Customer Reviews

Corps Commanders of the Bulge: Six American Generals and Victory in the Ardennes (Modern War Studies)

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Just when you thought that there couldn't be another useful book on the Battle of the Bulge, Professor Harold Winton proves us wrong with this fine portrait of the battle that focuses on the way it was commanded by the six American corps commanders who were involved: Gerow, Middleton, Ridgeway, Milikin, Eddy and Collins. This emphasis on what Winton calls "the middle level of command" allows us to see the battle as it developed operationally and provides the reader with perhaps the clearest and most understandable narrative of the Battle of the Bulge ever written. Winton helpfully divides the history of the battle into three phases and covers the activities and decisions of the officers in each phase: their relationships with their superiors and subordinates, what tactical demands the battle placed on them, and even how they held up physically and psychologically. Since the book also includes brief biographies of those officers, Winton is able to evaluate the effectiveness of how the US Army educated its officers for higher command between the World Wars - all six were CGSS and five of them were War College grads. Winton also takes the time to show the true role of allied air power in the battle. All in all, this book is a must-read for those who study the Battle of the Ardennes and the US Army in the Second World War.

One small sour note: either Dr. Winton or his editors at University Press of Kansas - a military history publisher of note - should have been aware that Marlborough was not at Waterloo (see p.160).

I agree with the first reviewer that this is one of the most refreshingly new ways at looking at a very studied battle. I have read many of the general histories (A Time for Trumpets by McDonald is my favorite). Looking at the men who commanded the six corps that bore the brunt of the battle, examining their history and education, explaining the corps system and it's reason for being where all very educational and interesting. Dr. Winston did a great job of explaining what each of these men were up against, the resources at their disposal, and how they executed their missions, be it defence or offense, carefully planned, or on the fly. Dr. Winston broke the Bulge battle up into three phases, explained what each corp commander faced in each phase and assessed each commander's performance for each phase and then did an overall assessment in the epilogue. He also tried to measure the effect of Allied air power in the battle, from direct support (ground attack, air superiority and air resupply) and indirect support (interdiction missions against communication and supplies).
My only peeve with this book is the sloppy editing/proofreading concerning the identification of German combat units. If the reader was not familiar with the battle, he/she could find it confusing. Some Wehrmacht units were identified as Waffen SS and vice versa, the 9th Panzer Division was also identified as the 9th Panzergrenadier (which never existed). These errors were not systematic, which points to proof reading/editing. Doctor Winston has an excellent grasp of the Allied order of battle. There are numerous sources of the German order of battle easily available to the author, his editors and his publisher. So I found this factor annoying (I find sloppy proof reading/ fact checking in anything I read annoying) and considering Dr. Winston's background and intense interest in the Ardennes battle, disappointing.
But besides that slight annoyance, I found this book an excellent read and would recommend it to anyone interested in this particular battle or wanting to know how the corps system functions.

The book is well written and informative. Even for a veteran reader of WWII books there was much new material, or at least material presented in a different way. However, the basic premise of the book is somewhat flawed. At the early stages of the battle of the Bulge it was a series of small and very brave actions that made the difference in slowing down the Germans. Even later, the Corps Commanders, including those for whom the author has great respect, merely backed up decisions made by subordinates. Indeed the battle, whether in the north with the stand at the Elsenborn Ridge or in south with the releif of Bastogne, would have taken place regardless of who was the respective Corps Commander. Additionally, while the author's description of the education of his players is quite laudatory, some might find their higher command education as insular. A warning, this book is not for someone who has not read extinsively about WWII.

Far too often far too many books on military history fall exclusively into one form or the other. There is the official Center for Military History model where impersonal units conduct operations bereft of fear, confusion, bravery, wisdom, fortitude, fatigue, and other abiding human factors. ("History without human beings," is how one wag put it.) The other model, common in books for a mass audience, is bereft of such institutional issues as military education, force structure, campaign planning, and execution. Harold Winton's Corps Commander of the Bulge shows that a true expert can handle both: painstakingly detail operations, on the one hand, but discuss the different decisions different leaders make, on the other. Winton, in the process, does not shy away from taking on some daunting reputations, including Matt Ridgway, whom Winton's own father was a military aide. Ridgway had courage and endurance, no one questions. He also had a dysfunctional streak of rigidity, Winton makes clear. All in all, this is not only a very important book about a very important operation. It is a model for how military history should be written.

