D-Day_ The Battle for Normandy - Antony Beevor [236]
On 15 August, while the Canadians had a tough fight advancing on Falaise, the Poles broke through on the left. Fortunately for them, most of the Luftwaffe 88 mm guns had been withdrawn, but their advance, which took them to the River Dives near Jort, was still an impressive feat. Meanwhile east of Caen, the British I Corps, now part of the First Canadian Army, forced the Germans back to the line of the lower Dives. But as is so often the case in mid-August, the hot weather suddenly ended with heavy thunderstorms and torrential rain. The hard dusty ground turned to ‘a slimy paste’.
Kluge’s headquarters, all too aware of the dangers, wrote that the supply situation was becoming ‘more critical by the hour’. Fifth Panzer Army described their ammunition shortages as ‘catastrophic’. The 85th Infantry Division was reduced to one and a half battalions and the Hitler Jugend had only fifteen tanks left. Yet that day, while the remnants of the German armies in northern France were seeking to escape from the total disaster of encirclement, the end of the Nazi occupation of France was being sealed in the south.
The invasion of southern France, Operation Anvil, had been key to American planning ever since August 1943. Churchill had fought the idea with relentless obstinacy. He did not want to divert troops from the Italian front, mainly because he dreamed of invading Austria and the Balkans to prevent a post-war Soviet frontier running all the way down to the Adriatic.
President Roosevelt, irritated by what he saw as Churchill’s excessive mistrust of Stalin, outmanoeuvred the British at the Teheran Conference in November 1943. Without warning Churchill, he told Stalin about the plan to invade southern France as well as Normandy. The British were appalled. Stalin approved the idea immediately. He even said that the Swiss were ‘swine’, and suggested that they ‘invade the country on [their] way up the Rhône valley’. A lack of shipping and landing craft stopped the invasion of southern France from coinciding with Overlord, as the Americans had wanted, but they would not be blocked from launching it later.
To the exasperation of Roosevelt, Marshall and Eisenhower, the British never stopped trying to divert Anvil, renamed Operation Dragoon, away from southern France. The heated arguments did more to strain the Anglo-American relationship than almost any other disagreement on strategy. Eisenhower also believed that Dragoon, making use of French divisions from Italy and North Africa, would justify the huge American investment and also bring the French in as partners.
Churchill suddenly suggested to Roosevelt on 4 August that Dragoon should be switched to Brittany, even though none of the ports were in operation and the Allied supply system in northern France was stretched to breaking point. ‘I cannot pretend to have worked out the details,’ Churchill added lamely. Roosevelt firmly rejected the idea. Churchill tried again on 5 August when visiting Eisenhower. ‘Ike said no,’ wrote his aide, ‘continued saying no all afternoon, and ended saying no in every form of the English language at his command.’ Eisenhower was ‘practically limp’ by the time Churchill left.
Events proved the Americans resoundingly right. The landings of 151,000 Allied troops along the Côte d’Azur from Nice to Marseilles were practically unopposed, the major port of Marseilles was secured and the invasion provoked a rapid German withdrawal from central and south-western France. Even Hitler was forced to recognize the necessity, wrote General Warlimont, ‘especially when the first paratroop and airborne operations proved immediately successful. This was the only occasion I can recall when Hitler did not hesitate too long before deciding to evacuate territory.’ But the sudden German retreat produced a savage cycle of violence in France.
The Resistance, scenting victory, increased its attacks, and the Germans, especially