Eisenhower Let Patton STARVE for Fuel While Montgomery Got Everything.

17 tanks rolled east toward a bridge at Verdon. The column had been moving fast all morning, Shermans kicking up dust on French farm roads, engines gulping fuel at a rate nobody at headquarters had planned for. One by one, the tanks began to sputter. Then they coasted to a stop. Crews popped hatches and climbed out, standing in the warm late summer countryside, staring at fuel gauges that all read the same thing, empty.

 Of 17 tanks dispatched to capture that bridge, all but three ran out of gas before they got there. It was August 31, 1944. The greatest pursuit in modern military history had just died. Not from German shells, not from a counterattack, but from empty fuel tanks sitting in the French sun. 70 mi to the east, the Zigfrieded line stood virtually unmanned.

 140 mi beyond that lay the Rine. The Vermacht had lost roughly 450,000 men in France since D-Day, half its total strength in the west. Entire divisions had ceased to exist. The German army was, by every serious assessment, on the verge of collapse. And George Patton, the one American general the Germans genuinely feared, the man whose third army had just covered 400 miles in a single month, was sitting still because Dwight Eisenhower had decided that Bernard Montgomery needed the gasoline more.

 This is the story of the most consequential supply decision of World War II. It is about fuel and ego and coalition politics and the question that has haunted military historians for 80 years. Could Patton have ended the war in 1944 if Eisenhower had simply let him drive? The answer is more complicated than Patton’s admirers want to hear and more damning than Eisenhower’s defenders like to admit.

 To understand what happened, you have to understand how spectacularly the Allies outran their own supply lines in the summer of 1944. Operation Cobra launched on July 25th with a massive carpet bombing near St. Low that shattered the German front. Three armored divisions poured through the gap. Patton’s third army activated on August 1st and immediately began racing south and east, covering ground at a pace that stunned even his own staff.

 By August 25th, Paris was liberated. The FA’s pocket had collapsed, trapping the remnants of two German armies. Roughly 10,000 Germans were killed in the pocket and another 50,000 captured. The breakout was complete. The speed of the advance created a logistics catastrophe of success. Between August 25 and September 12, Allied armies leapt from the D plus 90 phase line, where planners expected them to be three months after the invasion all the way to the D plus 350 phase line where they were not supposed to arrive for nearly a year. According

to Roland Ruppenthal’s official army logistics history, that was 260 days of planned progress compressed into 19 days. SH AEF planners had estimated that no more than 12 divisions could be sustained beyond the sin. By early September, 16 were operating there, all of them on reduced supply scales. Supply lines now stretched 350 to more than 500 miles from the Normandy beaches to the forward fighting positions.

 Here is the detail that changes everything about this story. The problem was not a shortage of supplies. Roughly 600,000 long tons of material, fuel, ammunition, food, and equipment [clears throat] sat stockpiled in depots across the Normandy lodgement area. The problem was getting it forward.

 Pre-invasion Allied bombing had dropped 42,000 tons of bombs on more than a 100 railway targets across France, deliberately destroying the transportation network to prevent German reinforcement. Germany had already seized a third of French locomotives before the war even started. The result was that only about 1if of Allied supplies could move by rail in August and September.

 The roads, never designed for heavy military traffic, were falling apart under the weight of thousands of trucks and tanks. Planned fuel pipelines from Sherborg were delayed by extensive German demolitions. One American colonel described the destruction of Sherborg’s port facilities as the most complete, intensive, and best planned demolition in history.

 Hitler awarded the Knights Cross to the German admiral who ordered it. If you are finding this valuable, subscribing genuinely helps. It tells the algorithm this kind of deep research is worth showing to more people. Now, back to the fuel crisis. The Allies tried to solve the transportation problem with brute force. The Red Ball Express launched on August 25th, 1944, and ran for 83 days until November 16th.

It was one of the great logistical improvisations of the war. At its peak on August 29th, it fielded 132 truck companies and nearly 6,000 vehicles. Running 125m loop of oneway highways from 5m loop of one-way highways from the Sherborg and Sanlow area north to Charter. Loaded trucks went one direction, empties returned the other.

