Ardennes campaign

Ardennes campaign, Hitler's final counter-offensive in north-west Europe launched on 16 December 1944 and also known as the battle of the Bulge (see Map 5). Aimed at splitting the Allied armies in half and recapturing Antwerp, the Allies' most vital supply port (see also Scheldt), it achieved total strategic and tactical surprise and was launched in poor weather (see meteorological intelligence) which, as Hitler had calculated, neutralized Allied air power.

To make the quick breakthrough essential to the success of the offensive, Hitler created the Sixth SS Panzer Army of four SS Panzer Divisions and gave command of it to ‘Sepp’ Dietrich, one of his most trusted SS officers. Dietrich's army represented the Schwerpunkt (main thrust) which was launched from the northern Ardennes around Monschau. Simultaneously, another new panzer army, Manteuffel's Fifth, would attack in the centre and Lt-General Erich Brandenberger's Seventh Army in the south. These armies, totalling 30 divisions and supported by more than 1,000 aircraft of Brigadier Dietrich Peltz's 2nd Fighter Corps, were assembled in the greatest secrecy and screened by the most sophisticated deception plans. Even the codename Hitler initially gave to the offensive, WACHT AM RHEIN (‘watch on the Rhine’), was intended by its defensive connotations to mislead. To start with he also deliberately misled Rundstedt, his C-in-C West, about his intentions. When Rundstedt eventually heard about them he was appalled. He thought the choice of the almost impenetrable Ardennes ‘a stroke of genius’ but that the offensive lacked ‘all, absolutely all’ the right conditions for success. Rundstedt was merely a figurehead. The tactical commander was one of Hitler's favourites, Model, C-in-C Army Group B, but he, too, considered the plan unrealistic. Both suggested a less ambitious one which Hitler contemptuously dismissed.

To speed the advance towards Antwerp two special units were ordered to break through early to capture bridges across the River Meuse, and a small force of paratroops was to be employed to block US reinforcements moving south. Neither the paratroopers, who were widely scattered when they were dropped, nor Skorzeny's 150th SS Brigade, which included a handful of English-speaking troops dressed in American uniform and driving US vehicles, achieved any significant military advantage, but they did create a lot of confusion and apprehension. On the other hand, SS Standartenführer (Colonel) Joachim Peiper's Kampfgruppe (battle group), formed from Dietrich's powerful 1st SS Panzer Division, proved a serious threat and was past Malmédy before it was trapped and destroyed.

Lt-General Hodges's First US Army, part of Bradley's Twelfth Army Group, was responsible for the Ardennes, but most of his strength was in the Aachen area where he was pushing to capture the Roer dams. The Ardennes was the chosen area for new or recuperating divisions and only five defended the 130 km. (80 mi.) front: 99th and 106th from Hodges's 5th Corps, 28th and 4th from his 8th Corps, with 9th Armoured in reserve.

This lack of strength—a calculated risk the Allies had taken in order to pursue their objectives north and south of the Ardennes—could have been counter-balanced by good intellig ence. But at a tactical level the Germans had imposed strict radio silence; Allied photographic reconnaissance flights were grounded by the weather; and though ULTRA intelligence had revealed that German forces were being massed, it was wrongly judged, in the atmosphere of optimism that prevailed, that they were being accumulated to counter-attack the next Allied offensive building either side of the Ardennes. Bradley saw an attack in the Ardennes as ‘only a remote possibility’ and Montgomery, 24 hours before it occurred, said the Germans were incapable of staging ‘any major offensive operations’. So surprise was complete when German infantry, visually aided by the beams of searchlights reflected from the lowering clouds, attacked at 0530.

