The Battle of the Generals: The Untold Story of the Falaise Pocket: The Campaign That Should Have Won World War II

The German defeat at Falaise could have been on the scale approaching Operation Bagration in the east or greater than Tunisia or Stalingrad but the ineptness of Montgomery, Bradley and Eisenhower allowed much of the two German Armies to escape the Falaise pocket. To make things worse, the Allies allowed the retreating Germans to cross the Seine River almost unmolested as well. It was estimated that upwards of 300,000 Germans were allowed to escape across the Seine River. A major win here could have eliminated the need for Operation Market-Garden and possibly the Battle of the Bulge! (Some books quote lower figures.) The author covers a wide area, including the manuvering of Churchill with FDR, and the relationships of the key commanders of Normandy prior to the landings in North Africa, Sicily and Italy and during the planning process of Overlord. He builds profiles of Montgomery, Bradley, Patton and Eisenhower and will show how throughout the book how the personalities of these key people had more more often than not a negative impact on the battlefield. The main theme of the book will take place on the southern and northern approaches to the Falaise pocket but the author begins at the landings and quickly moves through the key engagements. Operations Epsom, Charnwood, Goodwood, Cobra and Mortain are mention and with each successive engagement as you near Falaise the engagements become more detailed. Mr Blumensen is not a basher; if you've read any of his other books you know that he is too leinent at times. In this book, he is more critical of people but the criticism is not overdone and is a fair appraisal of each of the key people. All the major armies are also included in the book - US, British, Canadians, French and Poles and they all receive comments on their performance but as the title indicates the overwhelming attention to this narrative falls on Montgomery, Patton, Bradley and Eisenhower. To provide the many examples of poor leadership that 3 of the 4 leaders demonstrated is beyond the limits of this review but Patton is the only general that comes out of this experience as knowing what had to be done and having the guts to implement those plans if allowed to do it. Much of the attention is given to Montgomery and he is shown right from the landings as ineffective at Caen and completely confused and unconcerned about Falaise until it was too late. He knew the weaknesses of the green Canadian Army driving toward Falaise but didn't reinforce it and at first he also wouldn't allow Patton to cross into the Canadian sector to close the gap. Bradley was once again unsure of himself and timid and would not take any risks at Argentan. Then Bradley, always thinking of gaining ground and not destroying the enemy, had a change of attitude and allowed Patton to move part of this army toward the Seine, leaving the southern jaw at Falaise too weak and even though the Allies claimed the gap was closed; it was never closed tightly and the Germans c

Martin Blumenson's The Battle of the Generals is an interesting, though never quite captivating study of the controversial Battle of the Falaise Gap, the climax of Operation Overlord in August of 1944.Blumenson, author of Breakout and Pursuit (1963) and an eminent military historian, focuses on the "big picture" as he focuses on what he frankly believes was the Allies' biggest blunder in the campaign in Northwest Europe: the failure of the Allied armies to close the Falaise Gap and trap the shattered remnants of two German armies west of the Seine River. Blumenson states point-blank that had Eisenhower, Bradley, and Montgomery paid more attention to the immediate goal of destroying the German army in Normandy instead of being diverted by visions of a triumphal march into Germany, a large number of German troops and their equipment would have been sealed in a huge pocket and the war could have ended in 1944. Instead, American, British, and Canadian generals, with the exception of George Patton, opted to stick to the Overlord plan, often passing up promising tactical opportunities and, as Blumenson often says, playing it safe.I found this book interesting in its even-handed approach of not going the "it was all Monty's fault," though that British commander's flaws as an army group leader are pointed out. Bradley and Eisenhower don't escape Blumenson's critical gaze; indeed, it was Bradley's desire to keep the more dashing Patton on a short leash that the author says was a critical factor for the Germans' last minute escape from a potentially disastrous double envelopment. Monty and the British high command, of course, get a fair share of the criticism, including the prickly personality quirks of the 21st Army Group's commander and his penchant for wanting a "tidy" battlefield.As the title implies, The Battle of the Generals deals more with high-level strategy rather than the more compelling "you-are-there" eyewitness-accounts in the style of Cornelius Ryan's The Longest Day or Stephen Ambrose's Citizen Soldiers. Students of military history may find this book fascinating, but readers seeking a more involving human-interest book may be disappointed.

The battle of the general spells out the huge fight that existed within the allied camp during the war. Patton and Montgomery didn't like each other and the Bradley/Patton relationship wasn't much better. Dr. Blumenson does a excellent job of showing how close the allies came to ending the war 10 month earlier. It's a book to add to your collection.