Armageddon - Max Hastings [154]
Initial information was so scanty and confused that, on the evening of the 16th, Bradley believed the Germans were merely making a local counter-attack, and was no more willing than Hodges to dislocate deployments for his own impending attack. That first night, a bewildered Allied intelligence officer wrote: “Until more is known of this new enemy venture, it is probably unwise to speculate about its scope . . . There is no immediate objective of any special importance, and an advance limited to local gains of ground has nothing to recommend it. If he is bent on striking, the enemy is looking further afield.” At this critical moment, Eisenhower’s instinctive caution proved inspired. He ordered 7th Armored Division from Ninth Army in the north, together with 10th Armored from Patton’s Third Army in the south, to move to cover the flanks of the threatened sector—just in case the German operation turned into something big. Patton, who believed himself on the brink of a breakthrough into Saarland, protested strongly, but acceded.
As every fresh signal, together with the capture of enemy documents, reinforced awareness that the Germans were making a huge effort, some Allied commanders remained bemused. “Pardon my French,” said Omar Bradley, “but I think the situation justifies it. Where the hell has this sonofabitch gotten all his strength?” Eisenhower’s Chief of Staff Bedell-Smith said: “Well, Brad, you’ve been wishing for a counter-attack—this is it.” Bradley answered: “Yes, but I hadn’t wanted it to be this strong.” By the evening of 17 December, an Allied intelligence officer was writing: “Big issues are involved . . . If the venture is desperate, it is also well staged.” German officers would have contested the second part of this assessment, but it is scarcely surprising that a shaken Allied headquarters should take such a view when the panzer vanguard was already twenty miles behind the Allied front. Model’s forces had advanced further in two days than most of Eisenhower’s men had moved in the preceding three months. They had demonstrated that neither the terrain nor the weather need be insuperable obstacles to a breakthrough, though both factors soon began to exert a baleful influence.
It is impossible not to detect perverse satisfaction in Montgomery’s first comments to Brooke. The British field-marshal perceived a vindication of all his bitter criticisms of Eisenhower:
It looks as if we may now have to pay the price for the policy of drift and lack of proper control of operations which has been a marked feature of the last three months . . . The present American tendency is to throw in reserves piecemeal as they arrive, and I have suggested a warning against this. I have myself had no orders or requests of any kind. My own opinion is that the general situation is ugly, as the American forces have been cut clean in half, and the Germans can reach the Meuse at Namur without any opposition.
This was a wilful overstatement. Indecision at American higher headquarters was being redeemed by some cool and professional performances nearer the front. Gerow, commanding V Corps at the northern edge of the German thrust, decided by noon on the first day that the Germans were serious, and cancelled his formations’ preparations for their own attack. He pulled back 2nd Division four miles under heavy German fire, to meet the threat to the Allied left flank alongside the 99th. At the headquarters of the U.S. 30th Infantry Division, the staff was engrossed in planning its crossing of the Roer. The G-3 interrupted