Later historians, speaking of the series of battles that took place during the month that decided Charlemagne's fate, have tended to praise the Wehrmacht and belittle Charlemagne.

Of course, there is an element of "the winner is not to blame", and Charlemagne's performance is indeed difficult to argue. But putting aside the fog of history and the mythical aura of "the invincibility of the defense forces", it is not difficult for people to find that the professional soldiers who were praised as "the most proficient at fighting in that era" also had many embarrassing and even spitting performances at the beginning of the war, and some of them could not be believed to be done by the elves known for their obsessive-compulsive disorder.

After the end of the war, Army Group B went up to the memoirs of officers and the memories of ordinary soldiers boasting about three points and seven points, and when it came to the operations in the Ardennes area, the two words that appeared most frequently were "disjointed" and "traffic jams", and those thrilling battles could only be relegated to third place.

In order to ensure the success of the surprise attack, the General Staff Headquarters and Army Group B spared no effort from top to bottom, and all kinds of rehearsals and training almost caused them to vomit blood, but at the final moment of implementation, a series of small and small forks occurred; if the opponent did not react at all, and a certain "annoying fly (the words of the captain of the pro-guard)" was tripped up by the pro-guard unit, the consequences would have been catastrophic, and the severity of the rehearsal would have even shaken the national strategy for the next half century. It can be said that in the most tense 20 hours, the relevant responsible persons were all desperately working with suicide notes and potassium cyanide capsules, and after the battle, there were a dozen confirmed stomach ulcers in the staff officers and colonels alone, and the most serious ones were also diagnosed with liver problems and had to be hospitalized for several months to recuperate.

The trouble encountered by Army Group B is actually a bit laughable, the reason for the disconnection of all kinds of traffic jams and marching columns is that the opponent is too weak, the defenders holding the various transportation hubs have neither combat effectiveness nor the determination and will to fight to the death, and the few people who possess these valuable qualities lack psychological preparation, and are completely caught off guard in the face of the sudden appearance of the enemy army, and are run over by the chariot tracks before they can figure out the situation.

With such a smooth start, the few armored units in the vanguard did not know whether they were surging or taking too many pills (the 1st Panzer Division alone issued 20,000 strong stimulants), and all that was left in their minds was the importance of the task and the urgency of time that had been repeatedly emphasized at the pre-war ideological mobilization meeting, the madness of a group of old drivers, the resistance of the enemy troops, and the acceleration of the subsequent disjointed troops to seize time - the result of the interaction of various expected and unexpected elements was an eight-hour traffic jam.

Here's what happened, the battle group of the 101st Experimental Heavy Armored Battalion and Panzergrenadiers quickly launched a surprise attack on the defenders without artillery and air support after arriving in Bastogne. It would have been unwise to do so without reconnaissance, but the Wehrmacht's intelligence officers embedded in Bastogne continued to send information to the town's defenders in real time, thus eliminating the need for pre-war reconnaissance. Coupled with the fact that the commanders of the battle group were proactive enough (in a sense, they can also be called war maniacs) to take the transport hub as quickly as possible, they decided to give it a go. Launch a surprise assault on enemy forces that are relying on fortifications.

Amazingly, this seemingly brutal attack was a resounding victory. When a platoon of Tiger chariots under the command of Second Lieutenant Bidenfeldt rushed like a whirlwind towards the defenders' positions, Charlemagne's collapsed on the spot. There was only one transport company and a second-line garrison infantry company stationed here, and the two companies together could not make up two hundred men, half of them had no guns, and the rifles they were equipped with were all half-used front-loading flintlock muskets. There is one cannon, but if you count on a 6-pounder bronze cannon and 14 Tiger frontal guns, you won't see much more than the desperate cry of "We failed to penetrate the enemy's armor!" and the 88-gun fire.

Just kidding, when the famous "Panfilov 28 Warriors" were angry at the German armored cluster, they still had 47mm "can openers", anti-tank guns, anti-tank grenades, and anti-tank mines in their hands, and the Germans on the opposite side were all thin-skinned No. 3 and No. 4 tanks, which really made the Germans pay a lot of price until they fell. You have a group of demoralized old soldiers with front-loading smoothbore guns and 6-pounder guns to scare the whole group of cats? and sing "The Onion Song" in unison? Come on, the Charlemagnes are a little crazy sometimes, but they are not stupid, who would want to die in such a seemingly meaningless battle with no chance of winning? Before the 88 guns could speak, the defenders scattered as birds and beasts. Before he could come to his senses, the mayor of Bastogne was already wiping a cold sweat and waving a white handkerchief to surrender, while all the townspeople hung white sheets outside their windows - according to unknown grapevines, this was a sign of deference, as long as you hung up white sheets or white pants, the ghosts would not bother you.

As a result, Bastogne, the key town that determined the victory or defeat of the entire battle, fell into the hands of the defense army with a little bit of comedy. Throughout the process, the secret to the victory of the lead battle group was nothing more than solid intelligence work, speed and surprise - in fact, it was the epitome of the entire Charlemagne campaign that followed. In the ensuing battle, the Panzer and Panzergrenadier units also played a commando role similar to this assault.

According to the schedule, after taking Bastogne, the leading battle group was to immediately hand over the town to the engineers, gendarmes, and railway troops, who would direct the traffic and then continue their advance towards the Maas River.

However, as soon as he contacted the follow-up troops, the old driver, who only cared about the car race, found that he had rushed too much and had completely become a lone army deep behind enemy lines, and the follow-up troops were on the way to catch up. After a few reprimands, Admiral Kleist, the commander of the army group, expressed his satisfaction with their decisive actions and exploits, and ordered them to stay where they were now, and to wait for the follow-up troops to come up before continuing to advance to the next target, Libramont, and then rush all the way to the town of Bouillon on the banks of the Maas River, and cross the river in one go.

The morale of the commended lead battle group was immediately boosted, and they quickly began to clear the scene, remove the obstacles blocking the road, send troops to take control of the facilities, put up notices to reassure the people, and contain the prisoners...... By the time they had done this, two and a half hours had passed, and the follow-up troops, who had been in contact with them 30 kilometers away, had not yet appeared. But the big guy doesn't care about this, after all, it's wartime, not peacetime marching and training, and it's normal for some accident to be delayed. Many soldiers seized the precious time to maintain their weapons and equipment and write battle logs, and officers studied the next march route around the map.

All the officers and soldiers were busy non-stop, and no one could have imagined that there was a group of people fighting to the death for the land under their feet, and they never imagined that in the next few hours, a series of dramas mixed with various tragicomedy elements would be staged around their hundreds of soldiers.