Battle of the Bulge
1944-1945 World War II battle
The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive and referred to by the Germans as Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein (transl. Operation Watch on the Rhine), was an offensive campaign on the Western Front during the Second World War, taking place from 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945. It was launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of eastern Belgium and northern Luxembourg and was intended to stop Allied use of the Belgian port of Antwerp and to split the Allied lines, allowing the Germans to encircle and destroy each of the four Allied armies and force the western Allies to negotiate a peace treaty in the Axis powers' favor.
The Germans achieved a total surprise attack on the morning of 16 December 1944, due to a combination of Allied overconfidence based on the favorable defensive terrain and faulty intelligence about Wehrmacht intentions, poor aerial reconnaissance due to bad weather, and a preoccupation with Allied offensive plans elsewhere. American forces were using this region primarily as a rest area for the U.S. First Army, and the lines were thinly held by fatigued troops and inexperienced replacement units. The Germans also took advantage of heavily overcast weather conditions that grounded the Allies' superior air forces for an extended period. American resistance on the northern shoulder of the offensive, around Elsenborn Ridge, and in the south, around Bastogne, blocked German access to key roads to the northwest and west which they had counted on for success. This congestion and terrain that favored the defenders threw the German advance behind schedule and allowed the Allies to reinforce the thinly placed troops. The farthest west the offensive reached was the village of Foy-Notre-Dame, south east of Dinant, being stopped by the U.S. 2nd Armored Division on 24 December 1944.
Improved weather conditions from around 24 December permitted air attacks on German forces and supply lines. On 26 December the lead element of General George S. Patton's U.S. Third Army reached Bastogne from the south, ending the siege.
“Battle of the Bulge” enters the record as 1944-1945 World War II battle. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Battle, Bulge and 1944-1945 can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q151018. The Library of Congress control number is sh85006980. Authority coordinates are 50.624, 6.137. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1944 and 1945.
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This entry incorporates text from “Battle of the Bulge” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.