The Ardennes Offensive (16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945) was a major German offensive on the Western Front and was launched towards the end of World War II. This offensive was called Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein (Operation Watch on the Rhine) by the German armed forces (Wehrmacht). It was officially named the Battle of the Ardennes by the U.S. Army, but it is known to the general public simply as the Battle of the Bulge.
The Ardennes Offensive was launched in the Ardennes.[3] Wacht am Rhein was supported by subordinate operations known as Unternehmen Bodenplatte, Unternehmen Greif, and Unternehmen Währung. Germany’s planned goal for these operations was to split the British and American Allied line in half, capturing Antwerp, Belgium, and then proceeding to encircle and destroy four Allied armies, forcing the Western Allies to negotiate a peace treaty in the Axis Powers’ favor.[citation needed]
The Ardennes Offensive was planned in total secrecy, in almost total radio silence. Although Ultra, the Allies’ reading of secret German radio messages, suggested a possible German offensive, and the United States Third Army predicted a major German offensive, the attack still achieved surprise. The degree of surprise achieved was compounded by the Allies’ overconfidence, their preoccupation with their own offensive plans, poor aerial reconnaissance, and the relative lack of combat contact in the area by the U.S. 1st Army. Almost complete surprise against a weak section of the Allies’ line was achieved during heavy overcast weather, when the Allies’ strong air forces would be grounded. The “bulge” was the salient that the Germans initially put into the Allies’ line of advance, as seen in maps presented in contemporary newspapers.[4][5]
Most of the American casualties occurred within the first three days of battle, when two of the U.S. 106th Infantry Division’s three regiments were forced to surrender. The Battle of the Bulge was the bloodiest of the battles that U.S. forces experienced in World War II; the 19,000 American dead were unsurpassed by those of any other engagement[citation needed]. For the U.S. Army, the battle incorporated more troops and engaged more enemy troops than any conflict before that time. The German objectives ultimately were unrealized. In the wake of the defeat, many experienced German units were left severely depleted of men and equipment, as German survivors retreated to the defenses of the Siegfried Line.
Background
After the
Generals
Field Marshal Montgomery’s Operation Market Garden, a September offensive designed to cross the Rhine and bypass the Siegfried Line, was unsuccessful and left the Allies worse off than before. In October the Canadian 1st Army fought the Battle of the Scheldt, clearing the Westerschelde by taking Walcheren and opening the ports of Antwerp to shipping. By the end of the month the supply situation was easing. The Allied seizure of the large port of Marseille in the south greatly improved the supply situation.
Despite a pause along the front after the Scheldt battles, the German situation remained dire. While operations continued in the autumn, notably the Lorraine Campaign, the Battle of Aachen, and the fighting in the Hürtgen Forest, the strategic situation in the west changed little.
On the Eastern Front, the Soviet's Operation Bagration destroyed much of Germany's Army Group Center (Heeresgruppe Mitte) during the summer. The progress of this operation was so fast that the offensive ended only when the advancing Red Army forces outran their supply lines. By November, it was clear the Soviet forces were preparing for a winter offensive.
Meanwhile, the Allied air offensive of early 1944 had effectively grounded the German Air Force (Luftwaffe), leaving it with little battlefield intelligence and no way to interdict Allied supplies. The converse was equally damaging: daytime movement of German forces was almost instantly noticed, and interdiction of supplies combined with the bombing of the Romanian oil fields starved Germany of oil and gasoline.
The advantage for the German forces by November 1944 was that they were no longer defending all of western Europe. The front lines in the west were considerably shorter and closer to the German heartland, dramatically improving their supply problems regardless of the Allied air control. Additionally, their extensive telephone and telegraph network meant that radios no longer had to be used for communications, which deprived the Allies of their most powerful weapon, ULTRA intercepts.
Drafting the offensive
German dictator Adolf Hitler felt that his armies still might be able to successfully defend Germany in the long term, if only they could somehow neutralize the Western Front in the short term. Further, Hitler believed that he could split the Allies and make the Americans and British sue for a separate peace, independent of the Soviet Union. Success in the West would give the Germans time to design and produce more advanced weapons (such as jet aircraft, new U-boat designs, and super-heavy tanks) and permit the concentration of forces in the East. This assessment is generally regarded as unrealistic, given Allied air superiority throughout Europe and the ability to intervene significantly in German offensive operations.
