Caen to Arnhem: Monty's Narrow Front

32 thoughts on “Caen to Arnhem: Monty's Narrow Front”

1. This is a profound discussion because it is both a top view of both strategic INTENT and considerations, and yet also backs this up with generous detail (and great maps) on personalities, relationships and conflicts that drive the execution of strategic intent. This applies to all manner of large organizations and campaigns, whether corporate/business or military. At my (senior) age I fully appreciate Roger's discussion – execution, relationships and culture trumps strategy every single day. Business experts have said this countless times, and Roger drives home that military campaigns are no different.

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2. Roger is simply brilliant, talk about learnt a lot. Thanks boys

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3. Fabulous as usual, thanks so much

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4. Excellent presentation, but as usual a few points but of course always up for discussion………..Gavin was not told, he admitted it was 'his personal decision to deprioritise the Nijmegen Bridge', a decision Browning ratified. Written orders also did NOT deprioritise taking Nijmegen Bridge. Also British 43rd Division were ready to execute a river crossing on the 20th (fully trained) but Gavin insisted his 504th PIR do this. On the evening of the 20th, the Germans had up to 24 heavy guns within 2-3 miles north of Nijmegen Bridge, contrary to popular opinion.

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5. That was another great episode!!

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6. Great talk, but let's be sure to qualify some things about the Canadian Army: 1st Corps is in Italy, so that explains why we have so many British and other forces attached. Also, our "reinforcement crisis" is actually quite brief (admittedly at this crucial period) and somewhat overblown. There are not enough trained infantry in and around September '44.

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7. People saying that the Scheldt should have been cleared at the same time as Antwerp was captured.

   Landing craft wasn’t ready (it was I think in the Mediterranean and the troops, who comprised quite a few different nationalities, involved had to be trained in working together for the amphibious assault.) Then after the Germans had been overcome the Scheldt had to be cleared of mines and even after that the Luftwaffe dropped mines agin into the estuary and into the North Sea. Plus Antwerp was sunder constant threat from the V2s. Antwerp was always going to take time and then you’re already into the winter weather. ( A fully successful Market Garden would have cut off the Germans in the estuary from supply, reinforcement and retreat and brought Rotterdam into play).

   And even then when Antwerp was fully open within 2 weeks a backlog of 85,000 tons of supplies had accumulated at the port, and from the second week of December American unloading actually declined. There wasn’t enough storage. Antwerp had never been planned to be used by the Americans.

   In fact, according to Roger Cirillo, Antwerp originally didn’t feature all that prominently in allied plans:

   The report stressed that the original logistical estimates counted on the Brittany ports to supply and stage U.S. divisions arriving from the states. Eisenhower justified backing both avenues with an equal sized attack by arguing that the logistical support for the southern attack was no more difficult than the northern blow. Additionally, the assessment infers that Antwerp’s availability was not an original assumption in the Broad Front plan which was based on German assumed surrender on D + 360 not far within Germany and only a month after Antwerp’s capture. The primary ports basis for OVERLORD were the Brittany Ports, the Marseilles Group, and the Channel Ports. Central to the maintenance of the American armies would be the Brittany ports, and the Commonwealth armies the Channel ports.
   -Operation Market Garden: The Campaign for the Low Countries, Autumn 1944: Seventy Years On (Wolverhampton Military Studies Book 20) by John Buckley, Peter Preston-Hough

   The Germans were on the run in August and September, they didn’t have any new panzer divisions to throw into the front lines. They just lost TEN panzer divisions the month before in August.

   This is why in September they could only throw in green and badly trained panzer brigades, and these got mauled very quickly. It took Germany MONTHS to build up their panzer divisions to use in the Ardennes. By December they had built them up, although still only at half strength in tanks compared to Normandy.

   The reason why Germany was able to rebuild for the Ardennes was because Eisenhower’s broad-front strategy got nowhere and Germany was able to keep on producing.

   Had Montgomery’s concentrated, powerful northern thrust been agreed to by Eisenhower, the industrial heartland of the Ruhr would have been reached much sooner and this would have been detrimental to Germany’s ability to reproduce much of their armaments. Their steel production for tanks was largely in the the Ruhr.