Approximately 75% of the drivers were African-American soldiers serving in segregated transportation units. On that single peak day, they delivered over 12,000 tons of supplies. An extraordinary achievement under any circumstances, but the math was devastating. And this is the part most documentaries leave out.

 The Red Ball Express consumed up to 300,000 gallons of gasoline per day just to keep its own trucks running. Every mile the front advanced meant the trucks burned more fuel hauling fuel forward. It was a logistics death spiral with no solution short of opening a major port closer to the fighting.

 Even at peak capacity of 12,000 tons a day, the Red Ball fell far short of the 20,000 plus tons. American forces alone required daily. Mechanical breakdowns were relentless. The two and a half ton GMC trucks they used were designed for short halls, not 500 mile round trips. Over 40,000 truck tires were worn out over the course of operations.

 And the waste was staggering. By October, 3 and a half million jerry cans were unaccounted for, found in what Ruppenthal described as a trail from Normandy to the West Wall, being used by soldiers as sidewalks, washing basins, and chairs. An estimated 20,000 American soldiers were AW in France by that fall. Many involved in fuel theft and black market operations that further drained the supply chain.

There was a solution to all of this and everyone at SH AEF knew what it was. Antworp. The port of Antworp was the largest in Europe. 10 square miles of docks, 20 mi of waterfront, 600 cranes. Capacity for a thousand ships simultaneously. The British 11th Armored Division captured the port largely intact on September 4th.

 an extraordinary stroke of luck because the Germans had not had time to demolish it. Supporting a division through Antworp required only one-third the logistical effort of doing it through Sherberg. Antworp could sustain 54 divisions by rail versus only 21 through Sherberg. Admiral Ramsay, the Allied naval commander, immediately warned Montgomery that as long as the Germans held the Shelt estuary, the 50-mi waterway connecting Antworp to the open sea, the port was useless.

 He said it would be as useful as Timbuktu. And then it got worse. On August 23rd, Eisenhower drove to Montgomery’s command post at Conde for a meeting that would determine the shape of the autumn campaign. Montgomery laid out his proposal with characteristic bluntness. He wanted all logistical support concentrated on his 21st Army Group for a single massive thrust north through the Netherlands and into Germany’s rur industrial heartland.

He proposed using approximately 40 divisions. Patton’s third army and the rest of Bradley’s 12th Army Group would stop where they were and assume what Montgomery called a purely static role. On September 4th, Montgomery wrote Eisenhower directly. If we attempt to compromise solution and split our maintenance resources so that neither thrust is full-blooded, he warned, we will prolong the war.

 Eisenhower refused the full proposal. He could not politically or militarily halt the American advance entirely. But he gave Montgomery substantial concessions. He granted 21st Army Group priority in drawing supplies. He directed Haj’s first army to swing north to support Montgomery’s right flank. And when Montgomery later proposed market garden, Eisenhower approved it and promised an additional thousand tons of supplies daily to support the operation.

 He reportedly told Montgomery at the condandy meeting that the American public would never stand for halting Patton entirely and that public opinion wins wars. But the practical effect on Patton was immediate and severe. It is worth pausing here to consider what Eisenhower actually did versus what he is accused of doing.

 He did not give Montgomery everything. He rejected the 40 division proposal. He rejected putting an American army under British command. He kept Patton in the fight, if barely, but he also did not give Patton what Patton needed. He split the difference, which is what coalition commanders do. And in doing so, he ensured that neither thrust had the weight to be decisive.

 Montgomery was right that a compromised solution would prolong the war. He was just wrong about which Thrust deserved the priority. In early September, Haj’s first army received approximately 3,300 tons per day, while Patton’s third army got only 2500 tons. Both armies needed roughly double those amounts to sustain offensive operations.

 Of the total 7,000 tons reaching the two American armies, about twothirds went to First Army supporting the Northern Advance and one-third to Patton. The disparity was real, and Patton knew it. He told Cornelius Ryan, the journalist, who later wrote a bridge too far, that if Eisenhower would stop holding Montgomery’s hand and give him the supplies, he would go through the Sig Freed line like, “Well, he used a phrase that I will clean up and say very quickly.

