Ardennes 1944 cover art

Ardennes 1944

Hitler's Last Gamble

 Preview
Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Ardennes 1944

By: Antony Beevor
Narrated by: Sean Barrett
Try Standard free

Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $26.99

Buy Now for $26.99

About this listen

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.

 Europe Military War Red Army Western Europe

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)
All stars
Most relevant
Always enjoyed his books as he can bring history alive and make facts and figures interesting even in a audiobook (it can be very hard to follow when u didn't see the maps etc that you would see in the book but managed it again)

Antony at his best

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I love Anthony Beevor but in this book he is quick to defend American atrocities. Let us not have bias in war..... we all know what Americans are capable of.... just look at Vietnam

good book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
like all Antony Beevor books, great structure extremely informative loaded with fact. Magnificent listen and read.

Great listen!!!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A professional narration of an entertaining, well researched and fairly accurate work by the ever dependable Beevor, whose work on the Spanish civil war is a must read.

Excellent.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
narrator was great but I got a little lost without referring to a map. The details were well researched, along with how the battle unfolded strategically

An outstanding history of this stategic battle.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.