Battle of the Bulge
Germany attacked through the Ardennes in December 1944 with 200,000 men and produced the costliest battle the American army fought in the war. Hitler's plan was to split the Allied armies, retake Antwerp and force a negotiated peace in the west. His generals thought it impossible with the fuel available and said so, and were overruled. The attack achieved complete surprise on 16 December against a thinly held sector chosen because it was quiet — resting divisions and units that had just arrived — in fog that grounded the Allied air forces for a week. The Germans had also infiltrated English-speaking commandos in American uniforms, which produced a paralysis of suspicion at every checkpoint and a great many questions about baseball. Two things stopped it. The 101st Airborne held Bastogne, a road junction the whole offensive needed, through a week of encirclement — its acting commander answering a German surrender demand with a single word — and the fuel dumps at Stavelot were denied to a panzer force that was running on captured petrol. The skies cleared on 23 December and the fighter-bombers came out. Patton turned the Third Army ninety degrees and relieved Bastogne on 26 December, which is the manoeuvre he is most admired for. American casualties were about 75,000 and German around 100,000, including the reserves that would otherwise have defended the Rhine. Some 84 American prisoners were murdered at Malmedy. The line was restored by late January. The offensive is often described as Hitler's last gamble and was closer to a certainty than a gamble. Every general involved knew that the fuel for Antwerp did not exist and that the reserves spent here could not be replaced, and the effect was to shorten the war rather than lengthen it.
- Year: 1944 CE
- Category: Military
