The Bitter Woods: The Battle of the Bulge [Paperback]

John S. D. Eisenhower (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 22, 1995

It was the greatest single battle the U.S. Army ever fought. More than a million GIs were involved and nearly 80,000 became casualties. The Allied generals had to rally beaten, dispirited troops in the face of an attack they had never dreamed possible.A study in command, from generals to squad leaders, The Bitter Woods follows von Runstedt, Dietrich, and of course Hitler, as closely as the Americans. As son of the supreme commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, a West Point graduate, a retired Army brigadier general, and a military historian, John Eisenhower is uniquely qualified to tell how the Allied generals (nearly all of whom he knew personally) met Hitler’s challenge; how the two armies fought fiercely in the Ardennes from December 1944 to January 1945; and how the Allied victory broke the back of Nazi aggression.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In the fall of 1944, Hitler realized that the defeat of Germany was imminent. But instead of seeking peace, he launched a massive, last-ditch offensive against the Allied forces. The subsequent fight, know as the Battle of the Bulge, involved more than a million soldiers and some of the war's fiercest fighting. John S. D. Eisenhower, son of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, presents a comprehensive portrait of what happened that December, and how the Allies triumphed. In his introduction to this reprinted volume, Stephen E. Ambrose says that "The Bitter Woods will be read so long as the Republic lasts." That's high praise from America's leading historian of the Second World War, and this book is, in truth, one of the better World War II titles available.

About the Author

John S.D. Eisenhower's books include The Bitter Woods: The Battle of the Bulge, Agent of Destiny: The Life and Times of General Winfield Scott, and So Far from God: The U.S. War with Mexico, 1846–1848. He lives near Easton, Maryland.

Product Details

• Paperback: 520 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press; First Edition Thus edition (August 22, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306806525
• ISBN-13: 978-0306806520
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #175,130 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

96 of 99 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stirring & Interesting Look At The Battle of The Bulge, June 10, 2000

By 

Barron Laycock "Labradorman" (Temple, New Hampshire United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Bitter Woods: The Battle of the Bulge (Paperback)

There is certainly no shortage of excellent and detailed titles dealing with this subject, from Stephen Ambrose's own "Citizen Soldiers" to John Toland's "Battle" to Charles B. MacDonald's "A Time For Trumpets", yet this, too, is an excellent and inspiring cover of the events leading up to and including the Battle of the Bulge. This book follows in the vein of detailing at the unit level what the war was like for the man on the ground, and incorporates a lot of first person testimony a la Stephen Ambrose.

Thus, the reader is treated to a very thorough look at what the moment-to-moment experience was like from a number of the men who were there to fight it. As Col. Eisenhower was also a career military man following in his famous father's footsteps, he speaks with obvious authority and knowledge about the multitude of factors leading to the engagement on both sides, and one gains an appreciation for his expertise if not for his somewhat pedantic and limited writing skills. Still, the book is an interesting and accessible reading experience.

Of course, since I had already read a number of other titles covering the same ground, much of the material was repetitive, but my impression after finishing it was that "The Bitter Woods" is a very authoritative single volume on the campaign, and that it competes favorably with all the others, although I should not want to so limit myself to a single such source for this, one of the finest moments in American war history. It is stirring to read about the first hand experiences of the tired, overextended, and under armed units of the American forces as they first engage the overwhelming German juggernaut. Beaten to a pulp, they regroup, and surrounded, outnumbered, outgunned, and outmaneuvered, in a desperate hand to hand combat, fight back with hellish ferocity and beat the German forces back.

This account puts to the lie the idea that the only reason we won the war was superior number and endless logistics. Deprived of those two advantages during the extremely bad weather during the worst part of the battle, the U.S. Army simply outfought their German attackers. I personally would recommend you read this book hand in hand with the Toland book ("Battle"), for together they provide a really complete and quite varied look at all of the aspects of one of the most tenaciously fought battles on the western front of the European theater of the Second World War. Enjoy!

