Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
Before you start, I’m quite aware of the hypocrisy and even the irony of me, of all people, posting another alternate history thread, given my outspokenness against them in the past. Well, as they say, rules are made to be broken. I don’t intend the scope of this to near anything Harry Turtledove might masturbate to, but rather to stay within the realm of the reasonably foreseeable, still remaining aware, of course, of the highly hypothetical nature of the event(s).
The time is July 1944. The place is Germany. After the failure of the Germans to mount a successful counterattack against the Allied Beachhead, it was clear that they were in France to stay. As the days wore on and the strategic and tactical situation in the West worsened, two of them men in charge could see the writing on the wall; they decided that the best thing to do was try and convince Hitler to sue for peace in the West. If they failed to do this, Marshals Günter von Kluge and Erwin Rommel were prepared to take action themselves. General Otto von Stuelpenagel, the Military Governor of France, was in agreement with them in this regard.
On July 8 Montgomery assaulted Caen, a key city in the German plan of defense…on the 10th Maltot fell, promising to snare the Nazis between Orne and Odon. Seeing nothing but a long series of disasters ahead, Rommel discussed the situation with Kluge. “We have lost the war in the West,” he said. “It must be brought to an end.”
Kluge agreed.
At this time the Military Governor of France, General Stuelpenagel, who wanted the marshal to take independent action to end the war, sent a staff officer to see Rommel for a defensive analysis. So that plans could be synchronized, this was to be reported to Colonel General Ludwig Beck…and Colonel Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, the man who was eventually to place the bomb beneath Hitler’s map table.
On 12 July, Kluge asked Rommel how long the front could be held…the Fox suggested that the corps and division commanders be asked their opinions and those opinions be forwarded to Hitler with an ultimatum. Kluge agreed…During the next three days Rommel visited the front and held frank discussions with the commanders, returning with wide assurances that the troops and officers of all ranks trusted his leadership and would follow him….In discussions Rommel and Speidel had had before the invasion had begun, they were in accord that it might be possible to save Germany by ending the war in the West through an armistice, contacting Eisenhower directly or through Sir Samuel Hoare, the British Ambassador in Madrid, or through Vatican or Swiss emissaries. “We envisioned withdrawing behind the West Wall and holding the German front in the East” Speidel told [the author]. “Rommel and Kluge were also in accord on this on July 12.”…”I am going to give Hitler this last chance before we negotiate ourselves,” Rommel said.
Taken from Charles F. Marshall. Discovering the Rommel Murder (Mechanicsville, PA: Stackpole Books, 1994), 145-46.
We thus know that a vast conspiracy had been fermenting against Hitler for quite a while, and that the Normandy landings were the final straw. This plan included not just removing Hitler from command, but also negotiating an end to the war in the West. Note carefully that they never planned to end the war with the Soviet Union, only that with the British and Americans. I will come back to this later. For the meantime, let us see what happened the day of the bomb plot, to see how they were going to handle things.
At 5:00 PM Speidel received a phone call from Blumentritt, relating information from the consuprators at Army Headquarters in Berlin, saying Hitler was dead. But by the time Kluge returned from the field to his headquarters an hour or two later, the government-controlled radio was already reporting that the putsch attempt had failed. During this critical time while matters were in flux and Army HQ in Berlin under General Beck’s control, Blumentritt, Stuelpenagel, and Field Marshal von Sperrie implored Kluge to sieze control of the army and the government and end the war, even by capitulation if necessary.
Stuelpenagel, upon first hearing from Berlin conspirators that Hitler was dead, had ordered General Boineburg, the Commandant of Paris, to arrest all of the important SS and SD officials and the entire secret police, some 1,200 in all. He was openly committed, far out on a limb.
In Germany were two men capable of taking over the government and the armed forces, but neither Dr. Gorderler nor General Beck were sufficiently known to the German public to count on its support in a coup d’etat while Hitler was still alive.
While Kluge pondered the situation and vacillated, Rommel, the man of unquestionable international stature who would have seized the reins, whose voice the people and the Army would have followed, lay wounded in a military hospital fighting for his life, only a stone’s throw outside Paris…
“His predominant thought now,” said Hesse (Rommel’s doctor in the hospital) to [the author] in May 1946,” was how the war could be ended most quickly. Since it had not been possible to throw the Allied forces back into the sea, he would have liked them to march in and occupy all of central Europe and join the Wehrmacht in keeping the Russians outside the German borders. The one hindrance he saw was Hitler.
