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not the French First Army. It’s a farce.”
    “Understood,” said Ike grimly. The French had shown a propensity to squabble like children both among themselves and with their erstwhile allies.
    Devers had never been Ike’s favorite general and he had been considering replacing him. But now he was having second thoughts. Maybe Devers’ apparent problems weren’t all his fault. Perhaps it was also due to a fractured and fractious command. De Gaulle had been a thorn in the American command’s side from the very first. Neither FDR nor Churchill could stand the man and accepted him as the leader of France only reluctantly. Paris had been liberated some months earlier and it was felt that De Gaulle no longer saw any need to expend effort and French lives in a war that was already won. France had regained control of Alsace and Lorraine, provinces claimed by France and lost in 1940, and that further dampened their enthusiasm for future operations or even basic cooperation.
    Devers stood and pointed at a map of Europe on the wall. “Once across, I’m sure I can halt a lot of German traffic, but that still leaves the road from the south via Italy wide open. And then there’s nothing to stop the Krauts from coming up through Yugoslavia. The Reds aren’t there yet.”
    Devers turned a worried look at Ike. “General, am I allowed to speak ill of our allies?”
    Almost from the day he’d taken command, Ike had issued a fiat that no one could insult the British or the French. A few officers had made that mistake and paid for it with their careers.
    Ike smiled. “If it’s just between us, yes. Of course, you could always call General Alexander a bad general who just happens to be British rather than a bad British general.”
    British General Harold Alexander had recently been promoted to Field Marshal and made commander of all operations in the Mediterranean. Ike and others felt that Alexander had been kicked upstairs and out of the way.
    Devers laughed. “Ike, I know that Mark Clark is now in charge of the Fifteenth Army Group and that’s got to be an improvement over Alexander. From what I can tell, it’s been a slow-motion chase for months. And yes, I know the Fifteenth has been climbing northward towards the Alps and I also know that we’ve stripped it of some of his best units, but Clark won’t be able to stop the Germans in Italy from getting to that redoubt. The British Eighth Army is run down and they don’t want to take any more casualties either. Clark’s armies are made up of units from many countries, including Brazil. It’ll take time for Clark to sort things out. I mean, does anybody really think the Brazilians can take on even a weakened Wehrmacht? Hell, we all know FDR’s big on this new United Nations thing, but Clark’s got Canadians, Poles, and South Africans in his army along with those damned Brazilians. I’d like to have the Poles and South Africans but you can keep the others. The Canadians are just as worn out as the British.”
    Ike nodded and dug out another cigarette. Mamie had written him about his chain smoking. He thought he might do something about it after the war. Now it gave him comfort. Ike was confident that Mark Clark was an improvement over Alexander, but by how much was a question. The man had a tendency to act like a prima donna. He had liberated Rome on June 5, 1944, the day before the invasion of Normandy. Rumor had it that he felt that Ike had upstaged him. There was also the question of his liberating Rome in the first place. Clark’s advance had been controversial. By taking Rome instead of cutting across the width of Italy, he had permitted large numbers of Germans to escape to the north where they now confronted the Allies and could be heading for the Redoubt. Jesus, he thought. How many prima donnas could he have? First there was Montgomery, then De Gaulle, add Mark Clark and stir in a dash of George Patton.
    Of course, he thought with a small degree of satisfaction,