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The Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine was a phase in the Western European Campaign of World War II. This phase spans from the end of the Battle of Normandy, or Operation Overlord, (25 August 1944) incorporating the German winter counter-offensive through the Ardennes (commonly known as the Battle of the Bulge) and Operation Nordwind (in Alsace and Lorraine) up to the Allies preparing to cross the Rhine in the early months of 1945. This roughly corresponds with the official United States military European Theater of Operations Rhineland and Ardennes-Alsace Campaigns. ==Background== German forces had been routed during the Allied break-out from Normandy. The Allies advanced rapidly against an enemy that put up little resistance. But after the liberation of Paris in late August 1944, the Allies paused to re-group and organise before continuing their advance from Paris to the Rhine. The pause allowed the Germans to solidify their lines — something they had been unable to do west of Paris. By the middle of September 1944, the three Western Allied Army groups, the British 21st Army Group (Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery) in the north, the United States US 12th Army Group (General Omar Bradley) in the center, and the Franco-American Southern Group of Armies (Lieutenant General Jacob L. Devers) in the south, formed a broad front under the Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower and his headquarters SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force). While Generals Montgomery and Bradley each favored relatively direct thrusts into Germany (with Montgomery and Bradley each offering to be the spearhead of such an assault), Eisenhower disagreed. Instead, he chose a "broad-front" strategy, which allowed the Allies to gain ground from the beaten Germans in all sectors, allowed the advancing Allied forces to support each other, and minimized the difficulty of supplying the most advanced forces. The rapid advance through France had caused 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, which fell under the command, along with all ''Wehrmacht'' forces in the west, of Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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