Lookout has rebutted one point, so I'll take the other:
Quote:
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The German Army was only inches away from capturing Antwerp during the Ardennes battle, which could have resulted in another Dunquerque.
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This overstates the Wehrmacht's case: over eighty kilometers' distance and a major river is hardly "inches away from capturing." The Ardennes wasn't Anzio, after all. To get at Antwerp, they first would have to have forced the Meuse river -- and I don't recall mention in Bulge histories of German bridging equipment or tank fording gear. Then, they have to deal with the problem they never really did solve: that of having fuel enough to get that far, let alone enough to operate in Antwerp should they have gotten there. There's a large difference between reaching an objective and managing to hold it. Also, the bad weather of mid December '44 only held out so long, and by late '44, flyable weather meant the Germans had the choice of immobility or destruction.
No, what the Ardennes push actually did for the Germans was to help exhaust their sinews of war just that much more quickly that they ducked having Berlin blasted into trinitite by a paltry three months. Antwerp was never realistically in danger, and I don't think any but the most alarmist of the Allied military thought it was -- and I'm none too sure of them.