News from the front was slow to arrive at Bradley's HQ as a heavy German artillery preparation had knocked out many telephone lines. When information did arrive, it was initially thought to be a local attack. But Eisenhower, the supreme Allied commander, ordered 10th Armoured Division of Patton's Third US Army, fighting south of the Ardennes, and 7th Armoured Division of Lt-General W. H. Simpson's Ninth US Army to the north of Hodges, to reinforce the frontline infantry divisions. It was as well he did so immediately for the first few days were critical, with Hodges's frontline divisions in the north and south hanging on by a thread. In the north 99th Division was soon reinforced by two others, 1st and 2nd, and later by 9th. These held out against Dietrich around Elsenborn ridge, east of Malmédy, while in the south the 4th US Division also managed to contain the advance of Brandenberger'sVolksgrenadier. But though both shoulders held, 28th and 106th Divisions in the centre collapsed as Manteuffel's panzers headed for two important centres of the local road network, St Vith and Bastogne. Two regiments of 106th Division on the Schnee Eifel were cut off and forced to surrender, but its third helped put up a stout defence before St Vith. The 7th Armoured also performed prodigies of valour at St Vith, but by 22 December the defensive horseshoe had become a vulnerable salient and the defending forces were ordered to retire behind the River Salm. At Bastogne 101st Airborne Division and part of 10th Armoured were rushed into the area and threw a defensive ring around the town just before Manteuffel attacked and surrounded it.

On 19 December, Eisenhower, now alerted by ULTRA intelligence that the Germans were heading for the Meuse, stopped all Allied offensive action along his front. He ordered Patton, under whose command Hodges's most southerly corps now came, to change the axis of his advance and attack northwards, an order Patton executed with astonishing swiftness. By launching such an attack it was also hoped to relieve some of the pressure on Hodges. Montgomery, who now took command of Bradley's two northern armies, concentrated his reserve, the British 30th Corps, between Liège and Louvain. Though very few of 30th Corps saw action, this commitment enabled Hodges, who had realigned his army in as remarkable a manner as Patton, to poise his 7th Corps ready to counter-attack when the moment was ripe. But the fighting was so fierce that part of 7th Corps, although it later attacked as planned, had to be committed to blunt Manteuffel's 2nd Panzer Division which had managed, by 24 December, to reach Foy-Notre Dame, just 5 km. (3 mi.) from the Meuse.

With Dietrich thwarted in the north, Hitler, too late, gave permission for the weight of the attack to be switched behind Manteuffel. Dietrich's reserve panzer divisions were committed to the Fifth Panzer Army on 20 December, but Bastogne, where resistance sucked in as many as nine German divisions, remained a severe hindrance to Manteuffel's advance. With American forces restricting the width and speed of his offensive, Rundstedt, on 22 December, requested permission to withdraw. Hitler refused. The same day the skies began to clear, allowing Allied fighter-bombers to take off in large numbers for the first time. Ninth US Army Force flew nearly 1,300 sorties on 23 December and on Christmas Eve 2,000 Allied aircraft attacked 31 separate targets. This intervention was of critical importance, for it shattered the already inadequate German supply organization and further decreased the mobility of the panzers which were already badly hampered by fuel shortages, poor roads, dogged defence, and the narrowness of their front. In a last desperate bid for air superiority, every available German fighter took to the air on New Year's Day to attack 27 Allied airfields. They destroyed 156 aircraft, but lost more than 300 themselves, a blow from which the Luftwaffe never recovered.

With the 2nd Panzer Division's thrust to Foy-Notre Dame, the Bulge—65 km. (40 mi.) wide at its base, 95 km. (60 mi.) deep—reached its furthest limit. Weakened by Bastogne's refusal to capitulate, and by heavy losses and acute supply problems, Manteuffel could advance no further, and on 3 January Hodges's 7th Corps began its attack southwards, aiming to meet Patton's northward thrust at Houffalize. Deep snow delayed the two pincers closing on Houffalize until 16 January, and by then the German armies, more used to dealing with the winter conditions, had escaped. But they had suffered 100,000 casualties out of the 500,000 men committed and the loss of nearly all their tanks and aircraft. The Allies had suffered almost as many losses, but they could replace them while the Germans could not.

The Ardennes campaign caused the Anglo-American command crisis Hitler had hoped for; but it was overcome, and did not prevent the Allies acting with swift accord. The US Army's astonishing mobility was the key to success: in four days its infantry numbers in the Ardennes doubled and its armour tripled. Churchill called it the greatest American battle of the war which would ‘be regarded as an ever famous American victory’. Certainly Hitler's determination to maintain the offensive long after there was any chance of its objective being achieved, dissipated Germany's last reserves and hastened her end.

Bibliography

Macdonald, C. , The Battle of the Bulge (London, 1984).