Part 4: The November Offensive
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Chapter 20: Planning the November Offensive
During October and early November 1944, the German Army had temporarily stopped the Allied offensive in northwestern Europe. In the sector of the British 21st Army Group, Montgomery’s forces had secured the Schelde Estuary by 3 November, and minesweepers had cleared a path to Antwerp by the 8th. However, several more weeks would be needed to clear all of the estuary and repair the harbor before Antwerp could become a working port. Meanwhile, Allied tactical, logistical, and manpower problems had been complicated by the autumn storms and early cold weather, making it impossible for the right of the 21st Army Group or the left of Bradley’s 12th Army Group to make any significant progress toward the Ruhr, Germany’s industrial heartland (Map 25). The principal accomplishment of the U.S. First Army, on Bradley’s left, had been the costly and time-consuming seizure of Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle). There the First Army had penetrated over ten miles into Germany, but was still far short of the Ruhr. About 23 October the U.S. Ninth Army, after a brief stint as the 12th Army Group’s center command, moved up to the left of Bradley’s sector to provide more direct support of Montgomery’s 21st Army Group. This redeployment left the First Army as Bradley’s center command, with Patton’s Third Army still on his right, or southern, wing.
Beset by logistical difficulties in October, the Third Army had failed to open the Metz approaches to the Saar basin which, straddling the border between France and Germany, was second only to the Ruhr as a center of German war-making capabilities. The German defense of the Aachen and Metz areas underscored the continuing ability of the Wehrmacht to frustrate any narrow “strategic” ground advance into Germany of the type advocated by Montgomery. As a result, Eisenhower had become convinced late in October that an all-out offensive to defeat Germany by the end of 1944 was impossible.1 All that could be undertaken was a limited offensive program for November and probably for December as well.
Eisenhower saw nothing in the sector of the 6th Army Group that might change his views. Although Devers’ armies had an independent supply line from the Mediterranean,
Map 25: The Western Front, 8 November 1944
the 6th Army Group still needed several weeks to become logistically ready for a renewed major offensive effort. Moreover, the results of 6th Army Group operations during October led Eisenhower to doubt that Devers’ command could make any major contributions to the Allied advance in November. On the southern army group’s northern wing, the Seventh Army’s XV Corps had done little after clearing the Parroy forest, and Leclerc’s seizure of the Baccarat area at the end of the month represented only a minor action across the much larger Allied front. At the 6th Army Group’s center, the picture was even less encouraging. During Operation DOGFACE the VI Corps had pushed some ten miles through the Vosges across a fifteen-mile-wide front, but the pace had been slow and costly. By November the corps’ three veteran divisions were again at the point of complete exhaustion; a successful November offensive would depend greatly on the capabilities of the fresh but untried 100th and 103rd Infantry Divisions and the equally inexperienced 14th Armored Division, all of which were scheduled to enter the front line as soon as possible.2
To the south of Devers’ American forces, the First French Army had made promising gains during October and November, but had been decisively stopped by stiffening German resistance in the southern section of the High Vosges. General de Lattre, the French commander, was pleased that attacks by the French II Corps had compelled the Germans to commit strong forces in the mountains, but he had no intention of ordering more French troops into the Vosges where the terrain so heavily favored the defenders. Instead, he continued to prepare his I Corps, which had been nearly inactive during October, for a mid-November attempt to pierce the German defenses in the Belfort Gap area and then advance to the Rhine.
General Planning
From 16 to 18 October, Eisenhower held a series of conferences with his senior commanders concerning the course of operations in November.3 All of the meetings reflected Eisenhower’s continued concern with logistical problems. Conferring with Devers and Bradley at the 6th Army Group headquarters on 16 October, Eisenhower asked if the army group’s line of communication from the Mediterranean could be used to increase the flow of supplies to the Third Army. At the time, Devers estimated that he could probably start passing 1,000 tons of supplies per day to Patton’s
forces after 15 November, but would be unable to provide any substantial assistance earlier. In the Supreme Commander’s mind, this response only emphasized the importance of opening Antwerp for the northern Allied armies. The task would even have to take precedence over any renewed attack by Montgomery and Bradley against the Ruhr, and underlined Allied inability to launch a decisive offensive against Germany until the following year.
