Patton Quotes

“Admiral King”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“world”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“It was the most moving experience of my life,” he wrote, “and the knowledge of what the ambulances contained made it still more poignant.” It was with that episode in mind that he concluded his post mortem: “The results attained were made possible only by the superlative quality of American officers, American men and American equipment. No country can stand against such an army.”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“Also on June 27th, Patton drafted a message to his new army for delivery to the troops at sea. It was a message of enduring quality, for it revealed several facets of Patton—including some his critics and detractors refused to recognize and appreciate. “Many of you have in your veins German and Italian blood,” he said, “but remember that these ancestors of yours so loved freedom that they gave up home and country to cross the ocean in search of liberty. The ancestors of the people we shall kill lacked the courage to make such a sacrifice and remained slaves.”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“Anyone in any walk of life who is content with mediocrity is untrue to himself and to American tradition.” He”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“Patton was sent on his long journey with the Psalm David had sung in the wilderness of Judah… O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee; my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. It was Patton’s own favorite Psalm, devout as well as defiant. My soul followeth hard after thee; but those that seek my soul, to destroy it, shall go into the lower parts of the earth. They shall fall by the sword: they shall be a portion for foxes. But the king shall rejoice in God; every one that sweareth by him shall glory; but the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped.”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“McNarney relayed a Soviet complaint that he was too slow in disbanding and confining several German units in his sector of military government. “Hell,” Patton exploded, “why do you care what those Goddamn Russians think? We are going to have to fight them sooner or later; within the next generation. Why not do it now while our Army is intact and the damn Russians can have their hind end kicked back into Russia in three months? We can do it ourselves easily with the help of the German troops we have, if we just arm them and take them with us; they hate the bastards.” Patton had put his foot in his mouth again. It was a serious faux pas, this reference to those “German troops,” and it shocked McNarney. “Shut up, Georgie, you fool!” he told Patton. “This line may be tapped and you will be starting a war with those Russians with your talking!” But Patton refused to shut up.”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“One result of the Bolshevik conquest of half of Western Europe is that they have reduced the scale of living in those countries to the Russian scale, which is very low, and furthermore, have prohibited the United States and England from selling to about a third of their former markets. In view of the fact that the world financial arrangements were based on sales to and between all members of the world nations, the removal of a third of these nations is bound to upset the political economy of England and America, and therefore throw large numbers of men out of work and consequently make them readily acceptable victims of the virus of Communism.”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“In this orientation of his concluding strategy he followed ideas that dominated the thinking of the highest American military councils. It reflected an astounding feeling of inferiority that prevented not only Ike, but especially Marshall and MacArthur, from relying entirely upon their own resources and power to finish the job without further Soviet assistance. Both Marshall and MacArthur kept insisting that the Red Army be brought into the Pacific war or else, they warned Roosevelt, Japan would endure for at least another year, if only by continuing the war from Manchukuo. And Eisenhower insisted upon the Russian pressure from the east, irrespective of its political price. In this context, Berlin became nothing but a “prestige objective” in an assessment amazingly devoid of any political—or even military—vision.”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“The Rhine as a barrier with the flower of the German army deployed on its east bank existed mostly in Montgomery’s imagination. His enormous arrangements for the crossing now revealed his failure, as Wilmot phrased it, to appreciate how near collapse the Germans were.”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“While in the final analysis each of his campaigns was properly authorized in general terms (for not even Patton could free-lance in a world war), the sweep and success of each was triggered by some sly trickery Patton had to employ in certain psychological moments to gain permission, first to mount campaigns instead of conducting what were supposed to be merely supporting drives, and then to broaden his invariably limited missions into triumphal marches. To gain his victories (in which the results usually justified his means and the fact that he had exceeded his orders), he had to play a lot of backstage politics and apply ingenious subterfuges.”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“When the Battle of the Bulge ended the war in the west had only about 100 days left. But what a One Hundred Days they became in Patton’s career! During that period he mounted four full-scale campaigns and wound up, somewhat baffled by the end when it came, inside Czechoslovakia with something resembling the military version of an unfinished symphony.”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“The trouble was that most of the time Patton was playing the role of Lazarus at the big feast of the Allied war effort, receiving, like the Biblical beggar, merely the crumbs of the sumptuous meal. This is an important feature of his story in World War II and a puzzling sidelight of its conduct by Eisenhower. From the beginning to the end of the “crusade in Europe” there always was a gaping discrepancy between what Patton wanted to do and what the Supreme Commander was willing to let him do.”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“At that moment Bastogne was under siege by two of Hitler’s most dashing generals, Fritz Bayerlein of Afrika Korps fame, and Patton’s old adversary at Argentan, the famed cavalryman, General von Liittwitz, who were charged with reducing this obstacle without delay. Assuming that McAuliffe’s fate was sealed inside the ring, Bayerlein decided on a dramatic gesture. He sent a four-man delegation with a white flag of truce into the fortress, demanding that the defenders surrender. When their spiel was translated to McAuliffe, he answered with a single word that was to electrify the Allied armies in the whole of the Bulge. “Nuts!” he said and had the puzzled Germans (who did not know what the idiom meant) escorted back to their line.”