Operation Market Garden had succeeded

Hufflepuff · #1 (**permalink**) February 13th, 2008, 02:15 PM

Operation Market Garden was the western allies' attempt in September 1944 to secure several key bridges in occupied Holland that would allow the allies to cross the Rhine river. The 101st and 82nd US Airborne divisions and British 1st Airborne division jumped from C-47s and skidded to a halt on gliders on Sept. 17, 1944. Help from the British XXX corps to the south would help secure all bridges and objectives after the airborne had done thier work. Combined it would be the biggest airborne operation of WWII. It was a failure; the Germans either destroyed or took back most of the allied objectives, including the Arnhem bridge, the bridge at Zon and others. If it had succeeded, what do you think would have happened?

1: What would be the state of the German defenders, and how would the overall morale of the Wehrmacht be affected?

2: How long would the war have lasted; the intent of the operation was to allow the western allies to take Berlin by Christmas (not that this is months before Yalta).

3: How would supplies be affected? After Market Garden, the supply issue in ETO became very stresses and many units ran out of gasoline; would the success of Market Garden have changed this?

Add any other details you want about what you think would have happened.

T. A. Gardner · #2 (**permalink**) February 13th, 2008, 03:02 PM

It likely wouldn't have changed much if anything even if it did succeed. One can look at the original campaign and events that followed it to see this.

First, Monty would still have had to halt his advance and open Antwerp before proceeding. This was critical to Allied logistics. Without Antwerp the Allies could not continue their offensive operations on any large scale and Eisenhower was adamantly opposed to an advance on a narrow front. Montgomery would have made little or no progress politically against heavy US opposition to his "give me all the supplies and I'll advance on a narrow front" argument.
Antwerp was a necessary step and taking areas like Walchern Island and the Scheldt was going to still take a month or more to accomplish.

Next, the Germans would still have flooded the lower Rhine forcing the British to wage their "Polder" battles and clean up their flanks. Areas like Reichwald would still be major obstacles to advance and, given Montgomery's very conservative, attrition oriented style of combat the British would have sat and organized and built up a supply base for at least a month or more before resuming any offensive activity other than the typical penchant of Montgomery to "tidy up the battlefield."

Also, even though the British were now obstensively across the Rhine, giving them a small political victory it was in a location that did little good to advancing into Germany itself. Again, with the lower Rhine flooded the road to Berlin lay elsewhere.

Then there is the problem of the Germans having built up a sizable force on their border facing the British and this making continuing local counterattacks into the flank of the now extended British position. This too would require fixing before the advance could continue. The British also could not leave 15th(?) Army in its rear along the Dutch coast. This represents another factor needing taking care of before resuming the advance.

On the whole, even if Market Garden succeeded the British would have ended up sitting into December and then the Ardennes Offensive would have occured delaying them into January much as actually historically occured.

ghost_of_war · #3 (**permalink**) February 13th, 2008, 10:58 PM

Do you think the Ardennes Offensive (or Battle of the Bulge) would have even happened had the Allies pushed through to the heart of Germany before 12/17/44?

Hufflepuff · #4 (**permalink**) February 14th, 2008, 12:45 AM

It's 12/16/44 but whatever...I think the Allies might have been able to push south, towards the Ruhr valley where most of Germany's factiores were and then the Ardennes offensive probably would'nt have been possible. Also, about the morale victory mentioned earlier, I think that a crossing of the Rhine would have a serious effect on German morale; peole would think, "what the h3ll is happening at the front?" But there is still the flooding issue mentioned to consider...but monty's men would have been very stirred up by the whole deal if it succeeded, and he'd be nuts not to advance as quickly as he could.

~~PactOfSteel~~ · #5 (**permalink**) February 14th, 2008, 03:00 AM

I admit I don't know as much as I should on this subject but when the Germans defeated the Allies at Arnhem why didn't they continue their victory over the Allies by driving them further out of Europe? Didn't they have 3,000 paratroopers on stand-by? Of course both SS Panzer divisions were weak and lacked tanks which could have helped a lot but by this time they were already on the run from the Red Army so it didn't really matter.

Hufflepuff · #6 (**permalink**) February 14th, 2008, 03:15 AM

I dont really know the answer to the paratrooper question but by the time the operation was failed a lot of the panzer divisions along the western front were very understrength, and it was too risky to advance any further into allied territory, where they ran the risk of being surrounded and destroyed.

wlee15 · #7 (**permalink**) February 14th, 2008, 04:04 AM

If they weren't able to repel the Canadians at the Battle of the Scheldt, they probably didn't have the strength to attack an well entrentched and experience units of the 21st Army Group.

Martin Bull · #8 (**permalink**) February 14th, 2008, 08:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PactOfSteel

when the Germans defeated the Allies at Arnhem why didn't they continue their victory over the Allies by driving them further out of Europe?

They only defeated the objective of Market Garden: ie militarily the furthest point of advance ( the relatively small airborne force around Arnhem/Oosterbeek ).

30 Corps plus the 82nd and 101st Airborne were not defeated ; they were effectively stalemated. The Germans - just - had enough strength to defend, but not to counterattack.