Posted on 12/24/2019 3:19:23 AM PST by Kaslin
Seventy-five years ago, at the Battle of the Bulge (fought from Dec. 16, 1944, to Jan. 25, 1945), the United States suffered more casualties than in any other battle in its history. Some 19,000 Americans were killed, 47,500 wounded and 23,000 reported missing.
The American and British armies were completely surprised by a last-gasp German offensive, given that Allied forces were near the Rhine River and ready to cross into Germany to finish off a crippled Third Reich.
The Americans had been exhausted by a rapid 300-mile summer advance to free much of France and Belgium. In their complacence, they oddly did not worry much about their thinning lines, often green replacement troops or the still-formidable Germany army. After all, Nazi Germany was being battered on all sides by Americans, British, Canadians and Russians. Its cities were in ruins from heavy bombers.
Yet the losing side is often the most dangerous just before its collapse.
In retreat, the Germans were shortening their interior lines. They had the element of surprise, given confident allies who assumed the war would soon be over.
The cold December weather would ground the overwhelming number of Allied fighters and bombers. The Germans aimed their assault through the snowy roads of the Ardennes Mountains to bowl over inexperienced or exhausted U.S. divisions.
The result was that Hitler's last gamble in the West was as tactically brilliant as it was strategically imbecilic. If Hitler's offensive failed, it would drain the last formidable reserves from the German homeland and leave it a hollow shell. After all, Germany had neither the manpower nor the supplies to reach the English Channel and cut off the British from the Americans, much less stop either the Russian offensives in the East or around-the-clock Allied bombing.
Can you imagine how today’s media would have covered this?
Another reason was because Enigma, where we had basically reading the German military’s mail, wasn’t being used. They were using more secure landlines, due to the shorter communication lines, and the western Allies were blind.
Most German generals did not think much of this gamble. But some of the more fanatical Nazis initially thought they’d be able to recapture Paris. How’s that for being overconfident?
Unternehmung Wacht am Rhein was a desparate gamble, and probably shortened the War by a year. If the War had dragged on, Germany, rather than Japan, would have been the recipient of the first nuclear attack. It was just that much easier to destroy German Armor in the open. All of Germany's reserves of ammunition and fuel were expended in a month.
In August 1944, the Wehrmacht suffered more fatalities than the Americans did in the entire war, mostly on the Eastern Front, but the western Allies kept the Germans tied down trying to keep them out of Germany.
The face of war changes with new technology. But its essence remains the same, because human nature stays constant. A long-ago American victory can remind us that when such calamities strike, the status quo is not always equipped to rise to the challenge.Instead, our future saviors are often right in our midst, characteristically loud and underappreciated, but savvy and vital to our survival.
The Battle of the Bulge reminds us that when deadly enemies prove unpredictable, it is sometimes wise to have an even more unpredictable leader on our side.
The goal was Antwerp. Antwerp was vital for the western Allies supply lines. The Germans had destroyed the French rail system and ports, and trucking material in through the Normandy bottleneck was too slow and consumed too much fuel.
The German plans required them to capture the Allies fuel stores. Joachim Peiper’s Panzers came within sight of an American fuel depot at Stavelot in Belgium, guarded by a detachment of 10 Belgians from the reconstituted Belgian army. As Peiper watched the Belgians set fire to the fuel and ended Peiper’s hopes. He didn’t have enough fuel to return to his own lines, his armor was reduced to battle debris.
I think he is partly referring to Trump here
I don’t think there’s any partly about it. VDH is directly referring to PDJT.
Hiter and Nancy Pelosi thought alike. A major offensive would induce victory
Who was more wrong? Hitler or Pelosi?
