of staff, and Brig. Gen. David G. Barr, Devers' chief of staff, regarding the Vittel meeting. See Notes of 4 Dec 44, Daniel Noce Papers, U.S. Military Academy, West Point, N.Y.

10. Seventh Army Diary, 25 and 26 Nov 44; 6th Army Gp LI 3, 26 Nov 44; Rad, 6th Army Gp to SHAEF, BX-20454, 26 Nov 44; Ltr, CG Seventh Army to CGs XV and VI Corps, subj: Directive, dated 27 Nov 44; and SCAF-136, 27 Nov 44.

11. In addition to sources previously cited, the boundary material is based on the following: George S. Patton, Jr., War As I Knew It (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1947), p. 177; Devers Diary, 24 and 26 Nov and 19 Dec 44; Blumenson, Patton Papers, I, 1940-1945 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974), p. 582.

12. Indicative of Devers' early optimism about the reduction of the Colmar Pocket was the fact that 6th Army Group LI 3 of 26 November called for the 36th Division to be withdrawn from Colmar Pocket operations by 30 November. LI 4 of 2 December removed that restriction.

13. Devers Diary, 23 Nov 44.

14. See Devers Diary, 24 Nov and 5 Dec 44.

15. For Eisenhower's relations with Montgomery in November 1944, see Pogue, The Supreme Command, ch. 17.

16. SHAEF reassigned the arriving 12th Armored Division from the U.S. Ninth to the Seventh Army on 27 November 1944.

17. Blumenson, The Patton Papers, 1940-1945, p. 583.

18. This assumes, as did Seventh Army plans, that no more than two XV Corps divisions would be needed to establish a bridgehead near Rastatt, and that these two would be returned to the west bank once the VI Corps had passed through the bridgehead.

19. In November 1944 Davidson was a brigadier general.

20. Garrison H. Davidson, Grandpa Gar: The Saga of One Soldier As Told to His Grandchildren (privately reproduced, 1976), pp. 94-95; also Ltrs, Davidson to Brig Gen Hal C. Pattison (Chief of Military History), 23 Jul 68, and to Robert Ross Smith, 20 Dec 80 (copies at CMH).

21. Ibid., p. 95.

22. According to the Griess-Devers interviews, Devers and his staff were well aware that the Germans had placed the Fifth and Sixth Panzer Armies in reserve and were concerned that these forces might be used against the Seventh Army following the failure of the Panzer Lehr counterattack.

23. Ltr, Donald S. Bussey to Smith, 27 Nov 79 (copy CMH).

24. Seventh Army Rpt, II, 418, 455-59.

25. Quotes from Ltr, Eisenhower to Marshall, 27 Nov 44, Eisenhower Papers, IV, 2320-21.



Transcribed and formatted for HTML by Jerry Holden for the HyperWar Foundation