The Bitter Woods: The Battle of the Bulge

John S. D. Eisenhower's "The Bitter Woods: The Dramatic Story, Told At All Echelons - From Supreme Command to Squad Leader - of the Crisis That Shock the Western Coalition: Hilter's Surprise Ardennes Offensive" is a tour-de-force piece of historical literature. As a former WWII junior officer and son of the Supreme Commander, John Eisenhower writes from a solid first (and extremely close second) hand experience as a soldier in the Allied forces that defeated the Axis forces in NW Europe. More than just a former soldier and son of the leader of the armed coalition of victors, Eisenhower emerges with "The Bitter Woods" as a military historian of the first class. Few accounts of the Battle of the Bulge (as Hitler's Ardennes offensive was oft referred in Allied press accounts and writings since) are as thoroughly researched and broad reaching.Eisenhower starts his book by providing short, but informative, biographies of the top commanders on the Allied and German sides (unnumbered pages in the 1995 DaCapo Press paperback version reviewed here), followed by an insightful Forward (pp. 17-23) in which he describes the genesis of the book and his views on how "The Bitter Woods" might fit into the literature dedicated to the Bulge. Even if one does not read "The Bitter Woods" in its entirety the Forward alone is worth a look for budding historians and historical authors as a potential guide to understanding ones own work and its worth.While Eisenhower does not cover in detail the German side of the equation that led to this greatest of American armed conflicts, he is mindful to place the conflict in perspective, both from the Allied and German sides. In fact, 'Book I' of "The Bitter Woods" (pp. 27-102) covers the event leading up to the Ardennes conflict, minus the actual pre-attack preparations (covered in 'Book II'; see below). He deals with strategic and tactical errors made prior to the battle on both Allied and German sides, and sets the stage for the rest of the book, which represents a detailed accounting of the action from grunt to Ike's command.In 'Book II' (pp. 105-176) Eisenhower details how the Germans prepared for their Ardennes Counteroffensive, and how the Allies missed their chance to snuff the attack before it started. While much of the discussion on the German side remains as valid today as it was when Eisenhower first penned "The Bitter Woods" in the late '60s, his analysis of Allied blunders might be considered by some to be less thorough. It is fair to point out to readers that when Eisenhower wrote "The Bitter Woods", Ultra, the Allied deciphering of German coded communications, was still a Western secret and no historian was yet privy to all of the INTEL that the Allies had at the time of the Ardennes Counteroffensive. In this regard if Eisenhower does miss the mark a bit it is not from a failure on his part in researching or writing the book, but rather from the time in which the book was written, relative to what exactly was available in terms of Allied intel reports. Having said all this it is still arguable that even with Ultra intel the Allies still could not have effectively divined Hitler's intentions (while not the overt intention of the book, "The Ghost Front" by Charles Whiting effectively demonstrates this latter thesis), especially given the Allied mindset that the war was effectively over and the Germans were incapable of mounting a serious offensive, along with the fact that the Germans quite effectively limited use of radio and wire messages during the lead up to D-day (16 December 1944). Thus, in the end despite having a less than complete Allied intel picture, Eisenhower's analyses of Allied blunders are still on fairly solid ground.In 'Books III (pp. 179-257) and IV (pp. 261-375)', Eisenhower gives his prose to a discussion of the bulk of the battle (16-26 Dec). In particular, Eisenhower presents a lucid and moving, not to mention highly readable, account of the initial attack and breakthroughs the Germans achieved in critical sectors of the US V and VIII Corps sectors and the brave stands of pockets of US forces in stemming these initial breakthroughs. Robert Merriam ("Dark December"), John Toland ("Battle of the Bulge") and Charles MacDonald ("A Time for Trumpets") have also done these events justice with their historical writings. When Eisenhower's accounts are added into this mix one gets a quite full account.'Book V' covers the US and Allied (Eisenhower gives fair - not too little and not too much - credit to the contributions of Monty's 21st Army Group) final reduction of the German forces west of the Rhine, as well as a chapter entitled 'The Final Analysis', in which he tries (quite effectively) to place the battle in perspective of the ETO and ultimate defeat of the Axis forces in Europe. Like the 'Forward', this final chapter alone is worth reading on its own independent of the great material that precedes it.In the end "The Bitter Woods" is a 5 star effort that should be read by ALL interested in the greatest of US Army battles, one that to this day exists in the American conscience.

This is considered one of the four great books on the Battle of the Bulge. The others are John Toland's Battle, Hugh Cole's official US Army History: The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge and Charles B. MacDonald's A Time for Trumpets. I have read all but Hugh Cole's book and will review each of them.The Bitter Woods starts with a good background of the breakout from the Normandy beachhead and takes you up the start of the Bulge. Eisenhower gives you a strategic view of the events leading up to the Bulge. He discusses the strategy that the Allies were using against the Germans. His book gives you much more background of the operations before the Bulge than either Toland's or MacDonald's.As this book was written in 1968, the knowledge of the Enigma intercepts was not released yet. Eisenhower is still able to discuss the deception operation that the Germans were able to successfully conduct against the Allies.Once Eisenhower gets to the battle he does a good job of taking you to soldier level battles. MacDonald does a better job but he doesn't set the strategic context as well as Eisenhower. All of these books are detailed enough that they keep you referring to the maps to understand what was happening.Eisenhower also gives more details of other events that happened during and after the the Bulge such as the German offensive Operation Nordwind. Finally Eisenhower shows the strategy that led to the end of the war in Europe.Eisenhower provides many details about the leadership. He personally knew them and his father was able to provide many personal details.While Eisenhower knew both General Omar Bradley and Field Marshall Montgomery, I felt he did a pretty good job of describing the personality conflict between them and did not defer from taking on the issue.If you are looking for a good book on the Battle of Bulge that places it in its historical context, discusses the leadership, and gives you the big view as well as individual actions, the Bitter Woods is the best book of the three.

I was very happy with this book. It was better than I expected. I would highly recommend this sell her. The book is great.

This is one period of history that I find very interesting as even though the germans and Hitler in particular were getting knocked about from all sides ( the americans, the british, the french and the rather nasty russians...although almost as bad as the germans ) in the west, the south and the east of Europe .....they just kept fighting and this last ditch attempt to prolong the war by in the west almost worked but was doomed to failure as hitler did not have the reserves or more important the fuel to maintain and then come January 45 it all came to an end and within a few months the war would be over.The author ( John S D Eisenhower ) takes us right from the normandy landings right through to the start of the offensive and goes into massive detail all the preppng and planning that went into the Battle of the bulge, if your interested in world war 2 and in my case the twilight months of the war you will enjoy this and won't be able to put it down.

I have read quite a few books about the battle of the Bulge but this one stands out as a good overveiw and looks at things from a command point of view ( from both sides ). The author is the son of General Eisenhower which meant the he knew many of the major personalities on the allied side personally. This book was written more than 40 years ago which , obviously , makes it closer to events than today. Many of the people he interviewed are dead now and in that respect this is a historically important document.Well worth a read.

I will tell you for the last time - stop asking me for more and mire information. You have got "5 Stars" - no more or I will get really , really angry!!!!!!!!

Thoroughly well researched project, clarity on this often confusing battle is extremely welcome.

There are better books about the conflict known as the battle of the bulge. The author knew the principle american generals. He goes too easy on some of them. Read Charles B Macdonald's book.