Rundstedt's Choice

Battered and bedeviled, the German salient in the Ardennes shrank, squirmed, changed shape. Allied counterblows from three directions forced Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt to make a decision. He could stand and fight a battle that was turning against him, or he could back up with his well-earned gains. He chose retreat--and conducted it with consummate skill and minimum losses (see below).

Top U.S. military sources were now agreed that Rundstedt had aimed, primarily, to capture the Allied communications center at Liege, seize or smash the great supply dumps there. The Germans probably never expected to reach the sea, although they might not have hesitated to push on for Antwerp and the coast if Allied resistance had fallen apart. But they failed even to capture Liege--and thus failed to force a withdrawal of the Allied positions fronting the Ruhr.

Yet Rundstedt had achieved what was, undoubtedly, his secondary aim: to disrupt the Allied offensive for four to six months. In casualties he had probably got an even break. The Allies claimed some 50,000 Germans dead or wounded, 40,000 taken prisoner. Last week Secretary Stimson gave a preliminary count of 40,000 American casualties, including 18,000 missing, but this obviously did not include all the categories of losses.

Rundstedt had sacrificed about half the men, armor and transport committed to his great gamble. He therefore had left, almost intact, the equivalent of ten mobile and partly armored divisions. He was also reported to have received four or five fresh reserve divisions from Norway. And so his striking power last week was still formidable. It was certainly enough for a new thrust in the west if he chose to ignore the threat of the Russian winter offensive and take another gamble.

Presumably Rundstedt had been well briefed by Goebbels & Co. on Allied psychology, and hoped to shake the Allied command structure, create dissension and mutual distrust in Britain and the U.S. There was some U.S. bewilderment over Field Marshal Montgomery's cocky histrionics last fortnight (TIME, Jan. 15), some British grumbling at a statement issued last week by General Bradley in which he said his Twelfth Army Group would resume command of the U.S. Armies north of the bulge after the bulge had disappeared. But the Allied command team was intact and operating in harmony, which helped to quiet raucous voices. The team had work to do. It had been thrown for a big loss and the way to the enemy's goal was long and hard.

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