opinions on mark clark?

[zukkov]

now that we've got cmak on the horizon, i'm wondering what the forum's view of general clark is. i really don't know a great deal about the italian campaign, but from what i've seen on the history channel, i'm not impressed with the man. at least not his ability as a commander. i'd be interested in what y'all have to say....

ps. there was a line in the movie patton in which a reporter stated that he(patton) was slated to take over for clark in italy, but that was nixxed when patton slapped the private. is that true? and what if patton had taken over? would he have done better?

[Steppe Butcher]

Clark will be remembered in one of two ways,depending on which of two schools of thought you subscribe to:-

1 -He brilliantly recognised that his capture of Rome (rather than cutting off large German forces elsewhere) would give a tremendous morale-boosting shot in the arm to the troops about to invade Normandy on D-Day.

2 -By taking Rome instead of cutting them off meant they were let off the hook to reposition.

Historians will continue debating it for evermore.Certainly the taking of Rome would have electrified the D-Day troops:-"Romes fallen! Clarks got Rome!" and that news would undoubtedly have been in the forefront of their minds as they stormed ashore in Normandy.

Incidentally,Clark had the "ROMA" city-limits roadsign shipped back to the States after the war and set up in his garden!

[ July 30, 2003, 03:17 PM: Message edited by: Steppe Butcher ]

[wbs]

From Steppe Butcher:

Incidentally,Clark had the "ROMA" city-limits roadsign shipped back to the States after the war and set up in his garden!

Well, I guess he was entitled to do that

[zukkov]

damn, i had forgotten that i started this thread! i must say, i did expect more responses at the time. seems not too many folks really gives a rat about the italian front. anyway, my own take on clark is mostly negative. he sent his forces in peacemeal to be slaughtered. and kept doing it. he failed to capitalize on his "end run" at anzio. i believe patton or bradly would have done much better....

[Ex Bellator]

Clark disobeyed an explicit order to cut off the retreating German forces from the Gustav Line which may well have wrapped up the Italian theater in June 44. Unfortunately no-one is able to check with the thousands of young men who died because of this whether the thought of him 'electrifying' minds before D-Day was worth it. I suspect that the minds of men going into D-Day were 'electrified' enough already.

Let's also not forget his instruction to Lucas at Anzio beach 'not to stick his neck out' again contrary to Alexander who wanted Lucas to push on with all speed. He thereby condemned the men on the beachead to waiting until it was virtually impossible to move out.

Also Walker's Texan Division suffered terribly in a hopeless attack dreamt up by Clarke as a diversion.

To me he seemed obsessed by his own ego, many Allied Generals were, but few killed so many men because of it.

BTW I thought I'd given this forum up, damn, I must try harder...

[Kingfish]

Originally posted by Rex Bellator:

Let's also not forget his instruction to Lucas at Anzio beach 'not to stick his neck out' again contrary to Alexander who wanted Lucas to push on with all speed. He thereby condemned the men on the beachead to waiting until it was virtually impossible to move out.

The decision by Lucas not to advance turned out to be a huge blessing in disguise. Had he pushed on, his force would have been chopped to pieces. Think of what happened to the Rangers at Cisterna only 10 times worse.

[Ex Bellator]

That's a possibility Kingfish, but I can only recount the certanty that he waited until he had 75,000 men on the beach before attempting a major inland push, by which time the defenders had increased from virtually nothing to 90,000. That 'strategy' doesn't make sense to me, at minimum pegging out a deeper beachead would have been more advisable? Anyway for me the big issue is his disobeying of orders to seize Rome for his personal 'glory' and condemning thousands more men to die.

As an aside I have a letter 'signed' by Mark Clark expressing condolences on the death of my Uncle in Korea. As you can tell I'm not sure at all that he was the writer, especially as my Uncle was a British tank commander, but it's a nice touch which I hope helped my family back then. So although I don't like him at all from what I've read, perhaps he did have some redeeming features.

[Aacooper]

I believe that Clark was an average general. He had pretty good fundamentals, but he probably wasn't as good as he thought he was.

His most controversial decision was during the 1944 breakout, as Mr. Butcher stated. "Command Decisions" gives it a different take. If Clark hooked right he would have more directly encircled the Germans, but he felt (and maybe Rome clouded his thinking) in the broken-up terrain he wouldn't be able to seal the Germans off. Instead, if he out-raced the Germans north he thought he could collect a larger bag of prisoners. I'm sympathetic to his dilemma -- look at how many Germans escaped the Falaise bag.

In Anzio, I believe he was more or less opposed to the idea, or thought it needed more troops.

Of course, like every general not named Juin he got the answer wrong at Monte Cassino.

