Customer Reviews

Patton at Bay: The Lorraine Campaign, September to December, 1944 (Praeger Series in War Studies)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

John N. Rickard's "Patton At Bay: Lorraine Campaign, September to December, 1944" is certainly an academic tour-de-force examination of the Lorraine Campaign and the role of US Third Army. Readers should not expect descriptions of small-unit actions but rather Corps (sometimes Division) level action, as well as analysis of decisions made by Patton and his subordinate commanders that dictated the pace and 'style' of combat in the Lorraine region in the fall of 1944. In particular "Patton At Bay" mainly covers the period from Sept to early Dec as the Third Army's mobile armored drive of Aug shifted to several, often disjoined, ground to a largely attritional and mostly static push against defensive positions to which the Germans fell back during their rout from France. Rickard not only provides the reader with a considerable amount of historical detail but also attempts to inject perspective and unbiased analysis.

At least one reviewer has criticized "Patton At Bay" as being 'overly academic' and 'lacking in true understanding of military tactics and strategy' - this reviewer certainly cannot argue against "Patton At Bay" being a serious piece of academic historiography, but it is a bit strong to flatly state that Rickard misses the boat on the real outcome of Patton's leadership in the Lorraine Campaign. In fact Rickard is up front in saying that despite problems that arose, as Rickard concludes, largely from Patton's over optimism, underestimation of German resilience, and decision to set siege to Metz and associated 'forts', the campaign was largely successful in that the Germans lost proportionately larger numbers of men, machines and equipment and were ultimately forced all the way to the West Wall (Siegfried Line). What Rickard does is criticize the venerated Patton and Third Army as not being faultless - this upsets some. It is in fact the duty of the historian to provide a fair and balanced judgment and assessment of events and decisions, and in this Rickard fully succeeds.

"Patton At Bay" is a solid piece of historical literature that is recommended highly for those who want a more "academic" less "visceral and parochial" view of the US Third Army in NW Europe during one of its less press-popular periods of action. 4 solid stars.

There's a standard narrative of Patton's WWII "exploits," perhaps mainly formed by the George C. Scott movie: North Africa, Sicily, slapping incident, FUSAG deception, Normandy breakout, Bulge. In the movie, the only real mentions of the Lorraine campaign are its beginning and end: Ike's decision to take Patton's gasoline away, which magnified the logistics problem that was already bringing the chase across France to a halt, and the December plan to cross the Westwall, which was cancelled by the need to shift north to relieve the forces in the Ardennes.

While it wasn't glamorous, Lorraine was an important campaign that deserves more attention. This book gives it that attention, and it's a good effort.

Basically, the Allies were trapped only a few miles from the Normandy beaches for nearly two months until Patton's 3rd army led the breakout. After the American, Canadian, and Polish forces cut off the German forces in the "Falaise pocket," the remaining German forces abandoned most of their equipment and made a disorderly retreat all the way across France, chased by Patton's army.

By the end of August, a number of things happened that changed the character of the campaign. Patton's army was now at the end of a 400-mile supply line, and the thin flow of supplies was almost completely cut off for a critical week while priority was given to Montgomery for the infamous "Market Garden." The Germans made good use of this delay by beefing up their defenses. These were generally inferior troops and under-strength units, but they were stronger than they had been and now they were on the border of their "Fatherland" and ready to fight.

These problems were compounded by two other factors. First, Patton's intelligence declined as the Germans increasingly relied on telephones and the flow of "Ultra" information fell off and as the growing number of German sympathizers in the area cut off the flow of local intelligence. Patton's military power was also less than it had been during the glorious days of August because of reduced air support and transfers of nearly half his divisions to other units.

