The Bulge was the last chance the Nazis had to slow the onslaught of the Allied invasion into Germany.
A strategic retreat at that point might have been just as effective as duking it out in the Ardennes, but as one 101st soldier commented, “they’ve got us surrounded... the poor bastards.”
The Nazis left us with no choice but to fight it out.
Oliver North, now about the only good reason to watch Fox, has a great War Stories episode on the Bulge. It was on this past weekend. His histories are among the very best in 1 hour format for getting a grasp on many of our battles.
Once upon a time, I was also assigned to the 101st Airborne Division Fort Campbell Kentucky. If you are ever near Hopkinsville Kentucky or Clarksville Tennessee, it will be worth your while to visit the 101st Airborne museum.
Had the Germans simply fallen back to the Rhine and attempted to hold that line, they would almost certainly have been better off. The Allies expected as much trouble crossing the Rhine as they had crossing the English Channel.
But after the Bulge, when the Allies reached the Rhine in March 1945, the Germans had no mobile reserves with which to hold it. They were destroyed in Belgium.