Talk:Battle for Caen/Archive 4

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Archive 6

→

Archive 8

RfC about pov-pushing

Editorial POV-pushing, despite attempts by to persuade an editor to acknowledge the difference between an article conforming to the title and a Montgomery-bashing exercise.Keith-264 (talk) 13:18, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

It does seem that Caen was a specific objective (the section about Caen starts on page 19 in this googlebooks link) [[1]] on D-Day Keith, albeit a highly ambitious one and it's successful capture was arguably very long odds. Irondome (talk) 13:37, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

See the material re: plans made before the invasion local plan for I Corps and Operation Smock contingency if thwarted in D Day. See Colossal Cracks section explanation about the difference between the campaign plan, operational plan and sub-operational plans. Keith-264 (talk) 13:54, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

There is no “Montgomery-bashing exercise”, that is merely an ad hominem attack by POV-pushing editors. In actual fact there is an attempt by me to ensure that the article properly records in full all the aspects of the battle, and there is an attempt by two other editors working together to cover up the fact that Montgomery was dishonest in relation to some of the events of this battle. Montgomery’s deceit was a part of the events, it had serious impacts, and it is widely known and notable. To have an article for the Battle for Caen and not mention the related controversy, would be defective.

There is no undue weight here – the controversy material is a small percentage of the total text. The extended and repetitive "Colossal Cracks" section was added by Keith to "explain" Montgomery's specious claims, and it can be greatly summarized.

There are a great many sources that unambiguously state that Caen was a D-Day objective, and that Monty was lying when he failed to achieve it. Even in the editor’s much-cited source "Colossal Cracks", which somehow gets an entire section in the article to itself, the author conceded that Monty’s claims to the contrary were "specious".

The same two editors are carefully choosing sources and carefully wording text to exclude mentioning that the D-Day objectives originally included capturing Caen. Why? There was indeed a contingency plan for the event of failing to capture Caen on D-Day, and the fact that the contingency plan had to be invoked indicates that the original plan had failed. QED. Eisenhower himself wrote at the time that the original plan had failed and had to be “evolved” into a different plan.

It is self-evident that the overall invasion was ultimately successful, but the Caen-Falaise Plain was only captured in August when the US forces had completely outflanked the German defenses, so an ultimate success at the big-picture level does not expunge the fact that the original plans for capturing Caen and the Caen-Falaise Plain had gone seriously awry. This is well attested in many secondary sources, some of which cite various Allied commanders who were hands-on at the invasion itself. Please see the Controversy section for the detail, and the references.

Wdford (talk) 14:49, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

As recent edits have shown, the Allied objectives as stated by the Allied commander are not being allowed to be included in the section describing the Allied objectives. The "reason" stated thus far is that it is the "wrong place" for that information. The true reason, I now suspect, is because that particular quote includes an admission by Montgomery himself that Caen was indeed a D-Day objective. Please could somebody ask the POV-pushers to explain WHY they are so determined to maintain the pretense that Caen was not a D-Day objective? Wdford (talk) 15:09, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Material on what the objectives were is already in the text (lede) and the whole controversy section. You've made your point - let the article develop for a day and so and see what it likes like then. GraemeLeggett (talk) 15:17, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Coming to this article for the first time from feedback request service on RFC. Not sure who is accusing whom of pushing a POV, nor do I think that issue is particularly appropriate for RFC. That said, my comments are: (1) The "controversy" section seems to adequately deal with the question of Montgomery's alleged efforts to re-write history. Doesn't strike me that it's necessary to hammer on this point throughout the rest of the article. (2) The entire "Colossol Cracks" section could be deleted from this article without impairing the reader's understanding of the battle of cain. Maybe there is some other more general wikipedia article this would fit into. The few bits of this section that relate to the article can be placed elsewhere. (3) I'm also skeptical about much of the "conserving casualites" section. To the extent this was rationale for decisions described elsewhere in the article, that can be noted. This article doesn't need to have an entire section devoted to this aspect of Montgomery's motivation. (4) While there is nothing wrong with citing primary sources (like the journal entry) in appropriate instances, buttressing an argument about what appears to be a controversy is not such a case. Better to use a secondary source that references the primary one. Federalist51 (talk) 23:40, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Odd how you criticised the use of a RfC then commented anyway. Monty's journal is quoted in a secondary source, used where there is an editorial dispute about facts, the point being that Caen wasn't mentioned by name. I think that the Analysis section is a complete mess and that our 3rd O was right (in my sandbox I cut the Analysis section altogether to re-write it). The other point to notice is that the Germans are absent but this is also because of the editorial difference of opinion over what the article is for. Keith-264 (talk) 14:03, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Comment Why not use the British National Archives, and read the information directly, via WP:GLAM (if it is available, and not blown up), instead of using secondary sources from Google Books. Google Books is only decent if the specific author you are sourcing from has a long history of writing military history, like this dude: Simon Sebag Montefiore and knows the score is, as regarding quality of sources. I've found out in the last year that so many military history book, are not worth the paper they are written on. I know it doesn't address this problem and may be banging the drum unnecessarily, but it is worth a thought. The comment doesn't apply to the this guy, Buckely, thought, who seem to live almost next door to the archives. scope_creep (talk) 13:13, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

