Ardennes 1944
Respected historian Antony Beevor's account of the Battle of the Bulge.
The Bulge is extremely hard to follow, consisting of series of small scale vicious actions between handfuls of tanks and men in small villages. Beevor prints several maps to try to make sense of the chaotic violence in the snow choked woods and hamlets.
Strengths: He is able to focus the action from the highest levels of command: Bradley, Montgomery, Eisenhower, Hodges and Patton, to the exhausted tankers bazooka teams and freezing foot soldiers. He also pays more attention to the Belgian civilians, caught in the fighting, who in some cases were deliberately massacred by the SS and in others killed by the sheer volume of bombing, shelling and other weaponry. Beevor also puts the Bulge in the context of the Allied advances in the fall and early winter, and the subsequent German Northwind offensive, and the Soviet offensive.
Beevor faults Bradley and Hodges for both not foreseeing a German advance and losing control of the battle in its early stages. Patton wins high marks for his midwinter pivot from his own planned advance to moving north to relieve Bastogne. Beevor however thinks his often preferred strategy of attacking the Bulge at its base was impossible because of the inadequate road net. Montgomery gets credit for sound strategy in backstopping the Americans but his overbearing manner and contempteous treatment of his American colleagues, as well as his politicking for the role of overall commander backfired, sidelining the British for the rest of the war.
Eisenhower, calm, cool and collected, managing his own generals, dealing with de Gaulle and Montgomery, and asserting himself in the emergency as a military commander.
On the German side, the offensive was an unworkable gamble, that stripped the eastern front of vital armor and troops. Advancing in terrible weather mix of SS and regular German troops cooperated poorly, and when the Americans didn't fold, the delays and destruction of bridges doomed the advance.