” On August 30th, Patton’s fuel dumps received just 32,000 gallons of gasoline, less than onetenth of his daily requirement of 350,000 to 400,000 gallons. A separate requisition for 400,000 gallons was answered with 31,975 gallons. According to Brigadier General Alvin Erzik, who commanded an armored battalion in the fourth armored division under Patton, the fuel aotment had been cut by 140,000 gallons per day.

 Bradley informed Patton there would be no more gasoline shipments until September 3rd. Patton was effectively halted for approximately 5 days from August 31st to September 5th. On September 5th, Eisenhower relented slightly, allocating 250,000 gallons, followed by 1.4 million gallons over the next 3 days.

 According to Hugh Cole’s official army history of the Lraine campaign, by September 10th, the period of critical shortage had ended. But the damage was already done. 5 days does not sound like much, but in a pursuit, 5 days is a lifetime. The German army that had been disintegrating in late August was now digging in.

 The window Patton saw was closing, and no one at SH AEF seemed to care. During those 5 days, Patton’s fury produced some of the most memorable moments of the entire war. To understand his rage, you need to understand what he was watching happen. A single armored division in cross-country combat burned through a 100,000 gallons of gasoline per day.

 Third Army had multiple armored divisions and hundreds of additional vehicles, all of them consuming fuel at a rate that had tripled since late July. From six gallons per vehicle per day to 18 gallons as supply lines lengthened. Patton’s daily fuel requirement was 350,000 to 400,000 gallons. He was receiving a fraction of that. And every day he sat still, the Germans were recovering.

 On September 2nd, when a ration convoy arrived at his headquarters instead of fuel trucks, Patton erupted. According to Chester Wilmont in the struggle for Europe, he shouted that he would shoot the next man who brought him food. His men could eat their belts, he said, but his tanks had to have gas. At a meeting with Bradley and Chartra that same day, he made his famous plea. Damn it, Brad.

 Just give me 400,000 gallons of gasoline and I will put you inside Germany in 2 days. His relationship with Bradley during this period was complicated. Patton’s diary castigated his superior. He wrote that Bradley’s motto seemed to be in case of doubt, halt. He added that he wished he were a supreme commander.

 Yet Bradley often supported Patton behind the scenes, even starving First Army units of fuel to keep Third Army moving when he could get away with it. When Bradley passed on defensive orders from SH AEF on September 25th, he wrote Patton a personal letter that was, as one historian noted, apparently calculated to allay Patton’s frequently expressed suspicion that he and Third Army were victims of subterranean maneuvers at headquarters.

 Bradley told Patton plainly that no major offensive by American forces could be undertaken until the port of Antworp was opened. It was a rare moment of honesty in a command structure defined by politics. Patton’s logistics staff became legendary scavengers during the crisis. His G4, Colonel Walter Müller, ran what amounted to a covert supply operation.

Foraging parties impersonated members of other formations to obtain fuel. Convoys were diverted. Captured German stocks went unreported to higher headquarters so Shef could not redirect them. Patton’s troops posed as First Army soldiers to steal gasoline from Haj’s stores. In one theatrical gesture that perfectly captured Patton’s genius for dramatic communication, he coasted into Bradley’s headquarters with his Jeep nearly empty of fuel.

 Then asked permission to fill it up at the 12th Army Group motorpool. It was pure performance. When someone asked about his supply situation, Patton quipped that he was fine because he had a G4 who worried about logistics for him. He would tell you though the man fainted three times in one day. Patton also employed what he called his rock soup method, borrowed from the old folk tale about a hobo who makes soup from a stone.

 He would start a small battle, ostensibly a reconnaissance, then tell headquarters it was developing into a breakthrough and he just needed a few more supplies and reinforcements. He told his staff that Third Army was going to carry out an armored reconnaissance, but it would be done with seven divisions. He also ordered his commanders to keep their units fully committed at all times so that SH AEF could [snorts] not pull them out and place them in theater reserve.