The conferences culminated on 18 October at Brussels, Belgium, where Eisenhower, Montgomery, and Bradley worked out plans concerning primarily the November operations of the 21st and 12th Army Groups. This meeting, in turn, led to the promulgation on 28 October of a new Eisenhower directive, Supreme Commander Allied Forces No. 114 (SCAF-114), for operations in November and, by inference, December as well.4 SCAF-114 demonstrated that SHAEF’s operational concepts had changed little since September. The document again placed the main Allied offensive effort in the sector held by Montgomery’s 21st Army Group and in the part of the 12th Army Group’s zone lying north of the Ardennes, an area roughly between Arnhem and Aachen. While securing the seaward approaches to Antwerp had priority, the 21st Army Group was to push its right south and southeast from the vicinity of Nijmegen to clear its sector west of the Rhine, simultaneously seeking bridgeheads across the river. Meanwhile, forces of Bradley’s 12th Army Group that were north of the Ardennes were also to move up to the Rhine, swinging their left northward in conjunction with the 21st Army Group’s drive south and at the same time trying for bridgeheads over the Rhine south of Cologne.
In the center—that portion of the First Army’s zone lying south of the Ardennes plus all of the Third Army’s sector—12th Army Group forces were to seize the Saar basin, advance generally northeast to the Rhine, and secure bridgeheads over the river opposite the Frankfurt area. Subsidiary to the main effort north of the Ardennes, these operations were to be timed to support the northern offensives.
Eisenhower’s SCAF-114 called for only limited offensive actions in the Ardennes and Vosges areas. The immediate task of the 6th Army Group, Eisenhower informed Devers, was to protect the right flank of the 12th Army Group, primarily by securing the Lunéville area. But since the Lunéville “area” had certainly been secure since the end of the Parroy forest battle on 10 October, well over two weeks before SCAF-114 appeared, the mission seems a bit superfluous. However, SCAF-114 also directed Devers to clear the Germans from the 6th Army Group’s sector west of the Rhine and ultimately seize crossings over the river in the vicinity of Karlsruhe and Mannheim, some forty and seventy-five miles north of
Strasbourg, respectively.
The directive again reflected a compromise between a rigid single-thrust strategy and a broad front operational concept. Moreover, it outlined a program that probably went beyond what Eisenhower actually had in mind for the near future. The most Eisenhower evidently expected of operations in November, if not December as well, was to clear all German forces from the area west of the Rhine River, from Nijmegen in the north to the Swiss border in the south. Although the directive included provisions for the opportunistic seizure of bridgeheads over the Rhine by all three army groups, it also specified that movement of the Allied forces in strength across the river would have to wait for considerable improvement in the logistical situation as well as for the arrival of fresh Allied divisions. Eisenhower was apparently now reconciled to the probability that major advances beyond the Rhine, including the seizure of the Ruhr, would be delayed until 1945.
From Devers’ point of view, the Karlsruhe and Mannheim areas could best be considered long-term objectives, since even their approaches were currently well outside his army group’s operational zone. The 6th Army Group’s own river-crossing plans thus focused on the Rastatt area, about twenty-eight miles north of Strasbourg. South of Rastatt, the densely wooded mountains of the Black Forest dominated the eastern edges of the Rhine valley, greatly reducing the attractiveness of any bridgeheads over the upper Rhine. The Rastatt area thus represented the most southerly crossing point where the 6th Army Group might expect to secure good avenues of approach leading east and northeast deep into Germany or, alternatively, north up the Rhine valley to Karlsruhe and Mannheim.
SCAF-114 set no firm timetable for the November offensive, but the army group and army commanders involved soon learned that Eisenhower expected the left of Bradley’s 12th Army Group to lead off the attack against the Ruhr sometime between 1 and 5 November, with the right of the 21st Army Group following on about 10 November. The Third Army, on the right, or southern, wing of the 12th Army Group, was to begin its attack against the Saar as soon as its logistical situation permitted, but no later than five days after the left of the 12th Army Group began the offensive. Thus the latest target date for the start of Patton’s Third Army offensive would also be 10 November, and it could well be several days sooner if Bradley’s northern forces jumped off early.
Not surprisingly, given Eisenhower’s apparent indifference to the potential of the 6th Army Group, neither SCAF-114 nor an amendment on 2 November, SCAF-118, specified a date for launching Devers’ supporting offensive in November. However, after consulting with Bradley, Patton, Patch, and de Lattre, Devers set 15 November as his own target date.
