Thread by @MNormanDavies

🧵Ukrainian Counter-offensive
The Normandy Comparisons

As Kiev's Summer 2023 campaign faltered repeatedly, a whole chorus of Western apologia arose to help feed and bolster the failure

This was in direct parallel with Western largesse in continual supply of arms and ammunition

The NATO-sourced Normandy analogies were clearly deliberate, pre-meditated and coordinated

Just as the offensive's obvious long-planned Main Effort - Tokmak-Melitopol - was timed exactly to the anniversary of the Normandy D-Day landings i.e.,

6 June

It seemed to be another effort too to counter vast evidence that many of Kiev's troops would actually rather sympathize and work with those SS formations among Normandy's Axis occupiers

An obvious magical date may confound those westerners complaining NATO is on the wrong side

This Ghost of Normandy's effect was ongoing, as if an insurance policy for military failure

Ukraine partisans adopted sage personae of patience and broad meta-historical vision and erudition

...while assuming AFU command and staff acted from purely professional military motives

Now after three whole months the Normandy analogies even have a rearguard, well received among the faithful...

a la 'That's war. War is slow'

So, is the Ukrainian counteroffensive a failure?

How does it really compare to the Normandy campaign?

And what does all this show about the current state of the West's military culture?

The 1944 Normandy Campaign is one of the most analyzed and debated in military history

It generated controversies hotly contested to this day

One of the best accounts is Carlo D'Este's classic Decision in Normandy

Core to D'Este's discussion is an intense scandal around alleged under-performance by Montgomery

Monty had direct command for the Normandy Campaign. He aroused complaints of slow progress, and of lying over plans and timetables

For example, Ike's deputy Tedder wanted him sacked

Monty did under-perform, even when viewed against his own planning and orders

Notoriously, the key hub of Caen was meant to be taken fast following the D-Day landings, but Caen was mostly beyond reach for over a month

D'Este, himself a veteran officer, gives a fair assessment and is generous on Monty's abilities and achievements

And D'Este treats 'phase lines' properly as planning guides - not as orders or performance measures per se

Kiev's AFU is no different in this regard and yes, its command must be flexible in plans and orders as for any army

https://twitter.com/MNormanDavies/status/1669126327109308416

But those invoking a Normandy analogy invite competitive audit too

And their claims do not survive careful comparison

AFU under-performance in Zaporozhye would translate into a failure in Normandy comparable to the Anzio landing if not the 'disaster' (or sacrifice) at Dieppe...

For this audit we can scale mapped results against Normandy, Summer 1944

Of course success in warfare is not property speculation

But 'he who lives by the real estate portfolio dies by it' (or maybe ought to!)

And Kiev's sponsors have often treated such activities as identical

After three whole months the AFU's obvious Main Effort on its southern front would have failed to even reach the suburbs of Caen

Where viewed against the American 'hell of the Bocage', the AFU's thrust on its right flank would have been yet worse...

Results are hardly much better if generously including AFU advances on the Vremyevsky Ridge

I maintain that west-flank push was a feint, but we can allow that efforts may shift where opportunities arise

Nonetheless, an 'AFU-NATO D-Day' failed spectacularly by their own measures

If viewed against Normandy's phase lines from COSSACK planning too, the AFU's counteroffensive failed

It may even seem indistinguishable in that sense from the coastal raids of Churchill's 'peripheral strategy' in the Mediterranean fiasco of Kos and Leros

Back to Monty: how were things after 3 months?

The British took Antwerp but Monty gave a halt order

It was really the worst mistake of his career as it allowed German 15th Army to escape and their defences to recover

But Western military standards were much higher back then...