 I think this is where Eisenhower made his real mistake and it is not the one most people assume. The mistake was not choosing the broadfront strategy over Montgomery’s narrow thrust. As I will explain, most serious historians actually defend that decision. The mistake was approving Market Garden without first requiring Montgomery to clear the Shelt estuary and open Antworp.

 Montgomery knew the Shelt was critical. He had ultra intelligence showing Hitler intended to hold the estuary at all costs. Admiral Ramsay had warned him directly and Montgomery chose to ignore it. Instead of clearing the shelt, he ordered the Canadians to capture the channel ports of Bolognia and Cala. relatively minor objectives and directed his main forces toward Market Garden.

 He even refused Canadian General Krar’s request for British 12th Corps to help clear the estuary because he needed those troops for Market Garden. Between September 5th and 21st, approximately 65,000 German soldiers of the 15th Army escaped across the Shelt estuary, taking 225 guns, 750 trucks, and a thousand horses with them.

 Those forces would reinforce the very defenses the Allies later had to fight through at enormous cost. This is the part that should have ended Montgomery’s command. Instead, he launched Market Garden on September 17th. The operation consumed resources that could have opened Antworp weeks earlier.

 The withdrawal of troop carrier aircraft from supply missions cost Bradley an average of 823 tons per day over 6 days. Bradley calculated this loss equal 1.5 million gallons of gasoline. Fuel that could have gone to Patton or to clearing the Shelt. Three newly arrived American infantry divisions were stripped of their transport to form provisional truck companies supporting the operation.

Market Garden was a catastrophe. The plan required everything to go right across 60 mi of enemy held territory with airborne troops holding bridges until a single armored column could reach them. Nothing went right. Drop zones were placed 8 miles from the critical bridge at Arnham because the terrain near the bridge was deemed unsuitable for gliders.

 A decision that gave the Germans hours to react. Two SS Panzer divisions, the Ninth and 10th, were refitting near Arnham, a fact that Dutch intelligence and Ultra Intercepts had flagged, but that was ignored or downplayed at Montgomery’s headquarters. 30th Corps, the ground relief force, was channeled down a single elevated highway the troops called Hell’s Highway.

 The road was barely wide enough for two vehicles a breast. When lead vehicles were knocked out, the entire column stopped. It was a traffic jam 60 mi long in the middle of a battle. The British First Airborne Division at Arnham suffered an 80% casualty rate, 7,578 casualties out of 10,05 men committed. Only 2,163 were evacuated across the lower Rine in a desperate nighttime withdrawal.

 The rest were killed, wounded, or captured. Total Allied casualties across all sectors of Market Garden exceeded 17,000, more than all Allied casualties on D-Day itself. American airborne forces at Eintoven and Nymeagen also took significant losses, though both the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions accomplished their missions.

 Max Hastings, a British historian, calls Market Garden a rotten plan, poorly executed. He argues that Montgomery made the singularly greatest blunder of the war in Europe after D-Day in his failure to clear the Shelt estuary. Montgomery’s own claim that Market Garden was 90% successful prompted Prince Burnhard of the Netherlands to reportedly respond that his country could not afford another success from Montgomery.

 Antworp did not open to Allied shipping until November 28th, 1944, 85 days after its capture. The Battle of the Shelt, the brutal fight to clear the estuary that Montgomery had neglected, lasted from October 2nd to November 8th, and caused 12,873 Allied casualties, most of them Canadian.

 Even Montgomery later admitted it. He called it a bad mistake on his part and said he underestimated the difficulties. His greatest supporter, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Alan Brookke, for once disagreed with him and felt Antworp should have been the prime objective. Here is where the decision becomes indefensible from every angle.

 Montgomery received supply priority to accomplish objectives in the north. He used that priority not to open the one port that could have solved the entire supply crisis, but to launch the biggest gamble of the European War. And when the gamble failed, 17,000 Allied soldiers were casualties. and Antwerp sat unused for another two months.

 Now, the question everyone wants answered. Was Pent right that he could have crossed the Rine and ended the war? His post-war memoir, War as I knew it, contains his strongest claim. He wrote that in the early days of September, when Third Army was halted, owing to the desire on the part of Eisenhower to back Montgomery’s move to the North.

