The Personal Website of Mark W. Dawson

General George S. Patton

In the book The Soul of Battle: From Ancient Times to the Present Day, How Three Great Liberators Vanquished Tyranny by Victor Davis Hanson, he defines great military leadership as the ability to lead and inspire the troops under them to a noble cause for the wars they fought. Most often, this noble cause is for freedom of oppressed persons under the enemy’s control. A great military leader also fights with the concern of their soldier’s safety and minimization of casualties, while attempting to expeditiously end the war and achieve their noble cause.

General George S. Patton was one of those generals.

Patton was egotistical, vain, vulgar, profane, opinionated, and seemingly incapable of restraining his mouth, as explained in the Modern War Institute article, “Dropping Bombs: On Patton, Profanity, And Character”. He was one of the richest, well-educated, well-read, and intelligent generals in the Army, and he was also the most audacious and unconventional general in his approach to warfare. He was a brilliant general that was unstoppable, except by the orders and actions of Allied General Dwight D. Eisenhower, General Omar Bradly, General Courtney Hodges, and British General Bernard Montgomery. These orders and actions were often based on political rather than military considerations and on their adherence to conventional military strategy and techniques to fight World War II in Europe, as well as petty jealousies and hopes of glory for themselves.

Patton was a critic of the plans and tactics of the D-Day Invasion of Normandy France (he favored a Calais France invasion), but much of his criticisms of D-Day became a reality. He was also a frequent critic of other Allied battle plans and tactics as he thought that they were not bold enough, prolonged the war, and increased the Allied casualties and civilian deaths. Specifically, he was angered by the tactics the Allies employed in the battles of the Falaise Gap, the Battle of the Bulge, and the halting of his march across southern France and into southern Germany and western Czechoslovakia.

The Falaise Gap occurred about two months after the D-Day Invasion. In late July and throughout August 1944, General George S. Patton’s Third US Army rapidly gained ground. Advancing first into Brittany and then swinging eastward, Third Army traveled over 250 miles across France. It crossed the Seine River southeast of Paris in late August. At about this time, a pocket was formed around Falaise, Calvados, in which the German Army Group B, with the 7th Army and the Fifth Panzer Army (formerly Panzergruppe West), was almost completely encircled by the Western Allies. Patton wished to close this gap and force the German troops to surrender either by battle or by cutting off the resupply of men and materials needed to fight the Allied troops. He also did not wish for these German troops to escape and live to fight another battle. His advancement to close The Falaise Gap was halted by orders from his superiors. As Victor Davis Hanson has noted in his book:

“Should we sympathize with the efforts of Eisenhower and Bradley, who had political responsibilities beyond the battlefield, to bridle the unpredictable Patton and his grandiose plans to determine the nature of the Allied advance to the Rhine? It is difficult to see how, when the lives of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and millions of innocents in the death camps were at stake. In retrospect, Patton’s order to close the Falaise Gap would have led to lives saved, not lost. Scholars today argue over who allowed it to stay open, not that it was a wise decision that it was left open, over whether its effect would have ended outright the war in the west, not that its effect was inconsequential. In all such speculations, Patton alone is not blamed.”

After The Falaise Gap, Patton continued his eastward thrust across southern France. Patton believed that the German forces facing him in southern France were thin, inexperienced, and lightly armed. He believed it was possible for him to race across southern France and enter southern Germany with little difficulty. But in early September, gasoline and munitions supplies ran low, and he was not resupplied so that these supplies could be utilized to support British General Bernard Montgomery Operation Market-Garden in the Netherlands. An operation that did not achieve its goals and prolonged the war. If Patton had received his supplies and been allowed to campaign the way he wanted, it is quite possible that WWII in Europe would have ended by 1945 rather than in the middle of 1945. It is also possible that the Battle of the Bulge may never have occurred, as those German troops used in the Battle of the Bulge would have had to been diverted to oppose Patton’s campaign in southern France, southern Germany, and western Czechoslovakia.  

The same situation as The Falaise Gap occurred in the Battle of the Bulge, a major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II which took place from December 16, 1944, to January 25, 1945. When the Germans attacked in the Battle of the Bulge, Patton was ordered to halt his attack to the east, and pivot 90 degrees to the north, and march about 60 miles in some of the worst winter weather imaginable to counterattack the Germans in the Bulge. Patton was ordered to relieve the Allied troops besieged in the town of Bastogne, Belgium. Patton thought that it was better to allow as many German troops as possible to enter the Bulge and then attack the rear of the Germans and thus encircling and entrapping the German troops. This would force the German troops to surrender either by battle or by cutting off the resupply of German men and materials needed to fight the Allied troops. If the German troops were defeated and captured, It could have possibly forced the collapse of all German resistance in Europe, thus ending the war in Europe at the beginning of 1945. However, Patton was never an insubordinate general, and he followed his orders and relieved the Allied troops in Bastogne, Belgium, thus allowing the defeated German troops to escape and fight other battles. After the Battle of the Bulge subsided, he continued his campaign across southern France and into southern Germany and western Czechoslovakia.

The Third Army’s greatest feat in World War II may have been when, during the Battle of the Bulge, it fought its way through to the besieged 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne. The small Belgium village was an important crossroads in the Ardennes Forest region, and the Germans wanted it under their control. The 101st Airborne, together with a few other supporting units, were surrounded there and completely cut off from reinforcements. The Third Army’s final advance to relieve the surrounded defenders at Bastogne was made through many miles of enemy-occupied country to ferocious resistance by the Germans. Patton’s attack was spearheaded by the Third’s 4th Armored Division. At 4:45 p.m., December 26, 1944, Company C of the 37th Tank Battalion, supported by the 53rd Armored Infantry, broke through and made contact with Lieutenant Webster of the 326th Engineers, 101st Airborne. The Siege of Bastogne was lifted.

By mid-January 1945, the Third Army, in a period of just six weeks, lost almost 5,000 killed, 22,000 wounded, and over 5,000 missing and captured. However, in return, it inflicted many more casualties on the enemy. Patton’s Third Army moved farther and faster and engaged more enemy divisions in less time than any other American army in history.

The march into southern Germany and western Czechoslovakia continued thereafter. He succeeded in entering southern Germany and western Czechoslovakia, where he intended to thrust northward to Berlin, Germany, and westward to Prague Czechoslovakia. He almost achieved this goal but for the orders from his superior officers to halt his advance in Germany and Czechoslovakia. If Patton was allowed to campaign as he saw fit, It would have shortened the war, saved tens of thousands of Allied troops, and would also have changed the map of post-WWII Europe, bringing liberty and freedom to most of eastern Europe, and perhaps a lessening of tensions with the Soviet Union.