Strip the Fat

The U.S. was shoulder-deep last week in two great battles 13,000 miles apart--the battle of Luzon, in the Philippines, and the battle of the Ardennes in Belgium and Luxembourg (see below). As combat operations, the two seemed as remote from one another as though fought on different planets. On the plane of global strategy and logistics, they were tightly interlocked.

The war in the Pacific was ahead of schedule, the war in Europe behind schedule because of one great mistake--the premature write-off of Germany. In September the Nazi armies had been driven, shredded and stumbling, out of Russia and France. Winston Churchill arrived in Quebec saying, "Victory is everywhere." In Washington the Combined Chiefs of Staff, assuming that the Germans would quit before November, earmarked heavy shipments of men, arms and supplies for the Pacific. The Leyte invasion was moved up two months.

But the Allied attempt to flank the Westwall at Arnhem had failed. Germany's main eastern battlefront, along the Vistula River, was relatively quiet. Slowly, Eisenhower's margin of superiority in the west was worn down in frontal attacks against formidable defenses. V-E day was set back to 1944's end--then to May 1945. It was clear that the western Allies would need a lot more muscle to beat down their rugged, obdurate and resourceful foe.

But the pipelines to the Pacific were full and flowing.

When Rundstedt launched his counteroffensive in December, the Allies had to pay for their mistake. But, with their eyes open at last, they set out to pay a rock-bottom price. By quick and brilliant action, they stopped the German drive and shoved it back.

At this moment, Russia finally came through in southern Poland with what the Germans called "the greatest offensive of all time" (see below). Instantly the slack in the ring around Germany snapped taut; instantly the eastern front became a magnet pulling on German reserves, including those with which Rundstedt was still toying in the west. Much was hoped for from this new Red assault, both as a military contribution and as a balm for inter-Allied political tensions.

Yet Russia would not win the battle of Germany alone: the Red armies would learn anew how Germany fights from her inner defenses. The western Allies would have to regroup and refill their armies, rebuild their supplies. The process would be slow and painful. The battle of Luzon was not being stopped, the Pacific pipelines were not being reversed, for the benefit of the European struggle. The new reserves would have to come from the remaining fat of a U.S. not yet stripped for total war.

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