We all have opinions on the worth of authors, mine is that Sebag is a source of little scholarly value. I don't like elgooG either but use it according to wiki if I have to. We can only use PRO material if it's been published. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 14:03, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

I hope all the editors have studied my excerpt from de Guingand, above.Damwiki1 (talk) 16:53, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Yes but we haven't got anywhere on the fundamental disagreement about what the article is for. I'm plugging away but undecided about offering an alternative Analysis section before continuing with the Battle section. Will it be any good or only a catalyst for more argument? Keith-264 (talk) 17:39, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

The aftermath section is far too long, and quite a mess. There's also the question of how much should be here, or in the Battle of Normandy article. A major issue is that there are a huge number of secondary sources of varying degrees of quality and reliability. Almost any argument could be made using different sources. The other point is how noteworthy Montgomery's "lies" are in the context of the campaign. Almost every battle didn't achieve its objectives, and many were misrepresented at the time or post-war. In particular:

• Analysis - could be reduced by half due to duplication of the main ideas
• Caen controversy - this is not clear on what exactly the controversy is. It could be reduced to 1 or 2 paragraphs saying roughly that Montgomery afterwards said that it had gone to plan, other disagreed, but that like all battles the detailed plan got rejigged to meet changing circumstances - de Guigand might provide some quotes
• Casualty conservation does not really need to be more than a paragraph
• Colossal Cracks should be redundant
• Atrocities might fit better somewhere else
• Bombing of Caen - again could be much shorter
• Operation Spring should be in the Battles and not the Aftermath

Aber~enwiki (talk) 19:25, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

There is no "disagreement about what the article is for". The article is to describe the Battle for Caen – all aspects thereof – without excessively duplicating material that is already present in the detailed articles that already describe the various component operations and battles. The only disagreement lies in the POV of two editors who seem determined to disguise the well-attested fact that Montgomery failed to meet the objectives and then lied about it – to his boss, to the other commanders and then to the world. Since this cost him his role as Land Forces Commander, and set the tone for his acrimonious relationship with Ike thereafter as he constantly nagged to be reinstated, it is certainly noteworthy. When Bradley and Ike fell short of planned objectives, they openly admitted it – at Cotentin and the Ardennes and elsewhere - but Monty tried to lie his way out of it.

From the Guigand material quoted above, we can derive the following very interesting points:

• The tasks of the Second British Army included "To secure the airfield sites south-east of Caen", and then only in "subsequent operations" to protect the lodgement area from the east. If you look at the maps, "South-east of Caen" actually means "inland of Caen", so Guigand is actually making it clear that the original plan was to advance inland beyond Caen before commencing the "protect the flank" project.
• He then confirms this even more openly by saying that the Phase Line map shows "Caen and the airfield sites in our possession early on in the campaign", and that the Second Army was only to do the pivot and protect mission thereafter.
• It would make zero sense to set up airfields behind enemy lines, leaving the main roads connecting your beachhead and your airfields in enemy hands, so in a very ambiguous way Guigand is admitting that capturing Caen was a critical task. Guigand openly admits that "airfields stuck out on the extreme flank could not be considered very secure".
• He fudges with the statement that the Phase Lines were not a guaranteed promise, but admits that "Caen and the airfield sites were well behind the phase line forecast." While Guigand probably did caution against optimism, Monty seemingly was less nuanced – certainly Eisenhower and Tedder et al got the impression that these airfields were to be one of Monty’s urgent priorities.
• Since securing the airfield sites inland of Caen was a main task, scheduled for early in the program, the failure to do so was significant, despite Guigand’s post-facto hedging.
• The Allies did indeed reach the Seine in advance of the original forecast, but only because the Americans deviated from the original plan and sent forces east behind enemy lines before the Bretton coast was fully secured – not because the British Second Army suddenly made up all the lost weeks.