The Lorraine campaign was dominated by the fortified city of Metz, the crossings of the Moselle, Seille, and other rivers, and fights over a series of hills east of the Moselle. The weather during the campaign was atrocious, which made the rivers even more difficult to cross and slowed the going on land as well. The book gives an excellent account of the basics of the campaign as well as an analysis of Patton's strategy, tactics, and leadership. It is critical of all three, arguing that Patton a) failed to recognize that his armor-led pursuit tactics no longer were effective, b) failed to supervise his somewhat slow-moving corps and division commanders, c) got bogged down in questionable and poorly planned attacks on the heavily fortified city of Metz, and, perhaps most critically, d) spread his forces out widely in an "attack on all fronts" plan that his army wasn't strong enough to execute. The result was a 2-month-long slugfest at and east of the Moselle crossings. Then, just as they were about to launch into the Westwall, the German attack in the Ardennes changed everything and created opportunities for even greater glory for Patton and 3rd Army.

It's an excellent summary of a campaign that deserves more attention.

This is one of the only books I've ever read that critique General Patton. This book, to me the layman seems extremely well researched, and worthy of academic exaltations. The author is brave to look at the Lorraine Campaign with such a critical eye, not always welcome on American icons of war.

This is a book of precisely the quality that Patton himself read voraciously during the two decades between WWI and WWII. The author, John Nelson Rickard, is himself an officer in the Canadian Army. So he brings a military perspective to the subject in the same way that Patton sought in his extensive reading between the wars. Most people forget how much of a scholar Patton was and instead focus on his decisions in the moment, but -- like the repairman who knows through great preparation just where to kick something -- Patton's decisions were built upon thousands of hours of diligent scholarly study of books just as this one.

The research that Rickard did is nothing less than phenomenal. The bibliography alone is worth buying the book for anyone wanting to learn about Patton or about the events along the Moselle River in late 1944. There is no other compendium of such breadth and depth in any other book on these subjects.

But what makes the book even more impressive is that Rickard, just as Patton would have done, has immersed himself in reading and understanding these sources in order to place himself and the reader within the historical context as it was -- and not in hindsight. Having established this solid context of the hour, he then is able to examine it both from the point of view of one who had to make difficult decisions within the reality of that context and also of one who can look back and examine the situation in light of information that allows realistic examination of the complex situation to see what might have been done differently. This sort of analysis is precisely what Patton sought in his own reading and which was the foundation for his own perspectives.

Many simplistic views of what happened at Metz have been propagated and persist. Some of them can be seen in other reviews here. For example, the notion has persisted that the problems at Metz were so great because Patton was not given enough gas. Such simplistic notions do not make for solid decisions by future officers seeking to truly understand what happened, which is exactly the perspective that Rickard brings to the subject.

This is the kind of book upon which future officers can depend for a realistic and not a simplistic evaluation of what happened and of what the real circumstances were that led to so many American dead and wounded. When those future officers go into battle, it is solid work such as this book that will make their decisions better.

I found the book to be an exercise in academic deconstructionism. For example, the author assumed a lack of strategic flexibility on the part of Patton to deal with the static battle line. An interesting assumption but confusing tactics with strategy, especially grand strategy, is always a problematic tendency of academics. A career military professional will see through the rather weak argument and see the authors attempt to lable the Lorraine campaign as a "defeat". The author predicates his argument of the assumption that the Ruhr was more important than it turned out to be, that Patton was wrong concerning his belief that, if supplies had not been redirected, he could have pressed the Rhine and misses the opportunity to see the creative flexibility of the 3rd Army as it relieved Bastogne, a feat which no other allied commander believed could be done in less than 30 days. When viewed against the exploits of the 1st, 9th, and 5th Armies, it seems that the author is simply looking to write a book that will cause a stir about an American icon. Patton was rude, crude and certainly a primodona. He was wisely never choosen as a group commander, in my opinion. However,Patton, unlike Napolean, never lost and that is sometimes hard for "fair" minded American academics to take in light of his anti-academic approach to killing the enemy. Unlike Eisenhower and Bradely, who were overjoyed at the taking of territory, Patton, in his and his subordinates writtings, knew that to win wars you must engage and destroy the enemy not hold territory.

If our generals of WW2 had been under the spotlight of today many of our "great heads would roll". This book unravels some of the misleading "successes" we were feed by the journalists of that era.
See also "An Army At Dawn" to read about more of our human costs to glorify men's egos.

The book was shipped on time and the condition as described. I would gladly use this seller again in the future.