 There was no question of doubt that they could have gone through and across the Rine within 10 days. He believed this would have saved a great many thousand men. The serious historians are more cautious, and I think their caution is warranted. Martin Van Crevel conducted the most rigorous logistical analysis in his book Supplying War.

 He calculated that Montgomery’s proposed 40 division thrust would realistically shrink to 18 divisions once all operational requirements were factored in. A thrust to the roar was physically possible. One to Berlin was not. His conclusion was unequivocal. Montgomery’s plan did not present a real alternative to Eisenhower’s strategy.

 Rupenthal’s official logistics history is even more decisive. He found that the assumptions underlying any narrow thrust, whether from the north under Montgomery or from the south under Patton, were unachievable. Success required reaching the Rine by September 15th, having the port of Antworp fully operational, and having considerable air, rail, and road transportation available since none of these conditions could be met.

 Neither thrust was logistically feasible. His devastating conclusion was that the factor that adherence to both theories have neglected or underestimated is logistics. Rupenthal calculated that only about three divisions could actually have been sustained as far forward as Berlin, and even then only on reduced maintenance.

 The image of Patton or Montgomery driving an armored spearhead into the heart of Germany sounds thrilling, but the supply tail behind them would have stretched to the breaking point long before they reached the rarer, let alone Berlin. SH Aef’s own logistics chief, Lieutenant General Gail, had been emphatic. He recorded in his war diary for September 10th that Montgomery’s proposal was fantastic and highly unound logistically.

 Venrevel’s independent analysis confirmed this. He found that Montgomery’s 40 divisions would shrink to 18. And even that estimate assumed levels of transportation efficiency that did not exist in September of 1944. Carlo Deste provides what I consider the most balanced assessment. He writes that not only was it politically impossible to have permitted the British to win the war through the narrow front strategy, but there is ample evidence to question whether such a drive, if mounted, could have been logistically sustained beyond

the ruer. There is one more perspective worth considering. BH Little Hart interviewed over a hundred German generals after the war and recorded their consensus that a single axis advance would have accelerated Germany’s collapse. German General Curt Meyer stated that the ruler lay undefended in front of the Allied spearheads and nothing could have prevented Montgomery from occupying Germany’s weapons forge.

This sounds compelling, but I think you have to read German General’s postwar testimony carefully. Defeated commanders have every reason to argue the Allies could have won faster because it makes their own defeat seem more inevitable and less their fault. It is self-serving testimony and the serious historians treat it accordingly.

 What carries more weight in my view is the testimony of Montgomery’s own subordinates. His chief of staff, Major General Francis Duingan, wrote in 1946 that Eisenhower was right when in August he decided he could not concentrate sufficient resources for one strong thrust into Germany with the hope of decisive results.

 30th Corps commander, Lieutenant General Horox agreed. Eisenhower, as the Supreme Commander, was correct to turn it down at his level. When Montgomery’s own people disagreed with him, the argument is effectively settled. I have to be fair to Eisenhower here because the title of this video stacks the deck against him.

 His broadfront decision was shaped by factors Patton either could not see or refused to acknowledge. 1944 was a presidential election year. The United States was providing 59 of 90 Allied divisions, 66% of total forces. George Marshall’s August 19th telegram about American press criticism of British command effectively forced Eisenhower to take direct control of ground forces on September 1st.

 He could not sideline the American army, hand the war to a British field marshal, and tell Marshall that the great army America had built was unnecessary. As Steven Ambrose wrote, “Under no circumstances would Eisenhower agree to give all the glory to the British.” Montgomery, to his credit, actually offered to serve under Bradley if American command of the single thrust was politically necessary.

It was a remarkable concession from a man not known for humility. But Eisenhower rejected it, reportedly saying that the British public would not stand for a junior American general commanding a British field marshal. The political constraints ran in both directions. Eisenhower was not just a military commander.

 He was managing a coalition and coalitions survive on the principle that everyone gets a piece of the action. His logistics chief, Lieutenant General Sir Humphrey Gail, stated categorically that the supply situation completely ruled out Montgomery’s proposal. Gail recorded in his war diary for September 10th that it was a fantastic proposal and highly unound logistically.