The aftermath section can indeed be shortened – perhaps as follows:

• Colossal Cracks can be easily reduced to a single sentence which states that "One author (Hart) admits that Montgomery’s claims were "specious ", but nonetheless has tried to excuse Montgomery’s deception by explaining at length that the "Master Plan" was eventually achieved in the very broadest sense, although admitting that many things went wrong in the detailed implementation thereof."
• The Caen controversy is clearly described in the relevant section. It cannot be reduced to 1 or 2 paragraphs, as the material is more complicated than a simple "he-said-she-said" situation. You can quote from Guigand – see his interesting points above – but to be balanced and factual, you should also quote from Eisenhower and Bedell Smith and Grigg and Williams etc as well – as the article already does. I will happily add a bullet point from Guigand as well.
• Casualty conservation seems to have made an important impact on this battle – and on the rest of Overlord – in that it tries to explain why Monty kept aborting attacks every time the Germans stood up to him, and why he was so obsessed with being the official Land Forces Commander. It will take more than one paragraph to explain this properly. Perhaps this topic could become a spin-off article, but until then it needs to be explained properly here.
• I agree that the Atrocities, the Bombing of Caen and Operation Spring should all be in the Battles section and not the Aftermath.

Wdford (talk) 13:03, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

The Caen controversy is clearly described in the relevant section That section is anything but clear. There is not a consensus in the literature, but de Guigand's [note spelling] account was specifically written to be neutral and so does not really need to be balanced - it covers the issues fairly. You are also conflating several issues in this section:

• Caen was not captured on D-Day - SO WHAT? Most operations failed to meet their objectives, and after the Germans intervened plans changed
• Objectives of Goodwood - but the issue is only about part of Goodwood - whether the armoured divisions pause on the Bouregbas ridge with recce units pushed to Falaise, or whether the whole divisions head straight for Falaise; whether it was intended to be a breakthrough or a breakout.
• Montgomery's claims about the campaign - care needs to taken as what Montgomery actually said is often not what other people believed that he said. He also had a long track record of claiming his battles went to plan (and an explanation of why he said that).

Since this cost him his role as Land Forces Commander - no, there was never a plan for a land forces commander post-Normandy When Bradley and Ike fell short of planned objectives, they openly admitted it - really??? I missed that frankness in Crusade in Europe. Aber~enwiki (talk) 19:47, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

I think that your king Charles' head is Monty's hat. You aren't outnumbered because of any collusion but three editors are closer to consensus and you're an outlier. You want to write a thesis about Monty in an article called the Battle for Caen and on that point, no-one agrees with you, especially about the importance of the handbag waving at Shaef and after the war. Spring occurred after the capture of Caen. Keith-264 (talk) 13:27, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

a thesis about Monty in an article called the Battle for Caen - absolutely agree; the issue would probably fit better in the Montgomery article. I feel Spring belongs here because it is part of Goodwood-Cobra, and needs to be understood in that context.Aber~enwiki (talk) 19:18, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

de Guingand makes it clear that capturing Caen and the land needed for airfields was not an priority and that no promises were made to do so, but rather it was something that would be done if the opportunity presented itself. The overriding priority was to defend the beachhead and protect the US Army's assault on Cherbourg, which the Commonwealth forces did very effectively by drawing the German Armour into the defence of Caen. WDford appears to want to paint a crushing Allied victory as some sort of defeat and his interpretation of de Guingand speaks volumes about his lack of a NPOV. de Guingand states that neither he nor Monty made firm promises and instead fought the campaign to a flexible plan rather than on a rigid time table.Damwiki1 (talk) 17:54, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

