Those Who Hold Bastogne: The True Story of the Soldiers and Civilians Who Fought in the Biggest Battle of the Bulge - Hardcover

"A fast-paced story. . . . Schrijvers does an admirable job of weaving personal accounts into the larger picture of Bastogne's horrors."-Wall Street Journal "Well researched and written at a good pace, this is an excellent account of an epic and brutal struggle."-David Flintham, Military History "Individual stories of valour abound. . . . A monument to the barbarism of war."-Nathan M. Greenfield, TLS "An excellent account of the battle for Bastogne, both well-researched and well-written."-Antony Beevor "Using fresh sources and deft writing, Peter Schrijvers develops a panoramic and compelling boots-on-the-ground illumination of one of the Bulge's most epic battles."-Patrick K. O'Donnell, author of Dog Company: The Boys of Pointe du Hoc - Rangers Who Accomplished D-Day's Toughest Mission and Led the Way Across Europe "Bastogne was a month-long battle of attrition, a desperate grapple between Germans and Americans. Yet until now its tale has never been told separately. Schrijvers combines clear operational narrative with compelling vignettes from three perspectives: those who fought to hold Bastogne, those who sought to capture it, and those caught in the crossfire. Soldiers or civilians, their stories establish war's human dimension - and its inhuman face."-Dennis Showalter, author of Hitler's Panzers. The Lightning Attacks that Revolutionized Warfare "It provides a more vivid and nuanced picture of the crucial fighting for control of Bastogne than any other book."-James J. Weingartner, author of Crossroads of Death: The Story of the Malmedy Massacre and Trial "Peter Schrijvers writes with the confidence and authority of someone who has been immersed in the subject for many years. His effective use of vivid civilian testimony means one sees the Battle of the Bulge through the eyes of the Belgians caught up in it, as well as of the American and German troops."-Jonathan Fryer, writer and broadcaster

A new telling of the brutal siege of Bastogne, where vastly outnumbered American forces held off a savage German onslaught and sealed the fate of the Third Reich Hitler's last gamble, the Battle of the Bulge, was intended to push the Allied invaders of Normandy all the way back to the beaches. The plan nearly succeeded, and almost certainly would have, were it not for one small Belgian town and its tenacious American defenders who held back a tenfold larger German force while awaiting the arrival of General George Patton's mighty Third Army. In this dramatic account of the 1944-45 winter of war in Bastogne, historian Peter Schrijvers offers the first full story of the German assault on the strategically located town. From the December stampede of American and Panzer divisions racing to reach Bastogne first, through the bloody eight-day siege from land and air, and through three more weeks of unrelenting fighting even after the siege was broken, events at Bastogne hastened the long-awaited end of WWII. Schrijvers draws on diaries, memoirs, and other fresh sources to illuminate the experiences not only of Bastogne's 3,000 citizens and their American defenders, but also of German soldiers and commanders desperate for victory. The costs of war are here made real, uncovered in the stories of those who perished and those who emerged from battle to find the world forever changed.