Portal:Military of the United States/Featured article/4
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Ardennes Offensive, officially named the Battle of the Ardennes and known to the general public as the Battle of the Bulge, started on December 16, 1944. It was supported by subordinate operations known as Hermann, Greif, and Wahrung, by the Germans. The goal of these operations were to split the Allied line in half, capturing Antwerp and then proceeding to encircle and destroy four Allied armies, forcing the Western Allies to negotiate a peace treaty in the Axis' favour. The "bulge" refers to the extension of the German lines in this battle, forming a growing salient into Allied controlled territory, seen clearly in maps presented in newspapers of the time.
Although the German objective was ultimately unrealized, the Allies' slow response to the penetration set their own offensive timetable back by months. The offensive was also counter-productive as many experienced units of the German army were left depleted and in a poor state of supply outside the defenses of the Siegfried Line. In numerical terms, the Battle of the Ardennes was the largest land battle in the history of the U.S. Army.
