All Souls Day by Joseph M Pereira & John l Wilson

Author:Joseph M Pereira & John l Wilson [Pereira, Joseph M & Wilson, John l]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS027090 History / Military / World War I
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press

10

I Felt Like a Little Napoleon

It was of no use to batter themselves against the granite. And from this consciousness that they had attempted to conquer an unconquerable thing there seemed to arise a feeling that they had been betrayed.

—The Red Badge of Courage

Earlier in the day, FM Walter Model had gathered a group of German officers to walk through a mock battle against the Americans in the Hürtgen Forest. The group included leaders of the 89th Infantry Division and the 116th Panzer Division, which were already positioned in the forest. Leaders of a third division—the 275th Volksgrenadier—were also participants. Partway through the war game, a messenger stepped into the room to inform the group that the 28th U.S. Infantry Division had commenced an attack on the German Army in the Hürtgen Forest. The scenario in their diorama had moved from the realm of the hypothetical to the real. Model didn’t seem alarmed by the news; after all, he had just recently repelled the 9th U.S. Infantry Division after a two-week engagement in October. He knew the United States would be back again, launching another assault. Maintaining his composure, Model ordered his commanders to stay and finish the game. In effect, the war game had turned into a game plan against the 28th. After the generals had devised it, Model made a slight alteration to the German deployment: instead of having the 275th relieve the 89th, he ordered the former to join the latter in the Hürtgen Forest. Model’s generals and commanders, who had been sequestered in Shlenderhan, a nearby medieval-era castle, were just a half-hour jeep ride away. Since there was no activity elsewhere on the Siegfried Line, the field marshal could spare the additional troops to help shore up the Hürtgen defense line. One of the war-game participants, Maj. Gen. Rudolf Von Gersdorff, explained in a postwar interview that the forest was important to the Germans for three reasons. First, an essential road—for the transportation of troops and supplies—ran through it. Second, it held some of the highest points in the area, including the villages of Vossenack, Schmidt, Hurtgen, and Bergstein, and whoever occupies the high ground in battle holds an advantage over its opponent. And, third, by protecting the forest the Germans also kept the Americans away from two of its major dams, the Schwammenaul and the Urfttalsperre, which supplied water to numerous cities and towns in the area, including the large industrial German city of Cologne.1 There was yet a fourth reason: the Germany Army was planning to use the forest as an assembly area for some of its troops prior to the upcoming Battle of the Bulge. As a result they were prepared to defend the forest, however bitter an engagement that would require. For Hitler the Bulge was a do-or-die fight; on it would depend the fate of the Third Reich. The Hürtgen Forest, which was just thirty miles up the road, loomed large in what would ultimately prove to be the German Army’s final conflict.

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