   ”This brilliant coup was full justification for Eisenhower’s decision to give priority to the capture of Antwerp. As soon as the approaches on either shore of the Scheldt Estuary were cleared, he would be able to bring in through Antwerp all the supplies he required to carry the offensive deep into Germany. It was now apparent, however, that he would not need to open the port of Antwerp before advancing to the Ruhr, for the British drive through Belgium had split the German front. Fifteenth Army on the Channel coast was cut off with its back to the sea. Seventh Army, exhausted by a succession of defeats and envelopments, was on the point of disintegration. Its remnants, retreating from the Somme before the flood of Allied armour, were swept aside by the British and driven into the capricious hands of the Americans at Mons. Here in three days one American corps took nearly 30,000 prisoners, most of them from five divisions which had been ordered to withdraw to the Siegfried Line. The plight of the Germans in Belgium, at the gateway to the Ruhr, was the more serious in view of Hitler’s orders that all available reserves should be concentrated on the Upper Moselle.”

   -The Struggle For Europe. Chester Wilmot.

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8. Wow just watched Rogers presentation, that was an Oscar winning performance. I was enthralled, especially that he had spoken to so many of the WW2 generals on both sides. His comprehensive presentation, with maps, strategy and accounts from those involved. Thank you Roger and Woody, a future question and answer session is a must thanks both again

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9. WOW!!! Brilliant! Really explains Market Garden on operational & strategic level.

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10. Fantastic presentation and discussion. Thank you Paul and Roger – look forward to seeing Roger again.

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11. The problem of logistics in the autumn of 1944 was not absolute. Are there enough supplies – enough for what? What are the objectives, what is to have priority and what state is the enemy in?

    On the 4th September Monty was told by a SHAEF intel report that the Germans facing his 2nd British army were disorganized, demoralized, short of equipment and arms. It was in the interests of Montgomery and the British to achieve victory quickly, not least because of manpower problems. Eisenhower however wanted everyone to close up to the Rhine which meant all the armies being in action (ie Patton’s 3rd). Monty felt that to have all the armies in action was unnecessary to cross the Rhine and take the Ruhr in September 1944, given the state the German forces were in, as long as logistical priority was given to 21st Army Group and Hodges 1st Army on Montgomery’s right flank for a strong single thrust, rather than the forces be spread out everywhere and that strength dissipated.

    Montgomery could have got to the Ruhr along with elements of 12AG if Bradley had shut down Patton. His plan by the time of Market Garden was not to race off to Berlin but to chase a disorganized, retreating enemy, gaining a footing over the Rhine to the Ruhr before they could regroup, reconstitute and strengthen their defences.

    From page 531 of The Struggle for Europe by Chester Wilmot:

    ”If he [Eisenhower] had kept Patton halted on the Meuse, and had given full logistic support to Hodges and Dempsey after the capture of Brussels, the operations in Holland could have been an overwhelming triumph, for First U.S. Army could have mounted a formidable diversion, if not a successful offensive, at Aachen, and Second British Army could have attacked sooner, on a wider front and in much greater strength.”
    – The Struggle for Europe by Chester Wilmot:

    ”But the evidence also suggests that certain necessary objectives on the road to Berlin, crossing the Rhine and perhaps even taking the Ruhr, were possible with the existing logistical set-up, provided the right strategy to do so was set in place. Montgomery’s popular and astute Chief of Staff, Freddie de Guingand, certainly thought so:

    If Eisenhower had not taken the steps he did to link up at an early date with Anvil and had held back Patton, and had he diverted the resources so released to the north, I think it possible we might have obtained a bridgehead over the Rhine before the winter-but not more.

    Perhaps not more then, but that much alone would have been very useful—and much more than was actually achieved.

    This view was confirmed after the war in interviews with the senior surviving German commanders, von Rundstedt, Student, Blumentritt and Rommel’s former chief of staff, General Speidel. They were unanimous in declaring that a full-blooded thrust from Belgium in September would have succeeded in crossing the Rhine and might have ended the war in 1944, since they had no means of stopping such a thrust reaching the Ruhr. In the event, largely due to the faulty command set-up and lack of grip, even a bridgehead over the Rhine before the winter was still a dream in 1944.
    — The Battle for the Rhine 1944: Arnhem and the Ardennes, the Campaign in Europe by Robin Neillands

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12. Paul, loved this episode, the political drama behind the scenes is very interesting to me. Do you have plans to make these videos into a podcast? I would very much enjoy listening to many of old and new shows.

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13. In defence of Montgomery his Chief of Administration, Major General Miles Graham, wrote to the Times, in February 1947, and disputed the need to give priority to the opening of the port of Antwerp.