The overriding priority was to defend the beachhead - an excellent point which is missed in many accounts - the Germans weren't there just to make up the numbers, but wanted to counterattack and this had to be allowed for in Allied planning.Aber~enwiki (talk) 19:50, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for taking an interest, quite a bit of the Monty stuff was lifted from the Monty article and dropped into this one. I don't criticise that as a practice because I did the same with the battle section, which mostly is the leads of the main articles. I do wonder like you though, if so much of the Monty stuff taken from the Monty article really belongs here. I think there's a place for Hart's exposition of plan, operational plans and sub-operational plans as a way to put the issues into context since they relate to strategy, operations and tactics. Doherty mentions that Operation Smock and Operation Wild Oats/Perch, were planned before the invasion so what weight do the RS put on those compared to the 3rd Division objectives on 6 June (if they mention this point at all)? I think that the version of the battle as a litany of Anglo-Canadian failure, all down to Monty being a bounder, while he was also in command of the First Army but only Bradley gets the credit, is too 1970s to be treated as more than one part of the long history of the history of the battle. Scarfe points out in his 2nd edition that Crocker ordered the 9th Infantry Brigade to divert to the eastern flank, a defensive move which knackered the last possibility of the 3rd Division advancing to Caen and the 3rd Canadian Division reaching Carpiquet with sufficient force to take them. By the end of 6 June, the British and the Germans had been thwarted at Caen.Keith-264 (talk) 20:31, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

So the two POV pushers and an SPA are still trying to obscure the FACT that Montgomery lied about his failures. The new plan seems to be to deport this unpalatable fact to a different article. Mmmm.

The controversy is not about the failures to achieve objectives, but rather about the subsequent lies – as the POV pushers know full well. However they continue to dissemble and distract. The issue is NOT whether Goodwood was intended to be a breakthrough or a breakout (whatever that difference might be) but rather that Montgomery lead Eisenhower and the air commanders to believe it was to be a breakout, so as to obtain air support which would not otherwise have been forthcoming - and that after Goodwood failed Monty claimed to have been misunderstood.

I have no intention of painting Overlord as an Allied defeat – that is just the latest ad hominem attack from the POV pushers.

I see that de Guigand is now the Favourite Source, and the benchmark of neutrality – no doubt because he is protective of Montgomery. Hart is to be retained because he presents an apologetic for Montgomery. Meanwhile the people who were lied to, such as Eisenhower and Tedder etc, are to be considered as biased, as are all the secondary sources who are critical of Montgomery. That is classic POV-pushing.

Wdford (talk) 21:44, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

The issue is NOT whether Goodwood was intended to be a breakthrough or a breakout (whatever that difference might be) - if you don't understand the difference then you don't understand a large part of the controversy surrounding Goodwood.
but rather about the subsequent lies - please clarify EXACTLY what you consider to be lies by Montgomery. Tedder description of Goodwood 'its purpose being to break into the area south-east of Caen"; Eisenhower 'His [Montgomery] directive of that date [30 June] clearly stated...attacking southward with a view to final breakout on the right flank. From that moment onward this specific battle plan did not vary'.Aber~enwiki (talk) 07:39, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

I have no intention of using de Guingand, Goodwood succeeded as did all the earlier operations in their attritional intent and as Copp points out win-lose is only one way to determine success. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 23:01, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

None of the editors dispute Monty's lack of integrity but the RS dispute the difference that it made. Clearly his revised objectives for Goodwood made it much less ambitious and the revision either failed to arrive at Shaef by an unfortunate error or was never sent. Perhaps Monty tried to manipulate Shaef to get the bomber barons to do their jobs and if so his insubordination succeeded, just the sort of thing to infuriate the management. One of the problems that bedevils this debate in the RS is that breakthrough and breakout don't mean the same thing to different authors. The difference that Hitler's decision to defend Caen made was that the Anglo-Canadians had to take the battle to the Germans, rather than digging in south of Caen and putting the need to attack on the Germans. This made the Allied operations on the eastern flank more expensive and excited the apprehensions of the War Office as the pool of trained replacements ebbed away in July but as soon as Cobra stopped looking like the flop it was on day one, the British and Canadians made a maximum effort to exploit the victory of the First Army and succeeded. Notice that some of the bit-players in this weren't privy to Ultra so their judgements at the time weren't as well informed as Monty's. De Guingand is a useful source but as a participant his claims can't be taken as facts, same as Monty, Eisenhower, Tedder, Belchem, Morgan etc blah. All we need to do is describe the controversy which needs 2-3 paragraphs. Keith-264 (talk) 08:39, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

We can only describe the Controversy in 2-3 paragraphs if the material which belongs in the Planning section gets moved to the Planning section, and the material which belongs in the Goodwood section gets moved to the Goodwood section. However some pro-Monty POV pushers are currently fudging the Planning section to conceal the fact that Caen was a D-Day objective (which the British failed to achieve), and they still claim that Goodwood was a success despite all the secondary sources stating the contrary, so (for the time being) that material is still in the Controversy section. This can of course be fixed merely by accepting all the secondary sources and simply putting the Planning and Goodwood material in their appropriate places.