After reading perhaps a dozen books on the Battle of the Bulge including the most recent Alamo in the Ardennes, I really enjoyed the presentation, style, and substance of Professor Winton's book. Rarely have I found presentations that encapsulate the functions of the corp commander and perhaps more importantly the movement of divisions between armies and corps to provide the level and complexity of force required in battle. This book captures also the personalities of the corp commanders and their bosses e.g. Patton and Middleton/Millikin/Eddy as well as Montgomery and Bradley at the army group level. Professor Winton has structured his book to capture all of these aspects well. You won't find this in any of the other treatments of the Battle. However, I will support another reviewer who complained about the number of maps linked to the text. Sometimes I had Toland, MacDonald and others open to figure out the battle space so be prepared. Still,a great read.

There is little to add to the previous excellent reviews except to express the wish the publisher had printed a separate detailed map book to accompany the text. For the lay reader, the author divides the subject into sensible portions. He points out a Corps is a fighting command not weighted down with the administrative and logistical demands of a division or levels of command above a Corps. The Prologue describes the American philosophy of command; introduces the six commanders in separate entries providing their background and military experience; sums up the different aspects of both allied and German planning leading up to the battle. The battle is dealt with over the balance of the book as reviewers have described. He ends with a brief description of the careers of the major players after the war. In that chapter, to my mind, he raises a fascinating question followed by a mind boggling supposition. As the war recedes more than a half century into the past, Bradley's reputation continues to shrink. What if Troy MIddleton had taken Eisenhower's advice in 1937 and not retired from the army? Since his credentials were far higher than Bradley"s, and he was considered, perhaps next to Marshall, the most highly regarded infantryman of the interwar period, he would have been the leading candidate to command the First Army in the Normandy invasion. He would have likely risen to command 12th Army Group. If that had been the case, it's very unlikely he would have allowed his staff to neglect the challenges of fighting in the bocage country prior to the invasion. Furthermore, he wouldn't have become nervous about closing the trap on the German 7th Panzer Army at Falaise. Despite the many outstanding volumes concerning the German Ardennes offensive, this book is recommended to any student of WWII as well professional soldiers and libraries.

If you are looking for a book that provides a commanders perspective of the whole Battle of the Bulge, this is the one for you. If you are looking for a book that provides the experiences of the foot soldier in the Battle of the Bulge, this book has no accounts from their perspective. Since I appreciate books that have the accounts of the foot soldier who actually won this battle, this would not be a book that it is at the top of my list. However, of all the books that I've read on the Battle of the Bulge, which are many, this is the most thorough. Even books that pride themselves in telling the whole story tend to focus on one part more than others, whether it be the northern sector (Time for Trumpets) or Bastogne (too many books to name them all here). This book tells the whole story without focusing on one sector more than another. It also clearly lays out the perspective of the whole battle from the command level (all the way from Eisenhower to the division commanders) focusing on the Corps commanders. I came away with a better understanding of the battle after reading this book, and consequently do recommend it to anyone interested in studying this battle.

As a 12-year old boy who is interested in World War II, I can't give you much about the historical accuracy of this book. However, after watching "Band of Brothers" and "Patton" (which both describe various parts of the Battle of the Bulge), I found that this book filled in a lot of the gaps about this Battle. For each battle described in this book, there are many details about the units fighting, the land, the commanders' thoughts and intentions during the battle, and the cause and effect of each encounter. This book also gives a good description of the war just before the Battle of the Bulge, such as the German strategy to start the offensive and the Allied commanders' failure to anticipate it.

The only annoying thing, though this wouldn't bother most experts, is that once in a while, this book goes into too much detail so you forget the general overview of the battle being depicted. That being said, I wouldn't recommend this book to people who don't know much about World War II. But for people who are very interested in World War II and know some background details about the Battle of the Bulge, this book is great.

I enjoyed reading this book very much. The only problem that I had is that there are too few maps; sometimes only one map for many pages of movement descriptions to towns that aren't on the previous map at all. I really wish there were more showing each phase i.e. defense, regrouping, attack, etc. for each corps. McDonalds book, A time for Trumpets does a better job, in my humble opinion, of providing many more maps that complement the text.
Having said that, I enjoyed reading about this battle from a different perspective, i.e. that of each Corps commander involved.