'That's no spoiling attack!'
As World War Two was drawing towards its close, in late 1944, the Western Allies were infected with the over-confidence that flowed from the sweeping victories they had gained four months earlier, and that had carried them to the borders of the Third Reich. They were confident that the war would soon be over.
'They were confident that the war would soon be over.'
In mid-December 1944, American General Dwight D Eisenhower was also in relaxed mood. He had just received a fifth star, becoming General of the Army. And on the evening of 16 December, he was to meet General Omar Bradley, commander of US 12th Army Group, at his headquarters in Versailles, to discuss the Allied manpower shortage problem and then play a few hands of bridge.
But the German leader, Adolf Hitler, had been planning his last great offensive in the west. And as Bradley arrived for his game of bridge, reports were beginning to filter in of enemy activity in the Ardennes, a range of rolling, heavily-forested hills and steep-sided valleys in eastern Belgium and Luxembourg. Bradley dismissed the reports as nothing more than details of localised fighting, but Eisenhower immediately sensed danger, telling Bradley, 'That's no spoiling attack!'
Published: 2005-05-10
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