The Round Tablette

December 2008

Volume 17 Number 4

Published by WW II History Roundtable

Edited by Jim Gerber

www.mn-ww2roundtable.org

Welcome to the December Meeting of the Dr. Harold C. Deutsch World War Two History Roundtable. Our topic this evening is on the Battle of the Bulge. We welcome John McManus as our author, historian this evening and look forward to his presentation and the personal experiences of our veteran panel.

The Ardennes

Adolf Hitler decided that the main aim of his offensive should be the Belgian port of Antwerp. There were good reasons for this. The Allies had recently managed to bring it into operation, thus dramatically reducing their supply lines. Also, a drive on the city would split the British and the Canadian armies from the Americans, and enable them to be destroyed. While all of this sounded perfectly sensible to Hitler, it took little account of the ferocious difficulties that this course of action would face. Hitler was not to be swayed from this objective, and this shaped the planning process. The shortest distance to Antwerp was from the German positions in the north, between the American and British forces north of Aachen. Hitler appreciated that it would be best to give his forces the shortest possible distance to cover, but the terrain around Aachen was impossible for a swift offensive. The ground was bisected by rivers and canals which were major obstacles to the tanks that were to drive through the Allied positions. This forced Hitler to look closely at the Ardennes as the area for his offensive. He liked what he saw.

The Ardennes had been a favorable

area for the Germans before, most recently in 1940, when the French high command had been stunned by the boldness of the German invasion through the woodland. The French refused to believe that such an assault was possible, given the terrain, and had devoted much of their defensive planning considerations to building up the Maginot Line. Hitler thought that there was little danger of the Allies regarding the Ardennes as an area from which enemy would launch a major offensive, and the gains to be made from an assault here appeared to be enormous. Although the terrain was restrictive for maneuvering forces, the Germans had amply demonstrated that armor could move through the area rapidly, and Hitler had little doubt that it could do so again.

There were other aspects of the Ardennes that made it look good for the offensive. Just over the border from the Ardennes, the forests in the German Eifel region would disguise the build-up of an attacking force from aerial reconnaissance. Once the offensive was underway, the distance to Antwerp was little more than 100 miles. This relatively short distance was not the only attraction, for if the attack were successful it would cut off the British and Canadians and ensnare the American First and Ninth Armies around Aachen as well. Hitler quickly realized that if he attacked through the Ardennes, he could obtain a victory against the Anglo-American forces so decisive that they would be forced to sue for peace. The offensive would trap half the Allied forces, eliminate the imminent threat to the Ruhr and allow Hitler to turn his attention to the Eastern front by withdrawing troops from the Western front. The prize was fantastic. Hitler decided that

he would be in Antwerp within a week. His mind was set: the offensive would be in the Ardennes.

Hitler knew that this offensive would not be like it was in 1940. Germany no longer possessed the advantages that it had enjoyed four years before, when France and the Low Countries had fallen with relative ease. While the Luftwaffe had enjoyed air superiority in 1940, it most certainly did not in 1944. He was well aware that the lack of air superiority was a crippling blow to the ground operations, since the Allies were able to use their fighter-bombers almost at will against columns of troops and armored formations. Unable to depend on the much-reduced Luftwaffe to defend the troops on the ground from the devastating air attacks, Hitler proposed for the offensive a timing that sought to enlist a different form of defense and an unusual ally: the weather. It would take time to refit and train the divisions needed for the offensive, which meant that the offensive would have to take place in November. This would most certainly ensure that the Allies would be unable to fly many sorties before German troops were in Antwerp.

On September 25th, Hitler held another meeting at the Wolf’s Lair, where he gave out more details of his offensive. The assault would be preceded by an enormous artillery barrage, followed by an infantry assault to break into the Allied lines. Once this was achieved, the first echelon of panzer divisions would pass through, driving towards the Meuse to seize the important bridgeheads. They would be followed by the second wave of armor, which would be followed by infantry divisions that would move to protect the flanks of the advance. As secrecy was of greatest importance, all those undertaking the analysis were forced to sign a pledge of secrecy (a breach of which would lead to execution), while von Rundstedt and the field commanders who would be actually conducting the offensive would be made

aware of the plan only when necessary. This was ironic since Hitler had told the Japanese ambassador that he intended to launch a large-scale offensive in the west a few weeks before.

More Reading on Tonight’s Topic:

Alamo in the Ardennes

By John C. McManus

John Wiley and Sons

Hoboken, N.J. 2007

To Save Bastogne

By Robert F. Phillips

Borodino Books

Burke, VA 1996

The Regiment

By Harry M. Kemp

Nortex Press

Austin, TX 1990

A Time For Trumpets

By Charles B. McDonald

William Morrow and Co.

New York 1985

The Longest Winter

By Alex Kershaw

DE Capo Press

Cambridge, MA 2004

Bastogne

By Michael Tolhurst

Leo Cooper Pub.

2001

11 Days in December

By Stanley Weintraub

Noville, Outpost to Bastogne

By Don Addor

The Ardennes, The Battle of the Bulge

By Hugh Cole

See You Next Year