| After the spectacular success of the Normandy campaign and the breakout, September 1944 was a period of failure to achieve objectives:
1. Market Garden itself.
2. Failure to seal off and clear the Scheldt.
3. Failure at Metz and Aachen.
All along the front, the German forces were in disarray and had lost unit cohesion and much of their equipment, although they were dealing with this throughout the month.
I don't think that anyone planned or expected such a spectacular advance in August and early September. I think that both Montgomery and Patton were right to argue for a single, well supplied thrust, because the allies had simply over-reached and were in need of a major administrative pause if a general advance was to continue before the winter.
This is sometimes overlooked.
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Angie
"History is lived forward but it is written in retrospect. We know the end before we consider the beginning and we can never wholly recapture what it was like to know the beginning only." C V Wedgewood
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