The December issue of Military History Monthly, the British military history magazine, is on sale today.
In this issue we cover:
Battle of the Bulge
To mark the 70th anniversary of the offensive, MHM explores Hitler’s final gamble in the snow-covered forests of the Ardennes. This 19-page special feature includes:
– The campaign
– The siege
– Warriors & weapons
– Battle maps
– Timeline
The Düsseldorf Raid – Taking the war to the Zeppelins
Ian Castle looks at the raid to target grounded Zeppelins made by a lone British pilot in 1914.
Kingdom Under Fire – Austria’s invasion of Serbia in 1914
Julian Spilsbury explains how the military might of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was met with fierce, overwhelming resistance when it attempted to invade Serbia in July 1914.
Christmas Truce 1418 – The Siege of Rouen
The WWI Christmas Truce is well documented and often remembered. But what of the truce of 1418 under Henry V during the 100 Years War? Brian Burfield investigates.
Also in this issue: Behind the Image, War Culture, Book of the Month, Museum Reviews, War on Film, Event Listings, Thinkers at War, Book Reviews, Competitions, and much more.
From the editor
Neil Faulkner, Editor
Intelligence in war is always patchy. Commanders only ever have part of the picture. They invariably have to make critical decisions without full information.
This much is commonplace. What is perhaps less obvious is that intelligence is only as good as its reception. Sometimes, where intelligence clashes with preconception, it is incapable of changing minds and triggering appropriate action.
The surprise achieved by Hitler’s last-ditch Ardennes Offensive in December 1944 seems to fall into this category. As Dave Sloggett argues in our Special this issue, signs of a massive, imminent counter-offensive were mounting rapidly in the weeks and days before the attack opened.
The problem was that US military thinking was already encrusted with assumptions that ran counter to the intelligence -the impenetrability of the Ardennes, the harsh winter weather, the running-down of German military capacity…
What saved the US Army was the resilience of General ‘Nuts’ McAuliffe’s defence of Bastogne, and the effectiveness of General Patton’s counter-thrust. The complacency of senior commanders was compensated by decisive action by field commanders and the gritty resistance of the infantry.
We also have additional commentary on the battle from Peter Caddick-Adams, author of a major new study, who takes the opportunity to bust some myths about the battle, and from MHM regular David Porter.
Elsewhere in the magazine, Julian Spilsbury analyses the two disastrous Austro-Hungarian invasions of Serbia in 1914, Ian Castle describes a brilliantly executed air-attack on a Zeppelin air-base, and Brian Burfield discusses a very different Christmas Truce -that of Henry V at Rouen in 1418.