February 12, 2010

Mistakes Were Made

Consider a counterfactual hypothesis about World War II. If Eisenhower had allowed Lt. Gen. Devers to cross the Rhine in November 1944, the war in Europe might have been shortened by several months and the Battle of the Bulge almost certainly never would have happened. Did Eisenhower screw up? What could have caused things to go so wrong? For a look at some relatively unknown and greatly underappreciated history I turned to David P. Colley, author of Decision at Strasbourg (Naval Institute Press, 2008). It's a fascinating story with a number of important lessons relevant for contemporary warfare. Total runtime an hour and eight minutes. Enjoy!