    General de Guingard based his opposition to Field-Marshal Montgomery’s plan broadly on: a) tactical and political considerations; b) administrative difficulties. As to the former I am not justified in expressing an opinion, although I can hardly believe that Field Marshal Montgomery would have been anxious to commit himself, when final victory was already in sight, to a course of action which was likely to lead to a tactical disaster. As to the latter, I was confident at the time (nor would Field Marshal Montgomery have pressed his views unless he had been assured on this point) that a deep thrust to the heart of Germany was administratively feasible. General de Guingard appears to forget that at the period at which the advance would have taken place we were no longer based on the Normandy beaches. The port of Dieppe was opened on September 5 and by the end of the month was dealing with over 6,000 tons a day. Ostend was captured on September 9 and opened on the 28th of the same month. Boulogne and Calais were captured on September 22 and 30 respectively. Meanwhile the depots on the Normandy beaches were being rapidly cleared by rail and road and the new Advance Base established in central and northern Belgium. An additional 17 General Transport companies with a lift of some 8,000 tons and preloaded with petrol and supplies were borrowed from the War Office and arrived in the latter half of September and early October. I personally have no doubt from a purely administrative point of view that, based as we were on the the Channel ports , it would have been possible to carry out successfully the operation which Field-Marshal Montgomery desired.

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14. The broad-front strategy involved all troops being in action, attacking everywhere all along the front without being strong anywhere, with no concentration of force, and no reserves to relieve tired troops.

    This led to continuous fighting for the men without relief and very wet, tired and cold troops. It also led to huge casualties and meant that troops who were barely out of recruit training were thrown in. The Americans were relying on green replacements who had no time to know their squad sergeant, the company officers, or even where they were or what was going on.

    In addition to losing unbloodied and inadequately/poorly trained troops, their welfare was ignored. There was a trench-foot endemic, cold-related health issues took men off the line and frostbite became a major problem. In the Ardennes the British and Canadians had proper snow-suits, whlle US troops had to use sheets from houses as improvised camouflage. The US Army failed to issue any.

    The Chief of Staff to the then German C-in-C West, Field-Marshal von Rundstedt, later considered

    ”the best course of the Allies would have been to concentrate a really strong striking force with which to break through past Aachen to the Ruhr area. Strategically and politically, Berlin was the target. Germany’s strength is in the north. He who holds northern Germany holds Germany. Such a break-through, coupled with air domination, would have torn in pieces the weak German front and ended the war. Berlin and Prague would have been occupied ahead of the Russians. There were no German forces behind the Rhine, and at the end of August our front was wide open.There was the possibility of an operational break-through in the Aachen area, in early September. This would have facilitated a rapid conquest of the Ruhr and a quicker advance on Berlin. By turning the forces from the Aachen area sharply northward, the German 15th and 1st parachute Armies could have been pinned against the estuaries of the Maas and the Rhine. They could not have escaped eastwards into Germany.”

    -General Blumentritt in The Other Side of the Hill. B.H. Liddell Hart

    Blumentritt reiterated his view on publication of Monty’s memoirs in 1958, as did General Hasso von Manteuffel, who commanded the Fifth Panzer Army in the Battle of the Bulge:

    ”I am in full agreement with Montgomery. I believe General Eisenhower’s insistence on spreading the Allied force’s out for a broader advance was wrong.The acceptance of Montgomery’s plan would have shortened the war considerably. Above all, tens of thousands of lives- on both sides- would have been saved.”

    Even Bradley’s 12 US Army Group staff came to believe Eisenhower made a fatal mistake by dividing his forces in August 1944 – Bradley’s Deputy Chief of Deception considering that ’if Eisenhower had not been so “wishy washy” and had backed either Montgomery or Bradley in the fall of 1944, the war would have been over by Christmas.’

    When Amiens was liberated on the 31st August 1944, German documents were found that showed the Germans had fewer tanks and artillery pieces north of the Ardennes than were in Britain in 1940 after Dunkirk. Eisenhower squandered this opportunity.

    Chester Wilmot, The Struggle For Europe. Chapter XXVII THE LOST OPPORTUNITY P588

    ”Since the war von Rundstedt and other German generals who can speak with authority (Studen, Westphal, Blumentritt, Speidel and others) have all declared that a concentrated thrust from Belgium in September must have succeeded. The generals are agreed that even if even fifteen divisions had driven on after the capture of Brussels and Liege, as Montgomery had proposed, the Wehrmacht would have been powerless to stop them overrunning the Lower Rhineland and seizing the Ruhr.”

