why didn't the allies finish off Germany before the battle of Bulge can even take place?

Question

Cogito. Well i am here to learn from the knowledge u folks will like to share. u sound rude nevertheless. it is of course easy for me to say...

Answer 1

And that has always intrigued me. Eisenhower wanted the broad front, with all the increased supply demands. Both Montgomery and Patton wanted the thrust scenario. It was riskier but required less in the way of supplies. Now, Montgomery and Patton hated each other and very rarely agreed, So, when they did agree, Eisenhower should have listened. His two best battlefield commanders knew the risks and considered them acceptable. If he had listened, more of Germany would have been West Germany in the years to come. Although Eisenhower was the supreme commander, he had no battle experience and was an administrative general

Answer 2

the one word answer is logistics......"amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics".

Think of 5 guys..Brits, Canadians, Americans, whatever in a tank 50 miles inside France.

Where does their diesel fuel come from? Not French gas stations!. Oil is pumped out of the ground in Texas or Pennsylvania or Trinidad, refined in New Jersey, put in a 10,000 ton tanker which sails with 50 other ships and if not sunk by a U-boat lands in England......the diesel is sent by PLUTO.(Pipe Line Under The Ocean)...to the Normandy beaches, then by tanker truck or truck with 5 gallon jugs forward to find the 5 guys in a tank. Same LONG trail.......or tail as the Army calls it......for the shells and the food and the clothing and the everything needed at the front.

Now multiply that by 10,000 tanks and 1,000,000 men. That's A LOT OF STUFF that needed to move a long long way.

In December of 1944, the Allied Armies...specifically the Brits and the Canadians on the left flank........had not yet cleared Antwerp and Amsterdam of Germans so those two big ports weren't available, and the needs of the Allied armies were still basically being met by stuff landed on the beaches of Normandy.....

When the Allies broke out of Normandy in July of 44, Eisenhower had a choice......send most of the fuel and food to Bradley's American army on the right flank and let him and Patton race the Germans to the border, and hold back the Brits under Montgomery.......or spread the supplies around and have a slower but more unified advance......Ike chose the later and we're STILL arguing about it 60 years later and will STILL argue about it 160 years form now.....

Answer 3

Easy for you to say. The German Army at the end of 1944 was still a formidable fighting force; and German industry, by then largely underground, was turning out war materiel at a pace even greater than was achieved at the beginning of the war.

Even with the Allies in the West at full throttle, and with the Soviets pushing hard in the East, the war in the European Theatre was not concluded until early May of 1945, nearly six months after the German surprise offensive through the Ardennes just before Christmas of 1944.

And it was a closer call than most Americans realized at the time because of German advances in the technology of jet fighter aircraft and nuclear fission.

If the war in Europe had not been concluded when it was and had dragged on until the end of 1945, it is not conceivable that it would have been lost by the Allies, but it is conceivable that it might not have been won at the level of unconditional surrender, as it was, as opposed to a negotiated peace treaty that left Germany with some autonomy and some of its territorial war booty.

Answer 4

Allied intelligence had wrongly assumed that Germany was almost finished and the Battle of the Bulge was a surprise. Besides, at that time, the allies still needed to capture a lot of German real estate to "finish off" Germany.

Answer 5

As I recall from my "history nerd" days, the Allies were going as fast as they could. It had been suggested that they should have given Patton one army and Montgomery another and let them "race to Berlin". (Which is kind of what happened in Sicily.) I don't know if that was realisitic given the supply demands.

It was also suggested that Hitler suggested the Ardennes Offensive (the official name of the "Battle of the Bulge") to convince the Allies to negotiate with him and join in fighting the Russians who were moving relentlessly towards Berlin in the East. Suffice it to say, Hitler was delusional. The western Allies were NEVER going to settle for anything less than unconditional surrender of the Nazi regime.

Remember, also, the Battle of the Bulge took place in the winter when armies advance the least. As I recall, that winter was especially brutal that year.

Answer 6

It wasn't useful, because of fact if it replaced into it would have been a substantial Axis victory. rather, the preliminary push broke via the Allied lines because of fact the Allies weren't anticipating an attack on the onset of wintry climate, yet ultimately the Germans ran out of gas and components (because of airstrikes as quickly as the climate cleared) and have been encircled and overrun with the help of the Allies. Allied victory.

Answer 7

In the West, the Allies were hampered by supply difficulties after delays in clearing the approaches to the Dutch ports.

In the East the Allies were advancing on a broad front but still, geographically had a long way to go.

Answer 8

The Battle of the Bulge, if I remember rightly, was the Nazi's last major counter-attack on the Western front.

I think that they essentially had to finish off the German armies in this battle in order to defeat Germany.

Answer 9

Problem is that they couldn't. Eisenhower's strategy was to approach Germany on a broad front, meaning more resources are needed to supply a huge force for this task.

Also, the Allied's quick pace of movement has left their supply units straggling behind & that means they have to pause in order for supplies to catch up. Patton was said to have demanded for more fuel as his tanks ran dry so that he could carry on the offensive