Supreme Commander (94 page)

By mid-December SHAEF’s plans were clear. There would be an all-out offensive north of the Ardennes early in 1945, with subsidiary attacks elsewhere. Eisenhower told Bradley to let Third Army make another attempt against the Saar, beginning on December 19, but warned him that unless the operation made great progress it would have to be stopped after a week so that supplies could be shifted to the main effort in the north. First Army, meanwhile, began on December 13 an attack
against the Roer dams, which Hodges had to have before he could fully commit his men. Without their capture the Germans could stop an offensive through controlled flooding. Sixth Army Group attacked both toward the north to support Patton and directly east, against the Germans in Colmar.
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The only place the Allies were not on the attack was in the Ardennes itself, which was thinly held by one corps. On his way to Maastricht on December 7 Eisenhower had noticed how spread out the troops in the Ardennes were, and he questioned Bradley about the vulnerability of this sector of Twelfth Army Group’s front, where four divisions held seventy-five miles. Bradley said he could not strengthen the Ardennes area without weakening Patton’s and Hodges’ offensives, and that if the Germans counterattacked in the Ardennes they could be hit on either flank and stopped long before they reached the Meuse. Although he did not expect a counterattack, he had taken the precaution of not placing any supply installations of major importance in the Ardennes. Eisenhower was satisfied by this explanation.
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On December 15 Montgomery wrote Eisenhower to say he would “like to hop over to England” for Christmas in order to spend the holiday with his son. Eisenhower said he had no objection and added, “I envy you.” Montgomery also asked for payment on a bet he and Eisenhower had made on October 11, 1943. Eisenhower had wagered five pounds that the war would end before Christmas 1944. He refused to pay, since he still had nine days to go, “and while it seems almost certain that you will have an extra five pounds for Christmas, you will not get it until that day.”
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Both the British and Americans began to anticipate the holidays—they both felt they would deliver a really crushing blow to the enemy with the beginning of the New Year.

On December 16, at dawn, two German Panzer armies of twenty-four divisions struck an American corps of three divisions in the Ardennes. The attack was a complete surprise. Two divisions were trampled, and all along the front the Americans retreated in great confusion. Communications were so badly disrupted that as long as four hours after the attack began Twelfth Army Group still had no report of the German counter-offensive.
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Eisenhower, when he learned of the attack, was as surprised as everyone else. No one had expected a German offensive in the Ardennes, nor had any of the intelligence units realized that the Germans had such a sizable reserve available for such an attack. After the event the G-2s from divisions, corps, army, army group, and even SHAEF could point to this or that sentence or paragraph in an early December analysis and say, “You see, if that had been read correctly, you would have realized the attack was coming.” This was probably true, but it was beside the point. What the intelligence reports revealed was that the Germans had pulled a number of armored units out of the front lines, that they were building up a reserve (which was consistently underestimated), and that they had the capability to attack somewhere. None of the G-2s had predicted where the attack would come, or when, or in what strength.

Strong, SHAEF’s G-2, came closest in anticipating what eventually happened. He told Smith that the German reserve might be transferred to the eastern front, or that it might strike in the Ardennes or east of the Vosges, whenever the Germans had a prediction of six days of bad weather. Smith sent Strong to warn Bradley of this possibility, and Bradley said, “Let them come.”
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Eisenhower had also been worried about the Ardennes, where four divisions held a seventy-five-mile front, and had
queried Bradley about this relatively weak position, but the Supreme Commander did not think the risk there sufficiently serious to justify moving additional units into the area.