Marshall, 149-150, 152.
We also know, from a letter from Hans von Boineburg, the former Commandant of Paris, to the author of the book, which is far too long for me to reproduce here, that the network was much more extensive than the parts that were actually used that day in July. We can assume, then, that had the bomb succeeded, and Hitler indeed been killed, that the other elements of the conspiracy would have similarly gone into action as those in Paris did. We also know the intentions of the conspirators, and that a complete shadow government was ready to be put into place, had the putsch succeeded. Thus, the ultimate success of the putsch depending on two things; first, that Rommel was alive and capable enough to lead the nation, and second, that Hitler was actually killed. While the first is indeed true, Rommel in fact made a full recovery from his wounds, and left his hospital under his own power only a day or two after the putsch, to escape the advancing Allies, the latter was not; Hitler survived the bomb’s explosion. This is our point of departure from history.
The postulation I here bring to the fore is this: had the July putsch proceeded as it was intended, and Rommel et al successfully taken the reins of power in the Reich and then approached the British and Americans with a cessation of hostilities, would they have accepted it, and if they did so, would they have been able to negotiate a separate peace with the Western Allies while continuing to fight full-force against the Soviet Union, or would they have demanded total capitulation of Germany? If we assume that the former was the accepted proposal, would perhaps Rommel’s vision come true, and the Allies “seen the light” and joined the Germans in keeping the Soviet Union out of Central and Western Europe? We know that several generals on both sides approved of this, including George S. Patton of the Allies, and Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb on the Axis side, as the following quote demonstrates:
“History will prove your alliance with the Russians to have been the greatest tragedy for the human race.”
Marshall, 19.
The question is; would any of the higher-ups in America and Britain gone for it?
Once that question has been answered, I would like to carry this thesis still further, to the point of actual engagement and deployment of both sides, both in the event of the Allies joining the Germans on the Eastern Front and also if the Germans succeeded in winning peace in the West, but then must face the Red Army on their own.
First, we will examine the disposition of all armies involved, as of July 1944.
The order of battle for the Western Allies at the commencement of Operations Cobra, Atlantic, and Goodwood are as follows, with the numbers from the US Sixth Army Group being measured at the time of Operation Dragoon, which came a month and a half after the first two operations. Also included are troop dispositions along the Gothic Line in Italy.
36 Infantry Divisions
6 Armored Divisions
1 Armored Brigade
4 Air Forces, plus the entirety of the RAF (I could not find exact information on size in 1944)
It should be remembered that by August, this number had nearly doubled.
On the German side, the following numbers:
35 Infantry Divisions, which includes 4 Mountain Divisions
11 Infantry Battlegroups
8 Panzer Divisions
4 Panzergrenadier Divisions
The entire Luftwaffe
Thus total disposition, were these units sent East, would roughly be:
71 Infantry Divisions
14 Armored Divisions
11 Infantry Battlegroups
1 Armored Brigade
4 Panzergrenadier Divisions
4 Air Forces, plus the entire RAF and Luftwaffe
Total ground forces on both sides amount to about 5 million men, plus German units in transit through Germany, and other units not directly engaged with the Allies.
On the Eastern Front, the parallel operation is the enormous Operation Bagration, which, historically, resulted in the complete liquidation of Army Group Center. However, the primary reason for the astounding loss was Hitler’s direct order to hold their ground indefinitely, an order which Field Marshal Ernst Busch obeyed to a tee. It can be reasonably assumed that Rommel would reverse this order, being a fan of the elastic defense himself, and generally being regarded as the exact opposite of an incompetent commander, which Hitler most assuredly was. Let us assume then that, while losses are quite high for Army Group Center, that it successfully breaks out after the loss of Minsk, and rejoins the front. By the time of the capture of Minsk, however, 25 of 38 Divisions in AGC have been destroyed; we might assume that 2/3 of the remaining units survive, leaving 9 divisions. If Rommel did indeed order this breakout, it could also be assumed that other generals who repeatedly sued for this sort of freedom, men like Erich von Manstein, who was in charge of Army Group South, would be given it.