Several senior German military advisors expressed their concern that favorable weather would permit Allied air power to effectively stop any offensive action undertaken. Hitler ignored or dismissed these concerns, though the offensive was intentionally scheduled for late autumn, when northwestern Europe is often covered by heavy fog and low-lying cloud, to neutralize the Allied air forces.
When the Allied offensive in the Netherlands (Operation Market Garden) wound down in September 1944, at about the same time as the Soviet Operation Bagration, the strategic initiative briefly swung to the Germans.[citation needed] Given the reduced manpower of German land forces at the time, it was believed that the best way to take advantage of the initiative would be to attack in the West, against the smaller Allied forces deployed there, rather than against the vast Soviet forces. Even the unrealistic encirclement and destruction of entire Soviet armies would still have left the Soviets with a large numerical superiority. Also, in the East, most of the “natural” defensive lines remained under German control.
In the West, supply problems were beginning to significantly impede Allied operations, even though the opening of Antwerp in November 1944 did slightly improve the situation. The Allied armies were overextended—their positions ran from southern France to the Netherlands. German planning revolved around the premise that a successful strike against the thinly manned stretches of the line would halt Allied advances on the entire Western Front.
Several plans for major Western offensives were put forward, but the German
Hitler chose the second plan, believing that a successful encirclement would have little impact on the overall situation and finding the prospect of splitting the Anglo-American armies more appealing. The disputes between Montgomery and Patton were well known, and Hitler hoped he could exploit this perceived disunity. If the attack were to succeed, the capture of the port of Antwerp would trap four complete armies without supplies behind German lines.
Both plans centered on attacks against the American forces; Hitler believed that the Americans were incapable of fighting effectively, and that the American home front was likely to crack upon hearing of a decisive American loss. There is no evidence that Hitler realized, or any of his military staff pointed out, that of all the major combatants, the United States was the one which up to this point in the war had been damaged the least and had the greatest restorative powers.
Tasked with carrying out the operation were
Model and von Rundstedt both believed that aiming for Antwerp was too ambitious, given Germany’s scarce resources in late 1944. At the same time, they felt that maintaining a purely defensive posture (as had been the case since Normandy) would only delay defeat, not avert it. They thus developed alternative, less ambitious plans that did not aim to cross the
Planning
The German High Command of the Armed Forces (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, or OKW) decided by the middle of September, on Hitler’s insistence, that the offensive be mounted in the Ardennes, as was done in France in 1940. Many German generals objected, but the offensive was planned and carried out. While German forces in that battle had passed through the Ardennes before engaging the enemy, the 1944 plan called for battle to occur within the forest. The main forces were to advance westward until reaching the Meuse River, then turn northwest for Antwerp and Brussels. The close terrain of the Ardennes would make rapid movement difficult, though open ground beyond the Meuse offered the prospect of a successful dash to the coast.
Four armies were selected for the operation:
The
The Fifth Panzer Army under Hasso von Manteuffel, was assigned to the middle attack route with the objective of capturing Brussels.
The
Also participating in a secondary role was the Fifteenth Army, under Gustav-Adolf von Zangen. Recently rebuilt after heavy fighting during Operation Market Garden, it was located on the far north of the Ardennes battlefield and tasked with holding U.S. forces in place, with the possibility of launching its own attack given favorable conditions.
For the offensive to be successful, four criteria were deemed critical by the planners:
The attack had to be a complete surprise;
The weather conditions had to be poor to neutralize Allied air superiority and the damage it could inflict on the German offensive and its supply lines;
The progress had to be rapid. Model had declared that the Meuse River had to be reached by day 4, if the offensive was to have any chance of success; and
Allied fuel supplies would have to be captured intact along the way because the Wehrmacht was short on fuel. The General Staff estimated they only had enough fuel to cover one-third to one-half of the ground to Antwerp in heavy combat conditions.
