George S. Patton: The Last Great American General
BY Herschel Smith
1 week, 5 days ago
On December 2, 2025 at 10:22 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:
Part of the reason the Ardennes Offensive caught the Anglo-American allies so badly off-guard is that by fall 1944, their access to Enigma secret intelligence had been severely restricted if not cut off entirely.
Prior to the invasion of Europe in June, 1944, the German high command had to rely heavily upon its Enigma encoding machines and communications network to rely orders to the far-flung fronts upon which German forces were fighting, from deep inside the U.S.S.R. to Italy to North Africa.
But as each of these objectives was taken in its turn by the Allies – North Africa, Sicily, Italy, etc. – Germany’s interior lines contracted. By the summer of 1944, Germany had – apart from her forces in Italy who were fighting a stubborn rear-guard action against the Allies – nearly-continuous interior lines. Relying messages from Berlin to France no longer required use of the Enigma system. Teletype machines, telegraphs, and telephones were used increasingly, as well as motorcycle messengers and aerial couriers as well.
Back at Bletchley Park in the U.K. the code-breakers found that their window into German intentions was now closed or at least not as open as it once had been – at least when it came to operations on the European mainland proper.
https://www.captainsjournal.com/2025/12/02/george-s-patton-the-last-great-american-general/