Several considerations led Devers to select 15 November.5 First, his G-4 set the 15th as the earliest date on which the army group’s logistical
system could support a sustained offensive to carry the Seventh Army and the First French Army to the Rhine. In addition, Devers hoped that the Seventh Army, especially its VI Corps, could secure a suitable line of departure for the main offensive by 5 November, thereby affording the army about ten days to rest some of its worn divisions and to introduce the fresh 100th and 103rd Divisions into the line. Another consideration stemmed from a study by the 6th Army Group staff of German reactions to major Allied attacks, which concluded that the Germans usually started moving their general reserves either on the evening of the second day or morning of the third day of a strong Allied offensive. To take advantage of this pattern, it seemed logical to stagger the starting dates of the November offensives of the 6th and 12th Army Groups. Thus, if the 12th Army Group’s Third Army attacked on 10 November, the 6th Army Group’s Seventh Army should strike no earlier than three days (13 November) and no later than five days (15 November) after the Third Army moved.6 If the attacks could be echeloned in this manner, the Germans would probably be in the process of moving reserves to the sector under attack by the Third Army, and the Seventh Army offensive would force them to reconsider their deployments, thereby causing further delays.
Accordingly, Devers planned to have the offensives of both his Seventh and First French Armies begin on or about 15 November in a series of attacks. On the Seventh Army’s left, XV Corps was to launch its offensive on D-day, presumably 15 November, while on the right the VI Corps would strike on D plus 2. The XV Corps was first to head northeast for Sarrebourg, along Route N-4 about thirty miles north of St. Die. Then Haislip’s right wing would swing eastward to force the Vosges Mountains via the Saverne Gap, the narrow waist of the Vosges nearly fifteen miles east of Sarrebourg and at the western edge of the Alsatian plains. Subsequently, the XV Corps would continue northeastward astride the Low Vosges in a corridor some twenty miles wide, with the Third Army’s XII Corps on the left and the Seventh Army’s VI Corps on the right.
The VI Corps, beginning its attack on the 17th, was to advance northeastward with its main effort along the axes of Routes N-420 and N-392 through the Saales and Hantz passes, northeast of St. Die. Breaking out onto the Alsatian plains, General Brooks’ corps was then to seize Strasbourg and secure the west bank of the Rhine north and south of the city. Initially, Patch’s Seventh Army planners estimated that the VI Corps attack would constitute the army’s main effort during the November offensive, with the XV Corps attack drawing off the German reserves. But as D-day approached, the army staff adopted a more flexible attitude about the relative weight of the two attacks.
South of the VI Corps, the French II Corps was to mount another three-day limited objective attack in the Vosges Mountains between 10 and 15 November, both to support the VI Corps’ offensive and to divert German attention from the Belfort Gap. There, de Lattre’s I Corps was to launch the main effort of the First French Army’s November offensive on or about the 15th and attempt to breach the gap, not north of Belfort as long envisioned, but south of the city along the Swiss border.
The First French Army
By the end of the first week of November, the First French Army’s logistical situation had improved considerably. Nevertheless, General de Lattre realized that it would be difficult for his forces to sustain an all-out offensive against determined German resistance for more than ten days or perhaps two weeks at most. His best hope was that the German defenses in the Belfort Gap would collapse quickly under the weight of a strong, sudden onslaught before any major logistical problems arose.
He also faced severe manpower constraints.7 Well before the end of October de Lattre’s command had begun to run out of trained replacements from its diminishing resources in Africa. Moreover, de Lattre wanted to replace at least 15,200 black troops from tropical and subtropical Africa—most of them in the 1st Infantry and 9th Colonial Divisions—before winter weather arrived. As planned before ANVIL was launched, the First French Army had begun to tap the manpower resources of metropolitan France soon after the Riviera landings; by early October some 52,000 troops from various FFI organizations had joined de Lattre’s regulars, and the number rose to over 60,000 by the end of the month.8 Meanwhile, a concurrent program of individual recruitment and training had attained some success in filling holes in the ranks of de Lattre’s regular formations.
The integration of the European soldiers into what was in reality a colonial army proved difficult, and the task was further complicated by the political differences between the often conservative North African French Army cadre, many of whom had been supporters of the Vichy French regime, and the more leftist FFI leaders, especially those who were members of the French Communist Party. Experimenting, de Lattre had first attached battalion-sized FFI units to existing organizations, a procedure that worked fairly well for commando-type units where the light infantry experience of the FFI found a compatible home. The same process also achieved some success within the armored divisions, where the FFI battalions were often welcome additions to the infantry-short combat commands. In the French infantry divisions, however, the FFI battalions, normally attached as fourth battalions to existing
French North African Soldiers
regiments, were often misused and neglected, while at the same time creating a drain on the supplies and equipment of the parent unit.
