In the operation in the Central Region, at its sharpest point in the Krefeld Salient, the Warsaw Pact advance never got any further than Julich. The newly arrived US corps, equipped out of Convoy CAVALRY, was already by 16 August building up on the western flank. This posed a threat which, taken in conjunction with the northward offensive of the Northern Army Group, could mean nothing other than a halt to the advance and an enforced change-over to defensive action (for which the Red Army was not well suited) or to withdrawal.
The French division deployed in the Maastricht area in the emergency situation of 13–14 August was relieved as soon as US troops began to arrive in strength. It joined up with the rest of the Southern Army Group, which was now in a position, with some further switch-back of Allied air power, to open a counter-offensive towards the Czechoslovak frontier. This began on 17 August. By then NORTHAG’s northwards offensive towards Bremen had regained possession of the Teutoburger Wald, but it could make no further headway against the very heavy flank defences of a rearward regrouping movement by Pact forces which could hardly yet be described as a retreat.
We have looked in some detail at the circumstances leading to the abandonment of the initial plan of the Warsaw Pact and the rearward regrouping which followed. The events of the next few weeks can be passed over more rapidly. Before we move on, however, some comment on SACEUR’s handling of the battle may not be out of place.
It was a very near thing. The Supreme Commander was quite determined to avoid the use of battlefield nuclear weapons if he possibly could, in the certain conviction, shared by the President of the USA, that this could have no other result than swift escalation into the nightmare of unrestricted strategic nuclear exchange, with results which could not fail to be disastrous. As commander in the theatre he was also determined to keep under his own hand as long as he possibly could those modest theatre reserves which constituted his whole remaining capability to influence the battle. He was on the horns of a dilemma, precisely the same dilemma which had brought so much discomfort into the debate on the ‘forward defence’ of the FRG. To be able to hold off a very much superior attacking force, without giving ground, either additional troops were needed on the spot — or nuclear weapons.
SACEUR’s subordinate commanders had been pressing him to furnish one or the other with ever-growing urgency. Counter-offensive action to relieve pressure at the vital point was most critically necessary. It was the prospect of the arrival of the transatlantic reinforcement convoy which justified him, in his own judgment, in taking the considered (and considerable) risk of releasing his only reserves for this purpose before the new formations to reconstitute them were securely under his hand. This, it may be added, greatly strengthened him in resisting any further pressure for nuclear release.
Analysts are already busy in debate on the wisdom of Soviet naval policy in the seventies. We make some comment on this in Appendix
