Drive To The Siegfried Line - Background

Background

After the liberation of Paris by the Free French Army in late August 1944, the Western Allies paused to re-group and organise before continuing their advance from Paris to the Rhine. The pause by the Allies allowed the Germans to solidify their lines — something they had been unable to do west of Paris after their forces had been decimated during the Allied break out from the Normandy lodgement. This had allowed the Allies to advance rapidly against an enemy that was able to put up little resistance. Many towns and villages were liberated with little resistance.

By the middle of September 1944 the three Western Allies Army groups, the British 21st Army Group (Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery) in the north, the United States U.S. 12th Army Group (General Omar Bradley) and to the south the Franco-American Southern Group of Armies (Lieutenant General Jacob L. Devers) that had liberated southern France after landing on the French Mediterranean coast — formed a broad front under the Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower and his headquarters SHAEF.

While Generals Montgomery, Bradley and Patton all favored relatively direct thrusts into Germany (with Montgomery and Bradley each offering to be the spearhead of such an assault), Eisenhower disagreed. Instead, he favored a "broad-front" strategy which would allow the Allies to regroup and shift their forces as needed, and to protect vital supply operations in the rear.

The rapid advance through France had caused a considerable logistical strain, made worse by the lack of any major port other than the relatively distant Cherbourg in western France. Although Antwerp was seen as the key to solving the Allied logistics problems, its port was not open to Allied shipping until the Scheldt estuary was clear of German forces. As the campaign progressed, all the belligerents, Allied as well as German, felt the effects of the lack of suitable replacements for front-line troops.

There were two major defensive obstacles to the Allies. The first was the natural barriers made by the rivers of Eastern France. The second was the Siegfried Line itself, which fell under the command, along with all Wehrmacht forces in the west, of Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt.