Scott, can you wave . [applause] thank you. This lecture series has been ongoing almost since the beginning of my tenure 15 years ago. It has been our great series in the library. This is probably my last introduction because i have been drafted by the president. Some of you can identify with that. To go to washington to save the republic, which needs saving. As i always like to say, the command school is the intellectual center of the army. It is selfcritical, selfaware. It plays no favorites and is the best place to learn from the experience and history of the battlefield. And with extraordinary teaching and technology, to learn from todays battlefields and commanders. It is also a school for our allies and partners and future military leaders from around the world. A place where a future chief of staff of the Pakistani Army might rub shoulders with the future defense minister from india were a future commander of the Israeli Defense force might meet the future commander of the arab legion. A place where communication has been incubated. It is also a place of impeccable scholarship, socratic learning. And as our regular audience members know, frequently experience expressing itself with a fine sense of humor. I want to thank our early sponsors and creators of this series. I want to say it because this may be my one chance to say it. And want to thank them for starting and sustaining this great series, a series which will never die. Thank you. [laughter] tonight, we have the return of one of our favorites, mark gerges. Mark has the distinction of a highest number of views in our archived programs with only the exception of a nationally televised in a season popular cable show. As a single lecturer, it has the highest number of views on our website. 91,000 views. 91,000 people have watched mark explain the fall of france. Im going to guess that tonights lecture will generate similar interest. I have my own battle of the bulge story. My father turned 18 during the battle of the bulge. The sudden turn of war, the desperate need for men and material which led to shortened training, spooked his mother, my grandmother, so much that she forced my father to quit high school before graduation and join the navy. [laughter] this desperate expedients might not have worked out so well as my father ended up on a ship in Boston Harbor destined for the invasion of japan when the bomb was dropped. But he did not end up in the are dense ardiennes, although tonight we will. He served 20 years with armored units in europe, the balkans, the middle east. Commanded a tank company during desert storm, and he has a bronze star with the valor device on it. He received a phd from Florida State with a dissertation on the duke of wellingtons cavalry. Previous lecture on napoleons 1805 campaign, delivered here, is apologized in the great commanders book of lectures given at the kansas city public library. In the epigraph to that lecture, or fester curtis professor gerges quotes, hardy saying war is rattling good history. In mark gerges hands, it is that and also lessens for our time. Mark . [applause] prof. Mark gerges thank you very much. Good evening. Before i get started, i want to do an introduction of my own. I normally do not poly on it history. I never have veterans in my napoleonic classes. I want to recognize a few members of the audience here. Mr. Tebow will be talking about the golden lions, one of the key divisions we will talk about tonight. We also have clearance, who was in the 505th parachute regiment and was in the 82nd division during the battle of the bulge. Doing of any other veterans of the battle of the bold or any other do we have any other veterans of the battle of the bulge or any other veterans . Could we give these men a round of applause . [applause] prof. Mark gerges four years ago i gave the top on the fall of france in 1940. I started off with a rhetorical question. I talked a little bit about my time in germany. At that time, it was really steeped in history. One of the things we did was we would go to the museum after reading about the campaign. They had a huge map that came down off the top of the ceiling in this one room. You had officers who had fought in the division talk and discuss what they had done with these young, impressionable officers. When i arrived in october of 1984, the second battalion, part of the Third Armored Division, reported in as a brandnew Second Lieutenant. There is not a more intimidat ing. At this time, many officers were vietnam veterans. They had all been there together. You walk in knowing no one and knowing how little we know about what the army is about. You go in and you go to the battalion adjutant. Who you which company you will be assigned to he tells you which company will be assigned to. The hand you two pieces of cloth. One was the president ial unit of citation, the blue square that goes under uniform. That was awarded to the battalion in 1944 for its actions on the germanbelgian border. Then they hand you a belgian corded rope you hang on your sleeve. The battalion had gotten it because it had been awarded it twice. The first time for the liberation of belgium in 1944 and the second time for its fighting during the ardennes. A brandnew lieutenant not going much about the army, and already im getting pulled into what soldiers had done 40 years before in my particular regiment. A friend of mine and i decided to go visit the ardennes during the 40th anniversary celebrations. Quite friendly, we were a little disappointed. It is beautiful winding countryside. There are very few markers of anything. You do not know something monumental happened in these woods. We were there on the 15th and 16th of december. We expected there would be some huge ceremony or Something Like that, and there was nothing. We did not know they had a huge weekend commemorating the veterans done the first weekend in december because of the weather and christmas holidays. As we are driving to the south of Luxembourg City, and as we get to this little town on the back road, suddenly we come up on this little town. There are cars parked everywhere along the streets. We get out of the car to see what is going on. There are people walking to the center of town. We arrived just as they are doing a ceremony to mark the 40th anniversary of the liberation of this village by Pattons Third Army on december 16, the first day of the battle of the bulge. What struck us as we were standing there with this gentleman, i had no idea who he was, but he is wearing the Second Lieutenant bars and a Third Armored Division hat. My friend and i were both lieutenants in the second division. Here is a civilian reenacting what people in our battalion did 40 years before. That hooked me on the battle of the bulge and being interested in the ardennes offensive. As an officer, you read about the regiments and the units that were there. I have been fortunate. The colleges in the back at least five times the college sent me back at least five times. I was able to walk through the grounds and study the actions with american and german officers. There is a certain fascination. If you know anything about the battle of the bulge, you probably know about the german attack in the middle of the winter. And you probably know about the defense by the air force division. Commander of the core that will take the brunt of the german offenses says you dont have to be a genius to understand the importance of the road intersections. What is interesting about it is you probably know very little about the other crossroads. That is one of the things we are going to talk about tonight, the influence of the other crossroads. A general of panzer troops who will be captured in 1945,s fifth army will fight against the americans in bastogne and st. Vith. His troops are fighting in both battles. In 1945, hes going to say st. Vith was the much more important crossroads for the success of the german offensive. In 1951, he is going to write a letter to a friend and say he does not understand all the new histories focusing on the battle of the bulge with everything emphasizing bastogne and he is not sure why there is no emphasis on st. Vith. I would imagine if i asked most people what went on, you know very little so we are going to talk about that and the importance of it. To give you a little of the scale to pique your interest, bastogne is besieged for a week. There is a division that will encircle the 101st airborne division. A little bit earlier, the seventh Armored Division in 106th division will fight nine different divisions from two different armies. It is a much greater scale of what will go on. Lets talk about how you got here. The American Army and allied forces are doing a broad offensive in the fall of 1944. They get near the german boarder and we start to run out of steam. A number of things have happened. One is we have not opened enough ports. Our logistics are coming from the normandy front. Logistics are stretched to the utmost. The weather starts to turn bad. We get to the german border. The other part is what the germans call the miracle of the west. We are going to destroy large numbers of german troops. We destroyed equipment. Most of the soldiers walked back. They had a cadre of trained soldiers and educated officers. When they start to produce tanks and equipment, they will be able to refill forces quickly. We expect when the weather and our logistics improve, we will go on the offensive again. Prof. Mark gerges we expect that when the weather improves and logistics improve we will go on the offensive again. It will be on two different places. In the north in the ninth and first armies. Off the map to the north. In the south, with third army and seventh army down crossing the line. In the center is not impossible. I hate using that term. Its a very rugged, for street ground. If you go there today its beautiful. Countryside, a tourist haven. Hiking trails. Beautiful little towns with wandering brooks. The roads tend to be alongside these brooks and are very, very narrow. In 1944 we are going to end our offensive into germany and the west wall. We have four divisions that are in that area. From the north and south is going to be the hundred sixth Infantry Division. We will talk more about the hundred six in some detail. The 28 Infantry Division, ninth infantry and the fourth infantry. The area of the u. S. Forces are using for two purposes. One are the units that had been so levied to the north. They were putting the troops in there and refilling them with new replacements. But the 28th Infantry Division and the fourth Infantry Division are experienced, they fought their way across france. They lost about a third to a half of their strength without being refilled from their bloody fighting in october and november. The other division here in the ninth armor at the 106 are new. Hundred and six is so new that they have gotten into the front and taken over from second infantry four days before the german offensive will start. They are just settling in. The other division to the north is the 99th Infantry Division. That division has only been in line for three weeks. You get a number of very, very inexperienced divisions, and a lot of bloodied divisions in the area. We dont expect anything will happen. We are looking at this with confirmation bias. We will be doing something to the germans. We will go back on the offenses after the losses. How could they possibly do anything other than dealing with the resources in great detail. The only thing that is really going on is the second Infantry Division is doing a limited pack into the river dams. That will start before the fighting here on the 16th of december. The german planning for this offensive begins in september. Their early part of september, the german losses have been so bad on the western front that they have 100 operational tanks. Put that in perspective when they attack on the 15th of december, they have Something Like 1800 tanks that they are going to bring. They are in