Changes

By the Autumn of 1944, it was apparent to the Allied High Command that the Germans had managed to retrieve the situation and would offer stiff resistance to any future offensive. In August 1944, a British assault failed to take the deep water port of Antwerp and had allowed some 80,000 German troops from Scheldt Estuary. This became known as the ‘Great Mistake’ and was perhaps one of the biggest in the entire war <ref> Burgett, p. 37</ref>. The Allied high command was reluctant to attack the Germans from eastern France, as the Nazi government had constructed a massive line of defenses, consisting of fortresses, to protect their western border, this was known as the Siegfried Line. The British and the Americans had to go through the Low Countries to invade Germany and end the war<ref> Ryan, Cornelius, A Bridge Too Far (Wordsworth Editions, London, 1999), p. 78</ref>. The Allies believed that they would need an innovative plan to break the German frontline in the Low Countries and in Alsace-Lorraine. General Eisenhower and other leaders turned their attention to the Low Countries. It offered them ports which could be used to re-supply the Allied divisions, who still were reliant on the Normandy ports for their supplies. The more forward thinking of the allied strategists became concerned about the Rhine<ref> Ryan, p. 46</ref>. This river would form a formidable natural barrier to any Allied advance and but if they liberated the Low Countries could allow the Allies bridges that it would allow them to cross the Rhine and in turn enable them then to cross into Northern Germany and then onto Berlin. The American and the British governments became increasingly eager to end the War in Europe and they wanted to turn their attention to the Pacific War. Then the western allies believed that they were in a race to Berlin with the Soviet Armyand they did not want the Red Army to capture all Germany and to turn it into a client state of Moscow.