The Royal United ServicesInstitute Westminster metal. In fact, if you look at all of his books on world war ii, paris after the liberation or the fall of berlin, all of them have garnered awards because of the work he has done. His latest book, 1944, hitlers last gamble was published in may. It went straight to number one in the sunday times bestsellers list and it stayed there for about five weeks. His former chairman of the society of authors, he is received honorary doctorates from the university, he is a visiting professor at the university of kent. Please try me in welcoming him. [applause]. Thank you. After the liberation of paris at the end of august 1944, the allies indulged and to create euphoria as they raced towards the german frontier. Spoken formations were falling back in holland and entered germany be behind the line. Americans, british and canadian generals were convinced that this was just like the german army collapse in the late summer of 1918. Then, in midseptember the allies launched operation market garden, the attempt to jump and captured the bridge and all the others leading to it. Field Marshal Montgomery was obsessed by the idea of being the first to cross. He wanted eisenhower to give him the bulk of supplies and command over american formation. Montgomery possess an armored complacency which made him totally unable to see how others responded to him. Eisenhower cut chief of staff, was much a news by his conviction that general bradley admired and liked him and they absolutely loved him. Unfortunately the british pressed was make commander wrote Ground Forces over bradley. Montgomery pushed himself forward for this appointment even telling his Supreme Commander on numerous occasions, that he had won the world ready. Tensions came to a head during the battle of the art and when montgomery claimed it was winning the whole thing himself. This caused great anger on the american side and contributed to britain losing all influence and allied councils for the rest of the war and even in the postwar period. Eisenhower at the end of his life was outraged at montgomerys behavior. Hes a psychopath, dont forget that eisenhower exploded. Is such an egocentric, he is never has never made a mistake in his life. A monument a bad plainly turned into a disaster. It was a predictable disaster since success depended on everything going according to plan and on the german army. A mouse extremely unlikely. It ignored the role that made plans to device contact with the enemy. Also general myrtle was putting the backbone in the german army in the west. Once again, the alleys had woefully underestimated the german armies capacity to recover from defeat. The American British and Canadian Army soon found themselves bogged down in autumn rain. We have change in all the jeeps but this mod is like thick lou, dark brown and deep. This so deep that war trying to go offroad in the field one jeep will get stuck and we send another jeep to pull it out, in the end we need to get tanks to have them come over to have them pull the jeeps out. Its all very humiliating. The general who commanded the first army decided to go forward towards the river and in the right, through some of the most hostile territory on the whole of the western front. Southeast the hooked in forest was a mountainous expanse of dense pine woods. Before the noise of war dominated its eerie piece the sounds had been those of the wins in the tree and the buzzard circling above. The forest diagonally by ravines had all too many slopes. There are two steeper tanks and exhausting for heavily laden if a tree slipping amongst the roots, stones, and the mud. The pine forest was so dense and dark that it seemed like a curse. Men thought they were intruders and conversed in whispers as of the force might be listening. At night anyone leaving the foxhole would get can be lost within 100 yards, they would have to wait until dawn it to find out where they were. Both sides suffered from the chilling autumn rains. Even when it was not pouring down, the trees dripped ceaselessly. Rusty ammunition calls stoppages, uniforms and boots rotted. You could have debilitated and the need to amputate your feet. Getting trench foot and being sent back to hospital sounds like a special kind of heaven. I sat sleeping in wet socks and boots, hoping and praying. Most thought losing a few toes was a small price to pay. Resilient, constitution both mental and physical when needed. Especially when snow began to fall at the higher altitude in november. Men over 30 are too old to stand up under combat conditions all men under 20 are not matured enough. Unfortunately the vast majority of replacements were either under 20 or over 30. They had no experience and very little training. Just before dawn the machine gun a large bombardment began hitting, be a night and dangerous the new troops became anxious and started moving around in panic. I try to hold onto one or two of them say and stay in your foxhole or you may get killed. This was the first time i saw a battlefield panic and could understand why some men get very traumatized and shellshocked. Isolation in the forest was dangerous. Especially for the badly wounded. One of the most horrific incidents, three german soldiers stripped a badly wounded wounded american of his possessions then placed a larger booby trap charge under him which would explode when he moved. He he lay there motionless for three days and three nights, hardly daring to go to sleep so he could warn any rescuers of the explosive charge. Fortunately, he had just enoughs week strength to speak when he was found. Both sides relied more and more on our tillery. The result was a chaotic nightmare of trees smashed, gashed and shredded by shell fire mortars. Abandon helmets and rusty weapons, burnedout vehicles, ammunition containers, gas math and mud encrusted overcoats which have been abandoned because of their weight. Especially distressing was the personal clothing of those soldiers. The german commander admitted in the wet coat is meant to stop her from hypothermia, trench