Product Description

The Battle of the Bulge, fought on the snows of the Ardennes forests in December 1944 and January 1945, was the greatest land battle waged by the US Army in the 20th century. Official history remembers this victory as being one solely for the Americans, but Charles Whiting uncovers fresh new evidence to the contrary. For political reasons, no mention was ever made of the crucial British involvement in this battle, when the XXX Corps fought a decisive action and halted the German drive to the river Meuse, which they did against a total news blackout and at the cost of 2500 men. The British role in the Battle of the Bulge simply does not exist on paper. "The main reason for adopting a low key in referring to the British contribution was political," said Field Marshall Brooke, Chief of Imperial General Staff. Using eyewitness accounts from British, American and German soldiers, even Belgian civilians, this book sets the record straight, telling the true story of the role the British played in this key defeat, and the hardship and suffering they had to endure.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #606278 in Books
• Published on: 2003-03-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

About the Author
Charles Whiting is a well known Military writer who has writen many books on the subject including Hemingway Goes To War.

Customer Reviews

Patton as General
Despite its editorial shortcomings, this book should be compulsory reading for every cadet who passes through West Point, if only to point up the fallaciousness of the Patton myth.

All of his actions are seen to be driven by his own egotistical obsessions and his desire to preserve and enhance his personal reputation. When it became obvious that the first target of the German attack was the Meuse, Patton refused to desert his own objective and persisted in his drive towards Bastogne, despite the fact that this town was never completely encircled, the Panzers having simply bypassed it in their drive to the west.

With his pearl-handled revolvers he postured like a character from Wild West fiction, but, sadly, the lives of many brave young US servicemen were sacrificed to bolster this juvenile fantasy. His campaign was conducted in typical gung-ho, bull-at-a-gate style, which foundered and ground to a halt time and again against enemy units which - although green and untried - were professional in their craft and proved to be dour and resolute fighters who took dreadful toll of their ill-led adversaries.

Patton's influence on history must not be underestimated. He left a legacy which has dogged the U.S. military from Korea to Kosovo. If, as is reported, Nixon took Patton as an exemplar for his conduct of the war in Vietnam it is little wonder that the U.S.A. was driven out with its tail between its legs: the irresponsible, gung-ho Patton template almost guaranteed this outcome in the face of an implacable and dedicated enemy.

Read this book and weep, not just for the thousand of young lives recklessly squandered in the Ardennes, but also for the many more who subsequently fell in battle elsewhere for worship of a false god.

An interesting viewpoint
This is a potentially great book, as it tackles a subject which has needed airing for 50 years. Unfortunately Charles Whiting rather spoils his argument with a disjointed text, fanciful prose, and over-the-top pushing of his main thrust. This main thrust is that the British, principally Montgomery and XXX Corps made a crucial contribution to containing the German thrust through the Ardennes in 1944. Having talked to British veterans of the campaign, they feel betrayed by the fact that the Ardennes fighting is viewed by most people as an all-American affair. A book is certainly needed which redresses the balance and tells how thousands of "Tommies" were killed and wounded along with GI's. It is true that the Allied contribution was mainly borne by American troops, but in trying to bring the British case to light, Charles Whiting over-eggs his case and tries to make out that without the British troops the Germans would have won the war. By doing so he takes the book out of fact and into fiction. Having said all the above, for those who are familiar with the standard texts on the Bulge fighting, this book is well worth a read as a counterpoint to the general consensus. It certainly had me looking back through my other books checking facts and quotes, and as such was very stimulating. It is however, not recommended for those who wish to read a first book on the Ardennes campaign.

Good story, many errors, irritating "purple" passages
An interesting piece of history which successfully corrects the traditional accounts of the "battle of the bulge" as a purely American operation with victory due mainly to Patton. The best parts are the descriptions of Montgomery's crucial correcting of the northern flank, his design of a strategy, his personal touch with his soldiers and the heavy fighting by the British XXX Corps.

The overal readability is spoiled by the poor maps, actual errors/failures of continuity, the many serious typos and the author's tendency to become poetic. The maps are very inconsistent. They give no idea of the terrain, which was important to the story. They regularly fail to include the towns and villages referred to in the surrounding text, though a previous or subsequent map may do so. An example of a continuity error is on page 63 where Monty sets off in his Rolls Royce to visit Hodges' HQ, leaves an intermediate stop in a jeep and 2 pages later is still in his Rolls on his way to Hodges.

Typos are frequent and often affect the meaning of the text. For example the word "Anglophone" is used where it appears that the intended word was "Anglophobic". The "purple" passages are at times so florid that they could be entered in a competition for bad writing. Whiting appears to feel that history is too boring unless enlivened from time to time.

The book is worth reading for its basic content, but it needs a more ruthless editor.