When was the Battle of the Bulge fought?

The Battle of the Bulge began on 16 December 1944 and lasted until 25 January 1945, by which time the Allies had erased the German salient in the Ardennes.

Why is it called the Battle of the Bulge?

The name comes from the deep bulge that the German attack of 1944 pushed into the American front line on Allied maps, a salient driven into the Ardennes before it was flattened.

What was the significance of Bastogne?

Bastogne was a key road junction that the American 101st Airborne held while surrounded during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, and its defense, sealed by General McAuliffe's one-word reply Nuts, became a symbol of the campaign.

How costly was the Battle of the Bulge for the United States?

The Battle of the Bulge in 1944 was the largest and costliest single battle the US Army fought in the war, with an estimated 75,000 to 89,000 American casualties, about 19,000 of them killed, and it exhausted Germany's last reserves in the west.

Battle of the Bulge: Hitler's last gamble in the Ardennes

Q: Who won the Battle of the Bulge?

The Battle of the Bulge, fought from December 1944 into late January 1945, was won by the Western Allies, who halted the German attack and flattened the salient back to where it had begun. Hitler had spent his last strategic reserves in the west and lost them.

US Army Signal Corps photograph, 75th Infantry Division on the way to the St. Vith to Houffalize road, Belgium, 24 January 1945, US National Archives, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain (US government work).

Quick answer

Who won the Battle of the Bulge?

The Allies won the Battle of the Bulge, fought from December 1944 to January 1945, halting and then reversing Hitler's last great offensive in the west through the Ardennes. It was the largest and costliest single battle the US Army fought in the war, and it exhausted Germany's final reserves in the west.¹

Before dawn on 16 December 1944, the frozen quiet of the Ardennes forest shattered. German artillery ripped through the thin American line, and out of the fog rolled tanks and grenadiers on a front that Allied commanders had judged too rugged and too quiet to matter. Hitler had staked his last reserves in the west on a single desperate throw, a winter offensive meant to punch through weakly held ground, race to the port of Antwerp, and split the British and American armies in two. What followed became the largest and costliest single battle the US Army fought in the entire war.²

Military map of Belgium and Luxembourg with red arrows of the planned German thrust towards Antwerp — The German plan for the Ardennes offensive: armored armies were to cross the Meuse and drive on Antwerp, splitting the Allied armies. Map from the US Army official history. Public domain (US government work). US Army Center of Military History, via Wikimedia Commons.

Part of The greatest battles of World War II · Before: Operation Market Garden · Key figures: Dick Winters

A Surprise in the Snow

The attack caught the Allies almost completely off guard. American divisions in the Ardennes were either green units still learning their trade or veteran formations sent there to rest, and the sector was thinly manned by design. Thick winter fog and low cloud, exactly the weather Hitler had waited for, grounded the overwhelming Allied air power that might otherwise have shredded the German columns from above. German armor drove westward and forced the American line to bend backward into a great salient, the deep bulge in the map that gave the battle its enduring name. In the confusion, scattered units fought and died at crossroads and villages whose names meant nothing until that week, buying time with their stubbornness while the Allied high command scrambled to grasp the sheer scale of what was unfolding. On 17 December, near Malmedy, men of Kampfgruppe Peiper of the 1st SS Panzer Division gunned down more than 80 American prisoners in a field, one of the worst atrocities of the war in Europe. At the same time, in Otto Skorzeny's Operation Greif, English-speaking German soldiers in American uniforms slipped behind Allied lines to sow confusion.³

Dark locator map with a gold star in a glowing circle marking the approximate center of the fighting of the Battle of the Bulge, the coasts, rivers and lakes of the region, and a small world map inset with the area boxed — The Battle of the Bulge: the star marks the approximate center of the fighting, and the inset shows the area on a world map. Drawn for this article from Natural Earth data, with no modern borders. Location map: © Echoes of Battle (data: Natural Earth, public domain)

Nuts at Bastogne

Everything soon turned on road junctions, and none mattered more than Bastogne, a small Belgian town where seven roads met. The 101st Airborne Division, rushed in by truck, dug into the frozen ground as German forces swept around them and cut the town off entirely. Surrounded, low on ammunition, food and medical supplies, and shivering in bitter cold, the defenders held. When German officers delivered a formal demand for surrender, the acting American commander, General Anthony McAuliffe, gave a one-word reply that instantly became legend: Nuts. Baffled German negotiators had to have it explained to them, and the garrison fought on, its stand becoming the defining symbol of American endurance in the entire campaign.⁴

American officers seated around a table with a small Christmas decoration — Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe and his staff at Christmas dinner inside the Heintz Barracks in besieged Bastogne, 25 December 1944. US Army photograph. Public domain

Surrounded, freezing and nearly out of ammunition, the American commander answered the German surrender demand with a single word: Nuts.

Patton Wheels North

Relief was already grinding toward them. To the south, General George S. Patton performed one of the most remarkable feats of the war, wheeling his Third Army through a sharp ninety-degree turn and driving it north across icy roads in a matter of days to strike at the base of the German salient. On 26 December 1944, the lead elements of his armor broke through the ring and reached the exhausted defenders of Bastogne, opening a corridor into the town. Just as decisively, the skies at last began to clear. Allied fighter-bombers roared back into action, hammering German tanks, trucks and supply lines strung out across the open, while cargo planes dropped desperately needed supplies to the men below.⁵

The Last Reserves Spent

With his fuel dwindling, his columns stalled far short of Antwerp, and Allied aircraft punishing him by day, the German commander had no path to victory left. Through January 1945 the Allies pressed in from both flanks and slowly flattened the bulge, driving the front back roughly to where it had begun. The cost was staggering. American losses came to an estimated 75,000 to 89,000 casualties, about 19,000 of them killed, the heaviest of any single battle the US Army fought in the war. German losses, estimated at roughly 80,000 to 120,000, were impossible to replace for a nation running out of men and machines. Hitler had gambled his last strategic reserves in the west and lost them, and from that winter forward Germany could only retreat toward its own defeat.⁶