On the bright side, he did well piercing the German line at Altuzzo.

All in all, he wasn't the best, and he wasn't the worst. All Allied generals in the Italian campaign were hampered by the terrain, weather, and secondary front status of the theatre.

[Michael Emrys]

Clark was one of the Army's fair-haired boys and rising stars before the war. He was regarded as brilliant and great things were expected of him. That's why he was appointed Eisenhower's deputy for Torch.

But his actual performance in command soured a lot of people on him. I will not lay a claim to know the truth of the matter, but it does seem that the consensus of opinion is that his move to grab Rome against orders was motivated more by a hunger for personal glory and to advance his career than any other factor.

I wonder if his talents would not have been better suited to a bureaucratic job in the Pentagon on Marshall's staff.

Michael

[JonS]

Originally posted by Rex Bellator:

... That 'strategy' doesn't make sense to me, at minimum pegging out a deeper beachead would have been more advisable? ...

Sure, it appears to be more advisable, but consider this: every mile further inland increased the length of the beachhead perimeter by something like 7 or 8 miles. Considering the forces that were avalable were already somewhat stretched, that extra length would have been ... troublesome in the least.

Lots of mistakes were made at Anzio after the landing, but the biggest one occurred months before and on a different continent. Adm King's blantant shafting of the European war in favour of the one in the Pacific meant that there would never be enough LCTs available to make Op SHINGLE (Anzio) large enough to be decisive. It also meant that there weren't really enough LCAs even for Op OVERLORD.

BTW, I think Clark was a prima-donna who shouldn't have been allowed a command again after his antics in North Africa. His decision at Rome was particularly reprehensible - would the first troops ashore on D-Day even have heard the news? Even if they had, it's a pretty weak justification - I think an Allied Army Group thrusting into Southern Germany late in '44 would have overall done more for their morale.

Someone must have liked him though, since he ended up running the show in Italy.

Regards

JonS

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by JonS:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Rex Bellator:

... That 'strategy' doesn't make sense to me, at minimum pegging out a deeper beachead would have been more advisable? ...

Sure, it appears to be more advisable, but consider this: every mile further inland increased the length of the beachhead perimeter by something like 7 or 8 miles.</font>

[russellmz]

Originally posted by JonS:

His decision at Rome was particularly reprehensible - would the first troops ashore on D-Day even have heard the news? Even if they had, it's a pretty weak justification - I think an Allied Army Group thrusting into Southern Germany late in '44 would have overall done more for their morale.

i remember reading about one guy at normandy bragging to his german prisoners that allied troops were just outside rome, and the germans were surprised, saying they heard on the radio that it had already fallen.

[HeinzBaby]

Clark? very 'pedestrian' [3. prosaic; dull] Collins Australian Pocket English dictionary. IIRC Rome was an 'Open' City.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Kingfish:

The decision by Lucas not to advance turned out to be a huge blessing in disguise. Had he pushed on, his force would have been chopped to pieces. Think of what happened to the Rangers at Cisterna only 10 times worse.

Ahem - when Lucas decided to hang around on the beach a bit longer (and the beaches there are very nice, so who can blame him), there was scarcely a German unit between him and Rome. A sharp advance with combined arms forward detachments would, in the opinion of German observers, have cooked the goose of 10th Army in the Cassino position (see e.g.'Anzio - Eine Schlacht der Fuehrungsfehler' or John Ellis' 'Cassino'), and they were flabbergasted (but very happy) that this was not done. By day three (but not before) they knew they had the Allies were they wanted them - bottled up in the bridgehead. The Rangers at Cisterna are absolutely not a valid comparison, because by the time that particular clusterf*ck happened, the Germans had brought up a whole new army to lock down and destroy the bridgehead, and the Rangers happened to run into them during a breakout attempt.

At the time of the invasion, the Germans had a grand total of 2 batteries (one 10cm one 17cm) able to fire at the bridgehead, and the only forces available were the Reconnaissance Abteilung of 29. PGD (?), one company of which had been caught in their beds in Nettuno, according to the German history.

Fortunately enough for the Allies, the German commander on the ground later on in the battle (von Mackensen) was giving Clark a run for his money in the ineptness compartment, and OKW interfered heavily in the counter-attack planning.

As for Clark in general - read John Ellis' 'Cassino', he is extremely critical of the man. He is harsh on all involved, except Juin and the French Expeditionary Corps, but particularly harsh on Clark and the staffers in the British Corps who planned the move up the Liri Valley.

[Kingfish]

Ahem - when Lucas decided to hang around on the beach a bit longer (and the beaches there are very nice, so who can blame him), there was scarcely a German unit between him and Rome.

