94. TBK. Bk VIII. 3, 6. & "Falling Better"

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The Brothers Karamazov

Book VIII. 3.

I love this episode with Madame Hohlakov and the gold mines. First, it’s such a brilliant way to get rid of the inane Dmitri. Second, it’s so wonderfully Jane Austen-like. But I wonder what Dostoyevsky means by it. (I know I keep saying this.) The notion of all Dmitri’s problems being solved by wealth derived from resource exploitation. That bit about the modern, emancipated women of the future. Hohlakov actually has a point, but what does Dostoyevsky think of her point? It certainly is at variance with utopian Christianity -- and it seems to be related to the shock of Zossima’s reversal of fortune. I think Dostoyevsky actually prefers Dmitri’s (and Greshenka’s) doomed saving of each other.]

It occurs to me that Fyodor, the father, is the apotheosis of Ivan’s nihilist ideas. Ivan proclaims wild ideas but is the mildest of men. Dmitri is a creature of impulse and emotion. But Fyodor is the one without morals, who lives a completely materialistic and amoral life. He is what Zossima and Dostoyevsky  see as the result of a secular world view. And what “divine” justice to have him slain by his bastard child.

And what does the similarity between Zossima and Dmitri mean? (I'm thinking here of Zossima before the duel and his becoming a monk.) Zossima doesn’t quite say it, but the reason he bows to Dmitri is that he sees, in Dmitri, himself at the time of his great awakening (or was it the Mysterious Visitor he saw. Maybe both). But Dmitri remains an impulsive oaf to the end. For all his good qualities, he is and will always be a loose canon. Katerina and Grushenka (and Dostoyevsky) are eager to accommodate and follow him, but that is because of that perplexing (to me) desire for “laceration.” Christianity either fuels this or takes advantage of this trait in people.

Book VIII. 6.

p476 [I’ve been skipping through sections with enough plot to cause Mann to faint in despair, but this exchange is worth noting. Andrey is the peasant driving Dmitri through the night in search of Grushenka who has gone to meet her “officer”] “Faster, Andrey! Faster” Dmitri cried again.

“May I ask you something, sir?... Only I’m afraid of making you angry, sir.”

“What is it?”

“Well, Fenya threw herself at your feet just now, and begged you not to harm her mistress... So you see, sir . . . I am taking you there . . . Forgive me sir, it’s my conscience...”

Dmitri suddenly grabbed him by the shoulders from behind.

“Are you a driver?” he asked frantically.

“Yes, sir . . .”

“Then you know that one has to make way for people. What would you say about a driver who wouldn’t make way for anyone, but would just drive on and crush people? No, a driver mustn’t run over people. One can’t run over a man. One can’t spoil people’s lives. And if you have spoiled a life -- punish yourself . . . If you’ve spoiled, if you’ve ruined anyone’s life -- punish yourself and go away.”

Dmitri is talking about himself and “making way” for the officer, Grushenka’s first love. But how in hell is poor Andrey supposed to understand this? I first read this from Andrey’s point-of-view and was completely confused. 

...
[Dmitri to Andrey] ...“Tell me, will Dmitri Karamazav go to hell, or not? What do you think?”
...
p477 “So you see, sir, who it is hell’s for,” [“the mighty of the earth, the rulers, the chief judges, and the rich men...”] said Andrey... “But you’re like a little child . . . That’s how we look on you . . . And though you’re quick tempered, sir, yet God will forgive you for your kind heart.”

“And you, do you forgive me, Andrey?”

“What should I forgive you for, sir? You’ve never done me any harm.”


“No, for everyone, for everyone. You here alone, on the road, will you forgive me for everyone? Speak, simple peasant heart!”

“Oh, sir! I’m afraid. Your talk is so strange.”

But dmitri did not hear. He was frantically praying and muttering to himself..

