What was the Battle of the Bulge and why wasn't it a success?

Answer 1

It was a surprise German counter attack against US forces through the Ardennes forest in the dead of winter.

It never had any chance of success due to lack of supplies and quality of troops in the German ranks assigned the task. Also the Germans had almost zero air support and were relying on the heavy cloud cover to give them a break from Allied air power. Once the cloud cover went they obviously lost their cover and were massively vulnerable.

It did however catch US forces massively unprepared. The Germans had managed to keep their troop and armour build up a secret by shortened lines of communication (otherwise Enigma might have picked it up) and heavy winter cloud cover.

It took awhile for US forces to bounce back, roughly a month. Some poor US leadership on the Northern flank lead to Eisenhower putting Montgomery in overall command there (it was a contentious decision putting an English General in charge of US troops, but the right one at the time)

The US troops carried out some operations of pure valour and guts (Bastogne, St Vith, amongst others, for which history rightly applauds them)

Hitler`s generals knew the operation was doomed to failure but could not persuade their Fuhrer of that. They wanted to carry out a limited surge whilst the Fuhrer insisted they go for the Belgian coat, so cutting the allied forces in half. Basically at that stage of the war it was just beyond German capability.

The battle took it`s name from the shape it presented on a map.

Answer 2

The German army failed to force a U.S. surrender.

Answer 3

They failed to detect the buildup of Nazi forces prior to the attack.