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“Eisenhower’s tragedy was that he permitted himself to be pushed into what turned out to be a trap. He had succumbed to General George C. Marshall’s suggestion that he take over the ground command in Europe and involve himself in the tactical conduct of the war, for which he was not actually suited. He took upon himself this enormous operational responsibility in addition to his strategic job, which alone was beginning to overtax his resources. Consequently, both strategy and tactics suffered, leading inevitably to a drifting beyond the Seine and eventually to the prolongation of the conflict.”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“The Battle of the Bulge is sometimes characterized as Hitler’s final desperate gamble, the last straw at which he grabbed. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Ardennes offensive was a major and carefully conceived maneuver, not merely to avert the defeat of the Third Reich, but also to administer a decisive blow to the Allies. It was developed long in advance and prepared with exceptional care, respectable ingenuity and considerable investment in human and material resources.”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“Ike’s strategic plan might have been appropriate had not the outcome of the Normandy battle rendered it outdated. Hitler had committed every possible mistake the Allies needed to secure the lodgment area. He had decided to fight for every bit of bocage and whittled down his forces in the tedious process. Then he counterattacked at Mortain, and sacrificed the only divisions he had to hold the front together. By staying too long at Falaise, he had made an organized withdrawal to the Seine line impossible.”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“Victories in battles are deceptive triumphs. They place the burden of proof not on the men who won them, but on those who are in charge of the war and must be guided by the assumption that no matter how many battles may be won, the war itself can still be lost. Nobody knew this better than Pyrrhus of Epirus. And nobody should have realized this sooner than Adolf Hitler of the Thousand-Year Reich.”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“In equipment, Allied superiority was stifling. In guns it was 2½ to 1, in tanks 20 to 1. The Allies had some 14,000 planes, against which the Germans could pit only 573 serviceable aircraft. The entire Luftwaffe was down to 4,507 planes, and none of those in Germany and the Eastern Front could be spared for the west.”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“Bradley gave several reasons for putting Third Army on “A” ration when Patton’s projected moves required more than the unlimited “C.” Vast quantities of gas were needed to supply liberated Paris, and not only to keep the wheels of the big city turning. Most of the diverted gasoline was consumed by the endless columns of trucks that carried an enormous variety of relief supplies into the city—from food and drugs to freshly printed Free French franc bills and contraceptives.”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“History would not be what it is, the record of man’s crimes and follies, if logic and decency governed its events and great decisions.”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“That split second an invisible battery opened up with a salvo. Patton had to raise his voice to a still higher pitch, as he exclaimed, “Compared to war, all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance. God, how I love it!”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“Patton was bombed, strafed, shelled—but he thrived on it. At the summit of a badly littered road over a hill he stopped to survey the scarred and scorched landscape of war—rubbish that used to be farms, fields in which the grass was burning, hundreds of stiff-legged, dead cattle. He threw out his arms as if trying to embrace the scene, and shouted to the sky, “Could anything be more magnificent?!”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“L'audace, I'audace, toujours l'audace! “ Remember that, gentlemen. From here on out, until we win or die in the attempt, we will aways be audacious.”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“History often has a difficult time catching up to the events it records.”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“When Patton now showed up on the Mary to welcome them, Sergeant Bill Pajewski punched Corporal Sam McCarthy in the ribs. “Man,” he whispered in obvious consternation, “do you see what I see? It’s Old Blood and Guts!” McCarthy responded by crossing himself.”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“In the hospital, there also was a man trying to look as if he had been wounded. I asked him what was the matter, and he said he just couldn’t take it. I gave him the devil, slapped his face with my gloves and kicked him out of the hospital. Companies should deal with such men, and if they shirk their duty they should be tried for cowardice and shot. I will issue an order on this subject tomorrow.”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“Darby himself fired 300 rounds of .30 caliber ammunition at one tank and failed to stop it. Then, as he said, he ‘ran like hell.” But the Italians could do little once the Rangers were indoors because their machine guns, their only armament, could not be elevated. Darby got into his jeep, raced down to the pier, unmounted a gun that had just been brought ashore, and lifted it into the vehicle. Then he drove his improvised tank-destroyer back to Gela and started shooting. “Every time we slammed a shell in that demounted gun,” he said, “she recoiled on the captain and knocked him ass over teakettle into the back seat.” But it did the trick, and the Italians soon retreated.”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“never tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

“With proper and prudent recognition of their limited war potential, the British hoped to avoid a frontal attack on the Continent. They preferred a roundabout way to victory, having convinced themselves that German power could be worn down by attrition to the point of collapse, whereupon “the Anglo-American forces in the United Kingdom could perform a triumphal march from the Channel to Berlin with no more than a few snipers’ bullets to annoy them.”
― Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph