Unknown Battle, The - Metz, 1944

The battle of Metz in the autumn of 1944 was the last time in the history of modern warfare when supposedly outdated fortresses, built nearly a half century earlier, were able to play a decisive role. Impervious to heavy artillery and air bombardment, the enable a weak but die-hard German force to resist, and, for a time, stop powerful American forces who had sliced across France.

It was also a battle of "might-have-beens." Had George Patton, the general responsible, had been given enough fuel and the go-ahead, the XX US Corps could have pushed the German army back across the Moselle and into the unfinished West Wall defenses. Thus, the Battle of the Bulge might never have taken place and, in theory, the war greatly shortened. As it was, Montgomery's abortive operation to take the Rhine bridges received priority, and Patton was condemned to sit on the sidelines waging a kind of war for which he had neither the talent nor the inclination: many American lives were wasted in futile fixed-bayonet assaults on forts.

Based on first-hand accounts from both sides, and little-known evidence, this book is the story of great courage leavened with crass stupidity, and lifts for the first time what night appear to be a conspiracy of silence about one of the more crucial campaigns in the closing months of World War II.