Hugh M. Cole

“ This last route, however, is by far the longest for any attack aimed at reaching the Meuse River. The geography of the Ardennes leads inevitably to the channelization of large troop movements east to west, will tend to force larger units to "pile up" on each other, and restricts freedom of maneuver once the direction of attack and order of battle are fixed. To a marked degree the military problem posed by the terrain is that of movement control rather than maneuver in the classic sense. ”

“ Model reacted more strongly than Rundstedt, the latter fatigued by the constant tug of war with OKW and more and more adopting the resignation of the aged. When Model again took up the cudgels for the Small Solution, stressing the paucity of forces left for the counteroffensive, he sounded a prophetic warning: "Should the attack be stopped at the Meuse due to the lack of reserves the only result will be a bulge in the line and not the destruction of sizable enemy forces [italics supplied] .... The widely stretched flanks, especially in the south, will only invite enemy counteractions." ”

“ Locally, however, the gunner or fighter pilot will find many blind spots formed by the thick tree cover or the deep draws and ravines; the ability of high-angle fire to beat reverse slopes, which really are sheer, steep walls, is limited. What the German planners saw in 1944 was this: the Ardennes could be traversed by large forces even when these were heavily mechanized. An attack from east to west across the massif would encounter initially the greatest obstacles of terrain, but these obstacles would decrease in number as an advance neared the Meuse. ”

“ In addition the American attack in Lorraine would cost the Hitler offensive an entire Volks artillery corps, two panzer brigades, and two heavy antitank battalions. The Third Battle of Aachen, begun on 16 November, was even more threatening in the eyes of OB WEST than the Allied drive in Lorraine. Within twenty-four hours the situation was so desperate that Model threw in his only tactical reserve, the XLVIII Panzer Corps. As the German casualties mounted on the Army Group B front, Rundstedt began to bleed his north wing, taking one division after another from Army Group Student. ”

“ The main mass is cut in zigzag patterns by winding, deeply eroded rivers and streams, some flowing parallel to the higher ridges, others crossing so as to chop the ridges and the welts on the plateau into separate sections. In some places the watercourses run through narrow, almost canyonlike depressions with steep walls rising from a hundred to three hundred feet. Even the wider valleys are narrow when compared with the western European norm. The road net in 1944 was far richer than the population and the economic activity of the Ardennes would seem to warrant. ”

“ The answer is found in a combination of self-mesmerism at Hitler's headquarters and a kind of double entry order of battle. The assignment of the Fifteenth Army, fighting in the Aachen battle, theoretically added six divisions to the attacking force. The Fifteenth Army, however, was not to be employed until the Allies had reacted in force to the German attack, and in any case could not be expected to launch a large-scale attack until the Allied front east of Aachen had been drastically denuded of troops. ”

“ To make matters very much worse, OB WEST would lose two-thirds of its armored and mechanized troops during the rehabilitation period. After the meeting with Model at Fichtenhain, Rundstedt once again asked for additional divisions to meet the impending Allied attack and repeated the warning that an Allied offensive would cancel the German plans. This time (3 November) he specified the areas where the attack would be made: it would be a double thrust, one arm advancing from the Aachen front in the direction of Cologne, the other striking from the Metz sector toward Saarbrucken. ”

“ For the smaller tactical units, the chopped-up nature of the ground plus the peculiar timber formations in which dense wood lots are interspersed with natural or manmade clearings, indicates the development of a series of small, semi-independent engagements once the larger battle is joined. ”

“ Their valleys are long and narrow, so narrow and tortuous that they cannot be followed by roads. They are further complicated by "cups" scoured out of the side walls and by cross ravines, deep and narrow. In the Ardennes north of Luxembourg it is possible to cross from Germany into Belgium without traversing a major stream. About twenty miles west of the frontier, however, comes the first of the rivers descending from the High Ardennes into the Meuse ”

“ The ground offered the defender three natural defense positions east of the Meuse, although none of these constituted an impassable barrier to the attacker: (1) a covering line echeloned to the southeast between Liège and the Moselle, this pegged on the Hohes Venn, the rugged zone around Malmédy and St. Vith, and the boxed-in course of the Our and Sauer Rivers; (2) the Ourthe River line; and (3) an intermediate position, shorter in length, based on the plateau at Bastogne and extending along a chain of ridges to Neufchâteau. ”

“ Otherwise the commitment of any Wacht am Rhein formation must have the express permission of the Fuehrer. Rundstedt's prediction of things to come was made good when the US Third Army opened a two-corps attack on 8 November. Within twenty-four hours Hitler was in touch with OB WEST, reminding Rundstedt that he must keep his hands off the Wacht am Rhein divisions even if this meant giving ground all along the line. As a reassuring note OKW expressed the hope that the Allied attack would burn up divisions which might otherwise face the German counteroffensive. ”

“ Movement cross-country is limited, even in good weather; movement along the narrow valley floors may be blocked there or in the villages at points of descent and ascent. The backbone of the ridges sometimes offers good observation in the immediate area for detecting movement on the roads which climb the hills and plateaus. ”

“ The troop list thereafter would be duplicated in army group, army, corps, and division orders and plans. Commanders and staffs in lower echelons could have little or no knowledge of the questionable basis of the troop list. Each time the list was reproduced it became more of a solid fact. ”