The Battle for the Rhine: The Battle of the Bulge and the Ardennes Campaign, 1944 - Hardcover

Neillands, Robin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1585677876 ISBN 13: 9781585677870

Publisher: The Overlook Press, 2007

Synopsis

"Robin Neillands takes on one of the most integral moments of the most significant war in our recent history. The battles of the Ardennes campaign - The Battle of the Bulge - decided the war in western Europe, and in The Battle for the Rhine, Neillands tells us the large-scale story of how this fight altered the course of the war." "Who was really responsible for the failure at Nijmegen, the destruction of the British 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem and the failure of Operation Market Garden? Why was Montgomery threatened with the sack when he had just retrieved Bradley's failure in the Battle of the Bulge? Was General Eisenhower's command strategy either workable or wise, and did Bradley and Patton undermine it? Even after sixty years, the questions remain. With superb battle narratives, and clear analysis of success and failure at every point, Neillands casts a new and informed light on the costly struggle for the Rhine--the gateway to the heart of Europe. Would this be the beginning of the end? It didnot seem so. In The Battle for the Rhine, Robin Neillands has pulled off a triumph of military and political narrative."--Jacket.

About this title

About the Author

Robin Neillands, a former Royal Marines Commando, is a journalist and writer. He has written several acclaimed books on World War II and military history, among them The Eighth Army, The Bomber War (published by Overlook), The Conquest of the Reich: D-Day to VE-Day, In the Combat Zone: Special Forces Since 1945, and The Hundred Years’ War. He lectures at the National Army Museum in London and is a member of the British Commission for Military History.

From Publishers Weekly

British historian Neillands, who died in January 2006, enthusiastically affirmed British military performances in the World Wars just as Stephen Ambrose heralded the "greatest generation." Here, he reopens the long-simmering controversy on command and strategy in the post D-Day campaign, asserting that Dwight Eisenhower may have been a "superb" supreme commander, but was "frequently lamentable" as a field general. Neillands particularly indicts Eisenhower for failing to understand the challenges to his broad-front strategy, and for failing to control George Patton and Omar Bradley. He describes U.S. policy as shaped by determination to control a campaign our resources dominated, and a near-toxic Anglophobia manifested in an enduring prejudice against British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. Monty is, predictably, Neillands's hero, whose single-thrust concept promised better results than Eisenhower's diffused efforts, and whose understanding of modern war marked him as a professional among American amateurs—Patton included. His difficult personality obscures the fact that he obeyed Eisenhower more loyally than Ike's own countrymen, Neillands argues. Montgomery emerges as a near-martyr to the Anglo-American alliance—an image sharply at variance with his own account of events. Despite constant praise of American GIs, Neillands's revisionist interpretation is likely to generate more heat than light—especially without providing significant new evidence. (May)
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About this edition

• Publisher: The Overlook Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1585677876
• ISBN 13: 9781585677870
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 335