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15. Montgomery didn’t ignore Antwerp. He proposed a para drop to help clear the Scheldt on Sep 8th 1944 repeated on Sep 10th but was turned down by Brereton of the US Air Force as not being suitable ground for paras but Guy Simonds, the Canadian corps commander disagreed. This was still being proposed and discussed as late as 23rd September 1944.

    There were also several proposals to use heavy bombers to breach the defenses but these were turned down initially and then referred to Eisenhower. As well as amphibious craft needed for a seaward attack on Walcheren being in the Mediterranean. The amphibious operation on Walcheten was complex and the forces comprising consisted of quite a few different nationalities and had to be trained in working together. All of this dragged on into October.

    From Monty The Field-Marshal:

    In fact Eisenhower’s headquarters had ruled out Monty’s appeal for an airborne assault on Walcheren early in September, repeated on 10 September; they had also ruled out Monty’s requests for a series of heavy bomber attacks to inundate the German defences on 29 September – and when Teddder informed Monty on 7 October that Leigh-Mallory was departing to South-East Asia and would not be replaced as Air C-in-C, Monty had told Eisenhower of his ‘considerable alarm’.

    -Monty, The Field-Marshal 1944–1976. Nigel Hamilton

    Montgomery had to protect his flank, what forces did he have left available with which to reinforce the Canadians much more than he in fact did? Montgomery met Eisenhower and explained that he didn’t have sufficient forces to achieve his objectives and he required 12 American divisions from Bradley’s armies to cover his right flank so that he concentrate his own resources on Antwerp but Eisenhower refused. Eisenhower had stretched everyone too thin.

    ”As Supreme Commander and Ground Force Commander, Eisenhower should have given Montgomery a direct order to clear the Scheldt early in September. However, on the day Antwerp fell, Eisenhower’s new directive ordered ‘the forces north-west of the Ardennes’—21st Army Group and two corps of the US First Army—‘to secure Antwerp, reach the sector of the Rhine covering the Ruhr and then seize the Ruhr.’ In other words, not one priority task, but three. Antwerp was already secure but the task given to ‘the forces north-west of the Ardennes’ was formidable enough and would absorb every division Montgomery had or could borrow. This left him with nothing to spare to assist the Canadians in the clearing of the Scheldt—and that task was not specified in Eisenhower’s orders at all.”
    — The Battle for the Rhine 1944: Arnhem and the Ardennes, the Campaign in Europe by Robin Neillands

    Antwerp only became an issue later when Bradley and Patton failed to do their job in Brittany, the American’s prodigious expenditure of ammunition, maintenance issues and lack of grip from the top began to bite.

    Eisenhower sent Montgomery a message stating that unless Antwerp was producing by the middle of November then entire operations would come to a standstill, so it’s hard to see how Antwerp delayed anything by very long since Antwerp was opened before the end of November. (Accepting the middle of November as true, I’m not sure because in November there were still some 600,000 long tons of supplies stockpiled in the Normandy lodgment area but an inability to deliver them)

    Eisenhower was certainly not telling Montgomery to halt and clear Antwerp first and disregard the Ruhr for the time being.

    The Scheldt wasn’t the priority when Market Garden was devised. Nor did Eisenhower think so either. He told Monty on September 9th the attack towards the Ruhr could be done at the same time and that the advance eastwards need not be halted. Not clearing the Scheldt didn’t stop the Americans from opening up the major US 1st Army attacks towards Aachen and the Hurtgen Forest from late September, which was far greater supplied than Market Garden.

    Eisenhower’s orders specifically state the Ruhr was to be captured.

    ”I not only approved Market-Garden, I insisted upon it. We needed a bridgehead over the Rhine If that could be accomplished I was quite willing to wait on all other operations.”
    – Eisenhower

    Eisenhower’s orders specifically state the Ruhr was to be captured. On the 9th September 1944 Eisenhower’s communication to Montgomery declared this:

    ”My intention is to initially occupy the Saar and the Ruhr, and by the time we have done this both Le Havre and Antwerp should be available to maintain one or both of the thrusts you mention.”