Army Group North is about to engage in the Battle of Tannenberg Line in late July, and consists of 49 Divisions. With Soviet advance into Latvia, Group North historically is cut off and pinned against the sea for the remainder of the war. However, with Rommel in charge, it might be reasonable to assume that these units would not remain stagnant. If at least part of Army Group Center is saved, and the front indeed stabilizes near the border with Latvia, perhaps Army Group North could move further south and reinforce Center, forming a new front near the border with Latvia and Lithuania. With such a huge concentration of forces, such that did not exist in reality, the Soviets are given a much greater task. Center and North were historically very tough nuts to crack, and with them concentrated into a front to cover less than 1/3 the size it was before the start of Operation Bagration, it could be assumed that the new dispositions would slow the Soviets down considerably.
The situation in the South, however, is less hopeful. The Crimean units are isolated and sure to be destroyed, with the mainland front already nearing Odessa, and the Red Army preparing to enter Rumania, which then departs the war. With Manstein in charge of dispositions, however, the front might take a different shape. This still leaves the troublesome problem of covering a huge front with insufficient numbers, 37 Infantry Divisions and 16 Armored Divisions. In the following month, the Jassy-Kishinev Operation historically eliminated about 2/3 of these units, again due to Hitler’s insistence that units not retreat one inch of territory. Manstein had previously proved his mastery of removing a much larger Soviet force from existence with a flexible defense strategy in Operation STAR and the subsequent Third Battle of Kharkov by retreating quickly, letting the Reds overextend themselves, and then hitting them, as he said in Lost Victories, “with the backhand blow.” We should thus assume that, given a free hand, he would use the back of that hand to confound his opponent on the Ukrainian steppe.
To say that Soviet dispositions are huge in the summer of 1944 is an understatement. Operation Bagration involved 118 Rifle Divisions and 8 Armored Divisions. An additional 32 Divisions participated in the Battle of Narva, the precursor to the Battle of the Tannenberg Line; also include 90 infantry and 20 armored divisions from the south.
Together, this accounts for a rough size of the Red Army’s front, about 250 divisions. There are two things we must remember, however: first, that Red Army units are larger than Western units, and that the Soviet Union can continue to create new units to fill the gap of its lost units, the vast, vast majority of which are infantry i.e. rifle divisions.
So the total matchup is as follows:
Western Allies:
36 Infantry Divisions
6 Armored Divisions
1 Armored Brigade
4 Air Forces, plus the entirety of the RAF (I could not find exact information on size in 1944)
Germany:
130 Infantry Divisions, which includes 4 Mountain Divisions
11 Infantry Battlegroups
24 Panzer Divisions
4 Panzergrenadier Divisions
The entire Luftwaffe
Total becoming:
166 Infantry Divisions
30 Armored Divisions
4 Panzergrenadier Divisons
Plus the Luftwaffe, RAF, and 4 US Air Forces
Soviet Union:
240 Infantry Divisions
28 Armored Divisions
Red Air Force
It must be remembered, however, when looking at these numbers that the size of the Red Army is somewhat larger than it appears, due to the larger unit sizes; additionally, it might also be assumed that of the Western Allies, which now include Germany, only the United States will be able to supply further reinforcement of any substantial size, while the Soviet Union can continue to conscript until the Second Coming. By the end of the war, the Red Army was substantially larger than it was even in the summer of 1944; easily the largest armed forces in the world by that point. The quality of both sides’ air forces must also be taken into account, as well as the new German jet aircraft. I feel that, by themselves, each of the Western air forces was better than the Soviet Unions’, let alone the havoc they could wreck together. German close air support was the bane of the Red Army the duration of the war, we can only imagine the effect of the American and British air forces joining the fight might have had.
I don’t think I need to mention the new economic disposition of the war.
Based on the data given, I will leave you free to draw your own conclusions. However, I will here lend mine, having spent the time to compile this information and form it into a coherent thesis. It is my opinion that the situation at the time of the failed putsch, in early July 1944, was probably the last possible time Germany could have had any hope of success in the East, had the putsch succeeded and subsequent events fallen into place very heavily in her favor. While the extremely unlikelihood of such a chain of events coming to pass cannot be doubted, we must remember the number of times in history that extremely unlikely scenarios have in fact played out in a manner in which anything less than perfection and precision would have dramatically altered the outcome, and yet they nonetheless came to pass. We often forget, in our hindsight, that nothing in history is guaranteed to happen, and that quite often, the unforeseen is precisely what happens. I submit this extensive postulation as but one scenario that might have played out in the summer of 1944, and also invite you to draw your own conclusions and share them in fruitful discussion.
