The Battle of the Bulge was one of the bloodiest battles fought on the western
front during the Second World War.
A last-ditch attempt by Germany to avert
defeat it saw hundreds of tanks and hundreds of thousands of men committed
to a surprise attack through the Ardennes Forest.
The attack was the
brainchild of Hitler, who against all advice from his generals was determined
to attempt an audacious knockout blow against the Allies.
If the West could be forced to make peace, the German Fuhrer reasoned
then the Soviets, could also be
pushed back and Germany saved from defeat.
The operation, code-named 'Autumn Mist'
was to attack with the 5th and 6th Panzer armies and the Seventh Army a
stretch of the Allied front that was held by parts of Courtney Hodges' First Army.
the Allies had focused divisions for their own attacks and had left the
Ardennes lightly defended in order to do so.
Spearheaded by elite SS Panzer divisions in 6th Panzer army,
the Germans aimed to smash through the American
lines, before crossing the River Meuse and sweeping north to capture the Port of Antwerp.
If successful the Anglo-Canadian 21st Army Group would be cut off in a new Dunkirk.
To Hitler's mind it was a decisive audacious attack that the
Americans would be unable to react to in time. To the German Generals tasked with
carrying the offensive out, it was wildly over ambitious.
What Hitler perhaps failed to grasp was that there was a reason the Americans had so easily
removed troops from the Ardennes sector and that was its geography.
Steep valleys, dense woods and numerous rivers, had the potential to slow an advance to a crawl
particularly considering the appalling state of most roads in the region.
This would be especially damaging to an army of which a startling rate of advance had been demanded,
with German tanks ordered to be crossing the Meuse in just two days
even faster than had been achieved in perfect weather conditions during the
invasion of France in 1940.
Walter Model, the man given operational control of the offensive was not keen on the plan.
Model gave it only a ten percent chance
of success and tried to suggest alternative more realistic
but was rejected.
On at least six occasions Hitler refused any changes to
his master plan and insisted the offensive go ahead as he planned
setting December 16th as its start date
As the Germans prepared their attack the
Allies were focused on their own planned offensives into the Saarland and and towards
the Roer dams.
Through the autumn of 1944 the Allies took their eye off the ball
thinking too much only in terms of what they would do to the enemy next and not
what the enemy could still do to them.
It wasn't until December 7th that the
Allies had any idea that an attack might be imminent, and it took another week for
Omar Bradley at 12th Army Group- First army's parent formation- to be fully briefed.
Bradley was dismissive of the chances of a German attack succeeding
and is said to have declared: "let them come!".
At dawn on December 16th
Hitler's grand counter-offensive began.
18 divisions in the German front line
began their attack, with their immediate objective to seize key road junctions
and bridge heads to allow the five Panzer divisions to race towards the Meuse.
Opposing the Germans were just six American divisions and combat command A
of the 9th armored, holding a 60 mile front line.
As grenadiers swarmed across
the front line, American communications were hampered by heavy snowstorms and it
was difficult for the local corps commander Troy Middleton to build up a
clear picture of what was going on this had dire consequences for the 106th
division which was holding the line near St Vith.
The 106th had just arrived in Europe and it's inexperience in the poor weather showed.
Poor coordination between
its regiments and its divisional HQ led to the 18th Volksgrenadier division managing
to encircle two regiments on the second day of the attack.
With little in the way
of reserves that could be used to rescue the units both would go on to surrender
two days later.
However the Germans did not have everything their own way owing
mainly to the bravery of small groups and stubborn GIs. At the village of
lanzerath a single platoon of the u.s. 99th
division held off repeated attacks a battalion of German infantry
effectively holding up the spearhead of the 1st SS Panzer Division for an entire day.
By the time this spearhead managed to reach lanzerath they were already badly behind schedule.
The unit's 29 year old commander Joachim Peiper, commanding
kampfgruppe peiper, demanded they continue to advance through the night to
make up the lost time.
His determination to allow nothing to delay his formation
any further was to have horrific consequences the following day when men
under his command murdered 84 American prisoners of war near Malmedy.
The massacre was symptomatic of the callous disregard for human life that the SS
bred in its ranks and word of it quickly spread throughout the Ardennes.
Stiffening the resolve of American divisions to stand and fight.
As Peiper and his merry band of war criminals hurried forwards, the Germans were just managing to bring the
bulk of their tanks into action following difficulties bridging the
River Our. Lagging behind schedule it was now vitally important that they
take control of the Ardennes few decent roads and so the town of Bastogne, at the
center of a number of important routes became a key objective.
Both of Fifth Army's closest Panzer divisions, 2nd Panzer and the Panzer Lehr division
pushed towards it, shattering the u.s. 28th division that stood in their way
with the 106 also crippled and its remnants forced back to St vith the
center of the Allied line had now collapsed,
threatening the entire Ardennes front.
Understanding how severe the situation was becoming General
Eisenhower in Paris mobilized every division available to him
the 101st airborne, which was refitting at Reims over a hundred miles away from the Ardennes
was ordered to immediately deploy to Bastogne.
To support them Eisenhower
ordered that 10th armored also move immediately for the Ardennes with part
of the division, Combat Command A, to be deployed in support of the one hundred
and first.
Having been notified late on December 17th by the morning of the 18th
the first units of 10th Armored began to arrive in Bastogne and they were joined
less than 24 hours later by a hundred and first Airborne.
Across the Ardennes
over 60,000 men were moved into the combat area in just one day, in a
stunning logistical achievement.
German intelligence had picked up the
order to move the 101st on December 17th, but Fritz Bayerlein, the
commander of the Panzer Lehr division couldn't see how the Americans could
possibly beat him to Bastogne.
By the end of the 18th he was only a handful of miles away.
Underlining his confidence in the early hours of the 19th Bayerlein
opted to delay his assault on the town in order to clear out US troops on his
flanks at Longvilly.
The defenders of the village, a detachment of 10th armored
fought fiercely, and by the time Panzer Lehr and their supporting Volksgrenadiers villages that
overcome them it was too late.
The 101st arrived in force and established a perimeter
and Panzer Lehr's attempts to push into Bastogne
that day were a failure.
Meanwhile to the north the Germans were
also halted at Noville as two American battalions managed to hold off the
entire 2nd Panzer Division for 48 hours
With thousands of battle-hardened
American troops now occupying Bastogne the prospects for taking the town
quickly were remote.
Furious with a lack of progress Hitler now tore up his own plan.
he ordered 5th armies Panzers to abandon their attempts to take Bastogne
and just dash to the Meuse as quickly as possible
behind them the 26th Volksgrenadiers and 5th Parachute divisions would
encircle the town, under the command of Heinrich Luttwitz.
Eager to do anything that might accelerate the advance Luttiwitz tried to bluff the
Americans into surrendering the town.
Sending a letter that exaggerated the
strength of German troops outside Bastogne and threatened destruction and
annihilation if they did not comply, he demanded that the 101st
commander, Anthony McAuliffe, surrender the town.
McAuliffe's response was to
generate international headlines.
Writing back to the German commander he replied
simply, "Nuts!"
It was a deeply embarrassing rejection for Luttwitz and yet another setback.
Elsewhere in the Ardennes things were no better for the Germans as the
Allies poured in reinforcements progress slowed across the entire front.
The town of St. Vith was bolstered by 7th Armored Division and held out
until December 21st, denying the Germans another town crucial to control the road
network for days on end.
Even less progress was made in the north where the
terrain was dramatically worse and Hitler had foolishly ordered the main
effort of the advance to take place.
After several days of heavy fighting in
the vicinity of Elsenborn Ridge, 12th SS Panzer Division was forced to the
retreat and move further south.
