Two Slaps that changed the world?

This is a blog for military enthusiasts or researchers to contemplate how postwar Europe and the rest of the world may have been different if Gen. George S. Patton had not slapped two soldiers on the island of Sicily in 1943 and been relieved. Now in order to debate the matter, we must agree on several things, as there are simply too many variables which would have contributed to the outcome.







First-As 7th Army commander we will assume that Patton would not have been relieved and reassigned to 5th Army in Italy, as that command had already been given to Mark Clark, and the mountainous terrain would not have been a suitable use for large scale armored warfare, which was his specialty.



Second-Although I believe that Eisenhower would probably not have given Patton command of 1st Army because of his temperament and inability to work with Montgomery, we will assume that Bradley and Patton's roles are reversed. Patton will have command of 1st Army on D-Day and later 12th Army Group. Bradley will command 3rd Army on August 1st.



Third-All other Army, Corps, and Divisions commanders are as they were, with same dates of activation and alignment.





I believe that D-Day may have changed little, and the trouble in the bocage was regardless of the overall commander. The breakout or Operation Cobra was the brainchild of Bradley, but the use of an armored thrust combined with overwhelming airpower was certainly a contingency in which Patton was well aware. The role performed by 3rd Army originally, the drive through Mortain and the capture of the Brittany Peninsula may have been performed by units of the 1st Army under Patton and he would certainly have pushed Bradley East and then North. The similarities end there. As 3rd Army swung north as the southern pincer to close the Falaise Gap, it is highly unlikely that Patton would have halted him from coming further north to meet the lagging Montgomery. The gap would have been closed under Patton's 12th Army Group command, resulting in the total annihilation of a German Army, and the drive to the Seine no less aggressive. Patton may have struggled as Eisenhower insisted on the broad front approach, preferring rapid narrow thrusts, with strong points of resistance bypassed or encircled. The Ruhr still a priority, and I believe he would have argued against Market Garden as poor military logic and too many supplies diverted to Montgomery. Could Patton have helped capture Antwerp more quickly thus relieving the supply shortage? Would he have been more likely to bypass the Hurtgen Forest and Metz? Certainly the quick reaction to relieve Bastogne from the South would not have happened under Bradley. Would the war have ended sooner with the U.S. and British forces reaching Berlin before the Russians, or the taking of Prague, thereby changing the face of postwar Europe?