Ardennes

“ The Famenne Depression is only a thin sliver of the Ardennes wedge. The Famenne is free from tree cover except for the characteristic buttes which dot the depression. Scooped out of the Ardennes massif, this long, narrow depression originates at the upper Ourthe and extends westward through Marche and Rochefort. It reaches the Meuse between Givet and Dinant, offering a good crossing site which often has been employed by European armies operating on the Meuse. But an invader from the German frontier must traverse much difficult terrain before debouching into this "march through" depression. ”

“ This zone, the eastern part lying in Luxembourg, the western in Belgium, contains some of the most rugged ground in the Ardennes. East of the Arlon-Bastogne axis two deeply eroded corridors, cut by the Sure and Wiltz Rivers, form effective barriers to mechanized or motorized advance from the south. The entire area is crisscrossed with rivers and streams, but those of the tableland west of Bastogne lack the gorge-like beds found to the east. Here, as in other parts of the Ardennes,
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dense woods alternate with rolling fields and clearings. ”

“ Almost automatically Allied strength would concentrate in those areas where the offensive was the order of the day and where decision might be reached. The Ardennes sector seemed no special risk, it had been quiet for weeks, it offered-or so it seemed-no terrain attraction for the enemy, and there was no recognizable indication that enemy forces opposite the VIII Corps and 99th Infantry Division outnumbered those deployed on the friendly side of the line. ”

“ In 1944, as a result, it was known that the terrain in the Eifel and Ardennes was not so bad but that it could be quickly negotiated by modern mechanized armies under conditions of good weather and little or no enemy resistance. What history could not demonstrate, for the lessons were lacking, was whether modern, mechanized armies could attack through the Ardennes and speedily overcome a combination of stubborn enemy defense, difficult ground, and poor weather. Terrain, then, would play a peculiarly important role in the development of the 1944 counteroffensive. ”

“ In the Ardennes country the houses were often near enough for frequent calls and visits, made in the late afternoon when all would assemble round the tea table. The quiet days were rarely broken by even the smallest excitement. These families certainly passed from one extreme to the other during the early months of the war.
Another motor trip took us somewhat farther afield, by Liège and Spa into the Ardennes, and back through Dinant and Namur. This is the Belgium of the Middle Ages, of Emperor Charlemagne and all his kin, of wars, and of wonders without end. ”

“ Vith is better documented than any part of the Ardennes story, with the sole exception of the defense of Bastogne. All of the units organic to this command prepared AAR's, including the division trains and artillery. The unit journals, as is common in an armored division, are rather slim, although, in this case, fairly accurate. ”

“ The prelude to the Ardennes counteroffensive of 16 December can only be reckoned as a gross failure by Allied ground and air intelligence. One of the greatest skills in the practice of the military art is the avoidance of the natural tendency to overrate or underestimate the enemy. ”

“ The Ardennes is the northernmost of the four Departments into which the wise men of 1790 divided the ancient province of Champagne, and M. Harmel, the father, had inherited a manufactory in that department. This he gave up to his brother, and removing to the Marne in 1840 he founded here the establishment of the Val-des-Bois. He was a devout and sincere Catholic, and he had lived all his life among a quiet and Catholic population in the Ardennes. He found himself surrounded in his new home by a totally different people. ”

“ Just as the Moselle vineyards of renown alternate from one bank to the other, so the railroad line and the highway crisscross the river throughout its middle reaches; but rail and road come to a focal point only a few kilometers from the Luxembourg frontier at the old Roman city of Trier. Throughout this whole area military routes of movement, regardless of the weather, are synonymous with the road system. The roads of the Ardennes proliferate in accordance with the geological compartments incised in the high plateau by rivers and streams as they recede downward. ”

“ The subsequent attempts at counterattacks in Alsace and on the Lake Balaton front were bloody military divertissements occasioned by Hitler, nothing more. There would be days of stubborn fighting in the Ardennes during January 1945, but the roads back over the Eifel led straight to the decimation and collapse of the German armies on the banks of the Oder River, along the Danube, in the Ruhr pocket, and, at last, to the bunkers of Berlin. ”

“ He then proceeded to tell the assemblage that the Ardennes offensive, as planned, was at an end, that Bastogne had become the "central problem," and that the German High Command viewed the forthcoming battle as an "opportunity," an opportunity to win a striking victory or at the least to chew up the enemy divisions which would be poured into the fight. The operation would be in three phases: first, close the ring once again around Bastogne; second, push the Americans back to the south; third, with reinforcements now on the way, take Bastogne in a final assault. ”

“ The veteran 2d Division had protected its front-line units against the bitter Ardennes weather with log dugouts for the rifle and weapon squads. Stoves were in the squad huts and the kitchen ranges were up front in covered dugouts. Heavy weapons were exchanged, the 106th taking over the .50-caliber machine guns, mortars, and other weapons where they had been emplaced in order to conceal the relief from the enemy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Vith, not to speak of the 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne, without the intervention of the engineer battalions. Nonetheless, the story of the Ardennes barrier lines does make clear that the use of engineers in their capacity as trained technicians often paid greater dividends than their use as infantry, and that a squad equipped with sufficient TNT could, in the right spot, do more to slow the enemy advance than a company armed with rifles and machine guns. ”