 Eisenhower modeled his strategy on Hannibal’s double envelopment at Ka. According to Deste, with Montgomery attacking the Rur from the north and Bradley from the south, he feared that a single narrow thrust would expose dangerously extended flanks to German counterattack. The Battle of the Bulge three months later vindicated that fear in the most dramatic way possible.

The September 10th confrontation at Brussels airport captures the entire dynamic. Eisenhower, immobilized by a wrenched knee, received Montgomery inside his aircraft on the tarmac. According to Dest, Montgomery wasted no time launching into what Dest calls the most inmperate and foolish outburst of his career.

 He pulled Eisenhower’s recent cables from his pocket and declared them rubbish. Eisenhower sat in stony silence. When Montgomery finally paused, Eisenhower put his hand on Montgomery’s knee and said gently but firmly, “Steady, Monty, you cannot speak to me like that. I am your boss.” For one of the few times in his career, Montgomery muttered an apology.

Despite this confrontation, Eisenhower approved Market Garden days later. I think that approval partly to test the narrow thrust concept and partly to accommodate his most difficult subordinate was his true failure. Not the broadfront decision, not the fuel allocation, the failure to say no to market garden and yes to Antworp.

Montgomery later dismissed Eisenhower with a line that perfectly encapsulates his arrogance. Nice chap, he said. No, soldier. I think Montgomery was wrong about that. Eisenhower was a soldier. He was just a soldier who had to manage a coalition and that is a harder job than commanding an army group.

 Patton viewed SH AEF as a second enemy. He told his staff they had two enemies to fight, the Germans and SH AEF. He wrote to his wife Beatatric that God should deliver them from their friends because they could handle the enemy. After visiting Eisenhower in late September, his diary recorded that Ike called Montgomery a clever son of a which Patton found encouraging.

 In February of 1945, Patton wrote Beatatrice again. If you hear I was on the defensive, it was not the enemy who put me there. I do not see much future for me in this war. There are too many safety first people running it. The consequences cascaded through the autumn and into winter. Patton’s third army, which had covered 400 miles in one month across France, managed only 46 miles in the next three months, grinding through Lraine from the Moselle to the SAR.

 Liddell Hart observed that Patton began to cross the Moselle as early as September 5th, yet was little farther forward two weeks later, or indeed two months later. The Lraine campaign became a nutritional slog through mud, rain, and fortified positions that Patton was uniquely unsuited for. He was a pursuit commander forced into position warfare, and the results showed.

 He suffered his only military defeat of the war at Fort Giant in October, where repeated infantry assaults against a World War I era fortress complex failed with significant casualties. Mets, one of Europe’s most heavily fortified cities whose defenses had not been taken by storm since the fifth century, did not fall until late November.

 The last forts around Mets held out until December 13th. Deste called the Lraine campaign one of Patton’s least successful operations. And I think he was right. Patton was brilliant at pursuit warfare, possibly the best in the American army. He was not brilliant at the kind of grinding attritional fighting that the supply shortage forced upon him.

 Both things are true. But what happened next was worse. The breathing space allowed Hitler to rebuild. On September 2nd, the same day Patton was screaming for gasoline at Charter, Hitler ordered the creation of 25 new Volks Grenadier divisions and 10 new Panzer brigades. By September 10th, more than 200,000 workers were reinforcing the Zeke freed line.

 Russell Wgley in Eisenhower’s lieutenants makes a different critique entirely. He argues that the fundamental problem was not the Broadfront strategy itself, but that the Anglo-American alliance had not given Eisenhower enough troops to carry it out safely. The 89 division gamble, the decision to cap the American army at 89 divisions rather than build the 120 originally planned left insufficient forces to hold a 500 km front while simultaneously attacking.

The supply crisis exposed this deeper structural weakness. The autumn stalemate, three Allied army groups stalled at Germany’s borders with the Zeke freed line fully garrisoned and bad weather grounding the air support that was supposed to substitute for missing ground divisions set the stage directly for the Battle of the Bulge.

