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The American forces broke out in late July 1944, with Operation Cobra. A hole was blasted through the German lines by First Army, and the newly activated US Third Army under Patton passed through to exploit. Third Army turned into Brittany, whilst the other American forces and the British forces began trapping the German forces remaining in Normandy. Hitler ordered a counterattack on the seemingly vulnerable strip of territory that the US forces controlled on the Normandy coast, linking First and Third Armies, but appearances were deceiving. The attack drew German forces west when they should have been retreating east.
As American forces swept round to the south, British, Canadian and Polish forces pinned the Germans from the north. An enormous pocket formed, centred on the town of Falaise. An entire German Army was trapped there and largely destroyed. Following the battle, all Allied forces swept east. Paris fell at the end of August 1944, and by the end of September virtually the whole of France had been liberated.
However, logistical difficulties then caught up with the Allies. Because of thinly-stretched supply lines, the fast broad-front advance could not be sustained, grinding to a halt in the Lorraine and Belgium. Heated discussions then took placed over the next phase of Allied strategy.
Montgomery and Eisenhower had long been debating the merits of a broad front attack strategy vs concentrating power in one area and punching through German lines. Eisenhower favoured the former, and Montgomery the latter. However, in late 1944, logistic problems meant that the former was temporarily out of the question. Montgomery conceived Operation Market Garden to implement a narrow front strategy. The idea was to land airborne forces in Holland to take vital bridges over the country's various rivers. Armoured formation would then relieve the airborne forces.
American paratroops were dropped at intermediate points north of Allied lines, with the British 1st Airborne Division and Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade at the tip of the salient at Arnhem. The bridges were captured as expected, but the plan then began to run into serious trouble. The relief forces of XXX Corps had to advance up a single good road, and this began to cause congestion. Worse followed when it turned out that German SS formations were present in the area that had been missed by intelligence. Consequently the armoured forces took a great deal longer than expected to punch through to Arnhem.
Until the last minute, the bridge that the 1st Airborne Division was assigned was held, but it had to be abandoned finally when there were not enough soldiers left alive to defend it. Most of those remaining fell into German hands, with only a small number escaping. 1st Airborne Division was essentially finished as a fighting formation for the duration of the war, and Montgomery's plan had failed.
In the aftermath of the attack, the salient's flanks were expanded to complete the closing up to the Rhine in that section of the front.
Following Market Garden, the great port of Antwerp had been captured. However, it lay at the end of a long river estuary, and so it could not be used until its approaches were clear. The southern bank of the Scheldt was cleared by Canadian and Polish forces relatively quickly, but the thorny problem of the island of Walcheren remained.
Walcheren guarded the northern approaches to Antwerp and thus had to be stormed. In the last great amphibious operation of the war in Europe, British Commandos and Canadian troops captured the island in the late autumn of 1944, clearing the way for Antwerp to be opened and for the easement of the critical logistical problems the Allies were suffering.
After December 1944, the strategy was to complete the conquest of the Rhineland and prepare to break into Germany proper en masse. However, what happened next completely caught the Allied staffs by surprise.
The Germans launched their last great offensive in December, resulting in the Battle of the Bulge. In an attempt to repeat their 1940 success, German forces were launched through the Ardennes. Again they encountered weak forces holding the front, as the American formations there were either new to the war or exhausted units on a quiet sector of the front rehabilitating. However, there were also some important differences to 1940 which resulted in the German offensive ultimately failing. They were facing enormously strong airpower, unlike 1940 when they had ruled the skies. The opening of the offensive was timed for a spell of bad weather, so the Allied airpower was grounded, but the weather cleared again relatively soon. They were also faced by a foe that was not the defeatist French.
Most of the forces that took part in the Battle of the Bulge were American. Some great feats of staff work resulted in the Third Army and Ninth Army essentially altering their facing by ninety degrees to contain the salient. The British XXX Corps took part in the battle, and 21st Army Group had an important controlling role. However, the salient created by the German attack meant that First and Ninth Armies were cut off from 12th Army Group Headquarters, so they were shifted to the command of 21st Army Group for the duration of the battle.
By the end of January, the salient had effectively been reduced back to its former size, and the temporarily aborted mission of liberating the Rhineland recommenced. First Army returned to 12th Army Group, but Ninth Army remained under the control of 21st Army Group for the time being.
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