Kampfgruppe Peiper meanwhile stalled west of La Gleize
as the division was blocked by the 82nd Airborne Division arriving from the West.
Within a few days Peiper's force would be forced into retreat from his
overextended position, in the first successful Allied counter-attack of the Bulge.
And so it was that 5th army's central sector saw the greatest success.
Joining 2nd Panzer and the Panzer-Lehr Division was the 116th Panzer Division
which on December 21st had reached the River Ourthe at Hotton where a small
detachment of American troops was managing to hold off their initial attacks.
The delay proved to be fateful as it gave time for the u.s. 3rd armored
and 84th divisions to arrive on the opposite bank and block the path west
The two Panzer divisions emerging from Bastogne had better luck.
by December 23rd Panzer Lehr was preparing to assault Rochefort and 2nd Panzer had its
advance units near Celles, just five miles from the Meuse crossing at Dinant
It looked likely now that the Meusecould be reached and crossed although both
divisions were exposed without infantry support and were having to deploy much
of their strength to protect their flanks, which blunted their spearhead
That day, as both divisions prepared to resume their advance the weather turned
the low cloud and fog which had shrouded the German offensive lifted and gave way
to a bright clear day.
perfect flying weather
hundreds of Allied bombers took to the sky and pummeled German logistics.
supplies to the tanks of desperately needed fuel collapsed.
the one hundred and sixteenth
division was rendered essentially paralyzed around Hotton and was forced
to go onto the defensive.
While 2nd Panzer remained static at Celles.
After a day of
struggle Panzer Lehr did manage to secure Rochefort on the
morning of Christmas Eve, but it was all too little too late.
With each passing
day, allied strength grew and the German
chances of success receded.
By Christmas Day it was clear
fifth Panzer Army's
race to the Meuse had failed.
Hasso von Manteuffel the commander of
fifth panzer army, was given the unfortunate task of relaying this
information to Hitler's HQ.
Confronted with defeat Hitler ordered an assault on
Bastogne which had become a symbol of stubborn American resistance.
Urged on by their Fuhrer, small units tried valiantly to attack the town but
seriously damaged German logistics ended any hope of a full-scale assault
occurring before the town could be relieved. The fiercest fighting at the
siege came on Christmas day, when tanks of the 15th Panzer Grenadier division
were able to penetrate the American lines near champs before being repelled
after reinforcements arrived from elsewhere inside the pocket.
On December 24th, George Patton's US Third Army
began a counter-attack from the south
aiming to relieve Bastogne.
Pushing 7th Army's divisions out of the way,
Patton's 4th armored division arrived two days later
lifting the siege by breaking
through German lines at Assenois and linking up with troops of the 101st airborne.
Though the Germans would continue to attack vainly around
Bastogne for several days more that they would have no success doing so.
Over the coming weeks the Allies would launch a series of counter-attacks designed to
flatten and push back the Bulge and make steady progress doing so.
Plunging winter
temperatures and vicious German resistance made reclaiming the Ardennes
an excruciating task but it was a matter of time until even Hitler was forced to
accept defeat.
On January the 9th he ordered the withdrawal of the 1st and
2nd SS Panzer Corps in an effective admission of defeat.
Two weeks later the
last German units were withdrawn across the frontier they had crossed on
December 16.
Ending the Bulge and the battle that took its name
the Battle of the Bulge was a brutal experience for both sides.
The allies suffered in the region of 96 thousand casualties
and the Germans between 67
and 84 thousand troops.
While the Allies could absorb and replace both manpower
and equipment losses the Wehrmacht had no such ability.
Over 600 irreplaceable
German tanks were lost on the offensive and its elite SS formations suffered
Grievous casualties.
With Germany's Panzer forces now crippled there was
little that could be done to stand the Soviet tide when it resumed its advance
in January.
When the Western Allies attacked in the spring the Western Front also collapsed
less than five months after the bold was defeated,
the German Reich surrendered