Ardennes 1944

Hitler's Last Gamble

By: Antony Beevor

Narrated by: Sean Barrett

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Ardennes 1994 by Antony Beever, read by Sean Barrett.

On 16 December 1944, Hitler launched his 'last gamble' in the snow-covered forests and gorges of the Ardennes on the Belgian/German border. Although Hitler's generals were doubtful of success, younger officers and NCOs were desperate to believe that their homes and families could be saved from the vengeful Red Army approaching from the east. The Ardennes offensive, with more than a million men involved, became the greatest battle of the war in western Europe.

In January 1945, when the Red Army launched its onslaught towards Berlin, the once-feared German war machine was revealed to be broken beyond repair. The Ardennes was the battle which finally broke the Wehrmacht.

Critic reviews

This is World War II as Tolstoy would have described it - the great and the small

Rightly deserves its place on the shelves of any serious historian of the Second World War. Powerful and authoritative . . . Beevor weaves a masterful narrative based on the viewpoints of a vast range of people. Marshalling a coherent narrative out of an unwieldy sequence of localised attacks, counterattacks, deceptions, and feints demands the attention of a master military historian. In Antony Beevor, the Ardennes offensive has found one

What leaves a lasting impression is the huge power the American army as a whole mustered to smash back the Germans. A superpower was being born

If you're a fan of Beevor's work, find some space on your bookshelf for this one. If you've never read him before, start here and work your way back - it's history nerd heaven!

Unflinching. As Ardennes 1944 makes clear, Hitler misjudged the strength and resilience of the US army. It was his last gamble and it failed

What stands out most . . . is the effects of violent warfare. By the end of the counteroffensive the snowfields were littered with frozen corpses and the wreckage of hundreds of tanks and armoured vehicles

A superb addition to the canon which has taken us from Stalingrad to Normandy in 1944 and the final gruesome battle for Berlin, not forgetting the masterly single-volume history of the entire war. It is written with all of Beevor's customary verve and elegance. His remarkable and trademark ability is to encompass the wide sweep of campaigns yet never forget the piquant details of what happened to the individual . . . He focuses brilliantly on the key moments that turned the battle

As impeccably researched, insightfully observed and superbly written as its bestselling predecessors (Charlotte Heathcote)

Rich in detail and drama. Enthralling

If there's one thing that sets Beevor apart from other historians - beyond his gifts as a storyteller - it's that he is not afraid to look at the most uncomfortable, even frightening subjects, but does so in a way that doesn't threaten the reader. It's like having Virgil there to lead you through the underworld: he doesn't leave you stranded amid the horror but leads you back again, a wiser person for having undergone the journey (Keith Lowe)

Well written and balanced

A well documented and written account of one of the most pivotal battles on the Western Front from WWII.

Beevor does well to capture the planning, thinking and political atmosphere of all parties to the conflict. His anecdotes from personal diaries and press at the time does much to convey a sense of personal perspective from Generals to the soldiers fighting.

Recommend reading for any historian, enthusiast or student of WWII.

Difficult to follow

While I enjoyed Beevor WWII account, I found this audiobook impossible to follow. It was all a succession of grim anecdotes, and I could not make sense of what was happening at the strategic level.