terrible, terrible shape. Taylor is getting a briefing from the commander. He is talking about the retreat into holland. Talking about the retreat and to all sat. He talks about the particularly weak area. When he mentions the word hitlers slams his hand down on to his table. He says i have made a moments decision. We will pack out with the objections of antwerp. What hitlers has seized on his this gaffe between the british 21st army group and the u. S. 12 army group. He wants to use the ra ganz and moved very, very rapidly across the muse river, seizing the bridges there as he did in 1940, and then moved to antwerp. Isolating the 21st army group and hopefully creating another dunkirk. If he can destroy a britains main army on the continent, he helps that will knock britain out of the war. It does not knock him out it will stun the United States into action and then you could take large numbers of troops and put them into what he considers the real threat in the Eastern Front against the russians. To do this he has three armies. Speed will be paramount to the german success. This army is made up of ss troops. That will be the main effort. It will be the army that will come sweeping through, take leave. Supporting the flank of that will be the fifth army. That is what we call shaping operation today. It is supposed to take the critical crossroads no later than the second day. Then in the south is the seventh army. And the Infantry Army of the three armies much we guess. It only has about 40 assault guns with the bulk of these tanks and assault guns into the north. That is mainly to protect the flank of the fifth panzer army. German preparations become known as it has a defensive name. It seems like they are going to be defending not an attack. Where they position the troops looks like where you would position troops when the u. S. And british offenses started again for a counterattack. All this goes into the plan that the germans are trying to do. They mass 300 thousand soldiers. 1800 tanks and assault guns. 1900 artillery pieces against this front. You could see the numbers. Its 11 divisions north versus eight divisions and fifth panzer army and seventh army. These numbers are a little misleading because of the type of troops that are up in the six panzer army. There will be 83,000 soldiers. 254 tanks. We teach that when you go on the offensive you need three to one odds for the offensive to be successful. Germans, where they decide they will penetrate, they have eight to one odds in infantry and four to one odds in forces. They mask their forces to be able to do it. There are two commanders of the army we will talk about. One is the commander of the army. He will be the operational commander. We will talk quite a bit about him and his actions as we go through for her tonight. Of the two armies, when you look at the u. S. Infantry division versus a german division, u. S. Divisions are a little bit bigger. But you almost have to look at german Divisions Division by division to be able to see how good they are. That is because the older divisions have about 14,000 soldiers. Some of the divisions, if they stand up in the fall only have 80 of that string. Somewhere between 8000 and 10,000 soldiers. That confuses part of how we look at the order of battle from the germans. German panzer division, Tank Division had 160 tanks while ours has 186 medium tanks and 77 might tanks. Most german divisions have less than that. Some of the divisions only have about 80 tanks. Those numbers are closer to what the actual strength is of the ss division. That is the German Forces. This is where they will put their main efforts. It will have divisions that have almost 19,000 soldiers in them. As i talk through tonight, this is the panther, tiger one, tiger two. The medium tank on the which is the equivalent. And these are assault guns. We have two armored vehicles. It will play a key part. One is the tank. Tanks are designed to kill people, not kill other tanks. Exploitation, part of our Army Doctrine at the time is that tanks go after and they do the explication. We have a tank destroyer. Its not very good against fighting against other tanks. We have 76 millimeter, 96 millimeter. To have the big guns and be fast and be able to move around, it has one thing a tank does not have. There is no top on the turn its. That is so the crew could see out of it and get a good operational look and be able to move your vehicle effectively. We also look at the two divisions. The type of divisions we will have. The Infantry Division where we start to create an army we will have 89 divisions altogether. 106 division is one of the last that will be still up in december of 1943. It has about a year of training stateside, then the casualty from the Normandy Campaign and the drive across france start to get the army. We have not calculated the number of infantry casualties. What would end up happening is, first, 3000 soldiers and lowerlevel noncommissioned officers will be taken. And then another 3500 will be taken. Within a very short time in the summer of 1944 theyre going to lose almost 7000 of their train infantry and get new replacements. But they will not be given a time to integrate the unit and train. They will be shipped overseas in october, at 19 days to start training in england. They then began to transit over to france. They get on the ships and they have a storm in the channel and spend four days unable to land and sea sick on board. They get in france and there are no trucks waiting for them so they spent again a half waiting for trucks to show up. Then they get on the open top trucks and spend the days in rainy fall weather. They finally start pulling into the area in december and taking over from the second Infantry Division. They are pretty happy. The second infantry has been there and created these foxholes with overhead covers. They use the pillboxes of the line. When i did six division picks they are in good shape. There commanded by Major General allen jones and they are organized wi