page_title: Battle of the Bulge
section_title: Drafting the offensive
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of the Bulge / Background / Drafting the offensive
caption_attribution_description: English: US Army paratroopers are dropped near Grave, Netherlands while livestock graze near gliders that landed earlier. This was the beginning of Operation Market Garden during World War II, which resulted in heavy Allied losses. Nederlands: VS paramilitairen worden gedropt in de buurt van Grave, terwijl het vee graast naast de zweefvliegtuigen die eerder gelandwaren. Dit was het begin van de Operatie Market Garden die resuklteerde in zware verliezen van de geallieerden.
context_page_description: The Battle of the Bulge was a major German attack near the end of World War II, in Belgium, France and Luxembourg. The attack surprised Allied forces. It became the worst battle in terms of casualties for the United States. It also used up huge amounts of Germany's war-making resources.
  The press made up "Battle of the Bulge" to describe the way the Allied front line bulged inward on wartime news maps and became the best known name for the battle.
  The German attack was supported by several other operations. Germany's goal was to split the British and American Allied line in half, capture Antwerp, and then encircle and destroy four Allied armies. They hoped this would force the Allies to negotiate a peace treaty. Then Hitler could focus on the eastern front of the war.
  The attack was planned in secret. Germany moved troops and equipment in the dark. The U.S. intelligence staff predicted a major German attack, but this still surprised them. The Allied forces were overconfident and too focused on their own attack plans, and they also didn't have good aerial reconnaissance.
  The Germans attacked a weakly defended section of the Allied line.
context_section_description: German leader Adolf Hitler felt that his mobile reserves allowed him to do one major attack. Although he realised nothing could be accomplished in the Eastern Front, he still believed an offensive against the Western Allies could succeed.
  Hitler believed he could split the Allied forces and make the Americans and British to settle for a separate peace, independent of the Soviet Union.
  Success in the west would give the Germans time to design and produce more advanced weapons (such as jet aircraft, new U-boat designs and super-heavy tanks) and permit the build-up of forces in the east. 
  Given the reduced manpower of their land forces, the Germans believed that it was better to attack in the West against the smaller Allied forces rather than against the vast Soviet armies. Even the destruction of entire Soviet armies would still have left the Soviets with more soldiers.
  Several senior German military officers, such as Field Marshal Walter Model did not think the attack would work. They offered different plans, but Hitler would not listen. The plan needed bad weather, including heavy fog and low-lying clouds, which would make it hard for Allied planes to fly. Hitler originally set the attack for late November, before the start of the Russian winter offensive.
  In the west supply problems began slowing down Allied operations, even though the opening of the port of Antwerp in late November improved the situation. The positions of the Allied armies stretched from southern France all the way north to the Netherlands. The Germans wanted to attack the thin line of Allied forces. They thought this would stop Allied advances on the Western Front.
  Several plans for major Western attacks were prepared. A first plan was for an attack on the U.S. forces around Aachen, to encircle the U.S. Ninth Army. A second plan was for a blitzkrieg attack through the weakly defended Ardennes Mountains. This aimed at splitting the armies along the U.S.—British lines and capturing Antwerp.
  Hitler chose the second plan. He liked the idea of splitting the Anglo-American armies. There were many disputes between Montgomery and Patton. Hitler hoped he could make use of these disagreements. If the attack captured Antwerp, four complete armies would be trapped without supplies behind German lines.
  Both plans aimed at on attacks against the American forces. Hitler believed the Americans were not able to fight well. He thought that the American people would lose hope upon hearing of an American loss.
  Generalfeldmarschall (Field Marshal) Walther Model and Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt were ordered to lead the attacks.
  Model and von Rundstedt both believed aiming for Antwerp was too difficult, given Germany's lack of resources in late 1944. At the same time they felt that being just defensive would only delay defeat.  They developed plans that did not aim to cross the Meuse River; Model's being Unternehmen Herbstnebel (Operation Autumn Mist) and von Rundstedt's Fall Martin ("Plan Martin").
  The two field marshals showed their plans to Hitler, who rejected them in favor of his "big solution".
caption: The U.S. 82nd Airborne Div. dropping on Grave, during Operation Market Garden.
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