Armageddon - Max Hastings [143]
Mauldin observed: “I always admired Patton. Oh, sure, the stupid bastard was crazy. He was insane. He thought he was living in the Dark Ages. Soldiers were peasants to him. I didn’t like that attitude, but I certainly respected his theories and the techniques he used to get his men out of their foxholes.” For all Patton’s bombast, however, in south-eastern France Third Army was still struggling to win ground. The Germans had thickly sown their positions with new plastic and wooden mines, impervious to American detectors. On 25 November, Patton belatedly but triumphantly entered the city of Metz. The local German corps commander sent a message to the remaining encircled forts in the hands of his men, warning them that if they gave up they “would surrender not to fighting troops . . . and in all probability to coloured troops.” The last forts did not yield until 13 December. Enemy officers pricked their captors by expounding on the feebleness of the garrison. There had been no SS fanatics among them, said the Germans proudly, but rather a mix of old men and young replacements, in the usual muddle of units.
On 22 November at Nancy, an SS general galled Patton, who was interrogating him personally, by asserting: “The combat efficiency of the troops on the Eastern Front is far above the sector here.” Patton asked why, if that was so, the SS officer had let the side down by remaining alive. Third Army’s commander implied that the German’s undamaged condition might not prove permanent. The general replied coolly that he was a prisoner of war of the Americans. Patton said: “When I am dealing with vipers, I do not have to be bothered by any foolish ideas . . .” Third Army’s commander likewise questioned a Wehrmacht colonel about why his men were still bothering to fight. This officer replied: “They will continue to fight until such time as they receive orders to lay down their arms . . . It is the fear of Russia that is forcing us to use every man who can carry a weapon.” He added that he hoped he would be taken to a PoW camp in the U.S. rather than Britain. Patton said this was likely.
In the last days of November, Third Army’s offensive ran out of steam. It had reached the West Wall and made some penetrations after initial difficulties. On 1 December, American troops crossed the Sarre river. The Germans abandoned their efforts to hold a line on the west bank, and withdrew on the U.S. XX Corps’s front. The men of every formation in the American advance had suffered heavily from exposure and trench foot. All Patton’s infantry units were seriously short of men. They were weary, and morale was flagging. The mud made it impossible for either side to use tanks off-road, and thus drastically reduced the scope for bold initiatives. Further south in Alsace, Devers’s 6th Army Group overcame weak German opposition to drive through the Vosges Mountains and take Strasbourg on 26 November. Patton urged that at least a part of Devers’s forces should push on eastwards, to cross the upper Rhine and threaten the German First Army with outflanking. Eisenhower vetoed the proposal. He saw no purpose in crossing the Rhine so far south. Devers’s divisions, like Patton’s, were intended to swing northwards. By mid-December, their spearheads had begun to engage the positions of the old French Maginot Line, which the Germans were now defending backwards. Almost everywhere, from the Ardennes southwards, U.S. and French forces had closed up to the borders of Germany. Yet for Patton of all men, the great exponent of speed and dash, the battles of October and November had been deeply disappointing. All hope of a dramatic drive into Germany was gone with the coming of winter weather. After ten weeks of painful slogging, only more slogging seemed to lie ahead.