I have reached 1943 in Andrew Robert's superb book Masters and Commanders. You must allow me a piece of cheap journalese of the sort that is rightfully despised by proper historians, but in my opinion 1943 was the year in which the decline and fall of the British empire first manifested itself. Of course, the earliest indicators can be sensed many years before that but in 1943 they became concrete.
At the beginning of the year the quartet marched to a British tune when the frankly ludicrous American idea of invading France was again pressed by Marshall who had even wanted it to take place earlier in 1942! There is no sin in inexperience but it is obvious that the Americans simply had no conception of the size of the task they wished to undertake and a total ignorance of the fighting abilities of the German army. It is worth quoting, as Roberts does, from Trevor Dupuy's excellent history Genius for War (I used to have a copy - who stole it? Come on, own up!)
In 1943-44 the German combat effectiveness superiority over the Americans and British was in the order of 20-30%. On a man-for-man basis, the German ground soldiers consistently inflicted casualties at about 50% higher rate than they incurred from the opposing British and American troops under all circumstances. This was true when they were attacking and when they were defending, when they had local numerical superiority and when, as was usually the case, they were outnumbered, when they had local air superiority and when they did not, when they won and when they lost.
Since the beginning of the 19th c. which saw the formation of the Prussian General Staff, followed later by the German General Staff, the German military had a rigorously intellectual and analytical doctrine for tactics and grand tactics (or, 'the operational', as it is now called). In other words they really understood war and how it should be executed, hence their superiority. If the allies had landed in France before 1944 they would have been hurled back into the sea and and the course of history would have been very different.
The British in general, and Alan Brooke, the CIGS, in particular, understood this, after all, Brooke, as a comanding General and through no fault of his own, had twice been thrown out of France in 1940 and he was all too well aware of German fighting ability. Painfully, it must also be stated that in WWII, the British army did not, on the whole and with certain honourable exceptions, perform very well. Sensitive though it is, this should now, in the 21st c. be the subject of a book because the lack of fighting skill and determination was noted in the highest levels of the British command but, for obvious reasons at the time, it was not dwelled upon and the reasons for it need now to be teased out.
Anyway, at the beginning of '43, the British General Staff, led by Alan Brooke, outmanouvred the Americans with ease at Casablanca, and it was agreed that the invasion of France must await an invasion of north-west Africa which duly took place. At the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia, the American army found out what the British already knew about the supreme tactical skill of the German army. About 1,00 Germans casualties had to be set against 6,600 American casualties, killed and wounded. However, the Americans, particularly Marshall, had also learned what to expect from what they thought of as the guileful, crafty British political and military leadership and they were determined not be caught out again. Even so, reality intruded and they were forced to accept the invasion of Sicily rather than France but they did at least pin down early 1944 for the cross-channel attack into northern France and the admission that given the huge influx of American troops and material it would be commanded by an American general, not a Brit - to the sickening dismay of Alan Brooke who had been promised the job three times by Churchill.
So the quartet began the year whistling 'God Save the King', but ended it singing 'The Stars and Stripes'!
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