Broad front versus narrow front controversy in World War II
The broad front versus narrow front controversy in World War II arose after General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, decided to advance into Germany on a broad front in 1944, against the suggestions of his principal subordinates, Lieutenant Generals Omar Bradley and George S. Patton and Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, who argued instead to stage competing advances on narrow fronts. The decision was controversial initially because the British government wanted to raise the profile of the minority British contingent in what was by then an overwhelmingly American army, and they perceived that a British-led thrust to Berlin would achieve this aim. Montgomery's strident advocacy raised political and nationalistic complications that strained the wartime alliance. During the subsequent Cold War, suggestions were made that the Soviet presence in Eastern Europe may have been reduced had Eisenhower sent a narrow-front thrust to race the USSR to Berlin in 1945. Eisenhower's decision was based on both political and military factors. There were serious reservations in the autumn of 1944 about whether the Allied logistical system could support the narrow-front strategy, because at that time there were insufficient working ports to support large formations far from the coast, the road and