Thread by @18airbornecorps

THE END: A FINAL THREAD ON THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE

Tweet 1 of 21

The Battle of the Bulge (“The Ardennes Campaign”) ended on Jan 22, 1945. 75 years later, so too does this Twitter commemoration.

2 of 21: The German lines are now back to their initial jumping off point (pre-Dec 16, 1944) and in some cases even farther. Some of the Panzer forces were as far back as the Siegfried Line.

3 of 21: Hitler's last gamble in the West has ended in failure. The Third Reich is now in its death throes. In months, Hitler will die at his own hands, with his great empire in ruins around him.

4 of 21: The Battle of the Bulge was a catastrophic event. It introduced a deluge of misery, death, and carnage on American, British, German, and Canadian Soldiers, as well as the citizens of dozens of Belgian towns.

5 of 21: The numbers are almost unthinkable: More than 600,000 Allied troops, 29 Allied divisions & 6 Allied mechanized cavalry groups vs. ~500,000 Germans w/ 28 divisions and 3 brigades.

6 of 21: The Germans lost approximately 100,000 men, while more than 81,000 Allies (mostly American Soldiers) were killed, wounded, and captured. Among the 600,000 Americans involved in the fight, more than 19,000 were killed.

7 of 21: To close out this series, we’ll leave you with 10 lessons we took away from the Battle of the Bulge. There are many more, but we hope these 10 stay with you. We also encourage the #MilTwitter community to leave your own lessons learned / thoughts.

cc: @PatDonahoeArmy

8 of 21: Lesson 1: Do not become over-reliant on a technological advantage. The Allies relied on intercepts of the German Enigma codes. When Enigma did not indicate a German Offensive, the Allies became complacent and were caught by surprise.

9 of 21: Lesson 1 continued: Similarly, Hitler's confidence in what his new wonder weapons (Tigers, Jet ME 262s and V1/2s) could achieve proved disastrous on his end.

10 of 21: Lesson 2: Flexibility and command initiatives are the management “glue” that bring order to chaos. Generals failed up front, but by the end of Dec, flexible command structures allowed snap decisions that created advantages.

11 of 21: Lesson 3: The GI, operating under commanders who employed initiative, allowed maneuver space to bring artillery to bear. For the most part, the Generals gave broad guidance. Regimental and company commanders took disciplined initiative.

12 of 21: Lesson 4: Individual and small unit initiative is crucial to success in confused situations. The 101st, in particular, proved this – holding out (with help) against a larger, better-equipped foe.

@102ndblackhawk6 13 of 21: Lesson 5: Commander's must be up front and possess an intimate knowledge of troop locations and conditions. Don’t believe us? Ask the 106th Division, whose commander, Alan Jones, was aloof & unaware of troop locations.

14 of 21: Lesson 5 (cont.): Jones became distraught when his son, a Captain in the 106th, was captured. Contrast this with Tony McAuliffe, the even-tempered, Soldier-friendly commander of the 101st who seemed to always know his men’s composition & disposition.

15 of 21: Lesson 6: Uncle Carl (Prussian theorist Carl von Clausewitz) was right. The “moral forces” – courage, morale, and the skill of the commander – won out against a numerical and (mostly) technologically superior foe.

16 of 21: Lesson 6 cont’d: The competence, resilience & bravery of the American Soldier was at least part of the difference between victory and defeat. The Roddy Edmonds beat the Joachim Peipers in part because of the nature of human will.

17 of 21: Lesson 7: Logistics rules outcomes. Both sides lost significant weapons and equipment. However, we could replenish our losses. The Germans could not.

18 of 21: Lesson 8: Artillery also rules outcomes. Timely use of artillery after Jan 1st ensured that the Panzer forces were never again able to fully press the attack.

@jtw_ngc98 19 of 21: Lesson 9: Uncle Carl was right a 2nd time. By November 1944, the defeated German forces had no choice but “to regard the greatest daring as the greatest wisdom.” We should have known the Ardennes Counteroffensive, or something like it, was coming.

20 of 21: Finally, Lesson 10: War is hell, or at least some approximation of hell. The fighting in the Ardennes forest between 16 Dec 1944 and 22 Jan 1945 was a microcosm of war: heavy, loud, unfair. A portrait of human suffering.

FINAL TWEET: We owe a great deal to all who fought in that frozen dystopia. We hope this series has, in some very small way, honored the courage and sacrifice of those who fought in the Battle of the Bulge.

- THE END -