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating account of Hitler's last gamble in the West...., December 4, 2003

By 

Alex Diaz-Granados "fardreaming writer" (Miami, FL United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Bitter Woods: The Battle of the Bulge (Paperback)

The Bitter Woods, historian John S. D. Eisenhower's insightful account of the Ardennes Counteroffensive in the winter of 1944, is one of the best books yet written about the Battle of the Bulge. Along with John Toland's 1959 classic Battle: The Story of the Bulge and the late Charles B. MacDonald's A Time for Trumpets, this volume is a must-read for World War II buffs.

The Ardennes Counteroffensive was the brainchild of Adolf Hitler himself. Even as Soviet forces raced toward Berlin from the east and the Western Allies advanced steadily toward the Rhine in the west, the Fuhrer squirreled away hundreds of tanks and artillery pieces plus thousands of soldiers -- some of them either old men over the age of 50 or young boys no older than 16 -- and planned a daring stroke reminiscent of the Third Reich's triumphs in 1939 and 1940. Three entire armies would strike the Allies in the "quiet" Ardennes forest region of Belgium and Luxembourg and drive to the crucial port of Antwerp. Hitler hoped to drive a wedge between the Anglo-Canadian armies in the north and the American armies in the south and cause inter-Allied political strife. At the very least, the seizure of Antwerp would slow the Allied advance just enough so Nazi Germany could develop "wonder weapons" and rain V-1 and V-2 missiles on London and other Allied cities. At the very best, the Grand Alliance would fall apart and Hitler might be able to negotiate a separate peace with Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

But even though Hitler's offensive caught the Allies by surprise on Dec. 16, 1944 and created much havoc and confusion, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allied forces, remained relatively calm. The Germans did penetrate the thinly held front and created a salient or "bulge" in the Allied lines, but Eisenhower and his field commanders (Bradley, Hodges, Patton and the various corps and divisional commanders) soon recovered and took decisive measures to contain the German assault.

But generals and colonels, no matter how skilled or determined, can't win battles alone. The Bitter Woods contains many accounts of brave GIs and junior officers who fought tooth and nail to slow and stop Hitler's last desperate gamble in the West. Readers who are just beginning to read about World War II will be in awe of the paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division who helped hold the surrounded city of Bastogne, whose capture by the Germans was deemed by Hitler as a principal objective if his plan were to succeed. (Bastogne is where Brig. Gen Tony McAuliffe replied to the Germans' demand for surrender with the pithy one-word refusal, "Nuts!") The author, who graduated from West Point in June 1944 and is the Supreme Commander's son, writes about the stand of St. Vith's defenders, the combat engineers who blew bridges in front of the advancing panzer units, the ill-advised massacre of American POWs at Baugnez (the misnamed Malmedy Massacre) by SS troops and the harrowing baptism by fire of the green 106th Infantry Division, which lost two of its regiments in the largest American surrender since Bataan in 1942.

Eisenhower also writes extensively about the campaign in Northwest Europe both before and after the Battle of the Bulge, allowing both the new reader and long-time buff to place this, the largest single battle in U.S. Army history (there were, by January of 1945, over 600,000 soldiers involved), in the context of the liberation of Europe from Nazi tyranny.

Because the book was originally written in 1969, five years before the revelation of the Ultra secret, the account of the Allies' intelligence failure is not as well-explained as in the 1985 book by Charles MacDonald, but aside from that, The Bitter Woods still stands as one of the finest "case studies" of a major battle of World War II.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A well written account of an interesting battle., January 9, 1998

By 

kent beuchert (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Bitter Woods: The Battle of the Bulge (Paperback)

I've read this book more times than I can count. To me, that's the highest praise I can give. Eisenhower (the author) writes as an historian ought to, with no axes to grind in describing Montgomery's actions, etc. His firsthand knowledge of Army ways and wherefores holds him in good stead: the reader is being shepherded through the material by one in the know who always provides a down-to-earth rational perspective. The story he tells stands on its own as, alternately, a mystery, an excellent character study of the participants (particularly the commanders), and an exciting tale of an event that represented, in my mind, the climatic event of World War II in the European Theater.