Quote:
Originally Posted by Louis Cyphre
After the liberation of France the Allies were confident that it was only a matter of time until Germany was defeated. The US transferred troops to the Pacific theatre to support the war effort there.
The German army put up more resistance than expected and progress stalled. This resulted in Stalin being in a position of strength during the Yalta conference and being able to dictate terms.
Was the better option to keep the troops in Europe until Germany surrenders?
What would postwar Europe have looked like if the Allies take Berlin before The Red Army sets foot on German soil?
Fairly sure no US divisions were transferred from Europe to the Pacific until after VE-Day, and even then they never fought in the Pacific because of the Japanese surrender.
The 'autumn pause' in Europe, known to the Germans as the Miracle in the West, occurred for various reasons, but the transfer of US troops wasn't one of them. The Battle of Normandy ended in unexpected fashion with an abrupt German collapse and an extremely rapid Allied advance. The British armoured divisions liberated Belgium in a single day, and by D+90 Eisenhower's armies were holding positions they had not been predicted to take till D+365.
This had serious consequences for the supply situation. Fuel and ammunition still had to be trucked from the Normandy beaches or the Riviera. The British then made their famous mistake by capturing Antwerp, the vital supply port for the push into Germany, but not immediately turning left to clear the Scheldt estuary, so German Fifteenth Army just had time to dig in on the estuary and stop the Allies opening Antwerp for business till November.
Meanwhile, Operation Market Garden went wrong and the US Army embarked on the needless and very costly Battle of the Hurtgen Forest which dragged on till February, used up eight infantry and two armoured divisions and achieved nothing. Then the Germans complicated matters by launching the Ardennes offensive, which could never have worked but did impose a long delay on Allied planning.