Clarence Pohl

Dezo Bartha

American History

4/12/2015

Battle of the Bulge

On December 16 1944, Germany launched the last major offensive of World War II, also

known as the Ardennes Offensive or The Battle of the Bulge . It was the largest battle fought on

the Western Front in Europe during the war and also the largest battle ever fought by the United

States Army (Foner 700). In Mid 1944, it looked like the war in Europe was coming to a close;

the Allied forces had regained Paris, Casablanca, Naples and Rome, and advancing toward

Germany. Allied soldiers, infected with a sense of overconfidence were breathing easier.

Meanwhile, Hitler had convinced himself that the alliance between Britain, France and America

in the western sector of Europe was not strong and that a major attack and defeat would break up

the alliance(Cole 17). Therefore, he ordered a massive attack against what were primarily

American forces. The offensive codenamed Operation Autumn Mist was an attempt to push the

Allied front line west from northern France to northwestern Belgium and recapture the port of

Antwerp (Forty 10). It fell far short of its goals but managed to create a bulge in the American

lines 50 miles wide and 70 miles deep, giving the struggle its prevailing name(Zaloga 7).

By August 1944, the Third Reich was beginning a battle for survival. On the political

front, they stood deserted and friendless. Their territorial losses had dealt a blow to German War

industry. Their total irrecoverable losses were 1.2 million men on all fronts by the Autumn of

1944, with 900,000 lost on the eastern front alone (Cole 2). German commanders were bracing

themselves for the inevitable invasion of the Fatherland. Despite appearances, the Western Allies
needed to regroup, and this not only slowed down their advance, but brought it to a complete

stop. The delivery of vital war materials was hindered as supply lines were overstretched. Field

Marshal Montgomery also needed to recover following Operation Market Garden (Cross 32).

This was the point when Hitler decided to act. Much to the surprise of this generals, he ordered a

stunning new offensive where 250,000 men would plunge through the Ardennes Forest, cross the

Meuse River,and then move northward to retake brussels and capture the port of Antwerp, and

capture it within a week (Forty 12) . His idea was to take advantage of the foggy weather, typical

for mid-December and take advantage of the light defence of the Ardennes sector, thus

delivering an attack reminiscent of the Blitzkrieg from 1940. Led by Sepp Dietrich, The Sixth

Panzer Army was to lead the attack and to capture Antwerp (Zaloga 8). Manteuffel was to lead

the Fifth Panzer Army which would attack the centre of the American forces, and capture St

Vith, a strategic road and rail centre, and drive on to Brussels (Cole 75). Brandenberger was to

lead the Seventh Army that would attack as directed by Hitler in the southern flank, and create a

buffer that would prevent American reinforcements from attacking the Fifth Panzer Army

(Zaloga 12). The Fifteenth Army was to be held in reserve to counter any Allied attack when

they took place (Cole 25). Field Marshals Model and Rundstedt the two men chosen to command

the offensive were not confident of the plan’s success (Cole 26). They were acutely aware that

Germany lacked sufficient manpower and equipment to pull off such an offence.

The element of surprise would be the key and nothing was left to chance.The Germans

used a clever variety of deceptive ploys including fake radio messages sent to non-existing

frontline command posts and false rumors spread in public places for anyone to overhear. At the

same time, three whole armies, including twelve Panzer tank divisions, were quietly rolled into

position for the offensive using a piecemeal approach to avoid detection ( Cole 48). Most of the
armoured divisions had been brought up to strength, but there was a significant shortage of fuel.

Only 25 per cent of the minimum required was available when Autumn Mist was launched.

After several postponements, the attack was launched at 5.30am on 16 December 1944,

on a 70-mile front from Monschau in the north to Echternach in the south (Cross 52). At first the

Germans experienced great success. The Allies had been surprised by the attack having received

little intelligence on the possibility of such an attack (Cross 45). Along with the element of

surprise, one of the more interesting exploits of the war unfolded, the brain child of Hitler

himself. About 2,000 German commandos were taught to speak and behave like American

soldiers. Using captured uniforms and Jeeps, the commandos confused U.S. troops in the zone of

attack by giving bad directions, mixing up road signs, killing dispatch riders, and cutting phone

wires (Cole, 270). With low clouds and fog, weather too was in Hitler’s favor as it cut off the

Allied air support forces.

German success continued unhindered for five foggy days, creating a 50-mile westward bulge in

the lines. American losses included a mass surrender of 7,500 soldiers, the single worst defeat for

U.S. troops during the entire war in Europe. At Malmedy, in the northern part of the front, 86

unarmed American POWs were shot dead by Waffen-SS troops (Cross 82). Reinforcement were

sent in by General Omar Bradley. Simultaneously, German advance began to slow. By Thursday,

December 21st, the Germans hit a significant roadblock in the middle of the front at Bastogne in

southern Belgium. The American troops besieged in Bastogne held out. When on 22 December

the Germans offered their commander, Brigadier-General Anthony McAuliffe, either surrender

or annihilation by massed artillery, his celebrated reply was 'Nuts!' (Forty 212) . News of this

spread among the American troops and provided a much needed morale boost. At the same time

the fog too had lift and Allied fighter bombers ranged the battlefield. By mid-January 1945, the
effect of lack of fuel was becoming evident as the Germans had to simply abandon their vehicles

(Cole 339).The Battle of the Bulge is officially considered to have ended on the 16th of January,

one month after it began, though fighting continued for some time beyond that date. By early

February, the front lines had returned to their positions of December 16.