Below are two maps: The first is the actual front line at various times, the second is the line I foresee being organized by August 1944.
The time is July 1944. The place is Germany. After the failure of the Germans to mount a successful counterattack against the Allied Beachhead, it was clear that they were in France to stay. As the days wore on and the strategic and tactical situation in the West worsened, two of them men in charge could see the writing on the wall; they decided that the best thing to do was try and convince Hitler to sue for peace in the West. If they failed to do this, Marshals Günter von Kluge and Erwin Rommel were prepared to take action themselves. General Otto von Stuelpenagel, the Military Governor of France, was in agreement with them in this regard.
On July 8 Montgomery assaulted Caen, a key city in the German plan of defense…on the 10th Maltot fell, promising to snare the Nazis between Orne and Odon. Seeing nothing but a long series of disasters ahead, Rommel discussed the situation with Kluge. “We have lost the war in the West,” he said. “It must be brought to an end.”
Kluge agreed.
At this time the Military Governor of France, General Stuelpenagel, who wanted the marshal to take independent action to end the war, sent a staff officer to see Rommel for a defensive analysis. So that plans could be synchronized, this was to be reported to Colonel General Ludwig Beck…and Colonel Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, the man who was eventually to place the bomb beneath Hitler’s map table.
On 12 July, Kluge asked Rommel how long the front could be held…the Fox suggested that the corps and division commanders be asked their opinions and those opinions be forwarded to Hitler with an ultimatum. Kluge agreed…During the next three days Rommel visited the front and held frank discussions with the commanders, returning with wide assurances that the troops and officers of all ranks trusted his leadership and would follow him….In discussions Rommel and Speidel had had before the invasion had begun, they were in accord that it might be possible to save Germany by ending the war in the West through an armistice, contacting Eisenhower directly or through Sir Samuel Hoare, the British Ambassador in Madrid, or through Vatican or Swiss emissaries. “We envisioned withdrawing behind the West Wall and holding the German front in the East” Speidel told [the author]. “Rommel and Kluge were also in accord on this on July 12.”…”I am going to give Hitler this last chance before we negotiate ourselves,” Rommel said.
Taken from Charles F. Marshall. Discovering the Rommel Murder (Mechanicsville, PA: Stackpole Books, 1994), 145-46.
We thus know that a vast conspiracy had been fermenting against Hitler for quite a while, and that the Normandy landings were the final straw. This plan included not just removing Hitler from command, but also negotiating an end to the war in the West. Note carefully that they never planned to end the war with the Soviet Union, only that with the British and Americans. I will come back to this later. For the meantime, let us see what happened the day of the bomb plot, to see how they were going to handle things.
At 5:00 PM Speidel received a phone call from Blumentritt, relating information from the consuprators at Army Headquarters in Berlin, saying Hitler was dead. But by the time Kluge returned from the field to his headquarters an hour or two later, the government-controlled radio was already reporting that the putsch attempt had failed. During this critical time while matters were in flux and Army HQ in Berlin under General Beck’s control, Blumentritt, Stuelpenagel, and Field Marshal von Sperrie implored Kluge to sieze control of the army and the government and end the war, even by capitulation if necessary.
Stuelpenagel, upon first hearing from Berlin conspirators that Hitler was dead, had ordered General Boineburg, the Commandant of Paris, to arrest all of the important SS and SD officials and the entire secret police, some 1,200 in all. He was openly committed, far out on a limb.
In Germany were two men capable of taking over the government and the armed forces, but neither Dr. Gorderler nor General Beck were sufficiently known to the German public to count on its support in a coup d’etat while Hitler was still alive.
While Kluge pondered the situation and vacillated, Rommel, the man of unquestionable international stature who would have seized the reins, whose voice the people and the Army would have followed, lay wounded in a military hospital fighting for his life, only a stone’s throw outside Paris…
“His predominant thought now,” said Hesse (Rommel’s doctor in the hospital) to [the author] in May 1946,” was how the war could be ended most quickly. Since it had not been possible to throw the Allied forces back into the sea, he would have liked them to march in and occupy all of central Europe and join the Wehrmacht in keeping the Russians outside the German borders. The one hindrance he saw was Hitler.
Marshall, 149-150, 152.
