The History of the French First Army by Marshal de Lattre de Tassigny

Author:Marshal de Lattre de Tassigny [Tassigny, Marshal de Lattre de]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, General
ISBN: 9781000458480
Google: kZ5EEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2021-11-21T02:46:34+00:00

Chapter X

THE COLMAR POCKET: THE OPERATIONS OF DECEMBER 1944

The attempted combined actions against the German pocket in Alsace (5th-14th December)–The liberation of Thann–The ‘minimum plan’ and my interventions between General Devers and General de Gaulle–Orbey and the 2nd Corps’ attacks (15th-24th December)

IN pursuance of the orders he had received from S.H.A.E.F., General Devers at the beginning of December gave priority to the operations of the U.S. 7th Army. Compared with the prospect of entering Germany, the liquidation of the German pocket in Alsace, which we did not hesitate to call ‘the Colmar pocket,’ seemed to him only a secondary operation, on which no time was to be lost—a mopping-up action on an Army level.

To facilitate its execution, the chief of the 6th Army Group decided to place all the units bordering upon this pocket under the same command. By his Letter of Instruction No. 4 of the 2nd December, he therefore modified the boundaries of his two armies and put under my orders two of the divisions which General Patch had sent south from Strasbourg, General Leclerc’s 2nd D.B. and the 36th U.S.I.D. under General Dahlquist.

It was the first time in this war that a Frenchman had been called to exercise command over a major American unit. I was conscious of the importance of this sign of confidence and this proof of a perfect brotherhood of arms. Above all, I knew what I could expect of the 36th U.S.I.D., one of the finest of our Allies’ divisions, led by a staunch chief, with penetrating eyes, reputed for his steadfastness, his loyalty, and his fine capacities in manœuvre.

But the assignment of Dahlquist’s and Leclerc’s divisions to the 1st Army coincided with the departure of the 1st D.F.L. which, according to arrangements, should be followed by the 1st D.B. It therefore amounted in reality to the temporary addition of an armoured division.

Now, by taking charge of the northern sector of the pocket, our Alsatian front—that of the Alps remaining unchanged—was extended to two hundred kilometres, that is to say, increased by eighty kilometres; on it the 7th Army had hitherto aligned two infantry divisions, an armoured division and a half,* besides considerable support units which were not left to us in their entirety. In effect, our total disposition was thus appreciably impoverished.

Such a lightening would have been of little importance had the calculations of Intelligence been correct. The 6th Army Group’s G.2 (Intelligence) thought that the Wehrmacht had decided to evacuate Alsace and that its vigorous opposition had no other purpose than to give it time to organize the firm defence of the right bank of the Rhine.†

Unhappily, that was not the case. The O.K.W. had no intention whatever of abandoning its positions, and we were soon to know that Himmler in person had been appointed by Hitler to galvanize the resistance and provide it with all the necessary means. Fresh troops flowed from the interior of the Reich and quickly lined the whole periphery of the great arc which eventually was held by nine infantry divisions and two tank brigades.

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