“ At one time the Allies had flown night reconnaissance missions across the Eifel, using flares for photography. Even Rundstedt was worried lest a repetition of these missions disclose the German secret. Next was the problem of deserters. A quiet sector, particularly in an area as rugged as the Ardennes and Eifel, offered numerous chances for a malcontent to slip over to the enemy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Only one day, 13 December, in the five critical days before the attack found all US air reconnaissance grounded.11 The pilots belonging to the 67th Group and the 10th Photo Reconnaissance Group, the latter attached to the Third Army's old partner, the XIX TAC, actually constructed an imposing picture of German buildup west of the Rhine in the month preceding the Ardennes counteroffensive. In the last week of November the number of enemy columns on the roads showed a marked increase. ”

“ Why Peiper's command gained the bestial distinction of being the only unit to kill prisoners in the course of the Ardennes is a subject of surmise. Peiper had been an adjutant to Heinrich Himmler and as a battalion commander in Russia is alleged to have burned two villages and killed all the inhabitants. The veteran SS troops he led in the Ardennes had long experience on the Eastern Front where brutality toward prisoners of war was a common-place. ”

“ Deception and Camouflage Hitler's selection of the Ardennes as the sector in which the western counteroffensive would be launched was based in the main on the obvious advantage of attacking the Allies where they were weakest. Even so, although the Western Allies could not be strong everywhere along the line from Switzerland to the North Sea, they did outnumber the Germans in men, tanks, guns, and planes, they were possessed of greater facility for rapid movement of large forces, and they-not the Germans-had the strategic initiative. ”

“ The small town of Stavelot (population 5,000) lies in the Amblève River valley surrounded by high, sparsely wooded bluffs. Most of the town is built on the north bank of the river or on the slopes above. There are a few scattered buildings on the south bank. Like most of the water courses in this part of the Ardennes, the Amblève was no particular obstacle to infantry but the deeply incised valley at this point offered hard going to tanks, while the river, by reason of the difficult approaches, was a tougher than average tank barrier. Only one vehicular bridge spanned the river at Stavelot. ”

“ Bad flying weather was a distinct possibility, and the Eighth Air Force-a rather independent command-was increasingly disenchanted with its battlefield
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missions over the Ardennes (indeed, on 27 December the Eighth Air Force had stated its intention of scrubbing the battle zone targets and going after the Leipzig oil depots, weather permitting) . Bradley decided therefore to settle for half a loaf and on the 27th briefed the Supreme Commander on a new Third Army attack to be mounted from the Bastogne area and to drive northeast toward St. Vith. ”

“ Here, the enemy capability for reacting other than to direct Allied pressure had been sadly underestimated. Americans and British had looked in a mirror for the enemy and seen there only the reflection of their own intentions. The German Concentration Hitler's operation directive of 10 November set 27 November as the date for completion of the huge concentration preliminary to the Ardennes counteroffensive, with a target date two days earlier for the attack by the divisions in the initial thrust. ”

“ Here as elsewhere during the Ardennes fighting the towed tank destroyer lacked the maneuverability to deal with infiltration or to displace when in danger. Three tank destroyers were pulled back toward Manderfeld and better firing positions; the rest, with one exception, were destroyed on orders. Most of the company reached the cavalry group headquarters at Manderfeld and continued the fight as infantry. Colonel Devine and the staffs of the 14th Cavalry Group and 18th Cavalry Squadron had been alerted by the first shells of the opening predawn concentration dropping on Manderfeld. ”

“ There is an axiom that weather on the battlefield is divided equally between the combatants-but its impact on military operations is not equal in amount or direction. The German selection of a target date for the commencement of the Ardennes offensive turned on the prediction of poor flying weather. This type of weather had a useful side effect during the rupture of the American lines since it veiled the attacker with fog and mist, a very important feature of the initial German successes just as it had been in the great offensives of 1918. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then Hitler spoke, his words recalled as faithfully as may be by the listening OKL chief of staff. "I have just made a momentous decision. I shall go over to the counterattack, that is to say"-and he pointed to the map unrolled on the desk before him-"here, out of the Ardennes, with the objective-Antwerp." While his audience sat in stunned silence, the Fuehrer began to outline his plan. Historical hindsight may give the impression that only a leader finally bereft of sanity could, in mid-September of 1944, believe Germany physically capable of delivering one more powerful and telling blow. ”

“ The elite SS panzer formations on which the Fuehrer so relied would continue to play a major role in the Ardennes counteroffensive but no longer would be charged with the main effort; this had passed on 20 December to Manteuffel and the Fifth Panzer Army.15 And if, as Manteuffel later suggested, the Fuehrer wanted to see an SS and a regular panzer army competing, it could be said that he had his answer. ”