“Lord, receive me, with all my lawlessness, and do not condemn me, for I have condemned myself. Do not condemn me, for I love Thee O Lord. I am a wretch, but I love Thee. If Thou sendest me to hell, I shall love Thee forever and ever. . . . But let me love to the end. . . . I love her and I can not help loving her. Thou seest my whole heart. . . . I shall gallop up, I shall fall before her and say: 
You are right to pass on and leave me. Farewell and forget your victim . . . Never torment yourself about me!’ ” 


Small Victories 

"Falling Better"
Great title. What is life but learning to fall better. Of course you could put an interesting twist on that if you capitalized the “Fall.” The idea that religion may be man’s greatest invention is growing on me. It is no less irritating that humans will believe literally any story you can dream up, but that people choose to believe the “good” stuff about themselves and their nature -- and against all evidence to the contrary -- is at least impressive. 

p231 We celebrated Good Friday that night. It's such a sad day, all loss and cruelty, and you have to go on faith that the light shines in the darkness, and nothing, not death, disease, not even the government, can overcome it. I hate that you can't prove the beliefs of my faith. If I were God, I'd have the answers at the end of the workbook, so you could check to see if you're on the right track as you go along. But nooooooo. Darkness is our context, and Easter's context: without it, you couldn't see the light. Hope is not about proving anything. It's choosing to believe this one thing, that love is bigger than any grim bleak shit anyone can throw at us.

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84. TBK. Bk IV. 2-7.

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Jump back to Previous: TBK. Bk IV. 1. & Last of October

The Brothers Karamazov

Bk IV. 2.
p195 [Fyodor to Alyosha] “...I mean to go on in my sins to the end, let me tell you. For sin is sweet. All abuse it but all men live in it. The only difference is that others do it on the sly and I do it openly... And your paradise, Alyosha, is not to my taste, let me tell you that. It is not the proper place for a gentleman, your paradise, even if it exists. I believe that I fall asleep and don’t wake up again, and that’s all. You can pray for my soul if you like. And if you don’t want to, don’t, damn you! That’s my philosophy. Ivan talked well here yesterday, though we were all drunk...”
...
p197 “...you love him [Dmitri] and I am not afraid of your loving him. But if Ivan loved him I would be afraid. But Ivan loves nobody, Ivan is not one of us. People like Ivan are not our sort, my boy. They are like a cloud of dust. When the wind blows, the dust will be gone . . . 

Fyodor lives a life consistent with Ivan's stated philosophy, yet he doesn't care for Ivan. You think of Alyosha as being the odd-man-out in this family but that is actually Ivan. This of course is based on Alyosha's insistence that he is a Karamazov too, though we don't really see any confirmation of this. Fyodor is really just expressing the discomfort people have with the "intellectual" -- the person who thinks about life rather than wallowing in it. (Says the person who identifies with Ivan.)

Bk IV. 4.
p204 [The divine Madame Hohlakov to Alyosha] “...Your brother is in there with her [Katerina] now, not that dreadful brother who was so shocking yesterday, but the other, Ivan. He is sitting with her talking. They are having a serious conversation. If you could only imagine what’s passing between them now -- it’s awful. I tell you it’s lacerating; it’s like some incredible tale of horror. They are ruining their lives, for no reason anyone can see. They both recognize it and revel in it...”
...
“...she [Lise] is so ill, Alyosha, she has been so ill all night, feverish and moaning! I could hardly wait for the morning and for Doctor Herzenstube to come. He says that he can make nothing of it, that we must wait. Herzenstube always comes and says that he can make nothing of it. . . .”
...
p208 [Madame H. about Alyosha just having been bitten on the finger by a strange boy] “...and perhaps the boy was rabid.”

[Lise] “Why, Mother! As though there were rabid boys!” 

“Why not, Lise, as though I had said something stupid! The boy might have been bitten by a mad dog and he would become mad and bite anyone near him... [Sadly, this is true.] Do you still feel the pain?”

“It’s nothing much now.”

“You don’t feel afraid of water?” asked Lise. [I missed this first time but she is funny here as rabid animals (including people) are supposedly afraid of water.]
...
[Madame H. about Katerina again] p209 “... It’s the most fantastic thing. She loves your brother, Ivan, and she is doing her best to persuade herself that she loves your brother Dmitri. It’s appalling! I’ll go in with you, and if they don’t turn me out, I’ll stay to the end.”

Way ahead to the break in speeches at the end of the trial, the mention of nihilism made me do some research and Alexander II was assassinated the year after The Brothers K. was published... so “nihilism” and revolution was certainly a timely concern. But what does nihilism mean in this respect. Look at all the different kinds of nihilism in the Wiki article. I want to make a distinction between philosophical and political nihilism. Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were interested in philosophical nihilism, and this was shared by Dostoyevsky and Mann. But, while Dostoyevsky seems to see nihilist motivation behind the murderous actions of Pavel, the political nihilism that resulted in Alexander II’s assassination would seem to be the result of a rejection of the church and state status quo of the age, not a rejection of “meaning” in any of the other senses. Political nihilists cared very much about their political goals, enough to risk their lives. I would think they might have been fans of Tom Paine, for example, rather than Feuerbach. In fact, the American Revolution would seem to be the model for their cause.