In the case of the black African troops, de Lattre found that the best solution was to replace them company by company or battalion by battalion with Caucasian forces. In this manner some 6,000 FFI troops replaced an equivalent number of black soldiers in the French 1st Infantry Division’s line battalions as well as in some artillery and service organizations, with the indigenous French troops often taking over the arms and equipment, including overcoats and helmets, of the departing Africans. Although it depended more on individual recruitment, the 9th Colonial Infantry Division absorbed three FFI infantry battalions and two FFI infantry companies during the process of replacing its 9,200 Senegalese troops.9 Later, due to the difficulties of securing sufficient replacements from North Africa to keep all Algerian and Moroccan regiments up to strength, de Lattre replaced one regiment each of the 3rd Algerian, the 2nd Moroccan, and the 4th Moroccan Mountain Divisions with FFI units.
The amalgamation of FFI units into the regular formations as well as the rapid influx of hastily trained individual
replacements created serious problems. Many of the younger men recruited in metropolitan France had no military experience at all, not even with the FFI; and those recruits with prior experience were unfamiliar with the American equipment and organization used by de Lattre’s forces. Complicating matters further was de Lattre’s practice of maintaining numerous FFI-based battalions and regiments in addition to organizations that the Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS) had approved for the French rearmament program.10 Since the CCS would not, and indeed could not, provide arms and other equipment for such units, de Lattre had to juggle First French Army stocks, seek surplus American and British equipment, and use a variety of salvaged and captured matériel to keep the extra FFI units minimally equipped. The effort placed an undue strain on the First French Army’s already weak logistical machinery, while at the same time adding to the stress on American supply agencies.11
Whatever de Lattre’s logistical and manpower problems, far greater threats to the success of the Belfort Gap operation lay in proposals to strip the First French Army of some of its strongest units on the very eve of the November offensive.12 The first of these threats involved the 190-mile front along the Franco-Italian border from Switzerland south to the Mediterranean. As of mid-October the French held about two-thirds of the sector with the 4th Moroccan Mountain Division (less one regimental combat team) and numerous FFI units that were in the process of being formed into a provisional Alpine division. The American 1st Airborne Task Force, including the Canadian-American 1st Special Service Force, held the southern third of the front. General Devers had been seeking ways to release these specialized assault troops from their essentially static defensive role, and in mid-October he alerted General de Lattre to be prepared to have First French Army units take over the southern third by 11 November, only days before the Belfort Gap offensive was to begin.
De Lattre predictably objected to the extension of his responsibilities in the far south. The task would probably have forced him to return the 4th Moroccan Mountain Division’s third regiment to the Franco-Italian front, reducing his strength for the Belfort Gap offensive. As a counter, he thus suggested that a substantial number of his black African troops, those currently being replaced in the 1st Infantry and 9th Colonial Divisions,
be reorganized and reequipped for the task; the climate in the southern third of the area was comparatively mild and would impose no undue hardship on these forces. Devers, however, believing he could not provide the necessary supplies and equipment for what would be new French units, rejected the idea and recommended that de Lattre send the 9th Zouaves, an independent regiment, to relieve the American forces in the south. But the French commander had already earmarked the Zouaves for a role in the November offensive and asked that the relief at least be delayed until the end of the month. Tentatively Devers agreed, but in the meantime he made arrangements for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which was then redeploying south from the Vosges, and elements of the newly arrived 14th Armored Division to take over the border positions.
Of potentially greater impact on de Lattre’s forthcoming offensive were plans to divert two of the strongest French divisions from the Belfort Gap front. Since early September General de Gaulle had been pressing Eisenhower to authorize an operation to open the Gironde Estuary, which was the seaward approach to the port of Bordeaux in western France. With all other Allied-controlled French ports devoted almost exclusively to military requirements, there was a pressing need for a large port that could handle civilian relief supplies as well as equipment and commerce necessary to begin restoring the French economy. The need was especially acute in the areas of western and southwestern France, which were still dependent on long overland routes for supplies. Moreover, the fact that isolated German forces in the Gironde Estuary were blocking access to France’s second largest port rankled French leaders, especially since the Germans had left most of Bordeaux’s facilities intact when they evacuated the port on 28 August. Finally, there was the matter of internal security. Communist agitation in southwestern France had already been highlighted by clashes between the various resistance factions, and many conservative Frenchmen like de Gaulle feared some kind of leftist revolution led by the strong Communist-dominated FFI groups. The fact that the Communists had been among the first to take up arms against the German occupiers and had borne the brunt of the early resistance struggle only increased their standing in many French eyes, which made both the conservative de Gaulle and veteran French politicians extremely nervous. In addition, there was always the possibility that the Germans might mount destructive raids out of their defensive enclaves or even attempt to reach the relative safety of Spain. Had they timed such efforts with German operations in the northeast, the weakly armed FFI, backed only by a few regular Allied units, would have had difficulty stopping them.