In retrospect, critics of SHAEF have found it difficult to understand how such a momentous error could have been made but, on the day it happened, it was difficult to see how the attack could have been expected. True, the Germans had used the Ardennes as an invasion route in 1870 and again in 1940, but the terrain was not suited for mobile warfare, especially in the winter months when weather made the poor road net even more impassable than usual. And in the end, of course, the Germans paid heavily for this absence of mobility. Assembling two armies and secretly preparing them for an offensive was an arduous but not impossible task. German thoroughness never revealed itself to better advantage. The deception plans were so elaborate that some of the units earmarked for the attack were left off situation maps, even at the highest headquarters, so that only a very few high-ranking officers knew the details of the plan. The tanks were gathered together on German territory, so Allied intelligence did not have the benefit of local information that had been so helpful in France and Belgium.
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The various G-2s did notice considerable activity in the area opposite the Ardennes, but the arrival of new units on the German front there seemed to be balanced by the withdrawal of others. The Twelfth Army Group concluded that the enemy was using the Ardennes as a training ground, putting replacements into the line there in order to give them experience. First Army G-2 reported, “During the past month there has been a definite pattern for the seasoning of newly-formed divisions in the comparatively quiet sector opposite VIII Corps prior to their dispatch to more active front.” And VIII Corps, which took the full force of the initial attack, reported on December 9: “The enemy’s present practice of bringing new divisions to this sector to receive front line experience and then relieving them out for commitment elsewhere indicates his desire to have this sector of the front remain quiet and inactive.”
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Forrest Pogue, who has written a comprehensive analysis of the intelligence failure, concludes that there were four major reasons for it. First, although Eisenhower and Bradley realized the Germans were capable of striking, they did not know where an attack would come, or even if the Germans were building up a reserve to use in case of an Allied breakthrough. They were reluctant to move their troops from point to point to meet every possible threat, not only because it was impractical but because it would disrupt their own offensive plans. The second reason for
the intelligence failure was SHAEF’s emphasis on an offensive strategy. The third was the erroneous belief that Von Rundstedt, a cautious soldier, was controlling strategy and would not put his troops into the open where the Allied air force could destroy them. The fourth was the belief that the German fuel shortage would preclude any counterattack.

The most important factor of all was Eisenhower’s emphasis on the offensive, coupled with the obvious fact that if the Germans used up their forces in a counterattack they would only be inviting a quicker defeat. Von Rundstedt’s best hope for holding the line once spring came was to have all his forces at full strength. To use them up in a German offensive that could achieve nothing more than a slight tactical success made no sense. In any case the mood at SHAEF and among all the senior field commanders mitigated against any expectation of a major German thrust. In the AEF, and in the Allied world generally, the spirit was offense-minded. The U.S., U.K., and U.S.S.R. had held the initiative since the spring of 1943. The last time the Germans had decided where and when to fight had been in their disastrous offensive at Kursk. Not since Kasserine had Eisenhower been forced to think and act defensively. What SHAEF, the army groups, and the armies were concerned with then was not what the Germans might do but what they would do to the Germans. Thus, the total surprise at the counteroffensive.

Eisenhower accepted all the blame for it, and in the largest sense he was right in doing so, for he had failed to read correctly the mind of the enemy commander. He failed to see that Hitler, not Von Rundstedt, was directing the strategy; he failed to see that Hitler would try anything. The Supreme Commander was the man responsible for the weakness of the line in the Ardennes, the one who had insisted on continuing the offensives north and south of the area. As a result of his policies there was no general SHAEF reserve available.