The plan originally called for just under 45 divisions, including a dozen
Before the offensive, the Allies were virtually blind to German troop movement. During the reconquest of France, the extensive network of the
Thus, Allied High Command considered the Ardennes a quiet sector, relying on assessments from their intelligence services that the Germans were unable to launch any major offensive operations this late in the war. What little intelligence they had led the Allies to believe precisely what the Germans wanted them to believe—that preparations were being carried out only for defensive, not offensive operations. In fact, because of the Germans’ efforts, the Allies were led to believe that a new defensive army was being formed around
Because the Ardennes was considered a quiet sector, economy-of-force considerations led it to be used as a training ground for new units and a rest area for units that had seen hard fighting. The U.S. units deployed in the Ardennes thus were a mixture of inexperienced troops (such as the rookie U.S. 99th and 106th Divisions), and battle-hardened troops sent to that sector to recuperate (the 2nd Infantry Division).
Two major
German intelligence had set December 20 as the expected date for the start of the upcoming Soviet offensive, aimed at crushing what was left of German resistance on the Eastern Front and thereby opening the way to Berlin. It was hoped that Stalin would delay the start of the operation once the German assault in the Ardennes had begun and wait for the outcome before continuing.
In the final stage of preparations, Hitler and his staff left their Wolf's Lair headquarters in East Prussia, in which they had coordinated much of the fighting on the Eastern Front. After a brief visit to Berlin, on December 11, they came to the Eagle's Nest, Hitler’s headquarters near Bad Nauheim in southern Germany, the site from which he had overseen the successful 1940 campaign against France and the Low Countries.
Initial German assault
The German assault began on 16 December 1944, at 05:30, with a massive artillery barrage on the Allied troops facing the Sixth SS Panzer Army. By 08:00 all three German armies attacked through the Ardennes. In the northern sector Dietrich’s Sixth SS Panzer Army assaulted the Losheim Gap and the Elsenborn Ridge in an effort to break through to Liège. In the center von Manteuffel’s Fifth Panzer Army attacked towards Bastogne and St. Vith, both road junctions of great strategic importance. In the south, Sir Brandenberg's Seventh Army pushed towards Luxembourg in their efforts to secure the flank from Allied attacks.
The attacks by the Sixth SS Panzer Army’s infantry units in the north fared badly because of unexpectedly fierce resistance by the U.S. 2nd and 99th Infantry Divisions at the Elsenborn Ridge, stalling their advance; this caused Dietrich to make the decision to commit his panzer forces early. Starting on 16 December, however, snowstorms engulfed parts of the Ardennes area. While having the desired effect of keeping the Allied aircraft grounded, the weather also proved troublesome for the Germans because poor road conditions hampered their advance. Poor traffic control led to massive traffic jams and fuel shortages in forward units.
The Germans fared better in the center (the 20 mile (30 km) wide Schnee Eifel sector) as the Fifth Panzer Army attacked positions held by the U.S.
Further south on Manteuffel’s front the main thrust was delivered by all attacking divisions crossing the River Our, then increasing the pressure on the key road centers of St. Vith and Bastogne. Panzer columns took the outlying villages. The struggle for these villages, and transport confusion on the German side, slowed the attack to allow the 101st Airborne Division (reinforced by elements from the 9th and 10th Armored Divisions) to reach Bastogne by truck on the morning of 19 December. The fierce defense of Bastogne, in which American paratroopers particularly distinguished themselves, made it impossible for the Germans to take the town with its important road junctions. The panzer columns swung past on either side, cutting off Bastogne on 20 December but failing to secure the vital crossroads.
In the extreme south, Brandenberger’s three infantry divisions were checked after an advance of four miles (6.5 km) by divisions of the
Eisenhower and his principal commanders realized by 17 December that the fighting in the Ardennes was a major offensive and not a local counter-attack, and they ordered vast reinforcements to the area. Within a week 250,000 troops had been sent. In addition, the 82nd Airborne Division was also thrown into the battle north of the bulge, near Elsenborn Ridge.
Operation Stösser
Originally planned for the early hours of 16 December, Operation Stösser was delayed for a day because of bad weather and fuel shortages. The new drop time was set for 03:00 on December 17; their drop zone was 7 miles (11 km) north of Malmedy and their target was the "Baraque Michel" crossroads. Von der Heydte and his men were to take it and hold it for approximately twenty-four hours until being relieved by the 12th SS Panzer Division, thereby hampering the Allied flow of reinforcements and supplies into the area.