True, but we have the luxury of 20/20 hindsight. While the Allied high command anticipated (correctly) that the landings would catch the Germans by surprise, they also anticipated that the Germans would react swiftly to the threat in their rear. Unfortunately, the ability of the Allies to bring in sufficient reinforcements were hampered by the lack of adequate shipping (see JonS's post). They were able to land two reinforced divisions in the first wave, sufficient to hold the beachhead, but it would take another 3 days before the next batch of reinforcements were to arrive. By then the Germans had elements of 8 divisions deployed around Anzio, with more to come.

A sharp advance with combined arms forward detachments would, in the opinion of German observers, have cooked the goose of 10th Army in the Cassino position

Combined arms forward detachements as in Battalion size? Brigade size? From where would these detachements come from? What would be their objectives, and who would guard the beachhead and the LOCs? Keep in mind that with each mile of advance, 7 miles is added to the perimeter. IMO, to 'cook the goose' of the 10th army the VI corp needed to interdict not only route 7, but route 6 as well. That is an avance of +20 miles beyond the beaches, too far for the initial landing force.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Kingfish:

Keep in mind that with each mile of advance, 7 miles is added to the perimeter.

I've already challenged a statement like this. Would you please be so kind as to explain by what mathematical means you derive this notion?

Michael

[Andreas]

Well, that is a different argument from saying 'look at the poor rangers at Cisterna'. If the same argument had been brought up against Cobra, for example, that operation would have had to be postponed as well, because really there were still too many German Panzer divisions around, and only with 20/20 hindsight do we know that they are not strong enough to win at Mortain.

What this argument overlooks is the effect that speed and a daring advance would have had in the rear areas. You don't need a lot of forces to create total havoc in the German rear. The German HQ for Italy was located in frascati, a few hours drive from the beachhead, and the allies knew that. Threatening it would have ruptured the C&C chain of the Germans in the theatre while it PUFOs. Just an example. If the allies had pushed these FDs forward far enough, the Germans would not have been able to concentrate the forces as quickly against them. Remember that the 7 mile increase applies to the Germans as well, forcing them to spread their forces thinner - and while there were elements of 8 divisions in place within a few days, these were overall still weak.

In the end, Lucas acted under Clark's instruction (ignoring Alexander's) at Anzio, namely to play it safe, instead of exploiting a very favourable situation. He was later made the fall-guy for that. A competent general of the risk-taking ilk, such as von Manstein, Rommel, Guderian, Patton, maybe Slim, or Juin, would probably have gone hell-for-leather to get out of the bridgehead and just disrupt the German rear-areas. One should not forget that Lucas' strategy, with 20/20 hindsight, does not look very impressive as a risk-reduction strategy, if you look at the situation in the German counter-offensive of February. It certainly was not risk-free, it just traded risk now for risk later.

[Kingfish]

I've already challenged a statement like this. Would you please be so kind as to explain by what mathematical means you derive this notion?

Sure, here is the formula:

"f(x) = ax2 + bx + c" or "y = ax2 + bx + c."

Seriously, I did not rely on any mathimatical means, but instead relied on my own fuzzy and slowly diminishing memory. IOW, I read that somewhere. I could be wrong.

Just curious, how did you get the 1 mile advance = 3 miles of perimeter?

[Dook]

Guys, I'm no mathematician, but it seems to me that some additional information is needed to get definitive answers to your questions regarding how much the perimeter increased for each mile of advance. The most obvious bits of info lacking is the width of the beachhead and the width of the advance.

If you assume the beachhead is 1 mile wide (picked for mathematical convenience) and the initial advance is straight inland from the center of the beachhead, you could think of the perimeter as a triangle with a base of 1 mile and a height of 1 mile. The length of one side of the triange would be the square roote of two (1.414). The perimeter, not including the beach behind you, would be 2 x 1.414 = 2.828, or pretty close to three.

Things get a lot more complicated after that depending on the width of the frontage and the evenness of advance.

[Kingfish]

Well, that is a different argument from saying 'look at the poor rangers at Cisterna'. If the same argument had been brought up against Cobra, for example, that operation would have had to be postponed as well, because really there were still too many German Panzer divisions around, and only with 20/20 hindsight do we know that they are not strong enough to win at Mortain.

But one big difference between Cobra and Shingle was that Cobra was launched with sufficient forces to achieve the objectives. Not so for Shingle. Again, a force of 2 reinforced divisions is sufficient to hold the beachhead, but not to exploit beyond it in strength. Just MHO.