On December 23 Eisenhower dictated an office memorandum. The Allied world had been shocked by Von Rundstedt’s attack; after the drive through France and the lingering expectation of another breakthrough to be followed by a quick end to the war, the reporters and commentators could hardly believe what had happened. Obviously the Allies had been badly fooled, and the newspapers were full of criticism. In his memorandum Eisenhower confessed that although he had been aware of the building German reserve, that although he knew tank units had been pulled out of the line, and that although he had been told that “a counterattack through the Ardennes was a
possibility
,” he did not
think it probable that the enemy would try it. “Nevertheless,” he admitted, “this is exactly what he did.”
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But despite his mistakes Eisenhower was the first important Allied general to grasp the full import of the attack, the first to be able to readjust his thinking, the first to realize that, although the surprise German counteroffensive and the initial Allied losses were painful, in fact Hitler had given the AEF a magnificent opportunity. Eisenhower was at Versailles on the day of the attack, conferring with Bradley on the replacement problem in ETO. Scattered reports began to come in, indicating that some penetrations had been made with tanks. Bradley was inclined to think it was a local attack that could be stopped without difficulty. Eisenhower believed a larger movement was involved, and he urged Bradley to send the 10th Armored Division from the south and the 7th Armored Division from the north toward the flanks of the attack. He also told Bradley to order his army commanders to alert any division they had which was free for employment in the Ardennes area.
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Bradley stayed overnight at Versailles; the following morning, December 17, he returned to his own headquarters to take control of the situation. Not much was then known at SHAEF as to the strength of the attack, but each bit of news that came in indicated that it was a big one. Eisenhower’s reaction was crucial. If he had panicked, shouting orders on the telephone and pulling units from various sectors to throw them piecemeal into the battle, he would have spread the panic all down the line. But he was calm, optimistic, even delighted at this seemingly ominous development. In the morning he dictated a letter to General Somervell about his munitions problems. In the last paragraph he said that the enemy had “launched a rather ambitious counterattack east of the Luxembourg area where we have been holding very thinly.” He said he was bringing some armor in from the north and south to hit the German flanks, and concluded, “If things go well we should not only stop the thrust but should be able to profit from it.”
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Eisenhower’s biggest problem was the lack of a strategic reserve. He had already committed the two armored divisions that had been out of the line on a regular rest and rotation basis, with the 10th holding the southern shoulder of the penetration and the 7th occupying the important road junction of St. Vith. Beyond those two, the only additional reserve forces SHAEF had were the 101st and 82d Airborne Divisions, still refitting from the battles around Arnhem. After sending orders to the commanders of the paratroopers to prepare to move, Eisenhower conferred with Smith, Strong, and Whiteley. Together they studied the map
and tried to estimate the enemy’s intentions. They did not realize it, but Hitler was thinking on a grand scale—his ultimate objective was to destroy the Allied forces north of the Ardennes and take Antwerp, thus bringing about a decisive change in the over-all situation. SHAEF found it difficult to credit the Germans with such ambitions, and thought instead that Von Rundstedt’s sole aim was to get across the Meuse River, which would have the effect of splitting Twelfth and Twenty-first Army Groups. This was, of course, a more realistic estimate of German capabilities and did in fact represent Von Rundstedt’s thinking.

Whiteley, looking at the map, declared that Bastogne was the key point. It had an excellent road net, and without it the Germans would hardly be able to drive through the Ardennes toward Namur and the Meuse River. When Smith and Strong agreed, Eisenhower decided to concentrate his reserves at Bastogne. A combat command of the 10th Armored went to the city immediately, while the 101st Airborne was ordered to get there as soon as possible. Eisenhower sent the 82d to the north to join Ridgway’s XVIII Corps, where it could participate in a counterattack against the German’s right flank. The Supreme Commander also ordered the cessation of all attacks by the AEF “and the gathering up of every possible reserve to strike the penetration in both flanks.”
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By December 18 Eisenhower had completed his plans and was ready to institute them. He told Bradley, Devers, and Patton to meet him the next day at Verdun, then outlined the action he wanted. Because Bradley still tended to think the offensive might be nothing more than an effort to pull forces away from the Allied offensives, Eisenhower began his message by saying that the enemy “is making a major thrust … and still has reserves uncommitted.… It appears that he will be prepared to employ the whole of his armored reserve to achieve success.” He said he intended to “take immediate action to check the enemy advance,” and then to “launch a counteroffensive without delay with all forces north of the Moselle.” He wanted Devers to eliminate the Colmar pocket, but that otherwise Sixth Army Group should abandon its offensive and slide to its left, relieving Patton on much of his front, including Metz, so that Patton could attack the German left flank. (This major boundary change was not made, because Patton had stuffed his supply dumps with bridging equipment to be used in spanning the Rhine and he was afraid that Devers would ransack the hoard. He insisted that the area remain within the jurisdiction of Third Army, and Eisenhower agreed.) Eisenhower told Bradley his first mission was to insure the security of the line Namur-Liége-Aachen, then to launch an attack north of the Moselle with Third
Army. The Supreme Commander wanted Twenty-first Army Group to attack southeastward in the area between the Rhine and the Meuse.
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