Frankly, I'm not sure why this note is here. I may copy it to the trial but on the outside chance that there is a reason (not obvious to me at the moment) that I thought of this here, I'm leaving it here as well.

Bk IV. 5.
p210 ...Alyosha felt instinctively that a character like Katerina’s must dominate, and she could only dominate someone like Dmitri, and never a man like Ivan. For Dmitri might at last submit to her domination “for his own happiness” (which was what Alyosha would have liked), but Ivan . . . No, Ivan could not submit to her. Such submission would not give him happiness. Alyosha could not help believing that of Ivan... Another idea, also, forced itself upon him: “What if she loved neither of them...?”

p211 It must be noted that Alyosha had felt ashamed of his thoughts and had blamed himself when they kept recurring to him during the last month. “What do I know about love and women and how can I decide such questions?” he asked himself reproachfully...

...with whom was Alysosha to sympathize? And what was he to wish for each of them? He loved them both, but their desires were conflicting. He might go astray in this maze, and his heart could not endure uncertainty, because his love was always of an active kind. He was incapable of passive love. If he loved anyone, he wanted at once to help him. And to do so he must know what he was aiming at... he found nothing but uncertainty on all sides...

p213 [Katerina to Alyosha with Madame H. and Ivan present] “...I’ve already decided, even if he marries that -- creature... whom I never , never can forgive, even then I will not abandon him. I will never, never abandon him!” she cried, breaking into a sort of pale, hysterical ecstasy... I will go away to another town... but I will watch over him all my life... When he becomes unhappy with that woman, and that is bound to happen, let him come to me and he will find a friend, a sister. . . . Only a sister, of course, and so forever; but he will learn at least that that sister is really his sister, one who loves him and has sacrificed her life to him. I will gain my point. I will insist on his knowing me and confiding entirely in me, without reserve...” “I will be a god to whom he can pray. He owes me that for his treachery and for what I suffered yesterday because of him and the promise I gave him... I will become nothing but a means of his happiness... an instrument for his happiness . For my whole life, my whole life. And he will see it all his life? That’s my decision. Ivan fully approves.”

Sounds like a Country song.

p214 [Ivan] “...Your life, Katerina, will be spent in painful brooding over your own feelings, your own heroism, and your own suffering. But in the end that suffering will be softened and will pass into contemplation of the fulfillment of a bold and proud design. Yes, proud it certainly is, and desperate in any case, but a triumph for you. And the consciousness of it will at last be a source of complete satisfaction and will make you resigned to everything else.”

This was unmistakably said with some malice and obviously with intention. He spoke ironically. [No shit.]
...
[Katerina] “...I’m upset. I didn’t sleep last night. But with two such friends as you [Alyosha] and your brother [Ivan] I feel strong -- for I know -- you two will never desert me.”

“Unfortunately, I must return to Moscow -- perhaps tomorrow -- and leave you for a long time. It’s unavoidable,” Ivan said suddenly.

p215 “Tomorrow -- to Moscow!” Katerina’s face was suddenly contorted. “But -- but how fortunate,” she cried in a voice suddenly changed. In one instant there was no trace left of her tears. She underwent a transformation, which amazed Alyosha. Instead of a poor, insulted girl, weeping in a sort of “laceration,” he saw a woman completely self-possessed and even exceedingly pleased, as though something agreeable had just happened.


“Oh, not fortunate that I am losing you, of course not,” she  corrected  herself  suddenly, with a charming society smile. “Such a friend as you are could not think that. I am only too unhappy at losing you.” ... “But what is fortunate is that in Moscow you will be able to see my aunt and sister and tell them all the horror of my present position. You can speak freely to my sister, but spare my aunt. You will know how to do that... I will run at once to write the letter [that Ivan is to explain to her relations],” she finished suddenly, and took a step as though to go out of the room.

“And what about Alyosha and his opinion, which you were so desperately anxious to hear?” cried Madame Hohlakov. There was a sarcastic, angry note in her voice. [Yea, Madame H.]

p216 [Alyosha] “...What I see is that you don’t love Dmitri at all . . . and never have, from the beginning. . . . And Dmitri has never loved you . . . and only respects you. . . . I really don’t know how I dare to say all this, but somebody must tell the truth . . . for nobody here will tell the truth.”

