The Folly of Generals by David P. Colley

The Folly of Generals by David P. Colley

Author:David P. Colley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Casemate
Published: 2021-04-15T00:00:00+00:00


Leclerc was being reinforced by troops from the 100th and 103rd U.S. Infantry Divisions and the U.S. 14th AD that had followed the French out of the High Vosges. The new troops fanned out on the plain, the U.S. 36th ID advanced south toward Colmar to support the French drive to the Rhine while the rest of VI Corps moved northeast to cover the right flank of XV Corps which reconnoitered along the west bank of the Rhine to the Soufflenheim–Rastatt area. The Allies had branched out from Strasbourg and now controlled long stretches of the Rhine.

But control didn’t mean secure. The troops had to be alert to enemy infiltration across the Rhine that was a regular occurrence and units were posted on the river bank to prevent cross-river attacks. “A few days after arriving in Strasbourg we were detailed to occupy foxholes on the French side of the Rhine River,” one infantryman from the 3rd ID remembered. “Facing us on the opposite banks of the Rhine were German pillboxes… From our foxholes we would exchange rifle fire when they strayed into the open from their pillboxes… Behind the German pillboxes was a high pile of coal. Late one afternoon we radioed for artillery and incendiary fire to hit the coal pile. With a few direct hits the pile was in flames. At nightfall, as we left our foxholes, we tried to stay away from the fire’s reflection.”8

In southern Alsace the French 1st Army, which had advanced through southern France on the left flank of 7th Army, scored a huge victory as well. On November 19, three days before Leclerc’s tankers reached the Rhine at Strasbourg, General de Lattre’s 1st Army reached the river near Mulhouse. In celebration, French artillery lobbed shells at targets in Germany and sent patrols across the Rhine to reconnoiter the enemy’s strength and fortifications. De Lattre had long dreamed of reaching the Rhine and pushing across into Germany as the Germans retreated on every front in France. He had more reason than American and British commanders to target the Rhine and Germany. He saw the harshness of five years of German rule in France as his army moved north from the southern invasion beaches and witnessed the enemy’s scorched-earth policy in Alsace, burning and pillaging towns and villages as they fell back. Operation Waldfest was in retaliation for Resistance fighters’ (FFI) attacks on German personnel and caused the destruction of over 7,500 buildings, the execution of 39 captured SAS soldiers (Special Air Service – a branch of the British Army similar to U.S. Special Forces whose members were airdropped commandos sent to assist the Resistance), and death of some 1,500 French civilians. An additional 3,800 civilians were deported as slave laborers to the Reich, two-thirds of whom died.

De Lattre advised Devers of his plan to bypass Belfort and drive on Mulhouse. Devers wrote in his diary: “Then he (de Lattre) could get his army together and force a crossing of the Rhine and drive north through the Black Forest towards Stuttgart.



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