Short History of World War II - James L. Stokesbury [174]
The great race lasted a little more than a week. Patton’s 3rd Army reached the river at Mantes-la-jolie, “pretty Mantes,” thirty miles below Paris, on the 19th. That put the Germans in another pocket, and as the Americans spread both up and down stream, the British and Canadians drove steadily for the lower reaches of the river. Here the German resistance was strongest, as they sought to keep from being cut off again. Several thousand were trapped south of Evreux, several thousand more around Rouen. Most managed to get across the river, but their organization was a shambles, and their losses in men and equipment heavy.
Paris rose on the 19th. Hitler had ordered it destroyed; if he could not have it no one would. Eisenhower had planned to bypass it, not wanting to add to his supply problems the necessity of feeding several million additional civilians. He had reckoned without the French in the city, as well as the absolute determination of Charles de Gaulle that Frenchmen would liberate their own capital, and that he himself would profit by it. As long as they could, the Allies had stalled off de Gaulle’s return to France, but when he finally got over the Channel, he immediately announced the establishment of a legal government, and began acting as if he were running the country. Part of Patton’s army was the French 2nd Armored Division, and de Gaulle completely bypassed the chain of command and told its commander, General Leclerc, to go for Paris. Leclerc did, carrying neighboring American divisions along with him, and the race to get to Paris became a repetition of the race to get to Rome three months earlier. The Germans delayed their demolition plans, the whole matter being slightly less dramatic than it has subsequently been portrayed. There was some sporadic fighting in the city, and the next thing anyone knew, there was Charles de Gaulle, marching solemnly and triumphantly through the Arc de Triomphe, down the Champs Élysées, past the statue of Georges Clemenceau, and eventually in to hear mass in Notre Dame. While students, FFI, Communists, Leclerc’s troops and the Americans took on the rapidly retreating Germans, Paris celebrated the Liberation. As a country, France has been perhaps more dominated by its capital than any other, and the arrival of the Allies in Paris was the emotional peak of the war for a nation that had already plumbed war’s depths.
Meanwhile, the Allies had also landed in southern France. After a great deal of proposal and counterproposal, and requests by the British that the agreed-to southern France operation be abandoned in favor of exploitation of the success in Italy, Operation “Anvil” took place on August 15. General Truscott’s VIth Corps went ashore that morning, to be followed shortly thereafter by two French corps under General de Lattre de Tassigny. The whole force made up U. S. 7th Army, led by General Alexander Patch. Resistance was occasionally heavy, but nowhere as fierce as in the north, and Patch pushed his troops forward boldly. The French took the great port of Marseilles by the 28th, and the Americans moved up the Rhone Valley and across the mountains on the Route Napoleon, the path the ex-emperor had taken on his return from Elba.
The German defense consisted mainly of second-line troops, with a stiffening of good formations. Thousands were captured but more thousands escaped northward. By the end of August the Allies had already reached Grenoble, with more French and Americans pouring ashore behind them.
The usefulness of the campaign remained arguable. Eisenhower