Tuesday, December 17, 2019

Nuts!

What became known as the Battle of the Bulge began 75 years ago today during World War II. German forces moved strongly against the Allies through the Ardennes Forest in an attempt to split Allied forces.

The battle was one of the costliest in the war in terms of lives and while the high body count delayed the Allied invation of Germany for several weeks it may have hastened Germany' defeat because of their own severe losses in men and matériel. A successful counteroffensive might indeed have split the Allied forces, but Germany faced the same kinds of problems that eventually doomed its Reich. It lacked the immense resources the United States could bring into the war and had no ability to project power against the strongest member of its enemy coalition, the United States. A different outcome for the Battle of the Bulge might have prolonged the loss, but in the end the fatal flaws of the Axis Powers would probably have proved too great to overcome.

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