More French advances

A incongruous slogan in a town overrun by the Allies: "One People, one Reich, one Leader!”

5, 1945, General Maczek’s Polish 1st Armoured Division was within nine miles of Wilhelmshaven, and the Canadian 5th Armoured Division on the outskirts of Emden.

The Canadian I Corps (Lieutenant-General C. Foulkes) took Arnhem by an outflanking movement and three days later reached the Zuiderzee at Harder-wijk. The Germans responded to this attack by opening the sea-dykes, and Crerar, who was concerned to spare the Dutch countryside the ravages of flooding, agreed to a cease-fire with General von Blumentritt, stipulating in exchange that British and American aircraft be given free passage to provide the Dutch population with food and medical supplies. This dual operation cost the Canadian 1st Army 367 officers and 5,147 N. C.O. s and other ranks killed.

The task of Lieutenant-General Patch and the American 7th Army was to cross the Rhine upstream of the 3rd Army, then having gained enough ground to the east, turn down towards Munich and make an assault on the "national redoubt”, where, accordingto Eisenhower’s Intelligence, Hitler would seek ultimate refuge. But there was no such mission in store for the French 1st Army which, in the initial plans, was ordered to send a corps over the Rhine, following the Americans, to operate in Wiirttemberg, and later a division which would start off from Neuf-Brisach and occupy Baden-Baden.

Neither General de Gaulle nor General de Lattre accepted this view of their intended mission. On March 4, de Gaulle remarked to de Lattre on "reasons of national importance that required his army to advance beyond the Rhine”; and de Lattre expounded the plan he had conceived to this end, which involved moving round the Black Forest via Stuttgart.

While de Gaulle worked on Eisenhower, de Lattre convinced General Devers of his point of view. The operation as conceived by de Lattre required possession of a section of the left bank of the Rhine below Lauterbourg; this was provided by the dexterity with which General de Monsabert managed to extend his II Corps from Lauterbourg to Speyer in the course of Operation "Undertone”.

A An armoured column of the American 3rd Army pushes over the border between Germany and Czechoslovakia. Patton, the army's commander, was typically impetuous in advancing far past his official stop line with "deep patrols".