Web Histories

Detailed historiesPocket historiesTimelines

Detailed histories

Battle of the Bulge: Germany's Last Throw by Robin Cross, from the BBC's excellent WWII site. Entertaining introduction concentrates on the plan and its costs.

"This was the last occasion in the war when Hitler, an inveterate gambler, still possessed enough chips to double his stake. It was a bold plan, sweeping in concept and impossible to execute."

Wikipedia: Battle of the Bulge. Detailed and generally very good summary. If you don't know, Wikipedia is an "open source" encyclopedia. Anyone can edit it, anytime. Surprisingly, this works most of the time. With so many "credentialed" and "published" web material on Battle of the Bulge, however, the main strength of Wikipedia's lies in the intricate hyperlinking. For example, there are Wikipedia pages on the 6th Panzer commander Sepp Dietrich, and the infamous commander of Operation Greif, Otto Skorzeny.

"The German Counteroffensive in the Ardennes" by Charles V. P. von Luttichau, from Command Decisions (2000). [mirror]. Concentrates on the big picture. The rationale for striking in the West is ably explained:

"Explaining his position after the war, General Jodl stated that the attack had to be launched 'in the West because the Russians had so many troops that even if we had succeeded in destroying thirty divisions it would have made no difference. On the other hand, if we destroyed thirty divisions in the West, it would amount to more than one third of the whole invasion army.'"

Online Book: The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge by Hugh M. Cole (1965). Nearly 700 pages long, this effort, from the US Army Center of Military history, is the most detailed general resource online. The online edition has a useful clickable index, but retains the pagination of the original printed edition. Also here and here (broken?)

Decent school report on the Battle of the Bulge copied dozens of times on the web. (Here's a Google search and another another showing some.) It's not clear who wrote it (David Sargent?), but students should be wary of plagarism—particularly when there are so many copies out there to trip them up!

This one and another from Scandinavian Wargamers embed some good pictures within the report

Pocket histories

Reader's Companion to Military History: Battle of the Bulge. Excellent short summary by Carlo W. D'Este, from this useful online book. (mirror)

Columbia Encyclopedia also here.

Jewish Virtual Library: Battle of the Bulge.

Short summary by David Koeller, from World History Chronology, a project at North Park University. See the WWII chronology.

Battle of the Bulge from A Brief History of the U.S. Army in World War II by the U.S. Army Center for Military History. This is a good short history from an authoritative source (although I have been unable to discover the date). This document was originally published on the Center's site, but reformatted and improved by WorldWarIIHistory.info.

Battle of the Bulge: The German Counteroffensive from www.worldwar2history.info.

www.worldwar2history.info has a brief summary of the bulge. I enjoy their World War II e-cards.

Timelines

Timeline of the Battle of the Bulge from CRIBA.

Timeline from The American Experience: Battle of the Bulge.