We also know, from a letter from Hans von Boineburg, the former Commandant of Paris, to the author of the book, which is far too long for me to reproduce here, that the network was much more extensive than the parts that were actually used that day in July. We can assume, then, that had the bomb succeeded, and Hitler indeed been killed, that the other elements of the conspiracy would have similarly gone into action as those in Paris did. We also know the intentions of the conspirators, and that a complete shadow government was ready to be put into place, had the putsch succeeded. Thus, the ultimate success of the putsch depending on two things; first, that Rommel was alive and capable enough to lead the nation, and second, that Hitler was actually killed. While the first is indeed true, Rommel in fact made a full recovery from his wounds, and left his hospital under his own power only a day or two after the putsch, to escape the advancing Allies, the latter was not; Hitler survived the bomb’s explosion. This is our point of departure from history.
The postulation I here bring to the fore is this: had the July putsch proceeded as it was intended, and Rommel et al successfully taken the reins of power in the Reich and then approached the British and Americans with a cessation of hostilities, would they have accepted it, and if they did so, would they have been able to negotiate a separate peace with the Western Allies while continuing to fight full-force against the Soviet Union, or would they have demanded total capitulation of Germany? If we assume that the former was the accepted proposal, would perhaps Rommel’s vision come true, and the Allies “seen the light” and joined the Germans in keeping the Soviet Union out of Central and Western Europe? We know that several generals on both sides approved of this, including George S. Patton of the Allies, and Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb on the Axis side, as the following quote demonstrates:
“History will prove your alliance with the Russians to have been the greatest tragedy for the human race.”
Marshall, 19.
The question is; would any of the higher-ups in America and Britain gone for it?
Once that question has been answered, I would like to carry this thesis still further, to the point of actual engagement and deployment of both sides, both in the event of the Allies joining the Germans on the Eastern Front and also if the Germans succeeded in winning peace in the West, but then must face the Red Army on their own.
First, we will examine the disposition of all armies involved, as of July 1944.
The order of battle for the Western Allies at the commencement of Operations Cobra, Atlantic, and Goodwood are as follows, with the numbers from the US Sixth Army Group being measured at the time of Operation Dragoon, which came a month and a half after the first two operations. Also included are troop dispositions along the Gothic Line in Italy.
36 Infantry Divisions
6 Armored Divisions
1 Armored Brigade
4 Air Forces, plus the entirety of the RAF (I could not find exact information on size in 1944)
It should be remembered that by August, this number had nearly doubled.
On the German side, the following numbers:
35 Infantry Divisions, which includes 4 Mountain Divisions
11 Infantry Battlegroups
8 Panzer Divisions
4 Panzergrenadier Divisions
The entire Luftwaffe
Thus total disposition, were these units sent East, would roughly be:
71 Infantry Divisions
14 Armored Divisions
11 Infantry Battlegroups
1 Armored Brigade
4 Panzergrenadier Divisions
4 Air Forces, plus the entire RAF and Luftwaffe
Total ground forces on both sides amount to about 5 million men, plus German units in transit through Germany, and other units not directly engaged with the Allies.
On the Eastern Front, the parallel operation is the enormous Operation Bagration, which, historically, resulted in the complete liquidation of Army Group Center. However, the primary reason for the astounding loss was Hitler’s direct order to hold their ground indefinitely, an order which Field Marshal Ernst Busch obeyed to a tee. It can be reasonably assumed that Rommel would reverse this order, being a fan of the elastic defense himself, and generally being regarded as the exact opposite of an incompetent commander, which Hitler most assuredly was. Let us assume then that, while losses are quite high for Army Group Center, that it successfully breaks out after the loss of Minsk, and rejoins the front. By the time of the capture of Minsk, however, 25 of 38 Divisions in AGC have been destroyed; we might assume that 2/3 of the remaining units survive, leaving 9 divisions. If Rommel did indeed order this breakout, it could also be assumed that other generals who repeatedly sued for this sort of freedom, men like Erich von Manstein, who was in charge of Army Group South, would be given it.
