The Ardennes is a mountainous, forested region, most of which is in
Belgium, with parts extending into
France,
Germany, and
Luxembourg.
The Ardennes region is best known for being a
blind spot to the people planning for the defense of France. In times of peace, it is thought to be impassable to an invading army. Nevertheless, it has figured in both conquests of France by Germany.
In the
1870 Franco-Prussian War, the French general staff moved the army to the
Lorraine region near its border with Germany to wait for the Prussian army. This force moved through the Ardennes to
Sedan, surrounding the French army and forcing it to capitulate (at
Metz). The terms of peace gave Germany Alsace and the aforementioned Lorraine (along with
Bismarck's real goal, the unification of Germany).
One would think that being conquered would force a hard-learned lesson.
World War I saw a German army marching through Belgium again to the murderous and destructive Western Front, which was mostly in France.
But the story doesn't end there.
In the
1920s and
1930s, France built a massive system of fortifications along its border with Germany, known as the
Maginot Line. However, military planners did not extend this system along its border with Belgium, a friendly country. Besides, the forest was supposed to be impassable to
tanks.
Somehow confident of their security, France joined the rest of the West in sitting around and doing nothing while
Adolf Hitler built German armed might to a level only useful in a war of conquest. Occupying French troops were removed from the
Rhineland, on the German side of the Ardennes, in
1935.
So it was the situation in May,
1940 that the French Army had been waiting behind the Maginot Line for a year (the so-called
sitzkrieg) when the
Blitzkrieg rolled through the Ardennes, capturing
Sedan quickly and surrounding the French army (which surrendered at
Metz again).
But the story doesn't even end
there.
After the Normandy invasion in
1944, Allied armies were quickly liberating France and Belgium. Now it was time for American and British military planners to be caught off guard. In October, Hitler launched his hallucination of an offensive, now known as the
Battle of the Bulge, through... you guessed it. What had been a
romp quickly turned into a bloodbath.