Just after midnight on 17 December, 112 Ju 52 transport planes with around 1,300 Fallschirmjäger (German paratroopers) on board took off amid a powerful snowstorm, with strong winds and extensive low cloud cover. As a result, many planes went off course, and men were dropped as far as a dozen kilometres away from the intended drop zone, with only a fraction of the force landing near it. Strong winds also took off-target those paratroopers whose planes were relatively close to the intended drop zone and made their landings far rougher.
By noon a group of around 300 managed to assemble, but this force was too small and too weak to counter the Allies. Colonel von der Heydte abandoned plans to take the crossroads and instead ordered his men to harass the Allied troops in the vicinity with guerrilla-like actions. Because of the extensive dispersal of the jump, with Fallschirmjäger being reported all over the Ardennes, the Allies believed a major divisional-sized jump had taken place, resulting in much confusion and causing them to allocate men to secure their rear instead of sending them off to the front to face the main German thrust.
Operation Greif and Operation Währung
Main articles: Operation Greif and Operation Währung
For Operation Greif, Otto Skorzeny successfully infiltrated a small part of his battalion of disguised, English-speaking Germans behind the Allied lines. Although they failed to take the vital bridges over the Meuse, the battalion’s presence produced confusion out of all proportion to their military activities, and rumors spread quickly. Even General Patton was alarmed and, on 17 December, described the situation to General Eisenhower as “Krauts… speaking perfect English… raising hell, cutting wires, turning road signs around, spooking whole divisions, and shoving a bulge into our defenses.”
Checkpoints were set up all over the Allied rear, greatly slowing the movement of soldiers and equipment. Military policemen drilled servicemen on things which every American was expected to know, such as the identity of Mickey Mouse’s girlfriend, baseball scores, or the capital of Illinois. This last question resulted in the brief detention of General Omar Bradley; although he gave the correct answer—Springfield—the GI who questioned him apparently believed that the capital was Chicago.
The tightened security nonetheless made things harder for the German infiltrators, and some of them were captured. Even during interrogation they continued their goal of spreading
For
Malmedy massacre
Main article: Malmedy massacre
In the north, the main armored spearhead of the Sixth SS Panzer Army was Kampfgruppe Peiper, consisting of 4,800 men and 600 vehicles of the 1st SS Panzer Division under the command of Waffen-SS Colonel Joachim Peiper. Bypassing the Elsenborn ridge, at 07:00 on 17 December, they seized a U.S. fuel depot at Büllingen, where they paused to refuel before continuing westward. At 12:30, near the hamlet of Baugnez, on the height halfway between the town of Malmedy and Ligneuville, they encountered elements of the American 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion. After a brief battle the Americans surrendered. They were disarmed and, with some other Americans captured earlier (approximately 150 people), sent to stand in a field near the crossroads where most were shot. It is not known what caused the shooting and there is no record of an SS officer giving an execution order; such shootings of prisoners of war (POWs), however, were more common by both sides on the Eastern Front. News of the killings raced through Allied lines. Afterwards, it became common for US soldiers to execute SS or Fallschirmjäger soldiers taken prisoner. The identity of the murderers remains unknown, and the perpetrators were never punished for this crime, but captured SS soldiers who were part of Kampfgruppe Peiper were tried in the Malmedy massacre trial following the war.
The fighting went on and, by the evening, the spearhead had pushed north to engage the U.S. 99th Infantry Division and Kampfgruppe Peiper arrived in front of Stavelot. Peiper was already behind the timetable because it took 36 hours to advance from Eifel to Stavelot; it had taken just 9 hours in the Battle of France in 1940. As the Americans fell back they blew up bridges and fuel dumps, denying the Germans critically needed fuel and further slowing their progress.
Wereth 11
Main article:
Another, much smaller massacre was committed in Wereth, Belgium, approximately a thousand yards northeast of Saint-Vith, on 17 December 1944. Eleven African-American soldiers, after surrendering peacefully, were tortured and then shot by men of the 1st SS Panzer Division, belonging to Kampfgruppe Hansen. The identity of the murderers remains unknown, and the perpetrators were never punished for this crime.
Assault of Kampfgruppe Peiper
Peiper entered Stavelot on 18 December but encountered fierce resistance by the American defenders. Unable to defeat the American force in the area, he left a smaller support force in town and headed for the bridge at Trois-Ponts with the bulk of his forces, but by the time he reached it, the retreating U.S. engineers had already destroyed it. Peiper pulled off and headed for the village of La Gleize and from there on to Stoumont. There, as Peiper approached, the American engineers blew up the bridge, and the American troops were entrenched and ready to fight a bitter battle.
