Background and Movement To Battle
“We gamble everything!” were the words used by Gerd von Rundstedt, commander-in-chief of the German Western Front, to describe operation “Watch on the Rhine”. Adolf Hitler’s surprise counter-offensive in the west was first officially outlined on September 16, 1944. This assault's goal was to pierce the thinly held lines of the U.S. First Army between Monschau and Wasserbillig with Army Group B (Model), cross the Meuse between Liege and Dinant, seize Antwerp and the western bank of the Schelde estuary. The Germans had designated two rollbahns through the sector near Elsenborn which would give them direct access to the road network leading to the valuable port of Antwerp, splitting the allied American and British armies and inflaming rivalries between them.
Read more about this topic: Elsenborn Ridge
Famous quotes containing the words background and, background, movement and/or battle:
“... every experience in life enriches one’s background and should teach valuable lessons.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Christianity was only a very strong and singularly well-timed Salvation Army movement that happened to receive help from an unusual and highly dramatic incident. It was a Puritan reaction in an age when, no doubt, a Puritan reaction was much wanted; but like all sudden violent reactions, it soon wanted reacting against.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“Forty years after a battle it is easy for a noncombatant to reason about how it ought to have been fought. It is another thing personally and under fire to have to direct the fighting while involved in the obscuring smoke of it.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)