Background of news –
Second invasion front Nazi’s chief worry
By Col. Frederick Palmer
A threat to the German defense of a more serious breakthrough than that of the Russian armies on the Eastern Front is that of a second invasion front in the west. It is this which may be the decisive front of the war in Europe and speed the end.
The haunting question for Hitler and his generals is not limited to an “if and when” a second front comes. They must prepare on the basis that it is bound to come while they wonder where.
In the very threat Gen. Eisenhower holds a master Allied trump card to play at the right moment on the offensive, while all Hitler’s trump cards on the defensive are already on the table. For Hitler in not having enough divisions in reserve to hold this second front in addition to enough to hold the Normandy front would invite disaster. The one which he could not pin down could make the breakthrough.
Of the 60 divisions the Germans are reported to have in France, 25 or 30 are already massed on the Normandy front. These are gradually losing ground, although yet far from any decisive extent.
Can’t draw on Russian front
Hitler can hardly afford to draw on his Russian front to reinforce the other divisions he has in France. These divisions are all he has to meet a second front and to suppress the growing patriot forces within France.
The present front in France is 100 miles long. The Gothic Line to which the Germans are withdrawing in Italy, back of Livorno and Florence, is the same length. The ground favors infantry tactics in defense. There are hedges, hills and walls for cover.
Compared to the 200-mile front the Germans are defending in France and Italy, they are already under Russian attack over a 1,000-mile front and may have to face it on an additional 500 miles. This is a patent reason why they should shorten their Eastern Front when they are in danger of having to meet another and possibly two more fronts in the west.
Counting that they have 20 divisions in Italy, 60 in France, and those in Yugoslavia and in home garrison and training, the Germans cannot possibly have more than 150 divisions on the 1,500-mile Eastern Front. Where they may have one division to every 10 miles in the east, they have one division to a mile and a half on the Normandy front.
Once the breakthrough comes
This can largely account, after they were outmaneuvered by the first impact of the Russian offensive, for their depending upon desperate resistance by strongpoints to protect their withdrawal. There were openings along that long, thinly-held German front in the east for free tactical movements in which Russian cavalry could follow through and even break through. The ground, the terrain, favors fluid warfare.
On the Normandy Front, the terrain helps to lock the door on fluid warfare and would exclude the use of cavalry as sheer suicidal insanity. The fight there remains as infantry grapple.
It is not unlikely that before our soldiers on the Normandy Front see Paris the Russian armies will have Warsaw and have swept across old Poland to the old German border in Silesia. But once the breakthrough comes in the west, we can move across France as swiftly as the German armies did in 1940.
Another D-Day in preparation may be worse news for Hitler than the first one.