The Allies' worst World War II mistakes

The Allied forces mad many mistakes throughout the course of WW2. Some didn't impact the war in any way, others cost the lives of many. What then are the most humiliating mistakes that the Allied forces in WW2 made?

Not attacking Germany after the invasion of Poland

The German Invasion of Poland

This is one of the major mistakes made by the British (and the French) during WW2. On September 1st 1939, German troops invaded Poland. Since Britain and France were both allies of Poland, they immediately declared war on Germany. And then proceeded to do absolutely nothing. This was not only regarded as a betrayal of Poland, it also allowed the Germans to conquer Poland without any major resistance, especially at a time when Germany was unable to sustain a war on two fronts (with Britain and France to the west and the Soviet Union to the east). 

This was one of the major strategic mistakes made by the British and French, especially considering the fact that the German forces would have been overwhelmed. In fact, German generals at that time were so afraid of and immediate counterattack than they had 46 divisions (11 fully trained) along the western border, few compared to the hundreds of division that Britain and France were able to muster. The situation in Poland was so bad that their only option, as noted by Field Marshall Erich von Manstein, "hold out until an offensive by the Western Powers compelled the Germans to withdraw the mass of their forces from the Polish theatre." An offensive which, sadly for the Poles, never materialised.

This failure to attack Germany for an entire year after the declaration of war, ended up giving Germany a major strategic advantage. The woefully ill-prepared German army had an entire year to prepare for war with the west, a war that could potentially have ended much earlier.

The raid on Dieppe was aborted almost immediately after it started

The Dieppe Raid
One of the most useless and ridiculous raids conducted by the Allies, one that historians (and canadians) up to this day are still wondering, why? The Dieppe Raid took place on 19 August 1942, where about 5000 Canadian troops, together with a thousand British commandos and some US Rangers, attacked the German held port of Dieppe. The raid started at 5.00am in the morning and Allied commanders called a retreat in under 6 hours.

The objectives of the raid was presumably to prove that holding a major port for a short time was possible, along with collecting intelligence and boosting Allied morale (something it failed miserably at). None of the objectives were achieved. The Allied forces on the beach had insufficient fire support and were trapped by obstacles and German return fire by the roughly 1500 German troops who were there. 

Almost 60% of the men who made it ashore were either killed, wounded or captured by the Germans. The Royal Air Force lost 106 planes, in comparison to the Luftwaffe's 48. The Royal Navy lost 33 landing craft and 1 destroyer. Instead of showing the world the Allies power, the raid ended up showing that the Allies were unable to invade France for a prolonged period of time.

Operation Market Garden
One of Bernard Montgomery's most epic failures, Operation Market Garden was the largest

Allied paratroopers in Netherlands during
Operation Market Garden

airborne operation up to that time. The objective of the operation was to force an entry into Germany's rear areas, capturing as many bridges as possible in order to allow rapid advance of Allied armoured units into Germany. 

The Allied commanders were overconfident when planning for the attack and they thought that the Germans were done for. However, Allied troops encountered overwhelming German resistance during the operation, leading to an Allied operational failure. The Allies lost 15 - 17 thousand of their original 41 thousand, with the German losses estimated at 3 - 13 thousand. The failure of Operation Market Garden effectively crushed Allied hopes of ending the war by 1944.

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