His troops were cut off from the main German force and supplies when the Americans recaptured the poorly defended Stavelot on 19 December. As their situation in Stoumont was becoming hopeless, Peiper decided to pull back to La Gleize where he set up his defenses waiting for the German relief force. Since no relief force was able to penetrate the Allied line, on 23 December Peiper decided to break through back to the German lines. The men of the Kampfgruppe were forced to abandon their vehicles and heavy equipment, although most of the unit was able to escape.
St. Vith
In the centre, the town of St. Vith, a vital road junction, presented the main challenge for both von Manteuffel’s and Dietrich’s forces. The defenders, led by the U.S. 7th Armored Division, and also including one regiment of the U.S. 106th Infantry Division, and additional elements of the U.S. 9th Armored Division and U.S. 28th Infantry Division, all under the command of General Bruce C. Clarke, successfully resisted the German attacks, thereby significantly slowing the German advance. Under orders from Montgomery, St. Vith was given up on 21 December; U.S. troops fell back to entrenched positions in the area, presenting an imposing obstacle to a successful German advance. By 23 December, as the Germans shattered their flanks, the defenders’ position became untenable, and U.S. troops were ordered to retreat west of the Salm River. As the German plan called for the capture of St. Vith by 18:00 on 17 December, the prolonged action in and around it presented a major blow to their timetable.
Bastogne
Main article: Battle of Bastogne
On 19 December, the senior Allied commanders met in a bunker in Verdun. Eisenhower, realizing that the Allies could destroy German forces much more easily when they were out in the open and on the offensive than if they were on the defensive, told the generals, "The present situation is to be regarded as one of opportunity for us and not of disaster. There will be only cheerful faces at this table." Patton, realizing what Eisenhower implied, responded, “Hell, let’s have the guts to let the bastards go all the way to Paris. Then, we’ll really cut ’em off and chew ’em up.” Eisenhower asked Patton how long it would take to turn his Third Army (located in northeastern France) north to counterattack. He said he could attack with two divisions within 48 hours, to the disbelief of the other generals present. Before he had gone to the meeting, however, Patton had ordered his staff to prepare three contingency plans for a northward turn in at least corps strength. By the time Eisenhower asked him how long it would take, the movement was already underway.[10] On 20 December, Eisenhower removed the U.S. First and Ninth Armies from Bradley’s 12th Army Group and placed them under Montgomery’s 21st Army Group command.
By 21 December the German forces had surrounded Bastogne, which was defended by the 101st Airborne Division and Combat Command B of the 10th Armored Division. Conditions inside the perimeter were tough—most of the medical supplies and medical personnel had been captured. Food was scarce, and ammunition was so low that artillery crews were forbidden to fire on advancing Germans unless there was a large concentration of them. Despite determined German attacks, however, the perimeter held. The German commander sent this request to the American commander in Bastogne:
To the U.S.A. Commander of the encircled town of Bastogne.
The fortune of war is changing. This time the U.S.A. forces in and near Bastogne have been encircled by strong German armored units. More German armored units have crossed the river Our near Ortheuville, have taken Marche and reached St. Hubert by passing through Hompre-Sibret-Tillet. Libramont is in German hands.
There is only one possibility to save the encircled U.S.A. troops from total annihilation: that is the honorable surrender of the encircled town. In order to think it over a term of two hours will be granted beginning with the presentation of this note.
If this proposal should be rejected one German Artillery Corps and six heavy A. A. Battalions are ready to annihilate the U.S.A. troops in and near Bastogne. The order for firing will be given immediately after this two hours’ term.
All the serious civilian losses caused by this artillery fire would not correspond with the well known American humanity.
The German Commander.
When
Rather than launching one simultaneous attack all around the perimeter, the German forces concentrated their assaults on several individual locations attacked in sequence. Although this compelled the defenders to constantly shift reinforcements in order to repel each attack, it tended to dissipate the Germans’ numerical advantage.
Meuse River
To protect the river crossings on the Meuse at Givet, Dinant and Namur, on
The furthest westward penetration made by the German attack was by the 2nd Panzer Division of the Fifth Panzer Army, coming to less than ten miles (16 km) of the Meuse by 24 December.