At first Eisenhower was firmly opposed to such diversions, and on 9 September he informed the CCS and Devers that SHAEF would commit no forces to operations in southwestern France until German pockets at Brest and at some of the lesser Brittany ports had been cleared. But de Gaulle and the French Department of National
Defense insisted that the Bordeaux area had to be liberated. Feeling that his own prestige was at stake, de Gaulle proposed that the French 1st Armored Division be pulled from the line to help FFI units clear out not only the Gironde pockets, but also the Germans still occupying the smaller port of La Rochelle, about thirty-five miles to the north. He also suggested that the French 1st Infantry Division be redeployed to Paris to promote internal security and provide a training base for the new French divisions. Again Eisenhower applied the brakes. No diversions from the First French Army, he informed de Gaulle on 25 September, could be countenanced until the arrival of more American divisions in France.
Nevertheless, four days later the Supreme Commander began to give way to political considerations. Informing the CCS that internal security in southwestern France was becoming a major problem, he authorized AFHQ to send appropriate small units of the French rearmament program still in North Africa or on Corsica to southwest France to help restore order. He also told the CCS that he intended to redeploy additional forces there from the First French Army when the military situation made such a withdrawal possible. However, perhaps influenced by the cost and destructiveness of Allied operations to seize Brest, Eisenhower did not at this time propose any operations to reduce the Gironde pockets.13
In early October General de Gaulle, evidently encouraged by Eisenhower’s statement, alerted de Lattre that his 1st Armored Division would be employed for operations against the Gironde Estuary and added that the French 1st Infantry Division would also be withdrawn for similar endeavors.14 Meanwhile, SHAEF and the French Department of National Defense undertook preliminary planning for an effort to clear the Gironde Estuary, dubbed Operation INDEPENDENCE.15 Much initial groundwork apparently took place with little or no participation of Generals Devers and de Lattre or their staffs, and it was not until 2 November that SHAEF directive SCAF-119 made the 6th Army Group responsible for the final planning and execution of INDEPENDENCE.
Devers and de Lattre were obviously upset over the prospect of losing so substantial a force, but neither appeared to have much influence over SHAEF or the French Department of National Defense regarding this issue. At the direction of SHAEF, Devers formally outlined the two-division troop requirement of Operation INDEPENDENCE for de Lattre on 31 October, and also indicated that the Gironde Estuary operation would be expanded to include the seizure of La Rochelle plus another strong German pocket at St. Nazaire, ninety miles farther north. Other actions contemplated during INDEPENDENCE included sealing off the Franco-Spanish border and restoring order throughout
southwestern France, tasks that might divert even more strength from the First French Army.
After receiving SCAF-119, Devers limited the scope of the planned operation to the Gironde Estuary and, on 6 November, provided de Lattre with a final troop list for INDEPENDENCE. The operation was to take a 60,000-man bite out of the First French Army, including 45,000 combat troops. The French 1st Armored Division headed the troop list, followed by the 1st Infantry Division, the 9th Zouaves, an armored reconnaissance squadron, two tank destroyer battalions, and a three-battalion field artillery group.16 The 1st Armored Division was to depart the Belfort front on 11 November, just days before de Lattre’s offensive was scheduled to begin; the French 1st Infantry Division was to follow on the 27th. Operations against the Gironde Estuary pockets were to begin about 10 December and be completed by 1 January 1945.
Conferring with Devers on 7 November, de Lattre again registered his vehement objections to the diversion. The French commander argued that if INDEPENDENCE were to be a 6th Army Group operation, then the Seventh Army should also contribute troops to the endeavor, suggesting that the XV Corps’ French 2nd Armored Division be substituted for his own 1st Armored Division. In any case, de Lattre insisted, he could not let the armored division go until he had decisively broken through the Belfort Gap defenses, and he did not expect such an event before the 20th.