What this argument overlooks is the effect that speed and a daring advance would have had in the rear areas. You don't need a lot of forces to create total havoc in the German rear. The German HQ for Italy was located in frascati, a few hours drive from the beachhead, and the allies knew that. Threatening it would have ruptured the C&C chain of the Germans in the theatre while it PUFOs. Just an example. If the allies had pushed these FDs forward far enough, the Germans would not have been able to concentrate the forces as quickly against them. Remember that the 7 mile increase applies to the Germans as well, forcing them to spread their forces thinner - and while there were elements of 8 divisions in place within a few days, these were overall still weak.

I have no doubt that several FDs running around in the rear area would have caused some panic in the German high command, but here's the $64,000 question: would that be enough to force the Germans to quit the Gustav line? IMO, I don't think so. At least not without a strong response by the Germans to try and restore the situation, and that response would have been too much for a couple of FDs to withstand by themselves.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Kingfish:

But one big difference between Cobra and Shingle was that Cobra was launched with sufficient forces to achieve the objectives. Not so for Shingle. Again, a force of 2 reinforced divisions is sufficient to hold the beachhead, but not to exploit beyond it in strength. Just MHO.

Well, that to me is the difference between our thinking. I am quite sure that Patton's forces at Cobra were not sufficient to liberate the whole of Brittany, and attempt the southern pincer move on Falaise while simultaneously establishing a Seine bridgehead, and threaten Paris. But all of this they did, sometimes at great risk (the Seine bridgehead, Mortain). Speaking in Matrix terms - if they had freed their mind, they would have seen that there is no beach-head. Not if they do it right. Just look at what the Red Army did in Poland in 1945, during the Vistula-Oder operation (best source is probably Duffy 'Red Storm on the Reich'), or earlier during the raid by 25th Tank Corps on Tatsinskaya in 1942 (although I assume you would see that as a failure?).

IMO it is a lack of imagination on the part of Clark and Lucas. You should not forget that the Germans also had no idea that there were only two reinforced divisions present, at the outset. As far as they knew it could have been a lot more - they only got this information later. Rapid, decisive action was what was called for, and the commanders failed to deliver it. If Clark had gotten round to the idea that he only wanted a bridgehead by this time, and not an attempt to destroy the Cassino position, he should have called off the whole venture, because then it was a total waste of resources.

I am still wondering who should have interfered with the forward detachments, BTW? There was nobody there, and just in case you are not aware, it is an hour by slow train from Roma Termini to Nettuno. Or 51 minutes by car from Frascati to Anzio, according to viamichelin.com - none of that on the motorway. So if the Germans could have had some force there in 3 days to crush the over-extended reinforced 2 divisions is neither here nor there, seeing that at the time of the landing nobody was there. The allies could have organised rotating sightseeing trips to the forum for all the soldiers in the meantime.

[Kingfish]

Originally posted by Andreas:

Accounts I read show elements of the 4th Fallschrimjager and Herman Goering Panzer division in reserve around Rome. I know that there were a few skirmishes between the HG and U.S. 3rd infantry around the Mussolini canal during the first two days.

Granted, it falls short of a Panzer Corp, but it's something. Just like it doesn't take a lot of force to create total havoc in the German rear, likewise it doesn't take a lot of force to block or delay an Allied advance beyond the beachhead. Once you are past Route 7 you are into the Alban hills, and that rugged terrain favors the defense.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Kingfish:

Once you are past Route 7 you are into the Alban hills, and that rugged terrain favors the defense.

But that would certainly work both ways, wouldn't it? Once the Allied forces are in them hills, they would have a much easier time defending than in the plain in front of Anzio/Nettuno. Especially since that would have taken out a lot of the OPs from which the Germans had a good view into the beachhead later.

[JonS]

Andreas,

you seem to have fallen into the thrall of the maneauverists - 'If we can just be running around in their rear areas we will disrupt their HQs and supply lines and they'll, why they'll just give up! Or sumfink.'

I thought you were better than that?

Regards

JonS

[ July 31, 2003, 04:58 PM: Message edited by: JonS ]

[Andreas]

Originally posted by JonS:

Andreas,

you seem to have fallen into the thrall of the maneauverists - 'I we can just be running around in their rear areas we will disrupt their HQs and supply lines and they'll, why they'll just give up! Or sumfink.'

I thought you were better than that?

Regards

JonS

Ah, but attrition only works if there is something to attrit in the first place. The Soviets in the Vistula-Oder operation did attrition first, maneuver later. Lucas simply could not do attrition during the first days (there was nothing there), so the correct answer in this case is IMO not 'I shall sit on my ass until I can have a battle of attrition by being provided with a credible opposition courtesy of my esteemed opponent' but 'Yee-haa!', to put it into military expert lingo.

Unlike some of the people who like to fight about it, I am very naive, and adamantly continue to believe that attrition and maneuver are inextricably linked. One is pointless without the other.