To cite D’Este, a leading RS, at pg 579: "What got Montgomery into trouble in Normandy was that he instilled false hopes in the minds of Churchill, Eisenhower and the other senior commanders that he would capture Caen on D-Day."

See also Martin Blumenson, another impeccable source. In his work Breakout and Pursuit, he writes at Pg 4: "Caen, a D-Day objective, still remained in German hands ..." He continues on the subject of Operation Goodwood:

• Pg 188: "The Second Army launched a strong attack (GOODWOOD) that promised the Allies an excellent chance of achieving a breakthrough. Had it succeeded, COBRA would probably have been unnecessary."
• Pg 188: "[Montgomery] alerted Dempsey to hold a corps of three armored divisions in reserve for a "massive stroke" east of the Orne River from Caen to Falaise."
• Pg 189: "Nevertheless, Montgomery found the idea of a British breakthrough attempt increasingly intriguing. He began to think in terms of possibly making a double breakthrough effort - attacks by both British and American troops."
• Pg 190: "Promising General Eisenhower that his "whole eastern flank" would "burst into flames," General Montgomery requested the "whole weight of air power" to bring about a "decisive" victory. General Eisenhower was enthusiastic …"
• Pg 194-195: "To those in the Allied camp who had expected a decisive breakthrough and exploitation, expressions of satisfaction seemed hollow. A profound disappointment swept through the high levels of command. … Although General Montgomery had in fact referred in July 1944 to GOODWOOD and to COBRA as parts of an over-all breakthrough plan, he had also, perhaps inadvertently, or perhaps to insure all-out air support, promised that his eastern flank would "burst into flames" and that he would secure a "decisive" victory there. Eisenhower had interpreted Montgomery's intentions for the 8 Corps armored attack as a promise of a plunge into the vitals of the enemy."

Pogue, which Damwiki earlier referred to as a "vitally important work", also has much to say about Goodwood:

• Pogue on Pg 187: "Some of General Montgomery’s chief advisers have suggested that misconceptions as to the 21 Army Group commander’s objectives perhaps arose from the overemphasis he placed on the decisiveness of the operation in order to insure full air support for the operation."
• Pogue on Pg 188: "Referring specifically to his operations between Caen and Falaise, he declared: "This operation will take place on Monday 17th July. Grateful if you will issue orders that the whole weight of the air power is to be available on that day to support my land battle. . . . My whole eastern flank will burst into flames on Saturday. The operation on Monday may have far-reaching results. . . . "
• Pogue on Pg 188: "The 21 Army Group commander in expressing his thanks for these promises of support explained that the plan "if successful promises to be decisive and therefore necessary that the air forces bring full weight to bear. … "
• Pogue on Pg 188: "As an added indication that the Supreme Commander thought the drive to the east was likely to be something spectacular, there is the final statement that 21 Army Group could count on Bradley "to keep his troops fighting like the very devil, twenty-four hours a day, to provide the opportunity your armored corps will need, and to make the victory complete.""

Clearly Montgomery was promising a lot more than a battle of attrition here.

See also D’Este at pg 546: "However, what Montgomery’s concept of the battle for Normandy never included was a protracted battle of attrition for Caen. Later he sought to deflect criticisms of his generalship by suggesting that his enemies at SHAEF took advantage of the controversy to discredit him". (emphasis original)

See also Ike from Crusade in Europe, pg 266: "In his more detailed presentation of April 7, Montgomery stated that the second great phase of the operation, estimated to begin shortly after D plus 20, would require the British Army to pivot on its left at Falaise, to "swing with its right towards Argentan-Alencon". This meant that Falaise would be in our possession before the great wheel began. The line that we actually held when the breakout began on D plus 50 was approximately that planned for D plus 5."