 On December 16th, 1944, Hitler launched three armies through the Arden, the same lightly held sector that Allied command had left thinly defended. The surprise offensive cost approximately 89,000 American casualties, including 19,000 killed. I think it is fair to say that the bulge was in part a consequence of the supply decisions made 3 months earlier.

 Not because Eisenhower caused it directly, but because the failure to end the war in September gave Hitler the time and space to rebuild the striking forces he threw into the Ardens. Ironically, it was the bulge that gave Patton his finest moment. When Eisenhower asked at the Verden conference on December 19th who could relieve Bastonia, Patton said he could attack in 48 hours with three divisions.

 His aid, Colonel Charles Codman, recorded the reaction. There was a stir, a shuffling of feet. As those present straightened up in their chairs, in some faces, skepticism, but through the room, a current of excitement leaped like a flame. Patton pulled it off. Third Army executed a famous 90deree turn in winter conditions that remains one of the most impressive operational maneuvers in military history.

 Martin Blumenson called it the sublime moment of his career. In my view, the real tragedy of September 1944 is not that Eisenhower chose Montgomery over Patton. It is that no one in the Allied high command forced the one decision that could have changed everything. Open Antworp first. Everything else was secondary.

 The entire debate between broad front and narrow thrust was academic without a functioning deep waterport. and Montgomery, the man who received supply priority specifically to accomplish objectives in the north, squandered it on a gamble instead of doing the hard, unglamorous work of clearing the shelt. I want to be clear about what I am not saying.

 I’m not saying Patton could have ended the war alone. The evidence does not support that. Two core at the end of a 500 mile supply line without a functioning port, without secure flanks, could not have conquered Germany by themselves, no matter how brilliant the commander. What I am saying is that the Allied high command had collectively the resources to potentially end the war in 1944 and they failed to concentrate those resources on the objectives that mattered.

 Patton saw a piece of the picture clearly, the vulnerability of the German front. Montgomery saw another piece, the need for concentration. Eisenhower saw the political reality. None of them saw the whole board. The man who came closest to having the whole picture, Admiral Ramsay, who kept insisting on Antwerp, was overruled by men who outranked him.

 Patton was right that a window existed. Montgomery was right that concentration of force mattered. Eisenhower was right that coalition politics could not be ignored. All three missed the essential point and tens of thousands of men paid for it between September 1944 and May 1945. Ironically, Patton got his vindication 6 months later.

 On March 22nd, 1945, his third army sneaked across the Rine at Oppenheim the night before Montgomery’s massive setpiece crossing, Operation Plunder. Montgomery had spent weeks preparing his crossing with meticulous planning, stockpiling supplies, and assembling a force of over a million men. Patton did it with a few assault boats on a quiet night when the Germans were not looking.

 He called Bradley the next morning. Brad, do not tell anyone, but I am across. Then, hours later, unable to contain himself, he called again, “For God’s sake, tell the world we are across. I want the world to know Third Army made it before Monty.” Bradley released the news at a time calculated to steal Montgomery’s thunder.

 The next morning, Patton stopped on a pontoon bridge spanning the rine and urinated into the river. He had been waiting for that moment, he said, for a very long time. It was vintage Patton, petty, theatrical, and deeply satisfying. The man who had been denied fuel in September was now across the Rine before the field marshal who had received it.

 Montgomery never forgave the slight. Patton never stopped enjoying it. Third Army consumed 350,000 to 400,000 gallons of gasoline every day during active operations. A single armored division burned a 100,000 gallons in cross-country combat. The Red Ball Express consumed 300,000 gallons a day just keeping its own trucks moving. Antworp could have sustained 54 divisions. It sat empty for 85 days.

Market Garden cost 17,000 casualties and accomplished nothing that opening the port could not have achieved faster, cheaper, and with fewer graves. These are the numbers that governed the war in September of 1944. Not courage, not strategy, not the brilliance of generals, fuel, and the failure of command to agree on how to use it.

Patton wrote to his wife during the crisis. God deliver us from our friends. We can handle the enemy. He handled both.