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The Battle of Alsace was a military campaign between the Allies, mainly French, and the Germans in Alsace, eastern France, from 20 November 1944 to 19 March 1945. It led to the liberation of Alsace by the Allies. [2]
During the second phase of World War II, the Allies landed in Normandy starting from 6 June 1944 and in Provence starting from 15 August 1944. These two new fronts have expanded and allowed the liberation of a large part of the French territory within the span of a few months. Exceptions were the "Atlantic pockets" and Alsace, the latter region being where the Allied troops, mainly French troops, focused their efforts starting in November 1944. [3]
The operations were launched from the Vosges and the Belfort Gap. Mulhouse was liberated on 21 November 1944, by General Béthouart, and Strasbourg on November 23 by General Leclerc while leading the 2nd Armored Division. [4]
The Germans resisted and launched a strong counteroffensive, Operation Nordwind, on 1 January 1945. At that time, Eisenhower, the commander in chief, wanted to retreat and temporarily evacuate Alsace, but General de Gaulle opposed it and sent reinforcements to defend Strasbourg. The German counterattack was stopped. [2] [5]
General de Lattre, commanding the French 1st Army, launched a double offensive with his two army corps to defeat the Colmar Pocket. The 1st army corps operated from Mulhouse; the 2nd army corps, assisted by the XXI Corps, advanced from the northwest towards Neuf-Brisach. The French entered Colmar on 2 February 1945; the Colmar Pocket was cleared on February 9. [5] [6]
The last part of Alsace, from the Moder to the border, was liberated from March 15 to 19, 1945. [5]
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Alsace is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In January 2021, it had a population of 1,919,745. Alsatian culture is characterized by a blend of German and French influences.
Colmar is a city and commune in the Haut-Rhin department and Grand Est region of north-eastern France. The third-largest commune in Alsace, it is the seat of the prefecture of the Haut-Rhin department and of the subprefecture of the Colmar-Ribeauvillé arrondissement.
The 6th United States Army Group was an Allied army group that fought in the European Theater of Operations during World War II. Made up of field armies from both the United States Army and the French Army, it fought in France, Germany, Austria, and, briefly, Italy. Also referred to as the Southern Group of Armies, it was established in July 1944 and commanded throughout its duration by General Jacob L. Devers.
The Western Front was a military theatre of World War II encompassing Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. The Italian front is considered a separate but related theatre. The Western Front's 1944–1945 phase was officially deemed the European Theater by the United States, whereas Italy fell under the Mediterranean Theater along with North Africa. The Western Front was marked by two phases of large-scale combat operations. The first phase saw the capitulation of Luxembourg, Netherlands, Belgium, and France during May and June 1940 after their defeat in the Low Countries and the northern half of France, and continued into an air war between Germany and Britain that climaxed with the Battle of Britain. The second phase consisted of large-scale ground combat, which began in June 1944 with the Allied landings in Normandy and continued until the defeat of Germany in May 1945 with its invasion.
Operation Northwind was the last major German offensive of World War II on the Western Front. Northwind was launched to support the German Ardennes offensive campaign in the Battle of the Bulge, which by late December 1944 had decisively turned against the German forces. It began on 31 December 1944 in Rhineland-Palatinate, Alsace and Lorraine in southwestern Germany and northeastern France, and ended on 25 January 1945. The German offensive was an operational failure, with its main objectives not achieved.
The First Army was a field army of France that fought during World War I and World War II. It was also active during the Cold War.
The Colmar Pocket was the area held in central Alsace, France, by the German Nineteenth Army from November 1944 to February 1945, against the U.S. 6th Army Group during World War II. It was formed when 6th AG liberated southern and northern Alsace and adjacent eastern Lorraine, but could not clear central Alsace. During Operation Nordwind in December 1944, the 19th Army attacked north out of the Pocket in support of other German forces attacking south from the Saar into northern Alsace. In late January and early February 1945, the French First Army cleared the Pocket of German forces.