    Eisenhower wrote to Monty and Bradley on 14 September – the day the first battle for Aachen began and three days before Market Garden started – he had predicted: 'We shall soon, I hope, have achieved all the objectives set forth in my directive of September 4 and shall then be in possession of the Ruhr, the Saar and the Frankfurt areas.' With that much achieved, Ike added, he proposed moving on Berlin with both Army Groups and 'would like his Commanders' views on the best route – or routes'.

    ”At the ‪September 10‬ conference in Brussels Field-Marshall Montgomery was therefore authorised to defer the clearing out of the Antwerp approaches in an effort to seize the Bridgehead I wanted.”
    – CRUSADE IN EUROPEDWIGHT D. EISENHOWER 1948Page 336

    Montgomery was actually doing exactly as he was ordered – Antwerp, take the channel ports, te Rhine, prepare for an assault on the Ruhr – these were Eisenhower’s orders.

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16. Came in late during the last bit, but went back to the beginning and it was very much worth it. Learned a great deal from Roger which he presented in an objective manner. Some controversy was cleared up yet still there are things that may never be agreed upon. One thing I think we all can agree upon was the courage, skill and sacrifice of all the allied soldiers who fought Market Garden, especially the British 1st Airborne Division.

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17. People talking about victory disease are off base I think.

    As Stephen Ashley Hart has noted, senior British commanders recognised that if their forces suffered devastating losses defeating the Germans in North-west Europe, British influence on post-war Europe would be diminished: Britain had not just to win the war but also the ensuing peace as well. Montgomery’s dispute with Eisenhower over theatre strategy and command reflected his determination “to maintain” the campaign on “lines most suitable to Britain, because it was of no avail to win the war strategically if Britain lost it politically. The maintenance of Britain’s international influence necessitated that British forces played a prominent role in the prosecution of the vital North-west Europe campaign; Britain’s post-war political prestige rested in part on the glory that her soldiers won on the battlefields of Europe.

    However, if Britain maintained such a high profile, with the 21st Army Group spearheading the Allied onslaught against the German Army in the West (Westheer), its forces would incur severe casualties. These partly irreplaceable losses would compel the army group to disband formations, thus reducing its already meagre peak strength of 16 divisions. The fewer the divisions with which the British army emerged at the war’s end, the weaker its influence on Europe would be in the face of the growing might of two nascent superpowers. Indeed, by 1945, the American forces deployed in the theatre outnumbered the British Commonwealth’s forces by three to one. Montgomery’s generalship qsought to achieve a high British military profile while paradoxically avoiding the casualties that went with such a profile. The longer the war lasted, moreover, the smaller would be the British effort in North-west Europe comparison with that of the ever increasing American forces. Thus the British remained more interested in achieving victory quickly than the Americans, since the British economy and man-power situation demanded victory in 1944: no later.

    The 21st Army Group, however, possessed insufficient resources to achieve early victory by itself, unless the Germans collapsed unexpectedly. Equally, Montgomery could not afford to sustain the heavy casualties that would be incurred in a British-dominated attempt to secure swift strategic victory over the Westheer. Should such a full-blown British offensive effort fail, Montgomery’s emasculated army group might be reduced to a secondary role in the theatre, left merely to observe America’s defeat of the Wehrmacht.

    On the 4th September Monty was told by a SHAEF intel report that the Germans facing his 2nd British army were disorganized, demoralized, short of equipment and arms, so he tried to hit them hard and force a crossing at the Rhine as quickly as he could, before the winter weather and before the Germans could regroup, strengthen their defences and bring reinforcements in. (Eisenhower’s dilly-dallying however meant that MG didn’t start until Sep 17th 1944)

    If 21AG concentrated on clearing the Scheldt first then the Germans would probably have blown the bridges over the Waal and everywhere else in advance of the British and Canadian advance. Market Garden had the practical goal of ensuring that these major bridges were captured intact. And if they didn’t get there before the freezing weather Monty had already predicted no river assaults would be possible during ice season as pontoon bridges couldn’t be placed on the Rhine.

    The launching of Market-Garden is more intelligible in this context. The operation reflected Montgomery’s attempt to exploit an apparently unique fleeting battlefield opportunity. If Montgomery’s forces succeeded in capturing the Ruhr it might just deliver the crucial knock-blow to end the war, without the army group’s forces being devastated in the process.

    Although it failed to obtain a bridgehead over the Rhine British forces didn’t have to fight through the southern Netherlands through the winter of 1944/1945 as they were already there due to Market Garden.