Army Group North is about to engage in the Battle of Tannenberg Line in late July, and consists of 49 Divisions. With Soviet advance into Latvia, Group North historically is cut off and pinned against the sea for the remainder of the war. However, with Rommel in charge, it might be reasonable to assume that these units would not remain stagnant. If at least part of Army Group Center is saved, and the front indeed stabilizes near the border with Latvia, perhaps Army Group North could move further south and reinforce Center, forming a new front near the border with Latvia and Lithuania. With such a huge concentration of forces, such that did not exist in reality, the Soviets are given a much greater task. Center and North were historically very tough nuts to crack, and with them concentrated into a front to cover less than 1/3 the size it was before the start of Operation Bagration, it could be assumed that the new dispositions would slow the Soviets down considerably.
The situation in the South, however, is less hopeful. The Crimean units are isolated and sure to be destroyed, with the mainland front already nearing Odessa, and the Red Army preparing to enter Rumania, which then departs the war. With Manstein in charge of dispositions, however, the front might take a different shape. This still leaves the troublesome problem of covering a huge front with insufficient numbers, 37 Infantry Divisions and 16 Armored Divisions. In the following month, the Jassy-Kishinev Operation historically eliminated about 2/3 of these units, again due to Hitler’s insistence that units not retreat one inch of territory. Manstein had previously proved his mastery of removing a much larger Soviet force from existence with a flexible defense strategy in Operation STAR and the subsequent Third Battle of Kharkov by retreating quickly, letting the Reds overextend themselves, and then hitting them, as he said in Lost Victories, “with the backhand blow.” We should thus assume that, given a free hand, he would use the back of that hand to confound his opponent on the Ukrainian steppe.
To say that Soviet dispositions are huge in the summer of 1944 is an understatement. Operation Bagration involved 118 Rifle Divisions and 8 Armored Divisions. An additional 32 Divisions participated in the Battle of Narva, the precursor to the Battle of the Tannenberg Line; also include 90 infantry and 20 armored divisions from the south.
Together, this accounts for a rough size of the Red Army’s front, about 250 divisions. There are two things we must remember, however: first, that Red Army units are larger than Western units, and that the Soviet Union can continue to create new units to fill the gap of its lost units, the vast, vast majority of which are infantry i.e. rifle divisions.
So the total matchup is as follows:
Western Allies:
36 Infantry Divisions
6 Armored Divisions
1 Armored Brigade
4 Air Forces, plus the entirety of the RAF (I could not find exact information on size in 1944)
Germany:
130 Infantry Divisions, which includes 4 Mountain Divisions
11 Infantry Battlegroups
24 Panzer Divisions
4 Panzergrenadier Divisions
The entire Luftwaffe
Total becoming:
166 Infantry Divisions
30 Armored Divisions
4 Panzergrenadier Divisons
Plus the Luftwaffe, RAF, and 4 US Air Forces
Soviet Union:
240 Infantry Divisions
28 Armored Divisions
Red Air Force
It must be remembered, however, when looking at these numbers that the size of the Red Army is somewhat larger than it appears, due to the larger unit sizes; additionally, it might also be assumed that of the Western Allies, which now include Germany, only the United States will be able to supply further reinforcement of any substantial size, while the Soviet Union can continue to conscript until the Second Coming. By the end of the war, the Red Army was substantially larger than it was even in the summer of 1944; easily the largest armed forces in the world by that point. The quality of both sides’ air forces must also be taken into account, as well as the new German jet aircraft. I feel that, by themselves, each of the Western air forces was better than the Soviet Unions’, let alone the havoc they could wreck together. German close air support was the bane of the Red Army the duration of the war, we can only imagine the effect of the American and British air forces joining the fight might have had.
I don’t think I need to mention the new economic disposition of the war.
Based on the data given, I will leave you free to draw your own conclusions. However, I will here lend mine, having spent the time to compile this information and form it into a coherent thesis. It is my opinion that the situation at the time of the failed putsch, in early July 1944, was probably the last possible time Germany could have had any hope of success in the East, had the putsch succeeded and subsequent events fallen into place very heavily in her favor. While the extremely unlikelihood of such a chain of events coming to pass cannot be doubted, we must remember the number of times in history that extremely unlikely scenarios have in fact played out in a manner in which anything less than perfection and precision would have dramatically altered the outcome, and yet they nonetheless came to pass. We often forget, in our hindsight, that nothing in history is guaranteed to happen, and that quite often, the unforeseen is precisely what happens. I submit this extensive postulation as but one scenario that might have played out in the summer of 1944, and also invite you to draw your own conclusions and share them in fruitful discussion.
Below are two maps: The first is the actual front line at various times, the second is the line I foresee being organized by August 1944.
