Reviewed by John Prigent

Here’s the first book of a set, and a good one it is too. As always in the Campaign series it starts with a note about the origins of the campaign, in this case describing the war situation on the Western Front toward the end of 1944 with the Germans facing an inevitable Allied assault into Germany.

The German and American plans come next. Hitler’s thinking was for a massive counter-attack in a place that would be unexpected, aimed at cutting through the Allied lines to reach Antwerp in seven days. Apparently he thought this would cause the Western Alliance to fall apart. The American plans for the Ardennes region were mostly notable for their absence. Despite the experience of 1940, when a German offensive through the Ardennes led to the fall of France, the sector was lightly held and most commanders dismissed the correct intelligence estimates that indicated a coming German attack.

I can only give a quick flavour of the book in this report – if I summarised all its contents there’d be no reason for you to read it! This book concentrates on the Northern end of the battlefield, with the fighting around St Vith well described. Heroism saved the day for the Americans on several occasions, with isolated units fighting on while others retreated. Good generalship brought reinforcements hurrying up, just in time. Kampfgruppe Peiper ground to a halt with all its advance routes blocked, and then found itself cut off from retreat. Abandoning much equipment allowed many of the men to scuttle back to German-held territory, but the offensive in this area had been stopped in its tracks. There’s a lot of detail in the book about all this, and it make a very good read as well as being an excellent references work.

Highly recommended.