    There almost certainly would have been more difficulties and more casualties had a British 2nd Army ground advance been carried out later in worse weather and strengthened German defences.

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18. US forces didn’t have a decent port to sustain them because they didn’t do their jobs in Brittany.

    The plan was for the Atlantic ports to be the main US supply method. This was meant to enable the US to land everything direct from the USA. Everything planned for the US Army was built around that fact.

    The French railways south of The Loire were left relatively intact because it was planned that they would be used to move the supplies inland from Quiberon Bay. The planners had factored this in so Brest would have been a game-changer if only Bradley had managed to take it more quickly before it was destroyed.

    Even then there was a plan for a pre-fabricated port to be built. See OPERATION CHASTITY.

    Bradley and Patton were supposed to clear the Brest peninsula and the approaches to Quiberon Bay. They failed to do this which meant they didn’t have a large port to supply them.

    Eisenhower cancelled the plan on September 7th 1944. Lieutenant Colonel Harold L. Mack, of the Communications Zone staff, described the failure to implement Operation Chastity as "the critical error of World War II".

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19. ❤

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20. Superb presentation …brilliant analysis 👍

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21. Great one with immense details.
    One bit that bothered me (and I'm sure is going to be the source of endless discussion regarding the Market Garden series) is his definitive statement that Gavin of the 82nd was "ordered" by Browning to secure that "hill" instead of the bridge at Nijmegen on the immediate drop. The main source for this being the case is Gavin's own words in the post-war investigation of what went wrong with Market Garden.
    However, this is contradicted by Browning's orders before and during the operation, and the testimonies after the war. Not only Browning but also the operational orders, the intel briefing and various interactions before and during the operation show a much more nuanced situation: first Gavin was explicitly ordered to take the bridge once he drops. He doesn't do that because according to his faulty assessment, there is a whole Panzer army preparing to attack him from the Reichswald. He communicates with Browning and it seems he manages to convince him that the 82nd must take defensive positions to secure the drop zones for further reinforcements against this supposed attack. Later Gavin says that this order was already given before the drop, which from the record isn't true at all. At any rate, the supposed attack finally comes. Tuned out this "Panzer Army" was a single crippled Volksgrenadier division that the 82nd easily brushes aside. Only then, way later than what the breakneck plan stipulated, does Gavin send a small force to take the bridge, which they fail to do because the until-then completely defenceless bridge gets occupied by a German force that manages to slip from Arnhem and builds up their defence since the 82nd so nicely given them such a head start. This meant that despite XXX Corps making good on their timetable even after the delay at the 101st bridge, they get stuck at Nijmegen.

    The issue with the accounts of this is that it gets muddled in US-UK politics. The Americans who were never that happy with the British-led operation were only too quick to push the blame on Monty and Browning and cover as much as possible for Gavin. The British needed a scapegoat since they couldn't accept Monty's plan being faulty (which it was) and ended up throwing Browning and the Polish under the bus, which can be seen as accepting the judgement of the Americans.

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22. The Market-Garden plan reminds me of Admiral Yamamoto’s plan for his Midway operation. Too complicated. Too reliant of the enemy doing as you expected.

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23. Corker. Thank you.

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24. Roger was spot with his analysis. From U.S. well done 👍
    I learned a lot from him.

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25. 'Walt Disney operation" I love it, I wonder if that's in Al's new book?

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26. Excellent! Plan Sixteen was the clincher. 🌟

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27. 👍I liked this so much I dug out Roger's PhD thesis. Looks great. Should be a book but can't find it. The Op that slipped Roger's mind was Veritable. (Which just happens to be the subject of my award winning thesis "Slog or Swan: British Army effectiveness in Operation Veritable" coming soon to all good bookshops. 😉)

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28. Interesting presentation

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29. Another outstanding, maybe the finest, podcast from Paul and his Posse. Roger gave a brilliant presentation. Never realized how close to parity existed between the German and Allied infantry on the Western Front. If the Russians did not press on past their borders, what would have happened?? Perhaps Stalin would have paused, allowed the Germans to press the Allies back and then rushed in and taken all of Europe?

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30. Combined with Edwin's earlier presentation, these two have been eye-opening. Really, really good. Thank you.

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31. First rate presentation from consideration and personal enquiry. Impressively even-handed between the parties

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32. What a great presentation. I appreciate you addressing answers to controversial questions that make sense and have facts to back them up.

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