Editorial: Eisenhower’s strategy
There is no longer any doubt that Allied strategy aims to force a decision in Germany before snow flies. For Gen. Eisenhower now has thrown in his major reserves, or at least a considerable part of them. He had saved his airborne army and the new 9th Army for this big push.
Landing of the airborne army behind the enemy lines in Holland is accepted by most of the armchair experts as proof that the main drive is to be in the north. It is the shortest route to Berlin, It is also the easiest terrain, once our forces get out of the partially-flooded Lowlands.
There are other advantages in a northern campaign. We still need ports, especially close to England. Success in the present Holland operation will give us the great ports of that country and also facilitate the use of Antwerp. Also, it will eliminate the remaining robot platforms, which still are hurling death into London and Southern England. Moreover, a drive across Northwest Germany, with the capture of Bremen and Hamburg, would make it difficult for Hitler to pull back reserves from Norway – his best, and probably, only, source of major reinforcements.
Though this is all very logical, it is not necessarily Gen. Eisenhower’s strategy. He has a way of fooling the enemy. In the invasion they expected him to strike at one or more ports – Calais, Le Havre, Cherbourg; instead, he landed on the open beaches. In the Battle of Normandy, they expected him to batter through left or center; instead, he sent Gen. Patton wide around right end. Again, he outguessed them by repeating the Patton play, running right around Paris.
So, it is possible that this surprise left end run through Holland is to secure that country and its ports and to make a feint into Germany, rather than attempt the main Berlin drive from that direction. That is something neither Hitler nor our homegrown kibitzers can be sure of until the play is completed.
But the significant aspect of the situation is not where Gen. Eisenhower will deliver his biggest blow. It is his ability to strike anywhere from the North Sea to Switzerland. With Gen. Montgomery’s British 2nd Army and the airborne army meeting, Gen. Eisenhower has strong forces along or well inside the entire German frontier. Whether the main breakthrough will come in the north, or around Cologne, or up the Mosel corridor to Koblenz, or in the south at the Belfort Gap, Gen. Eisenhower has succeeded in placing his forces so he can take advantage of any soft spot wherever it shows under pressure.
That is why there is a good chance of winning the Battle of Western Germany before winter. It does not depend on any one operation or any one sector. Gen. Eisenhower is covering the entire Western Front but the enemy, presumably, is not strong enough to do so – not with Gens. Alexander and Clark pressing on the Italian front, and with the Russians closing in from the southeast and the east.