Fred's Book Club: Cold War.

Wednesday is Hump Day, so it's time for our Humpback Writers feature, with no actual humps involved. Although today's book does have a very famous Bulge.

As it is the week of Memorial Day, I thought it would be good to look at a terrific history of one of the world's greatest battles, the third-deadliest ever involving American troops, the horrific last-ditch fight of the Third Reich to break the advance of the Allies and cut their troops off from supplies.

The attack was to be made through the Adennes on a sixty-mile front between Monschau (twenty miles south-east of Aachen) and Echternach (a similar distance north-east of Luxembourg), with an initial object of seizing bridgeheads over the Meuse between Liège and Namur, thereafter aiming for Antwerp. Randstedt and Westphal both pointed out after the war that there was almost no planning for the phase beyond the Meuse to Antwerp, and none whatsoever following the port's capture.

Peter Caddick-Adams's Snow & Steel: Battle of the Bulge 1944-45 is one of the best military history books I've ever encountered. I found its history of the battle, from the top of the leadership chain to the grunts in the snow, to be completely compelling. Its description of the bizarre and deadly winter of 1944-45 (that actually began in autumn) could make you feel cold while sitting on the beach in your shorts.

I am not sure I had enough conceptions about the battle to even have misconceptions, but I guess I had the thumbnail sketch most of us had: Hitler, back against the wall, took advantage of terrible weather to launch a huge surprise attack and try to snap the Allies' race across Western Europe. That much is true, but Caddick-Adams makes a couple of things clear up front:

1) Hitler was not as nuts as he would be later, but he was still nuts;

2) The Allies were caught with their pants down because they were too optimistic.

First, about old Adolf, he writes that Hitler was trying to relive the triumphs of the past in this attack, not just the Blitzkrieg that rolled west, but earlier than that:

Hitler was obsessed with his Reich retaining the military initiative, which all knew had been surrendered since Normandy; grand, proactive offenses were part of his psyche, as he'd revealed far, far earlier in Mein Kampf. There is no doubt that in 1944 he intended to relive the early, heady days of the March 1918 offensive in which he personally took part....

Second, having broken out of Normandy, the Allies were outstripping their own supply lines. They were sick with a terrible case of victory fever:

The Allied intelligence failure over Arnhem would precede the much more serious one before the Ardennes, both shortcomings made for exactly the same reason. Due to the prevailing victory fever, which affected all levels of the Allied governments and military chains of command, Montgomery (and Lieutenant-General "Boy" Browning of the First Airborne Army) displayed a worrying tendency to disregard unwelcome intelligence. 

That supply problem was no small thing, especially with the early onset of a devastating winter.

Some historians have alleged that winter clothing was sacrificed to male more room for gas and ammunition, but this is nonsense -- winter clothing was not ordered or requested from the US because the Allies expected a victory before the winter of 1944-45 arrived. 

American troops were also facing some battle-hardened Germans from the Russian campaign who retained excellent winter gear.

Caddick-Adams gives credit where it is due, to military commanders on both sides (including natural politicians like Ike) having to fight in terrible conditions with the end of the war in sight. Did Hitler's staff know he was losing touch with reality? Was Patton really a genius? Was Montgomery an overbearing pest? Find out inside!

I can only do a little justice to the book with a few quotes, but I found the author to be very good at some of the popular historian's tougher acts -- describing memorable personalities in brief; setting the place to bring the reader in rather than just reeling off dates and map points; letting the causes and effects unwind as only hindsight can unwind them. The book is also full of fun ordnance facts, like:

The new American proximity fuse, which detonated a warhead when near, but not on, the target was also felt to be a hugely important innovation. Prior to the Ardennes the device, known as a VT (Variable Time) fuse, had only been issued to anti-aircraft units for fear the Germans might retrieve one and learn its secrets. Devastating against unprotected infantry, where the fuse could be set to explode a shell as an airburst fifteen to twenty feet above ground, it soon became the US weapon of choice against the Volksgrenadiers.  

In the end, it was a tremendous Allied victory, but at a cost of 89,500 Americans killed, wounded, or missing.

As you see, I do recommend this book for anyone interested in military history, Western history, 20th century history, or just interested in interesting things. I picked it up because of research I was doing for another book, and I'm glad I did.