Allied counter-offensive
On 23 December the weather conditions started improving, allowing the Allied air forces to attack. They launched devastating bombing raids on the German supply points in their rear, and P-47 Thunderbolts started attacking the German troops on the roads. The Allied air forces also helped the defenders of Bastogne, dropping much-needed supplies—medicine, food, blankets and ammunition. A team of volunteer surgeons flew in by glider and began operating in a tool room.
By 24 December the German advance was effectively stalled short of the Meuse River. Units of the British XXX Corps were holding the bridges at Dinant, Givet, and Namur and U.S. units were about to take over. The Germans had outrun their supply lines, and shortages of fuel and ammunition were becoming critical. Up to this point the German losses had been light, notably in armor, which was almost untouched with the exception of Peiper’s losses. On the evening of 24 December, General Hasso von Manteuffel recommended to Hitler’s Military Adjutant a halt to all offensive operations and a withdrawal back to the West Wall. Hitler rejected this.
Patton’s Third Army was battling to relieve Bastogne. At 16:50 on
Germans strike back
Main articles:
On
On the same day, German Army Group G (Heeresgruppe G) and Army Group Upper Rhine (Heeresgruppe Oberrhein) launched a major offensive against the thinly stretched, 70 mile (110 km) line of the U.S. 7th Army. This offensive, known as Operation North Wind (Unternehmen Nordwind), was the last major German offensive of the war on the Western Front. The offensive of the German Army (Wehrmacht Heer) soon had the weakened U.S. 7th Army in dire straits. The 7th Army had, at Eisenhower’s orders, sent troops, equipment, and supplies north to reinforce the American armies in the Ardennes.
By 15 January, the 7th Army’s VI Corps was fighting on three sides in Alsace. With casualties mounting, and running short on replacements, tanks, ammunition, and supplies, 7th Army was forced to withdraw to defensive positions on the south bank of the Moder River on 21 January. The German offensive drew to a close on 25 January. In the bitter, desperate fighting of Operation Nordwind, VI Corps, which had borne the brunt of the fighting, suffered a total of 14,716 casualties. The total for the 7th Army is unclear, but the total casualties included at least 9,000 wounded and 17,000 sick and injured.[14]
Allies prevail
While the German offensive had ground to a halt, they still controlled a dangerous salient in the Allied line. Patton’s Third Army in the south, centred around Bastogne, would attack north, Montgomery’s forces in the north would strike south, and the two forces planned to meet at
The temperature during January 1945 was unseasonably low. Trucks had to be run every half hour or the oil in them would freeze, and weapons would freeze. The offensive went forward regardless.
Eisenhower wanted Montgomery to go on the offensive on
At the start of the offensive, the two armies were separated by about 25 miles (40 km). American progress in the south was also restricted to about a kilometer a day. The majority of the German force executed a successful fighting withdrawal and escaped the battle area, although the fuel situation had become so dire that most of the German armor had to be abandoned. On
Controversy in the Allied high command
As the Ardennes crisis developed, the commander of the First Army had gone to pieces under the strain and was incapable of issuing orders, while the Ninth Army couldn't communicate directly with Bradley. This resulted in Montgomery assuming command of the American First and Ninth Armies in a controversial move approved by Eisenhower.[15]
On the same day as Hitler’s withdrawal order, 7 January, Montgomery held a press conference at Zonhoven in which he said that he had “headed off ... seen off ... and ... written off” the Germans. “The battle has been the most interesting, I think possible one of the most tricky ... I have ever handled.” Montgomery said that he had “employed the whole available power of the British group of armies ... you thus have the picture of British troops fighting on both sides of the Americans who have suffered a hard blow.”[16]
Montgomery also gave credit to the “courage and good fighting quality” of the American troops, characterizing a typical American as a “very brave fighting man who has that tenacity in battle which makes a great soldier,” and went on to talk about the necessity of Allied teamwork, and praised Eisenhower, stating that “Teamwork wins battles and battle victories win wars. On our team, the captain is General Ike.” Despite these remarks, the overall impression given by Montgomery, at least in the ears of the American military leadership, was that he had taken the lion’s share of credit for the success of the campaign, and had been responsible for rescuing the besieged Americans.