“...you’re torturing Ivan, simply because you love him -- and and torturing him because you love Dmitri through ‘self-laceration’ -- with an unreal love -- because you’ve persuaded yourself.”
...
“You . . . you . . . you are a little religious idiot -- that’s what you are!” Katerina snapped. Her face was white and her lips were moving with anger.

Ivan suddenly laughed and got up. His hat was in his hand.

“You are mistaken, my good Alyosha,” he said, with an expression Alyosha had never seen on his face before -- an expression of youthful sincerity. “Katerina has never cared for me! She has known all the time that I cared for her -- though I never said a word of my love to her -- she knew, but she didn’t care for me. I have never been her friend either, not for one moment. She is too proud to need friendship. She kept me at her side as a means of revenge. She revenged with me and on me all the insults which she has been continually receiving from Dmitri ever since their first meeting. For that first meeting has rankled in her heart as an insult -- that’s what her heart is like! She has talked to me of nothing but her love for him. . . . I am going now. But, believe me, Katerina, you really love him. And the more he insults you, the more you love him -- that’s your ‘laceration.’ You love him just as he is. You love him for insulting you. If he reformed, you’d give him up at once and stop loving him. But you need him so as to contemplate continually your heroic fidelity and reproach him for infidelity. And it all comes from your pride... I will forgive you later, but now I don’t want your hand. ‘Your thanks, lady, I do not desire,’ he added in German with a forced smile, showing, however, that he could read Schiller, and read him till he knew him by heart -- which Alyosha would never have believed...

Dostoyevsky really does a number on Katerina here. But what I see in Katerina is an almost Christian desire for “self-laceration” and humiliation. What Katerina says here is so similar to what Madame H. says to Zossima in an earlier chapter (Bk II. 4.). And Madame H. was saying all that in a very similar and not entirely sincere fashion. Also, this complicated love of Katerina for Dmitri reminds me of Marcel’s jealousy fueled loves in Proust. 

This does make me curious about Dostoyevsky's relationship with women. Between Katerina, Lise, and Grushenka, one would have to think that Settembrini was wise in trying to warn young Hans off Slavic women.

p217 “You have done no harm. You behaved beautifully, like an angel,” Madame Hohlakov whispered ecstatically to Alyosha. “I will do my best to prevent Ivan from going to Moscow.”

Her face beamed with delight, to Alyosha’s great distress.
...
[About Katerina] “But she has been crying -- she has been wounded again,” said Alyosha.

“Never trust a woman’s tears, Alysoha. I am never for the women in such cases. I am always on the side of the men.”
...
[Madame H. after hearing that Katerina is having “hysterics”] p220 “... Hysterics are a good sign, Alyosha. It’s an excellent thing that she is hysterical. That’s just as it ought to be... But I am delighted, delighted, delighted!...”


Bk IV. 7.

... p248 [Lise to Alyosha after they’ve agreed to an engagement] “I know your brothers and your father are worrying you?” [Curious place for a question mark]

“Yes, my brothers . . .” murmured Alyosha.

“I don’t like your brother Ivan, Alyosha,” said Lise suddenly.

He heard this remark with some surprise, but did not answer it.

“My brothers are destroying themselves,” he went on. “My father, too. And they are destroying others with them. It’s ‘the primitive force of the Karamazovs,’ as Father Paissy said the other day. A crude, unbridled, earthly force. Does the spirit of God move above that force? Even that I don’t know. I only know that I, too, am a Karamazov. . . . Me a monk, a monk! Am I a monk, Lise? You said just now that I was.”

“Yes, I did.”

“But perhaps I don’t even believe in god.”

“You don’t believe? What is the matter?” asked Lise quietly and gently. But Alyosha did not answer. There was something too mysterious, too subjective in these last words of his. Their meaning was perhaps obscure even to him but yet it tormented him.

“And now on top of it all, my friend, the best man in the world is going, is leaving the earth! If you knew, Lise, how bound up in soul I am with him! And then I shall be left alone. . . . I shall come to you, Lise. . . . For the future we will be together.”

“Yes, together, together! We shall be always together, all our lives! Listen, kiss me.”

Alyosha kissed her.

“Come, now go. Christ be with you!” ... I’ll pray today for him and you. Alyosha, we shall be happy! Shall we be happy, shall we?”

“I believe we shall, Lise.”
...

[Madame H. fills in Alyosha about Katerina] “She is still delirious. She has not regained consciousness... Herzenstube came, and he was so alarmed that I didn’t know what to do for him. I nearly sent for a doctor to look after him. He was driven home in my carriage...” 

