The Western Front
Since the Allies landed in Normandy, the British and American armies (among affiliated Western Allied forces) had both moved swiftly and decisively to take western cities in France, and to move on to liberate Paris. By September 1944, Allied forces had reached the German border, but the subsequent failure of Operation Market Garden and the insuing deadlock handed the initiative to Germany for a brief period. In December, Hitler launched a bold but ultimately unsuccessful offensive which is known as the Battle of the Bulge. In March 1945, the Allies crossed the Rhine in a decisive manner, but the enormous casualties taken by Allied forces in the Ardennes in the previous months and the still significant distance to Berlin dampened Eisenhower's drive to take Berlin before the Soviets.
Read more about this topic: Race To Berlin
Famous quotes containing the words western and/or front:
“All of Western tradition, from the late bloom of the British Empire right through the early doom of Vietnam, dictates that you do something spectacular and irreversible whenever you find yourself in or whenever you impose yourself upon a wholly unfamiliar situation belonging to somebody else. Frequently it’s your soul or your honor or your manhood, or democracy itself, at stake.”
—June Jordan (b. 1939)
“Carry hate
In front of you and harmony behind.
Be deaf to music and to beauty blind.
Win war. Rise bloody, maybe not too late
For having first to civilize a space
Wherein to play your violin with grace.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)