My Canadian side acknowledged. It is a peculiarly Canadian thing that instead of saying: "When the impossible had to be accomplished, the Canadian Corps was sent for because we would accomplish it." Instead we complain about "incompetent British Generalship killed Canadians.”
Dieppe
- Thread starter Insidious Von
- Start date
I can't agree with you aardy. Looking at the deployments of Canadian, Aussie, Kiwi, South African, and Gurka units in both wars, the difference in how colonials were treated was striking. Yes, Canada often did well with the crap they were given but they were given a lot of crap.
No it wouldn't and didn't.
Uncle Joe's country was losing tens of millions. A couple thousand at Dieppe wouldn't even make him blink.
Of course not. But Dieppe provided 'blood on the water' evidence for the claim that opening a Western Front was a big deal and would take a lot of prep. Stalin and his Russian generals may not have cared about lives lost on the beaches, but the English-speaking Allies needed to keep him convinced they were trying hard to relieve the pressure on him. They remembered he'd signed a treaty with Hitler once before.
Too bad they didn't convince him that they were relieving the pressure. Even Eisenhower admitted the Western Allies were winning the war with Russian blood.
Dieppe was insignificant to the war in the East. The Germans actually thought the raid was a joke.
Which goes right back to "which came first the Chicken or the egg?"
I don't know about the New Zealanders and South Africans. However, certainly the Canadian and Australian units as well as the Gurkas were all considered "shock troops," furthermore they did have a certain amount of autonomy in both wars I know there were instances where the word went back "not that way but this way."
I don't buy into the argument that Canadians were thrown to the wolves at Dieppe. Canada was vigorously pursuing being involved in a raid as the Canadian units had been training endlessly for a long time with no combat to show for it. They wanted to get into the action and they got it.
Did they receive the support they required from the British air force and (especially) the navy? No. But this wasn't a case of the British wanting to throw a bunch of colonials into the fire.
Did they receive the support they required from the British air force and (especially) the navy? No. But this wasn't a case of the British wanting to throw a bunch of colonials into the fire.
Another point regarding Louis Mountbatten, I trust that other TERBites are aware that he had a great many enemies in the British Establishment, some of his own making, many others inherited from his father. The fact that he went on to far greater things, does indicate that Dieppe was not a completely foreseeable cock-up.
Mountbatten makes a convenient target for the more "popularist" type of Canadian military historian who appreciates that a nice, foreign scapegoat for a Canadian military setback makes for good, profitable copy. In actual fact, the Allies were screwing up so regularly at that juncture of the war that Lord Louis was probably about as competent as anyone else. He might have been sacked over Dieppe as a convenient sap, I suppose. But there was the issue of who his relatives were and the fact that the rest of the Allied High Command were not especially upset over the fiasco - AFAIK.
Re British military / naval "office politics", those chaps seemed to feud and catfight more than a clique of fashion models at a Calvin Klein couture show. When you read about Normandy for example, it's impossible to figure out if General X is getting fired because he is genuinely so abominably incompetent that everyone is sick of his screw-ups, because he happens to belong to a faction that Monty is feuding with or because Monty is just sacking someone to cover his own ass.
He was never anything else than a cad, a great example why the monarchy should be abolished.
Regretfully Danmand, your credibility on this point is non-existent.
Now, I will give you that he had a hugely outsized ego, however, that was almost entirely due to his battle to both prove himself and his struggle to redeem his father's reputation.
Further, had he been that incompetent, there were plenty of senior officers who were put into unable to do further damage positions or retired entirely. Certainly his later career showed him to be more than competent.
Ike was never stupid, but even dimwits could see that, and it was the Russians who took Berlin. In any case, something convinced Stalin to keep on bleeding, and I doubt it was to make the world safe for capitalists. Exactly which bits of what convinced the fractious Allies that they'd do better sticking together than going it alone will always be debatable, but the shortsightedness of that German evaluation seems very apparent in the rear-view mirror of history.
If Dieppe planners had a Russian effect in mind, it certainly wouldn't have been 'to relieve the pressure' as that would have required a full-on landing with intent, troops and materiel to remain, not a mere raid. There'd long been a plan (Sledgehammer) kicking about for various forms of landing in France as a diversion for a prime purpose elsewhere such as North Africa or Italy, so it wouldn't have needed much mental gymnastics, and little change of arrangements to see the 'pretend' landing/raid plan could get attention in Moscow as well as Berlin.
Yeah, it was the Nazis wanting to take over his country. And once they turned the tables on Germany, they were out for vengeance.
You may not want to admit it but Dieppe was irrelevant to the Eastern Front.
As it turned out, of course, the western allies' fears about Stalin making a separate peace with Hitler were baseless.
Rather, it was Stalin who feared Britain and USA might be the ones to make peace -- and then might join with Germany in renewed attacks against Russia. Given what Russia had suffered at Germany's hands, and how superior Russia was militarily by mid-1944 (when they launched Bagration, the Really Big Operation), there was no way Stalin was going to offer terms to Germany.
Still, history must regard Dieppe as decisive, for the effect it had on planning for D-day.
Rather, it was Stalin who feared Britain and USA might be the ones to make peace -- and then might join with Germany in renewed attacks against Russia. Given what Russia had suffered at Germany's hands, and how superior Russia was militarily by mid-1944 (when they launched Bagration, the Really Big Operation), there was no way Stalin was going to offer terms to Germany.
Still, history must regard Dieppe as decisive, for the effect it had on planning for D-day.
OK, I've said what I have to say on the topic; I'm not sure whether that qualifies as saying it was relevant to the Eastern Front or not, as that is your point, but please take it whichever way you prefer. It was a big war and the cross-purposes were many, one more brief one here won't make a difference and shouldn't go further.
Yeah, that is why the U.S. probably "sanitized" the role Germany played in WW II. Anyway, back to Dieppe. I saw the episode on the History Channel for the first time this weekend. I think there is one flaw in seizing the Enigma machine as an objective. Wouldn't the Germans know that one of their machines is missing and immediately change the password?
Apparently they didn't as the machine code was not changed, so no need to worry your head about that little what if and start watching Fringe, much more productive.