When analysing the Battle of the Bulge, one first must question Hitler’s reasoning. Allied

forces were well on their way to victory in Europe. Germany had lost its key conquests, were

politically and economically crumbling, and had suffered a significant loss of troops. So, why

risk it all with this giant push? Hitler was a gambler who acted on intuition than sound

professional judgement. He had faith in the German people and their devotion to him, and this

faith was both mystic and cynical. The traditional view is that this decision to attack was his

attempt to turn around the military situation as it was at the end of 1944. Another way to look at

it would be that this was more his attempt to reassert his personal political control over the

German general staff and the entire Nazi hierarchy,a reaction to the von Stauffenberg bomb

attempt on his life on the 20th of July, 1944. He had gone into hiding, and into shock, and hadn’t

known whom to trust. His health too had gone downhill. The inception of Hitler's plans to launch

the Bulge could thus be viewed as his retain control of the direction of military affairs and prove

to the Third Reich that he still was the man at the top.

Antwerp had been Hitler’s goal. With the threat of the Soviet forces on the east, Hitler’s

rationale was then an attack on the West. Hitler grossly underestimated the Americans troops as

a group of fragmented nations, and viewed them a weak force. Ironically, one of the central

figures on the American side, General Eisenhower originally came from the Saarland. The

Ardennes was also a thinly manned sector with a heavily wooded area to its east that would

provide ideal cover to move in undiscovered. It was also believed that a blow here would strike a
seam between the British and American forces leading to political and military disharmony

among the Allies (Cole 17). Ultimately though, the Germans were doomed to fail. Hitler insisted

on the use of only 30 divisions for the attack, had no air power, and had a severe fuel shortage.

Although taken by surprise and initially incurring massive losses, the Americans were

courageous and resilient, bouncing back under the leadership of men such as Patton, Eisenhower,

and Bradley.

In mid-December 1944, American General Dwight D Eisenhower was in a relaxed mood,

one shared by the allied forces as a whole. The sweeping victories that had been achieved in past

months had led to overconfidence that the war would be over soon. On the eve of December 16,

Eisenhower and General Omar Bradley, commander of US 12th Army Group, were to meet at

his headquarters in Versailles ( Cole 51). The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the Allied

manpower shortage problem and then to play bridge. In a matter of hours, reports began to come

in of enemy activity in the Ardennes. Clearly, the American forces were ill prepared for the

attack ensued.

It is difficult to discuss the Battle of the bulge without referring to George Patton, with

his cigars (Cross 26) and trademark pearl-handled revolvers (Cross 110). While Anthony

McAuliffe and his troops fought relentlessly to hold on to Bastogne (Cole 445), he was

redirected by Eisenhower to turn his troops to the north toward Bastogne.This was undoubtedly a

job for Patton, a larger than life figure with unbounded confidence that almost bordered

arrogance (Zaloga 17) . Patton believed that the way to save his own men’s lives was to attack as

continuously and aggressively as possible. He is known to have said that a perfect plan isn’t as

good as an imperfect plan that's executed violently and immediately. One of the key aspects of

the battle was how was able to reorient his Third Army, which was already attacking eastward to
a northern path to Bastogne. Given the harsh winter conditions and lack of air support, turning a

whole army around on its axis by 90 degrees was quite a feat. But Patton achieved this within a

couple of days both to the amazement of the Germans and even his fellow Allies (Cole 509).

One of the things to take away from the Ardennes Battle is how much the Allied forces

had deluded themselves about the situation of their opponents—how much they had believed that

the Germans were a spent force. The Battle of the Bulge proved exactly the opposite, serving as

a constant reminder from our history that we are often under appreciative of our opponent’s

effectiveness. We see this time and again to this day. Personally, it is fascinating and humbling

to think of the resilience of the soldiers. The staunch defense by US infantry, armor and engineer

units, backed by ample artillery support, stopped the German offensive. Plans are temporary and

it is how the American forces reacted when things went wrong-how quickly they turned things

around that ultimately mattered.

Losses in the Ardennes fighting were heavy on both sides. US casualties totaled

approximately 75000 and the estimates of German losses vary from about 67,200 to 90,000

(Zaloga 92). As for the Germans, the decision to attack in the Ardennes versus reinforcing their

troops on the eastern front was a risk, one that Hitler had deliberately assumed. The question will

always remain whether it would have served the Germans better to use their available reserves in

the East than in the West, considering how the Ardennes attack had paved the way to their final

defeat.
 Works Cited

Forty, George. The Reich's Last Gamble: The Ardennes Offensive, December 1944. London:

Cassell, 2000. Print.

Cross, Robin. The Battle of the Bulge 1944, Hitler’s Last Hope. London: Amber Books, 2012.

Digital File.

Cole, Hugh M. The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge. Washington D.C. : CMH, 1993. Digital File.
Foner, Eric. Fighting for the Fours Freedoms: World War II. Ed. Steve Foreman., Give me

Liberty! New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. 673-705. Print.

Zaloga, Steven J. The Battle of the Bulge 1944 (2) Bastogne. Oxford: Osprey Publishing,

2004. Digital file..