Devers, knowing the key role that Haislip had planned for Leclerc’s 2nd Armored Division in the XV Corps’ November offensive, could not agree to the switch. However, sympathetic with de Lattre’s desire to keep the First French Army intact and equally eager to assure the success of the Belfort Gap operation, he made some concessions. Initially, he moved the departure date of the French 1st Armored Division back to 16 November and that of the French 1st Infantry Division to 28–30 November; he also deleted the 9th Zouaves, the reconnaissance squadron, and some service units from the INDEPENDENCE troop list. Subsequently, de Lattre’s supply officers “recomputed” the logistics of the armored division’s move and decided that its main body would not have to start westward until 21 November. Devers quickly approved this further delay in the armored unit’s departure, but held the infantry division’s redeployment to the end of November. Thus de Lattre could count on these two units for only a limited time, and on 13 November, two days before the Belfort Gap offensive was to begin, the French armored division even sent an advance party to Bordeaux to assist in the projected move.17
German Prospects
By the end of the first week in November, the recent Allied attacks had
again stretched the Nineteenth Army to the breaking point. Only the difficult terrain had slowed the Allied advance in the Vosges and staved off a complete collapse.18 But General Wiese still had no reserves worthy of the name to contain or counterattack even a minor Allied penetration. The Weststellung defenses throughout the Nineteenth Army’s sector were in no way capable of withstanding a concerted Allied attack, and the army could not hold the Vosges Foothill Position much longer with the declining forces Wiese had at his disposal. Finally, although the terrain was the greatest asset of the German defenders in the Vosges, the generally wooded and mountainous 120-mile front of the Nineteenth Army made it difficult for Wiese to shift his forces back and forth and to supply and support his thinly spread army.
Wiese also knew that his command, like that of General Devers, held a relatively low position in the hierarchy of the western front. At OB West von Rundstedt’s plans and decisions were strongly influenced by his preparations for the Ardennes counteroffensive, then scheduled for late November, and he had already stripped several major armored organizations from Army Group G for this purpose. His other major priority was countering the expected drive of the northern Allied army groups against the Ruhr. Accordingly, OB West gave Army Group B, which was responsible for holding the Ruhr, defensive priority over Balck’s Army Group G. Balck, in turn, was forced to give priority to his First Army, which was defending the Metz area and the Saar against Patton’s divisions. With Patton obviously poised to strike, Balck had already decided to send any army group reserves to his northern army. The Nineteenth Army would thus have to fight its battles with what was left over after all other German requirements on the western front had been met.
Balck and Wiese believed that the 6th Army Group’s main effort during November would be a Seventh Army attack along the general axis of Baccarat, Sarrebourg, and Saverne. Baccarat lay in the Nineteenth Army’s area of responsibility, and Sarrebourg and Saverne in that of the First Army. The most immediate danger, the two German commanders estimated, was that Patch’s command would open a gap between the First and Nineteenth Armies, thereby unhinging the defenses of the Saar basin and the Palatinate. Both commanders also agreed that the First French Army would launch a secondary offensive in the Belfort Gap sector during November, but differed over where de Lattre’s blow would fall. Balck thought that French operations in the gap area would constitute only a holding action to cover the main effort across the Vosges well north of Belfort; Wiese, on the other hand, believed that the French main effort would be centered against the Belfort Gap itself.
The Nineteenth Army’s front now coincided with that of the 6th Army Group, for during the second week of November Balck had extended Wiese’s sector northward to the
Rhine–Marne Canal, which also marked the boundary between the Allied 6th and 12th Army Groups.19 Wiese’s northern army flank was anchored on the canal near Lagarde, off the eastern corner of the Parroy forest. General Thumm’s LXIV Corps held the army’s right wing from the canal southeast some thirty-five miles to Saulcy-sur-Meurthe, three miles south of St. Die. The LXIV Corps thus faced all of the Seventh Army’s XV Corps as well as most of the VI Corps.