foot, frostbite, and illness. Yet mortar rounds was the cause of most wounded. Many officers believe the fighting in the forest was worse than the in the First World War the Eastern Front. One described it as an open wound, there are miles call that the death Ernest Hemingway attached himself once more witness the scenes of snow, mud, and smashed pine. He said hemingway, again armed with a machine gun despite a recent inquiry into this illegal martial activities as a generalist was also carrying two canteens, 11 with cognac and one with snaps. Journalism was not high on his priorities, his famous american correspondent hemingway referred to himself as a hemorrhoid, the poor mans pile. They came back under fire because he was determined to write the Great American novel of the war. As his biographer observed, Ernest Ernest gloried in the role of senior counselor friends, both officers and men. He was fascinated by the nature of courage and the psychiatrists views of a mans breaking point. Jd salinger, with the fourth infantry continue to write short stories throughout the whole battle. He later said his readers whenever he could find an empty foxhole. This in tense activity which included part of capturing the rise seems at least to have disposed salinger zone last until the end of the war. Combat exhaustion that military euphemism and psychiatric breakdown spread rapidly. After after five days up there you talk to the trees, on the sixth you start getting answers back. Perhaps cynical exaggeration. The young telling commanders who came out or near gibbering idiots as men could get without being locked up. Physical casualties also saw. You drive by the fence in the morning and there are two or three on the ground with the same officer. In in the afternoon there are 30 or 40. New Company Platoon commanders survive for such a short time, the bad men never even learn their names. Will some of the veterans from normandy enjoyed the parties back to paris. A constant stream of replacements for those killed in the fighting. Most were teenagers freshly arrived from the United States. Many older men reassigned to the battalion. Just about the only improvement was to change the name replacement to reinforcement, in an attempt to take away the impression that they were just filling dead mans boots. The enemy. Sometimes treated little better than expendable slaves, and the whole system bread asceticism which was deeply troubling. In her novel she repeated it clearly common piece of dark humor. Potter issued replacements. Just waste time carrying all those bodies back. Hemingway repeated a very similar remark. Breakdown in their marriage. The reason for the germans desperate defense through october, november, and in early december, just to the north of the ardennes where hitler planned is great offensive. On the 12th december 4 days before the offensive was due to begin hitler summoned to his underground bunker in the last all divisional commanders. The attack had to be carried through with the greatest brutality. No human is permitted. The battle which followed was considered to be the western front counterpart. Focused on the city of the savagery of the fighting and the terrible weather conditions certainly prompted comparisons. The german onslaught on the 16th of december 1944 got the americans particularly unprepared. The intelligence failure was complete. The allies could not imagine that the germans were capable of assembling to panzer armies and an Infantry Army for a major Strategic Offensive without them realizing. Having relied almost entirely, they become complacent. They could hardly be all knowledge of complete radio silence was imposed. Perhaps most important of all intelligence analysts made mistake to examine an options. Of view. It is always judging your enemy by herself. They neededyourself. They needed to put themselves into the mind of adolf hitler. Thinking is often distorted by a megalomania. To the despair of his most senior commanders hitler would not tolerate any opposition. This was to breakout through the ardennes much are just attendance went north to take brussels and mentor. This series and would cut off the british and canadians in north and force another dunkirk. The simple truth was that he preferred a while gamble to the relentless crushing of German Military might from east and west. Success depended on creating a shock and not brutality and the surprise attack in maintaining the momentum. Hitler put his faith in the 6th panzer army commended. Even mapped out all the routes himself. They were little more than contracts. The growls waterlogged after the autumn rain. They chewed up to grab in the trucks would only follow. It was greatest was to underestimate the u. S. Army in its command structure. Firstly you soon general eisenhower would have to consult before acting. He sensed immediately that this attack was a strategic counteroffensive in spoiling operation. It failed to appreciate a vast transport potential of the United States army and its organization to bring in reinforcements and ship fuel supplies out of the threatened area. Thirdly and perhaps most importantly hitler and his generals despise the u. S. Army. Although the shock of the attack certainly created a good deal of panic among the four infantry divisions along the ardennes front a Critical Mass of officers and soldiers held key villages and crossroads with the determination and courage that the germans had simply not seen. This completely wrecked the german timetable and gave the allies enough time to bring in the formations needed to hold that advance. The cinematic version is always try to imply it with the allied air forces which won the battle once the skies cleared with the arrival of the socalled russian. But the after action studies show clearly that they did not kill anything like the number of Armored Vehicles as they claim. They did didclaim. They did achieve a tremendous amount in attacking the supply chain to the rear end and starving the German Forces of fuel and ammunition. Some of them on the allied side is a rich subject for debate. Im sure well have a thoroughly enjoyable argument. So let me put in my 0. 