Antony Beevor Meet the Author

FTSE 100. We have our special programme on the US presidential

debate at eight o'clock. Between now and then, it is time to meet the

author. Hitler's last gamble and the battles

on the Western Front that decided Antony Beevor's latest

military history takes us to the Ardennes in 1944,

where a bloody campaign reached its climax at Christmastime

and after which, the endgame began. Hitler had failed, but among

the allies who now began to move towards Berlin,

seeds of distrust had been sewn on that battlefield

and promised trouble to come. It was Hitler's last throw

of the dice after the assassination plot against him had

failed in the summer. Was there ever any chance that it

might have succeeded? Because everything had to go right

according to plan and the Germans And frankly, the Germans had

never reacted slowly. The allies always underestimated

the German capacity What was it he was trying to do,

in that push towards the end of 1945, that reached its climax

almost on Christmas Day, what really was the objective

and what hope was he clinging to? His hope was, rather

than being crushed from East and West both from the Red Army

in the east and the allies in the West, that by this throw

of the dice, this desperate throw of the dice, he could break

through the Ardennes, swing north, cut off the British

and the Canadians He thought this might even provoke

a sort of Dunkirk-style evacuation and even knock one

of the allies out of the war. It was madness and the German

generals were appalled, I suppose an outsider looking back

at the period might say, well, D-Day had happened in June 1944,

everything was going well, the allies were on their way

to Berlin, surely it was And of course, the opposite was true

because the horror of this campaign, which emerges from the diaries

and the accounts that you quote, in extent,

it was really terrible? In fact, many people at the time,

especially on the German side, compared it to Stalingrad

because of the weather conditions, but also

because of the savagery Of course, it wasn't in a city,

but the mistake of the allies really, was to believe that bomb

plot in July meant that the German In fact, the opposite had happened,

it meant that the Nazis had total control and there

was no chance of surrender Well, it's such an interesting

point this isn't it, the way the plot unfolded

and of course Hitler and his circle, to those who had been involved

was so vicious in July 1944. And then the apparatus of the regime

took a grip in a way Himmler was given total control over

the replacement army He was even given field

commands and so forth. And the SS, of course,

was made even more of a praetorian guard, so anybody in the army

who raised any objection was liable And the strange thing about this

period is that on the other side, on the Allied side, our own side,

there was terrible trouble, particularly, and let's go straight

to the heart of it, Unfortunately, Montgomery,

who handled the battle rather well, managed to exasperate

the Americans to a degree one Montgomery was given command

over the northern sector and the trouble was,

he almost insulted Bradley was feeling terribly hurt

and all the rest of it. Then he came to this crucial press

conference in January, when Montgomery basically claimed

credit for winning the whole battle. The Americans were so furious,

so anti-British as a result. And right to the end of his life,

Eisenhower had still never When it was the conference on Malta,

just before Yalta, the Americans were refusing to listen

to the British at all, And in fact, the British lost

all influence in Allied councils, not just at the end of the war,

but even after them. In this campaign we see distilled,

a lot of the tension We see laid bare, you know,

the horror of a system in Germany where, what you might call

the regular army, was aware it was over,

they were facing disaster. Yet, a maniacal man

in the middle of it, convinced he might still win,

having to be driven through Berlin in the dark so that he couldn't see

the destruction of the city, He could indeed because of total

fear, total power in The trouble was, nobody

within the army could actually Once he'd made a decision,

then that was the end of it. The trouble was, as I think another

book has shown, Hitler was in the grip of drug addiction

at this particular stage. Soon it was going to be the problem

of basically coming off drugs and not being able to make clear

decisions at that particular point. But here, he was totally out

of reality in every way. It's impossible to talk

about the strategic shape of this period of the war and the decisions

made by generals, without lacing that story with the horrendous

experience of men on both sides. It certainly is, and also the poor

Belgian civilians who were caught up Everybody was suffering

in that particular way, partly because of the weather

conditions, but also because of the nature

of the fighting, this pitiless warfare that was started of course

by Hitler's demanded that all human instinct should be set

aside, total brutality. He wanted the shock and awe

of terror and that meant shooting prisoners and shooting

Belgian villagers as well. Which the SS started and then

of course the Americans did not hang You've written so much about this

conflict, the end in Berlin, going back to Stalingrad,

D-Day of course, the I think there's always more

to say, because there's I don't think we are necessarily

going to change the course of the history of the Second World

War, but I think one can always Purely by really delving deeper

and deeper in those archives. I suppose talking about the human

experience, which you feel is so important in giving the story

texture, there are always new cachets of letters, diaries

and reminiscences coming to light? In some ways, it's more reliable,

I think, than interviewing people What one wants to have are those

contemporary accounts. And I'm amazed at how many diaries

were kept, often illegally by both But the need to testify,

particularly, was the case with many civilians who really did know

they were witnesses to something important and they

kept these accounts. This is where one can really

recreate the reality of what it was like for a generation

for whom the Second World War now You realise, if you go to Belgium,

parts of the Netherlands, that part of France where they all

meet essentially on the German border in the forests

of the Ardennes. When you go there and you remember

the diaries you've read and the accounts that you've gone

through of what happened there, you must feel that it's a ghostly

place with some memories You only need to go into the forest

to get some of the atmosphere Some of the barns, you'll still see

these littered tanks, The presence of the war

is still there, along with obviously the memory of the old people,

and that's been passed