The Battle of Mulhouse, also called the Battle of Alsace, which began on 7 August 1914, was the opening attack of the First World War by the French Army against the German Empire. The battle was part of a French attempt to recover the province of Alsace, which France had ceded to the new empire following its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. The French occupied Mulhouse on 8 August and were then forced out by German counter-attacks on 10 August. The French retired to Belfort, where General Louis Bonneau, the VII Corps commander, was sacked, along with the commander of the 8th Cavalry Division. Events further north led to the German XIV and XV corps being moved away from Belfort and a second French offensive by the French VII Corps, reinforced and renamed the French Army of Alsace, began on 14 August.
The November 1918 insurgency in Alsace-Lorraine is a series of events which occurred when the region of Alsace–Lorraine passed from German to French sovereignty at the end of World War I. During this month, international events were linked to domestic troubles, particularly the German Revolution.
Army Group G fought on the Western Front of World War II and was a component of OB West.
The XV Corps of the US Army was initially constituted on 1 October 1933 as part of the Organized Reserves, and was activated on 15 February 1943 at Camp Beauregard, Louisiana. During the Second World War, XV Corps fought for 307 days in the European Theater of Operations, fighting from Normandy through France and southern Germany into Austria. The corps was commanded in combat by Major General Wade H. Haislip, initially as a subordinate unit to the Third U.S. Army and later as part of the Seventh U.S. Army.
The Alsace-Lorraine Independent Brigade, usually known as the Alsace-Lorraine Brigade or sometimes as the Brigade Malraux, was a French Forces of the Interior (FFI) unit that fought alongside regular French Army forces in World War II during the closing months of 1944 and early 1945.
The 19th Army was a World War II field army of the German Army. Active from 1943 to 1945 on the Western Front, it was tasked with defending southern France and before being pushed back to the French–German border during Operation Dragoon and then into southern Germany.
The 1st Army Corps was first formed before World War I. During World War II it fought in the Campaign for France in 1940, on the Mediterranean islands of Corsica and Elba in 1943 - 1944 and in the campaigns to liberate France in 1944 and invade Germany in 1945.
The Upper Rhine High Command, known for three days as Army Group Upper Rhine, was a short-lived headquarters unit of the German Armed Forces (Wehrmacht) created on the Western Front during World War II. The Upper Rhine High Command was formed on 26 November 1944 and deactivated on 25 January 1945. The sole commander of this headquarters unit was Heinrich Himmler.
The liberation of Strasbourg took place on 23 November 1944 during the Alsace campaign in the last months of World War II. After the liberation of Mulhouse on 21 November 1944 by the 1st Armored Division, General Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, and the 2nd Armored Division entered the city of Strasbourg in France after having liberated Sarrebourg and La Petite-Pierre from Nazi Germany, which cleared the way to Strasbourg.
Major General Roderick Random Allen was a senior United States Army officer, who commanded the 20th and 12th Armored Divisions during World War II. Under his command of the 12th AD, the division defended Strasbourg from recapture; it provided the armored contingent in the closure of the Colmar Pocket and the liberation of Colmar; it spearheaded General George Patton's drive to the Rhine; captured intact the remaining bridge over the Danube River and broke the German defense line; and played a major part in blocking the Brenner Pass, thereby trapping over a million German soldiers in Italy as the war ended. En route to the Brenner Pass it overran eleven concentration camps at Landsberg, Germany.
The Seventh Army was a United States army created during World War II that evolved into the United States Army Europe (USAREUR) during the 1950s and 1960s. It served in North Africa and Italy in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations and France and Germany in the European Theater between 1942 and 1945.
The Battle of Hartmannswillerkopf was a series of engagements during the First World War fought for the control of the Hartmannswillerkopf peak in Alsace in 1914 and 1915. The peak is a pyramidal rocky spur in the Vosges mountains, about 5 km (3.1 mi) north of Thann, standing at 956 m (3,136 ft) and overlooking the Alsace Plain, Rhine valley and the Black Forest in Germany. Hartmanswillerkopf was captured by the French army during the Battle of Mulhouse (7–10, 14–26 August 1914). From the vantage point, Mulhouse and the Mulhouse–Colmar railway could be seen and the French railway from Thann to Cernay and Belfort shielded from German observation.
The 4th Moroccan Mountain Division was an infantry division of the Army of Africa which participated in World War II.