10 was now the joke was selected as vital. Identifiedidentified the key feature to create. He was of course fortunate that he did not ignore hitlers instruction in his forces to the south side as he had been told mother then swing around to the north. Monitored by the Division Montgomery wasted no time in reinforcing even before eisenhower gave him command over the northern sector. And patents redeployment of the 3rd army constituted one of the greatest feats of stuff work. The counterattack after christmas when things did not go so well for as well as they could have, patton and bradley especially for far too impatient and those whether conditions. From montgomerys ghastly thoughts he was actually much more practical in his approach to the circumstances. Patton wanted to charge up to german front to cut off the balls. Collins also wanted to launch a rapid counterattack toward the base of the bulge. Bradleys judgment was seriously affected by the humiliation he felt that eisenhowers decision to give montgomery command over 1st army, a situation made far worse by montgomerys insulting behavior. And bradley was greatly worried by the idea that there would be a senate inquiry. He thought he would be held responsible. And other american generals wanted an immediate and overwhelming attack to crush the bulge and wipe out the embarrassment. They were all exasperated with montgomery for delaying the counterattack into three january. On this occasion the little man with the varian the bark as one of bradley Staff Officers called and was actually misplaced. Montgomery realized that infantry attack through deep snow into heavy casualties, especially when the supporting sherman tanks could not keep up. In any case patents advance from the south was not well handled as he admitted in his diary. It was farmore difficult than he expected and he acknowledged that his impatience led to large numbers of unnecessary casualties. Any idea of cutting off the base was also the utterly Wishful Thinking in this chromatic conditions. The conditions under which they fought in the snowbound for stills and ravines were far worse than harsh. Nights lasted for 16 hours. The temperature was minus 24, 25 degrees centigrade. Water bottles for solid, rations could often only be by cutting the contents into little pieces frozen and then thawing them out in your mouth one by one for chewing. Many soldiers already filthy and bearded were suffering from dysentery. Trenches in the rockhard soil was demanding work of lost love. So in some cases they rang the bell and summoned the populace to bigger women to hand over the precious linen sheets so that they could be torn up, uses no capes or as camouflage. Tanks and tank tank destroyers had to be rapidly whitewashed. The german offense had reversible khakis and trousers with white on the inside which could immediately be used to snow camouflage. But while american troops often when hungry they were never as badly start is the germans. That. American army doctors operating on american soldiers and german prisoners had begun to notice a striking contrast. The surgeons observed that the german shoulder chosen aptitude for recovery far above that of the american soldier. This difference was apparently due to the simple surgical fact that american soldiers generally have a thick layer of fat on the which may surgery not only more difficult and expensive but delays healing. The german soldier is vastly leaner and therefore more operable. The American Military authorities also decided that the men must be trained on what to do when shutting different partsshut in different parts of the body so that they could look after themselves until a medic arrived. The order was clear, and attack no fighting men should stop to help the wounded. Each wounded. Each man takes care of himself until the medical men arrive. It badly wounded men left in the snow without any help or are likelyunlikely to survive for very long. The bitter frost and the routine of skirmishes and dangerous patrols and night continued. The commander still wanted intelligence on the enemy units, so they had to go out at night on a tiger patrol. Moving silently at night was impossible as every single step made a noise as the foot broke through the crust of ice on the surface, and white kids frozen stiff crackled as they moved from even wearing white did not conceal them. Moonlight cast shadows darkly on the snow. Within the line infantry there were a number of cases of dogging it and soldiers did not venture far. It would agree amongst themselves on the story and then returned to their own lines after a suitable time. Many soldiers are, of course, brutalized by war or at the very least rendered cynical. Paratroopers are inculcated with aggressive martial value so not surprising to find the 82nd airborne using sandbags on top of the trenches while 101st airborne corrected petrified bodies in the snow in front of their positions as dummies to confuse any german waiting parties and night. On the northern side of the perimeter american paratroopers adopted a good luck reaching each morning of shaking the hand of a frozen german corpse outside their bunker. General George Patton drove out whatever he could to see the troops in advance north. Came across a german machine gunner to have been killed and instantly frozen as he was in a half sitting position with his arms extended holding a little both ammunition. A lot of black object sticking out of the snow and on investigating founder with the toes of dead men. Like most soldierslike most soldiers patton was surprised to discover that the faces of men who died in that extreme cold did not have the usual gray tinge. He turned a claret color. There were other reminders. Atreminders. At the end of the battle to the north Sergeant Robert reiter noticed an ordinary german soldier taken prisoner looked as if he was grinning. He raised his rifle to shoot him for another paratrooper said sarge, hes got no lives her eyelids. The g