His comments were interpreted as self-promoting, particularly his claiming that when the situation “began to deteriorate,” Eisenhower had placed him in command in the north. Patton and Eisenhower both felt this was a misrepresentation of the relative share of the fighting played by the British and Americans in the Ardennes (for every three British soldiers there were thirty to forty Americans in the fight), and that it belittled the part played by Bradley, Patton and other American commanders. In the context of Patton and Montgomery’s well-known antipathy, Montgomery’s failure to mention the contribution of any American general beside Eisenhower was seen as insulting. Focusing exclusively on his own generalship, Montgomery continued to say that he thought the counter-offensive had gone very well but did not explain the reason for his delayed attack on 3 January. He later attributed this to needing more time for preparation on the northern front. According to Winston Churchill, the attack from the south under Patton was steady but slow and involved heavy losses, and Montgomery claimed to be trying to avoid this situation.
Montgomery subsequently recognized his error and later wrote: “I think now that I should never have held that press conference. So great were the feelings against me on the part of the American generals that whatever I said was bound to be wrong. I should therefore have said nothing.” Eisenhower commented in his own memoirs: “I doubt if Montgomery ever came to realize how resentful some American commanders were. They believed he had belittled them—and they were not slow to voice reciprocal scorn and contempt.”
Bradley and Patton both threatened to resign unless Montgomery’s command was changed. Subsequently Bradley started to court the press, and it was stated that he would rarely leave headquarters “without at least fifteen newspapermen”; it has been suggested that he and Patton began to leak information detrimental to Montgomery. Eisenhower, encouraged by his British deputy Arthur Tedder, had decided to sack Montgomery. However, intervention by Montgomery’s and Eisenhower’s Chiefs of Staff, Major-General Freddie de Guingand, and Lieutenant General Walter Bedell Smith allowed Eisenhower to reconsider and Montgomery to apologize.
Strategic situation after the Bulge
Although the German advance was halted, the overall situation remained dangerous. On
The Battle of the Bulge officially ended when the two American forces met up on 25 January 1945.
Aftermath
Casualty estimates from the battle vary widely. The official U.S. account lists 80,987 American casualties, while other estimates range from 70,000 to 104,000. British losses totaled 1,400. The German High Command’s official figure for the campaign was 84,834 casualties, and other estimates range between 60,000 and 100,000.
The Allies pressed their advantage following the battle. By the beginning of February 1945, the lines were roughly where they had been in December 1944. In early February, the Allies launched an attack all along the Western front: in the north under Montgomery toward Aachen; in the center, under Courtney Hodges; and in the south, under Patton. Montgomery’s behavior during the months of December and January, including the press conference on 7 January where he downplayed the contribution of the American generals, further soured his relationship with his American counterparts through the end of the war.
The German losses in the battle were critical in several respects: the last of the German reserves were now gone; the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) had been broken; and the German Army (Wehrmacht Heer) in the West was being pushed back. Most importantly, the Eastern Front was now ripe for the taking. In the East, the German Army was unable to halt the Soviet juggernaut. German forces were sent reeling on two fronts and never recovered.
My own Analysis
The Bulge was hitler's waste offensive, he ordered his units from the eastern front to move west for a massive offensive in belgium, yep the worst decision was in 1942 when they attacked Stalingrad and they failed, instead of attacking Great Britain by a lightning war or also known as Blitzkrieg, they attacked russia and sent many german armored divisions in the west. hitler the fuhrer himself attacked his own ally.
one of the most regret in the military tactic history.
this is the consequence, the allies in the west paid attention to the west part of nazi's empire, france or the pas de calais, they attacked normandy which was a good gamble made by eisenhower, he is a man of excelence, never quitted, he led the allies in the europe. consistently he execute a massive offense in the west, involves are airborne divisions and seaborne divisions with the help of the royal navy, after Dday, eisenhower agreed i believe to montgomery's plan to end the war by christmas, the plan was called the operation market garden, all airborne divisions are involve including the 101st and the 82nd airborne and the rest of the british airborne divisions, the objective was a complete failure.
they bounced back at the bulge. after being surrounded and outnumbered by the panzers, they fought back and sacrificed there armor and ended the war by February 1945, 2 months later the allies recieved a telegram and says german army surrendered as hitler killed himself with his family in the bunker. the third reich has ended. so germany was divided to 2 continents west and east.
Bulge is one of the highest casualty conflicts in history since dday.
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