DAVID P. COLLEY

NATHAN M. GREENWOOD in the London Times Literary Supplement writes of Decision At Strasbourg: In late November 1944, General Jacob Devers proposed to Dwight D. Eisenhower that the 6th Army Group should advance across the Rhine. In Decision at Strasbourg, David Colley stops short of endorsing Devers's argument that he would have rolled up the German defenders on the east side of the river, but agrees that Devers would have "unhinged" the German defences. Had Devers succeeded, the last months of the war in the West would surely have looked very different. To counter Devers, Hitler would have had to move thousands of the troops then massing behind the Ardennes: so no Battle of the Bulge. We would probably never have heard of the Bridge at Ramagen or of operations Blockbuster and Plunder, which brought Montgomery's British and Canadian armies to and across the Rhine.

Why did Eisenhower veto Devers's plan? It wasn't because the Supreme Head of the Allied Expeditionary Force feared that Devers would be thrown back across the river. The German defences were not only thin - some were unmanned. Nor did Devers suffer from the same kind of logistical problems that plagued Monty and Patton; Devers was an expert logistician, who was blessed with an excellent supply line to Marseilles. Ike and Patton may have thought that Devers had a second-class military mind, but the 6th Army Group's record spoke for itself: since landing in southern France it had fought its way further than any Allied army.

Ike baulked for several reasons. First, he disliked Devers, who preferred tea to strong drink, eschewed cursing and, worse, was the protégé of the boss back in Washington, General George C. Marshall. Second, coalition politics - read Monty's ego and American public opinion - meant that (at least as far as planning went) the glory of crossing the Rhine had to be shared. Finally, Eisenhower wanted to cross the Rhine close to the Ruhr in order to seize the industries that fed the Wehrmacht.

Devers, by contrast, wanted to destroy German armies. One quibble with Colley's excellent book: Eisenhower's broad front strategy did hark back to General Grant's, as Colley notes somewhat disparagingly. But, so did Devers's. Grant went after Lee, not Richmond.


DECISION AT STRASBOURG relates the remarkable story of Lt. Gen. Jacob Devers’ planned operation during World War II in Europe to cross the Rhine in November 1944 and unhinge the German southern front. The Rhine was the main allied objective in late 1944 and the Germans knew that if a sizable American combat force could establish itself over this fabled river the allies might quickly envelope and destroy the depleted and increasingly demoralized German Army fighting in Alsace and Lorraine. The entire German front west of the Rhine, from the North Sea to Switzerland, might collapse and the road to Berlin, the symbol of Nazi power, would be open. Devers ordered his engineers to begin preparations to launch a crossing on or before the first week in December 1944 and amphibious trucks (DUKWs) and army bridging equipment, long readied for this event, began moving up from the rear. Had Devers crossed with his 7th Army the advance might have ended the war in Europe in early 1945 and prevented the Battle of the Bulge. History tells us, however, that the attack was aborted and the Rhine crossing in 1944 was never made. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the allied supreme commander, stopped the advance a day before it was to proceed. Why? Ike’s decision is one of the more puzzling of the war.
Decision at Strasbourg explores Devers’ plans in detail from the river crossing schools established to train troops to negotiate the swift moving Rhine, to the order to begin transporting DUKWs and boats to the river in late November 1944. It also examines the reasons why Eisenhower suddenly ordered Devers not to cross and studies the consequences. The book reveals the interplay between the allied commanders. Devers' bold plan, supported by many of his commanders and even General Patton, has been nearly lost to history. Decision at Strasbourg relates this remarkable and unknown story.

Advance Praise for
Decision At Strasbourg

A provocative, fresh interpretation of Eisenhower's controversial decision to halt Lieutenant General Jacob Devers's VI Army Group short of the Rhine River. Decision at Strasbourg is sure to lead to a reevaluation of the battle within the Allied High Command and how the war on the Western Front might have ended in 1944. This is contingency history at its best.

Colonel Cole C. Kingseed, USA-Ret.
Co-author of NY Times best seller Beyond Band of Brothers: The War Memoirs of Major Dick Winters



It is difficult to still make original discoveries on the military course of the Second World War today, which is why the counter-factual view is gaining in importance. Thus, historians have raised the question of what would have happened if Marshal Zhukov had not stopped his offensive after crossing the Oder in early February but instead had continued to advance on Berlin, which was undefended. David P. Colley constructs the theory that in November 1944 there had also been an unexpected opportunity for Lieutenant General Devers to cross the Rhine and to thrust into Germany, but that it had been prevented from being seized by General Eisenhower. This theory will provoke a lot of discussion. (Translation from German)

COL. DR. KARL-HEINZ FRIESER
Military History Research Institute, Potsdam
Author of The Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign in the West