Ergo, everything did NOT go according to Monty’s original plan, did it? Wdford (talk) 14:40, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

A number of points:

• Your selection of sources - Blumenson and Pogue are part of the US Army History of WW2; D'Este is from his biography of Eisenhower. While they may be authoritative, in an issue which you say has nationalistic elements they might not be thought impartial.
• Your selection of quotes from Blumenson and Pogue - you chose not to emphasise the qualifiers in the quotes "may achieve", "if successful".
• Your selection of quotes from D'Este p579 It also includes:

"It never apparently dawned on Montgomery that his promise would be a wedge used by his enemies..."; "The furor over Montgomery's alleged failure to carry out his intended strategy in Normandy has obscured a basic truth that warfare is not an exact science, and battles and campaigns rarely evolve as they are projected on paper."

• Your selection of quotes from Eisenhower - it is followed by "This was a far different story, but one which had to be accepted. Battle is not a one-sided affair. It is a case of action and reciprocal action repeated over and over again as contestants seek to gain position and other advantages by which they may inflict the greatest possible damage upon their respective opponents. In this case the importance of the Caen area to the enemy had caused him to use great force in its defence. Its capture became a temporary impossibility or, if not that, at least an operation to be accomplished at such cost to be almost prohibitive" NB The page number you use differ from the 1948 edition.
  

You still have problems supporting some of the wilder assertions that you've made on this page. Aber~enwiki (talk) 20:22, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Re the opinion that Eisenhower declined to take responsibility for his errors, see Crusade in Europe, By Dwight David Eisenhower, (1997).

• Referring to the invasion of Tunisia, he states on pg 146: "Certain of our battlefront weaknesses, which favoured early German success in the battle, were my responsibility."
• Re the Ardennes, he states on pg 340: "The responsibility for maintaining only four divisions on the Ardennes front and for running the risk of a large German penetration in that area was mine".

Read with an objective mind and you will see a lot of things you missed the first time around.

Ike not only accepted responsibility for his own mistakes, but he also took responsibility for the mistakes of his subordinates – including Montgomery. See Pogue Pg 190: "When informed by the War Department near the end of July that some newspapers in the United States were still attacking General Montgomery, the Supreme Commander emphasized his personal responsibility for the policy which had been followed in Normandy since the invasion. He declared that such critics apparently forgot that “I am not only inescapably responsible for strategy and general missions in this operation but seemingly also ignore the fact that it is my responsibility to determine the efficiency of my various subordinates and make appropriate report to the Combined Chiefs of Staff if I become dissatisfied."

I trust that resolves the misunderstanding? Wdford (talk) 14:43, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

No, because you are not replying to the point I made. You claimed When Bradley and Ike fell short of planned objectives, they openly admitted it - your quotes do not support this.Aber~enwiki (talk) 20:31, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

See Blumenson pg 188 "At a conference on 10 July General Bradley had admitted to General Montgomery that he was discouraged about the offensive in the Cotentin and that he was thinking of the new COBRA idea, not yet completely formulated." Also Carafano at pg 94, where Bradley admitted disappointment at his army's "slow rate of progress". Close enough for your needs yet? Wdford (talk) 21:45, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

No, because you are approaching it from the wrong end. You have found quotes from Bradley about slow -progress. You should be starting from Brasdley's operations which fell short of objectives and showing what he said about those.Aber~enwiki (talk) 11:54, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

@ Aber~enwiki: Hixon pg 162, citing Hastings: “In any case, the Goodwood failure ended any possibility of Monty’s retaining his position as overall ground forces commander, although he never seemed to grasp that rather obvious fact.” Wdford (talk) 15:17, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Yet again you write to prove a point rather than describe, nonNPOV, Synth, etc blah. I've decided to re-write the Analysis from scratch and hope to finish it tomorrow. Let's see what our colleagues make of it. Keith-264 (talk) 17:25, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Wdford this is an article about the battle for Caen, not about controversy in the Allied high command. You cherry pick Pogue and de Guingand to try to turn the article into an essay about Monty. These are the essential points from Pogue:

"Like most battles, that on D Day did not go exactly as planned. But in its main objective of getting ashore against a determined enemy it was completely successful and at a cost lower than anyone had hoped. The naval and air forces had prepared the way for the seaborne landings. In the Cotentin, the two U.S. airborne divisions, despite scattered drops, cleared enough of their objectives and diverted the enemy sufficiently to allow seaborne elements of the VII Corps virtually to walk ashore. All other assault troops had a hard fight on the beaches and beyond. In the center of the attack, the V Corps met a strong, determined German division, the 352d, which had been placed in line as early as March but had not been definitely located there by Allied intelligence.1 Suffering heavy casualties and splintered by obstinate German opposition in a series of resistance nests, the V Corps with the effective aid of naval fire struggled inland to gain by the end of the day a precarious toehold not more than a mile deep." So no Allied division's assault went according to plan, but the overall objective of establishing a beachhead was successful. The German Army had strong armoured formations in Normandy and France and could have used these to defeat the Allied forces in detail, if they had been allowed to do so, but they were not given that freedom to manoeuvre because they were pinned against the Commonwealth forces that continually threatened Caen: "Carentan fell on 12 June and the corps link-up was solidified during the next two days. The VII Corps at the same time pushed north to Quinéville and across the Merderet River. On the central front concentric drives by U.S. and British forces by 8 ,June had closed the initial gap at the Drome River between the V and 30 British Corps. The V Corps then pushed through the bocage country to within a few miles of St. Lô before grinding to a halt in the face of stiffening enemy defense and increasing terrain obstacles.The 1 British Corps in the meantime was struggling slowly toward Caen. The Germans, considering Caen the gateway to Paris, massed their reserves to defend it and stopped the British short of the city. By the end of the first week of the invasion, Eisenhower's forces had consolidated a bridgehead eight to twelve miles deep extending in a rough arc from points just east of the Orne on the east to Quinéville in the north." And these German reserves consisted of their strongest and most mobile units but rather than being used to limit the expansion of the beachhead and prevent the American Army from taking Cherbourg, which was the 2nd Allied priority after the defence of the beachhead, they were tied into an almost static defence of Caen, where relentless Commonwealth attacks and Allied airpower could wear them down, and (not mentioned by Pogue) German armour was also being deployed almost exclusively against the Commonwealth forces, which had the best anti-tank capabilities amongst the Allied forces. Pogue clearly states the consequences of the German armour being pinned to near static warfare around Caen: "Enemy losses for the period 6 June-23 July were approximately the same as those suffered by the Allies. German sources estimated casualties for that period at 116,863. While the Allies had replaced nearly all their losses by the end of July, enemy reinforcements numbered only some 10,000. The effect appeared in the number of understrength divisions which the enemy had for use against the Allies. On the 25th, the Seventh Army had at most thirteen weak divisions to oppose fifteen full-strength U.S. divisions. Panzer Group West, facing a British equivalent strength of seventeen divisions, had nominally nine infantry divisions and six or seven panzer divisions, of which two or three infantry divisions and one panzer division were only then in the process of being transferred to that front... So Montgomery's strategy successfully prevented the German armour including their best SS divisions from being deployed against the US Forces, however, at the same time, these elite German formations did prevent a timely capture of Caen mainly because Monty refused to roll the dice and gamble that he could take on the best units in the German armed forces in an all out drive to capture Caen without suffering a catastrophic defeat and/or sufficient casualties that might imperil the entire beachhead or subsequent operations. I think these should be the central points of this article, and how the battle for Caen led to the ultimate destruction of the German forces in Normandy and central France. The controversy around Monty's character really has little place here, in an encyclopedic article, because it unbalances the article away from what should be it's central themes.Damwiki1 (talk) 18:57, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

I agree with your content above. However you once again repeat the assertion that the controversy is about Monty's character. There is no controversy about Monty's character - it is generally accepted even by his ardent admirers that his character was defective, that he was egotistical and opinionated and dishonest etc etc - there is no controversy on this issue. The Caen Controversy is about Monty's specious claim that everything played out according to his plan, and his attempts to hide the reality by retroactively reinventing his plan and claiming that it had been "misunderstood". It would actually be so easy to simply include this information, without any semblance of imbalance, but instead you and your partner have gone to enormous lengths over a period to suppress this simple and obvious information, which is amply supported by numerous reliable sources. Why is that? Wdford (talk) 20:58, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Invalid RfC (Summoned by bot) What are we supposed to do, determine if POV pushing is going on? L3X1 (distænt write) )evidence( 20:41, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Wikibreak

As well as the trials and tribulations of my IT course, it's July so I need to go back to the Night action of 1/2 December 1917 to get it finished before 31 July so I will perforce be less active here for a while. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 07:45, 7 July 2017 (UTC)