My dad was a topo engineer for the big red 1 (danger forward)... he told me how the bulge came to be.... the 1st had been pulled to rear for a break as they had been pushing so hard they were worn out... the 29th took point and screwed up and got everyone boxed in .. they had to come off their break and rejoin the battle... he said the whole thing wouldn’t have happened if the 29th had listened to them... (dad went in at North Africa and came home after Cheb,CZ) (I may have the 29th screwy. Please forgive as it’s been many years since he related this to me) dad made it to 96 and was always 1st ID..
The worst part is that even taking Antwerp wouldn’t have made a difference in the long run.
WWII was lost by late 1942, after Midway, Stalingrad, El Alamein, and long after the Battle of Britain and the failure at Moscow. Axis lives expended afterwards were completely wasted; there was no conceivable way to win.
Agreed. VDH is a historian, and he’s a good one. He was slow to warm up to Candidate Trump (as I was), but this essay is entirely about President Trump - that and the danger the totalitarian left poses today even if we are on the verge of a major victory for freedom.
Before the Battle of the Bulge, Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, Bernard Montgomery and Courtney Hodges thought fellow general George S. Patton was a talented, eccentric, flamboyant and sometimes buffoonish throwback to 19th century glory hounds. Yet it was Patton alone who in America's darkest hour of 1944 most clearly grasped both the dangers of, and the solutions to, the disaster.To no avail, Patton had warned his superiors that a gambler like Hitler would likely try something desperate in December. Even before the generals met, Patton had preplanned a risky rescue operation. In a blizzard, he turned a large part of his army 90 degrees on a 100-mile trek to save the collapsing American lines to the north at Bastogne, Belgium.
Had the American command followed the rambunctious Patton's recommendation to cut off the overexposed German bulge at its base, rather than conservatively try to push it back at the nose, the campaign would have ended even sooner, with far fewer lost American lives.
Hitler hoped to sow dissension among the Allies. The thrust was between U.S. forces in the south and British in the North. In the 1940 Battle of France, Rommel’s advance was between the French and British lines. The lack of coordination and communication allowed him to flank the French Army, a situation which contributed to the disaster. Hitler was hoping for similar confusion in 1944. The American insistence on a unified command in the West, and Eisenhower’s level headed leadership spoiled his hopes.
For logistical reasons Montgomery was given command of some U.S. divisions north of the Bulge. The 28th Infantry Division, under his command, and British forces, kept enough pressure on the Nazis northern flank to prevent them from reinforcing their spearheads.
Tet was a clear example of how the modern media would handle this battle. “I have decided the war is lost and we should leave Europe to the Europeans.”
The US Army took more casualties AFTER December 26th pushing the Germans out of the ‘bulge’ created by their initial push. The correct solution for the allies would have been to “pinch off” and encircle the German Armies. Instead Eisenhower decided to just “push the air out of the German balloon”. German soldiers were simply abandoning their equipment and walking home. Most of their tanks and transportation simply ran out of gas.
Eisenhower was back to playing “Broad Front” strategy after the Brits failed to get into the Rhur Valley in “Operation Market Garden”. Ike had a very tough job holding the alliance together and he obviously thought that he couldn’t too many chips on the table in any single hand.
I think it was von Mannheim who observed that in pincer attacks, the Americans prefer the small game. Eisenhower was not lacking in tactical brilliance, he was gifted with strategic vision, and he had learned the lesson of Market-Garden well. Eisenhower was conservative, because the more cautious approach would almost certainly win the war, with little risk. He had no stomach for a repeat of Market-Garden.
Tet was a clear example of how the modern media would handle this battle. “I have decided the war is lost and we should leave Europe to the Europeans.”
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Absolutely right.
And BTW, since you bring up Tet... if there had been no Watergate, South Vietnam would have survived. The reason for the Easter Offensive in 1972 (which failed) was because the war in the south was basically won.
But because of Watergate, the US flushed South Vietnam down the toilet. To Ford’s credit, he tried to prevent it.
A year ago, my son gave me VDH’s book on WW II. I am about half or a little better through it.
It is unreadable. it is very hard, even for one reasonably versed in American and world history
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