On 7 November the LXIV Corps had on line, from north to south, the two-regiment 553rd Volksgrenadier Division, the 951st Grenadiers of the 361st Volksgrenadier Division (at Raon-l’Etape), the weak 21st Panzer Division, the battered 716th Infantry Division, and what was left of the nearly destroyed 16th Volksgrenadier Division. The next day the 708th Volksgrenadier Division began moving into the German front lines between the 553rd Volksgrenadier Division and the 21st Panzer; it first relieved the 951st Grenadiers and then took over for the 21st Panzer Division, with both of the retiring units moving north of the canal to become part of the First Army. The weakened 106th Panzer Brigade, Army Group G’s only significant reserve, accompanied the 21st Panzer Division northward, representing the last of the Nineteenth Army’s armor except for some assault-gun units.
Although weak in infantry and artillery and lacking antitank weapons, the 553rd Volksgrenadier Division boasted seasoned troops and good leadership. To its south the arriving 708th Volksgrenadiers was nearly up to strength, but lacked training and experienced leaders; some 70 percent of its noncommissioned officers, for example, were former members of the Luftwaffe or the Kriegsmarine.20 Farther south the 716th Division was reinforced by the 757th Grenadiers, a regiment of the 338th Division that had remained behind when the rest of the unit moved to the Belfort Gap front in late October. Although at best a marginal division, the 716th was still better off than the badly damaged 16th Volksgrenadiers, which was still trying to recover from the beating it had received fighting in front of the Vosges Foothill Position defenses around St. Die.
Defending the southern section of the High Vosges below St. Die, Petersen’s IV Luftwaffe Field Corps had two fairly strong divisions—the somewhat understrength but experienced 198th Division, most of which faced the VI Corps’ southern wing, and the stronger 269th Volksgrenadier Division, which confronted the French II Corps. Finally, at the southern end of the Nineteenth Army’s front, Kniess’ LXXXV Corps defended the Belfort Gap area with three divisions, the 159th, the 189th, and the 338th—all jerry-rigged, but well rested and relatively fresh. How well and how long this ragged defensive line could hold up depended greatly on the individual unit commanders, for neither Balck nor Wiese could do much to assist them.
The Final Allied Schedule
Well into the first week of November, General Bradley of the 12th Army Group still hoped to have his First and Ninth Armies launch their offensives on 5 November, with Patton’s Third Army striking on the 10th. But adverse tactical developments in the sector of the 21st Army Group forced a change in plans, and on 2 November Eisenhower and Bradley decided to reschedule the First and Ninth Army attacks for the 10th. Hoping to have at least part of the 12th Army Group under way earlier, however, Bradley asked Patton to have his Third Army begin its offensive as soon as possible and have his XII Corps, just north of the Seventh Army, strike no later than 8 November.21 As events turned out, Patton attacked on time, but the First and Ninth Army attacks were delayed even further when Bradley approved a series of day-by-day postponements because of poor flying conditions; ultimately he did not begin his offensive until the 16th.
All these changes caught the 6th Army Group by surprise. On 5 November General Devers visited Patton’s command post at Nancy to be briefed on the Third Army’s tactical plans and the tentative schedule of attack. Devers evidently came away from the briefing with the understanding that Patton’s terminal date was still 10 November, and he did not find out about the decisions Bradley and Patton had reached on the 2nd. Thus there was considerable consternation at the 6th Army Group headquarters when, about noon on 7 November, word came that the Third Army’s XII Corps would begin its attack on the morning of the 8th, whatever the weather conditions. In order to adhere to the planned, five-day maximum interval between the 12th and the 6th Army Group attacks, Devers quickly decided to move his starting date forward from 15 to 13 November if possible. A brief review of the logistical situation revealed that the two-day acceleration would create no major problems, and new orders immediately went out to Patch and de Lattre to make the change. Within the Seventh Army, the XV Corps would strike on the 13th and the VI Corps on the 15th; in the First French Army, the I Corps would launch the main effort against the Belfort Gap on the 13th, and the II Corps would begin its supporting operations the same day. With luck the new attack dates might even increase the surprise of the German defenders.22
With the final preparations now under way, General Devers became increasingly optimistic. He estimated that the XV Corps would cross the Vosges and break out on to the Alsatian plains by 1 December; he also thought that the French I Corps would be in the Rhine valley by the 1st, “and probably sooner.”23 If Strasbourg could be taken and the Rhine breached, the possibilities of exploiting
such a breakthrough appeared unlimited. Devers’ own predilection was for crossing the Rhine above Strasbourg and exploiting north up the Rhine valley toward Karlsruhe, thus trapping the First Army, and isolating the Saar industrial region in one sweep. This time he would show the other Allied commanders what his underrated forces could do and in the process grind up as many German corps and divisions as possible.