![]() The Ludendorff March offensive in 1918 had been a brilliant example-indeed a model-of a great offensive whose preparation had completely escaped detection. The German military profession had a record of some notable achievements in the attainment of strategic surprise. The German armies in the west could not uncover the enemy's jaw by a blow in Holland or a kidney punch in Alsace instead they had to rely on the adroit misdirection practiced by the conjurer, turning Allied eyes away from the Eifel long enough to complete the massive preparations therein. But the divisions and the logistic support for such diversionary attacks did not exist. The accepted strategic gambit, practiced with great success by German commanders in the west during World War I, would be to deliver a series of large-scale attacks in sectors well removed from the area from which the main counteroffensive was to be launched. At the first word of German preparations in the Eifel and Ardennes the Allies could terminate one or both of their major offensives and divert large forces into the threatened area. Even so, although the Western Allies could not be strong everywhere along the line from Switzerland to the North Sea, they did outnumber the Germans in men, tanks, guns, and planes, they were possessed of greater facility for rapid movement of large forces, and they-not the Germans-had the strategic initiative. Hitler's selection of the Ardennes as the sector in which the western counteroffensive would be launched was based in the main on the obvious advantage of attacking the Allies where they were weakest. Chapter 4-THE ARDENNES: BATTLE OF THE BULGE
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