What a Marianne Dashwood he is.


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76. TBK. Bk II. 1-4 & Conspiracy theories

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Jump back to Previous: TBK. Bk I & "Trail Ducks"

The Brothers Karamazov

Book II. 1.
p35 [Peter] Miusov looked absent-mindedly at the tombstones around the church. He was on the point of saying that the dead buried here must have paid a pretty penny for the right of lying in this “holy place,” but he refrained...

I include the quote above merely to point out that we seem to have lost our (non-omniscient) narrator the moment we entered the monastery. This omniscient narrator will be our guide in some important chapters. If only because this one is more reliable, I prefer the omniscient to the non-omniscient.

Book II. 3.
p45 [Zossima speaks to Fyodor Karamazov] ...Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love. And in order to distract himself without love he gives way to passion and coarse pleasures and sinks to bestiality in his vices -- all this from continual lying to other men and to himself. The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than anyone else. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offense, isn’t it?...

Book II. 4.

p59 [Madame Hohlakov] “...Life after death -- it is such an enigma!...

...
“...I shut my eyes and ask myself, if everyone has faith where did it come from? They say that it all comes from terror at the menacing phenomena of nature, and that none of it is real. And I say to myself: ‘What if I’ve been believing all my life, and when I come to die there’s nothing but weeds growing on my grave?’... I only believed when I was a little child, mechanically, without thinking of anything. How is one to prove it?... 
...
p60 [Zossima] “...But there’s no proving it, though you can be convinced of it.”

“How?”

“By the experience of active love. Strive to love your neighbor actively and constantly. In so far as you advance in love you will grow surer of the reality of God and of the immortality of your soul. If you attain perfect self-forgetfulness in the love of your neighbor, then you will believe without doubt. Doubt will no longer be able to enter your soul. This has been tried. This is certain.”

[Madame Hohlakov] “...You see, I so love humanity that... I often dream of forsaking all that I have... and becoming a sister of mercy. I close my eyes and think and dream, and at that moment I feel full of strength. I have strength enough to overcome all obstacles! No wounds, no festering sores could at that moment frighten me. I would bind them up and wash them with my own hands. I would nurse the afflicted. I would be ready to kiss such wounds.”
...
“...But could I endure such a life for long?” Madame Hohlakov went on fervently, almost frantically. “That’s the main question. I shut my eyes and ask myself: ‘Would you persevere long on that path? And if the patient whose wounds you are washing did not meet you with gratitude, but worried you with his whims, without valuing or remarking upon your kindness, began abusing you and rudely commanding you... what then? Would you persevere in your love, or not?’ And do you know, I came with horror to the conclusion that, if anything could dissipate my love for humanity, it would be ingratitude. In short, I am a hired servant, I expect my payment at once -- that is, praise, and the repayment of love with love. Otherwise I am incapable of loving anyone.”
...
[Zossima] p62 "...Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially falsehood to yourself. Watch over your own deceitfulness and look into it every hour, every minute. Avoid being scornful, both to others and to yourself. Avoid fear, too, though fear is only the result of falsehood. Never be frightened of your own faintheartedness in attaining love. Don't be too frightened even at your evil actions. I am sorry I can say nothing more consoling to you, for love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in sight of all. Men will even give their lives if only the ordeal does not last long but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as though on the stage. But active love is labor and fortitude, and for some people too, perhaps, a complete science. But I predict that just when you see with horror that in spite of all your efforts you are getting further from your goal instead of nearer to it -- at that very moment I predict that you will reach it and behold clearly the miraculous power of the Lord who has been all the time loving and mysteriously guiding you...


1st unrelated content generated by me

Conspiracy theories: Pearl Harbor and the Battle of the Bulge 
Around the time the role of code breaking in winning the wars against Germany and Japan became public, if not before, people began to speculate that the UK, and possibly the U.S.A., had advance knowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack but let it proceed for very clever, not to say insidious, reasons. More recently, there has been similar speculation about Eisenhower and the Battle of the Bulge -- he must have known the attack was coming and didn’t reinforce his front so as to draw the Germans out from behind the West Wall. I was thinking about the latter when I had an idea about how to address the former conspiracy.

Suppose you could go back in time to December 1941 knowing all we now know about the Japanese attack: The time, the direction, the strength. What would you do if you had complete control of the U.S. military forces in Hawaii? There’s much you would leave alone: The two carrier task forces (the primary target of the Japanese attack) would continue their operations but the returning U.S.S. Enterprise task force would be diverted south to search for a non-existent (cover-story) threat in that direction. The Enterprise was so close to Pearl Harbor at the time of the attack that her lead planes actually landed at Pearl while Japanese fighters were still in the air.

