   General Fritz Bayerlein paced impatiently. His Panzer Lehr Division had at long last pulled into Magaret, a tiny village five miles west of Bastogne. He had seized the back door to Bastogne; now the moment to dash through that door and capture the vital road center. They were late, to be sure; this was early in the morning of the fourth day of the offensive. But now it seemed that the key to victory was in Bayerlein's hands.
   But doubts nagged at Bayerlein. He could hear the distant rumbling of several tank columns. What was out there in the darkness? Were the Americans preparing a counterattack against his straggling column of tanks? What if one of the American armored divisions had reached the battlefield? He was so far ahead of the other German divisions that he could not count on getting any help if he were attacked.
   At his command, a resident of Magaret was brought before him for questioning. Had he seen any Americans in the last day, Bayerlein demanded to know. The terrified Belgian nodded his head. Just that afternoon, he said, a big American column had passed through Magaret, with 50 tanks and 40 armored cars. It was led by a major general. Bayerlein nodded his head gravely. A major general commanded an armored division. He was up against a powerful foe. He decided to wait, to wait for more of his troops to catch up with him, to wait for the 2nd Panzer Division north of him to make more headway, to wait for for more information.
   What Bayerlein did not know was that the big armored column that the Belgian had seen comprised only 30 tanks and no armored cars; that it was led by a lieutenant colonel, not a major general, that it was only a battalion, not a division, and that it was almost all the armor that the Americans had anywhere near Bastogne. Bastogne was his for the taking -- and Bayerlein lost his nerve.
/Fog of War
   War is fought in an environment of utter chaos. It's difficult to appreciate the wild confusion of the battlefield. Things go wrong. Communications are spotty and unreliable. The communications that a commander receives are often distorted. After all, soldiers in combat tend to become excited. They see things that aren't there. They exaggerate. They misinterpret. The commander must sift through this mess and make decisions.
   Making matters worse is the pace of modern warfare. A column of tanks can cover 10 miles in half an hour. They can slice into your rear areas and shoot up vulnerable supply columns in a matter of hours. They can reverse a battle in a day. Commanders don't have much time to weigh the evidence and deliberate. They have to act quickly.
   For years generals thought of the fog of war as an unavoidable evil, one of the frictions of war with which generals must somehow cope. The collective stroke of genius behind the idea of the blitzkrieg was the realization that fog of war is a double-edged sword. Fog of war blinds the commander -- but it also blinds his opponent. Fog of war is an impediment, but it is also an opportunity. By moving fast and ignoring his flanks, a general can make the fog of war work for him. Once he stops, though, fog of war works against him./