In late October, the Germans encircled the Allied forces between the Maginot Line and Paris, and this encirclement was formed, but it was very large, almost half the size of France, and the German encirclement was not tight, and many places were only focused on strategic points and transportation hubs, and other places were vigilance forces.

Germany used only more than 2 million people to encircle, and the total strength of the Allied forces was also about 2.3 million, Germany had a complete advantage in the strategic situation, but it was too early to say that the German army would be victorious at this time.

……

The encirclement of more than 300,000 Allied troops on the periphery of the Ardennes Forest proceeded as scheduled, and the German who had planes now all had their hands free to launch the bloodiest strangulation with the Allied air force, at this time there was nothing to take advantage of, that is, with the skills of the pilots, the quality of the aircraft, the number of aircraft, the French sky, every day was shrouded in smoke, countless fighters fought in the air, and then planted down, in general, Germany's losses were half smaller than the Allied forces, but the Soviet Union of Allied aircraft was a lot, or the Luftwaffe was greatly damaged, Li Mo couldn't do anything about it.

In the autumn of 1941, the Allies were trapped and frantically approached the western border of Germany, and repeated attacks on the Maginot Line were blocked. According to the situation, Limer was determined to counterattack and encircle the weak Allied defensive line in the Ardennes, and now the German army had occupied Liège and Nancy in Belgium, cutting off the Allied supply lines.

The Germans, with 53 divisions and about 600,000 men, began their offensive at dawn on November 1 in the snow and wind under the command of Army Group A of the Western Front. At this time, the Allied front-line alert force in the Ardennes area consisted of only 4 divisions and had no fortifications to rely on.

On the 2nd, the positions of the Allied 106th and 28th divisions were broken through, and two regiments surrendered. By the 2nd, the German army had advanced westward to a depth of more than 100 kilometers. Protrusions are formed.

With the Allies under serious threat, Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, took decisive steps to place the two armies of the Allied 11th Army Group, which had been cut off from the Ardennes, under the unified command of Montgomery, commander of the British 21st Army Group.

Meantime. A large number of reinforcements were urgently dispatched to resolutely block the German offensive and actively prepare for a counter-assault. By the 24th. The United States and Britain have 44 divisions and 600,000 troops in the war. In this way, the pressure on the Maginot Line was suddenly reduced.

On November 16, 1941, the Battle of the Ardennes, the last and largest battle on the Western Front before the end of World War II, broke out. This time it was the Germans who had been pretending to be defeated. "We had never seen anything like it, with a tidal wave of German tanks," a soldier from the German Orningburg unit later recalled.

In the late autumn of 1941, the Allies approached the German mainland from the Maginot Line, but Li Mo deliberately lured the enemy deep and surrounded the Allied forces, although this encirclement was full of loopholes. But if the Allies want to break through, they will not die but also shed their skin.

This large-scale campaign was secretly planned by the German commander of the Western Front, Limer, from the end of September 1941. This battle plan, named "Rhine Guard", (the main content was: concentrate superior forces, quickly break through the Allied lines, force the crossing of the Maas River, seize the main Allied supply port of Nancy, divide the Allied forces in two, and give the Allies no chance to come to the second Dunkirk, and then turn against the Soviet Union).

This is almost a small copy of the Manstein Plan four years ago. In 1940, Field Marshal Manstein, who was recognized by the Allies as one of the greatest generals of the German army (he was only a major general at the time), developed a completely different approach to the traditional German approach to the Western Front (that was the traditional German thinking of fighting against France since Moltke and Stephen's plan, that is, to defeat the opponent by internal superiority). and then the other front of the troops mobilized after the victory will once again gain the superiority of troops).

Churchill later commented on the strategic intentions of the German army: "The German High Command planned to carry out a massive assault through the Ardennes, cutting off the crooked left arm of the Allied Army Group North at the shoulder blade. This operation, in addition to its scale and speed and weapons, resembled Napoleon's raid on the Platan plateau at the Battle of Austerlitz. Cut off and disrupt the roundabout movement of the Austro-Russian coalition forces and break through their central positions. ”

Unfortunately, these analyses are an afterthought. In Churchill's magnum opus, Memoirs of World War II, he said that his judgment of the German army at the time was that "we know the danger and we are willing to take it." But he also had to admit that there was still a lack of attention to the German offensive:

"The German 6th SS Panzer Corps was a well-known force...... When the fighting on that front fell silent in early November, he temporarily escaped the surveillance of our intelligence services. At this time, Montgomery, who commanded LinkedIn*, was more optimistic: "At the moment the enemy is fighting a defensive battle on all fronts; Their situation no longer makes it possible for them to launch a large-scale offensive war. By the time they understood that this was Li Mo's trick, it was too late.

Montgomery didn't guess the first half correctly, but he did guess the second half. The "Rhine Guards" plan was a kind of genius. Skorzny, the head of the German special operations who participated in the special operation in the Ardennes, recalled that when Limer met him, he said: "I remember that he said that we would deploy 16,000 artillery pieces in the Ardennes. In addition, the Luftwaffe will send about 5000 aircraft. Among them are a number of new types of jets. ”

Field Marshal Rundstedt, the experienced commander-in-chief of the German Western Front, and Marshal Manstein, commander of Army Group B, fully supported Limer's plan,

Break through the 85-mile-wide weak defensive zone between the two Allied armies in the Ardennes. Li Mo said to the two marshals:

"Where the existing forces will definitely be able to break through...... The line of defense is thin. They wouldn't have expected us to launch a surprise attack. Therefore, by taking full advantage of the enemy's unsuspecting factors to launch a surprise attack, we can count on a quick breakthrough, which is the key to our ability to completely annihilate the French allies at that time, as long as we fight more fiercely and annihilate more quickly, then the remaining Allied forces will be more frightened, and we must make all the allies understand that surrender is their only way to survive. ”

After the dawn offensive on 3 November, the Germans quickly broke through the Allied lines. "The Germans broke through our line of defense for up to 80 kilometers, and they rushed to the breach, like a flood rushing into a that had been blown open. And the Americans desperately fled west along all roads. American journalist Ingersoll described the scene this way. The German 5th Panzer Army succeeded in encircling two regiments of the Allied 106th Division with a pincer offensive the next day, forcing more than 7,000 Allied troops to surrender. It was the worst defeat suffered by the Allies on the European battlefield, and everything seemed to indicate that Limer's plan was about to succeed.

However, when the 47th Panzer Corps of the German 5th Panzer Army arrived at Bastogne, the road transportation hub, only the 26th People's Grenadier Division, which was not strong in combat, was left to attack the city, and the main 2nd Panzer Division and Panzer instructors continued to advance around the city. By November 20, the German attacking force had formed a protrusion about 100 kilometers wide and 30~50 kilometers deep, and continued to advance. (To be continued)

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