The Battle Force would remain at anchor. Why? Because these battleships were old and slow and fat targets for the excellent Imperial Japanese naval aviators. All but one of the operational battleships sunk at Pearl Harbor were re-floated off the shallow harbor floor, and all but two went on to give stellar service later in the war. But that doesn’t mean you would have to entirely sacrifice them. The ships would be placed at battle stations with every watertight door secured and every gun manned and supplied with ammunition. Ships would be damaged and some would probably be sunk, but the human losses would be dramatically reduced.

Next comes the Army and Navy aviation assets. The obvious thing to do would be to have all the patrol and heavy bombers searching to the south, safely out of the way. The fighters would probably all be in the air ready to engage the attacking Japanese planes. But this is where it gets tricky. In the event, the U.S. lost many planes (on the ground) but few pilots. By putting the inexperienced and poorly equipped American pilots in combat, you would increase the Japanese losses but probably lose many more U.S. pilots.

And there are other possible unintended consequences as well. The sinking of so many battleships freed up the surviving crew members to serve on the, more valuable at the time, new ships coming out of shipyards back in the States. Band members from the battleships even played an important role at the code breaking station at Pearl Harbor in the six months after the battle. It’s impossible to say for sure that saving some ships and many men on December 7th would be a plus for the war effort in 1942.

Ultimately, that’s the problem with these conspiracy theories -- they assume a degree of genius on the part of the people making these secret decisions that one rarely encounters in real life. But if FDR was scripting this scenario there’s no way the Enterprise would have been so close to Pearl Harbor. And it would still have been “a day that will live in infamy” even if the battleships had been buttoned up and ready.

The Battle of the Bulge is actually a more interesting case. Eisenhower did think strategically and he was in a position to pull this off, had he wanted to. After months of bloody fighting on the frontier of Germany, somehow encouraging the Germans to sally out to fight in the open must have occurred to him. You can argue that the battle unfolding so perfectly for the Allies is a sort of Argument From Design suggesting planning and anticipation... except, again, that I’m suspicious of perfection in anything as complicated as modern war. First, let me explain what I mean by the battle unfolding so perfectly. 

In the whole of military history there is probably no more famous battle than Cannae. Hannibal depended on the superior training and discipline of his army to lure the Roman legions into a concave defensive position. The Romans found that their advance in the center, instead of breaking the enemy line, left them surrounded and disorganized with their flanks exposed to the powerful Carthaginian cavalry. In a matter of hours the Romans lost at least 50,000 and possibly over 70,000 killed on the battlefield.

The Battle of the Bulge can be viewed as Cannae on a much larger -- spatial and temporal -- scale. If anything, the German position was worse than the Roman since the Romans weren’t dependent on fuel (that they could not resupply) for armored fighting vehicles. But as at Cannae, as the battle progressed the Allied right and left flanks grew stronger as surviving units pulled back and reinforcements flowed in. In the center, the further the Germans advanced, the more desperate their situation became. Even if their tanks hadn’t run out of fuel, the vanguard would inevitably grow weaker as forces were siphoned off to defend the flanks, while more and more Allied reinforcements could flow in freely.

If Eisenhower had planned all this he would deserve a lot of credit. Sacrificing a few green infantry regiments (even if one of them did include Kurt Vonnegut) would be a small price for such a victory, especially with the way the fighting on the West Wall was eating up American divisions. 

Patton, gets credit for anticipating and preparing for his role in reinforcing the Allied right flank and even Montgomery gets credit for managing the left flank well. Whether Eisenhower knew the attack was coming or not, he must have looked at that bulge in his lines and considered what he would do if the Germans tried to take advantage of that opportunity. My guess is that he doubted he could be so lucky. 


Also, I’m not sure the famous defense of Bastogne was such a great idea. It did slow down the advance of the German attack when it was at its strongest, throwing off their timetable. But it also restricted to some extent the flow of German men and material into the “bag.” You could argue that the 101st and other units fighting in Bastogne would have been better placed closer to the Meuse. The more Germans advancing that far, the fewer would be able to escape back into Germany. But it’s easy to make observations like that 70 years after the fact. Not even Hannibal was perfect and it’s worth noting that he lost the war in which the Battle of Cannae was one of the opening actions.


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