Explanation of title
As written by the volume's author:
Precise military terminology has been employed, except in those cases where clarity and economy of style have dictated usage of a more general nature. Thus, the Third Army operations in Lorraine are considered to be a "campaign" in the general sense of the term, despite the fact that the Department of the Army does not award a separate campaign star for these operations. [3]
Although the term Lorraine campaign is unofficial, it represents a more traditional use of the term "campaign" in that the battles described by the term were part of a larger operation that had a set goal. By contrast, the official U.S. Army campaign names refer to what were actually multiple campaigns and large military organizations with diverse goals.
Operationally, the Lorraine campaign encompasses the assaults across the Moselle and Sauer Rivers, the battles of Metz and Nancy, and the push to the German frontier and the crossing of the Saar/Sarre River during the first half of December 1944.
Criticism
Historian Carlo D'Este wrote that the Lorraine campaign was one of Patton's least successful, faulting him for not deploying his divisions more aggressively and decisively. A 1985 US Army study of the Lorraine campaign was highly critical of Patton. [7] The document states:
Few of the Germans defending Lorraine could be considered first-rate troops. Third Army encountered whole battalions made up of deaf men, others of cooks, and others consisting entirety of soldiers with stomach ulcers.
Soldiers and generals alike assumed that Lorraine would fall quickly, and unless the war ended first, Patton's tanks would take the war into Germany by summer's end. But Lorraine was not to be overrun in a lightning campaign. Instead, the battle for Lorraine would drag on for more than 3 months.
Moreover, once Third Army penetrated the province and entered Germany, there would still be no first-rate military objectives within its grasp. The Saar industrial region, while significant, was of secondary importance when compared to the great Ruhr industrial complex farther north.
Was the Lorraine campaign an American victory? From September through November, Third Army claimed to have inflicted over 180,000 casualties on the enemy. But to capture the province of Lorraine, a problem which involved an advance of only 40 to 60 air miles, Third Army required over 3 months and suffered 50,000 casualties, approximately one-third of the total number of casualties it sustained in the entire European war.
Ironically, Third Army never used Lorraine as a springboard for an advance into Germany after all. Patton turned most of the sector over to Seventh Army during the Ardennes crisis, and when the eastward advance resumed after the Battle of the Bulge, Third Army based its operations on Luxembourg, not Lorraine. The Lorraine campaign will always remain a controversial episode in American military history.
Finally the Lorraine campaign demonstrated that Logistics often drive operations, no matter how forceful and aggressive the commanding general may be.
He discovered that violating logistical principles is an unforgiving and cumulative matter. [7]
The US Army study highlighted Patton's tendency to overstretch his supply lines. [7]
George Smith Patton Jr. was a general in the United States Army who commanded the Seventh Army in the Mediterranean Theater of World War II, and the Third Army in France and Germany after the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944.
The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was a major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II which took place from 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945. It was launched through the densely forested Ardennes region between Belgium and Luxembourg. The offensive was intended to stop Allied use of the Belgian port of Antwerp and to split the Allied lines, allowing the Germans to individually encircle and destroy the four Allied armies and force the western Allies to negotiate a peace treaty in the Axis powers' favor.
The Battle of the Ardennes took place during the First World War fought on the frontiers of France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg from 21 to 23 August 1914. The German armies defeated the French and forced their retreat. The battle was part of the larger Battle of the Frontiers, the first battle of the Western Front.
The Falaise pocket or battle of the Falaise pocket was the decisive engagement of the Battle of Normandy in the Second World War. Allied forces formed a pocket around Falaise, Calvados, in which German Army Group B, consisting of the 7th Army and the Fifth Panzer Army, were encircled by the Western Allies. The battle resulted in the destruction of most of Army Group B west of the Seine, which opened the way to Paris and the Franco-German border.
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 Siegfried Line campaign was a phase in the Western European campaign of World War II, which involved actions near the German defensive Siegfried Line.
The 1st Army was a field army of the German Army which participated in World War II. Formed on 26 August 1939 in the Wehrkreis XII military district and surrendering 6 May 1945 near Munich, it fought exclusively on the Western Front.
The Battle of the Frontiers comprised battles fought along the eastern frontier of France and in southern Belgium, shortly after the outbreak of the First World War. The battles resolved the military strategies of the French Chief of Staff General Joseph Joffre with Plan XVII and an offensive adaptation of the German Aufmarsch II deployment plan by Helmuth von Moltke the Younger. The German concentration on the right (northern) flank, was to wheel through Belgium and attack the French in the rear.
The XII Corps fought from northern France to Austria in World War II. Constituted in the Organized Reserves in 1933, it was activated on 29 August 1942 at Columbia, South Carolina. XII Corps became operational in France as part of Lieutenant General George S. Patton's Third Army on 1 August 1944. Initially commanded by Major General Gilbert R. Cook, bad health forced MG Cook to relinquish command to Major General Manton S. Eddy within three weeks. MG Eddy commanded the corps until late April 1945, when his own health problems forced him to turn over command to MG Stafford LeRoy Irwin.
The Battle of Arracourt took place between U.S. and German armoured forces near the town of Arracourt, Lorraine, France between 18 and 29 September 1944, during the Lorraine Campaign of World War II. As part of a counteroffensive against recent U.S. advances in France, the German 5th Panzer Army had as its objective the recapture of Lunéville and the elimination of the XII Corps bridgehead over the Moselle River at Dieulouard.
The Battle of Metz was fought during World War II at the French city of Metz, then part of Nazi Germany, from late September 1944 through mid-December as part of the Lorraine Campaign between the U.S. Third Army commanded by Lieutenant General George Patton and the German Army commanded by General Otto von Knobelsdorff. Strong German resistance resulted in heavy casualties for both sides. The city was captured by U.S. forces and hostilities formally ceased on 22 November; the last of the forts defending Metz surrendered on 13 December.
The Wehrmacht forces for the Ardennes Offensive were the product of a German recruitment effort targeting German males between the ages of 16 and 60, to replace troops lost during the past five months of fighting the Western Allies on the Western Front. Although the Wehrmacht was keeping the Allied forces contained along the Siegfried Line, the campaign had cost the Wehrmacht nearly 750,000 casualties, mostly irreplaceable. However, the rapid advance of the Allied armies in August and September after Operation Overlord had created a supply problem for the Allies. By October, the progress of the Western Allies' three army groups had slowed considerably, allowing the Germans to partly rebuild their strength and prepare for the defense of Germany itself. Adolf Hitler decided that the only way to reverse his fortunes would be to launch a counter-offensive on the Western Front, forcing both the United States and Great Britain to an early peace, and allowing the Wehrmacht to shift its forces to the Eastern Front, where it could defeat the much larger Soviet Red Army.
James Herbert Leach was a United States Army colonel who served as a tank company commander in World War II and an armored regiment commander in the Vietnam War. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in World War II and three Silver Stars in Vietnam.
The Feste Mercy, renamed Feste Freiherr von der Goltz in 1911 and then The Group Fortification Marne in 1919, is a military installation near Metz, in the woods between Jury, Mercy and Ars-Laquenexy. It is part of the second fortified belt of forts of Metz and had its baptism of fire in late 1944, when the Battle of Metz occurred.
The Feste Haeseler, renamed Group Fortification Verdun after 1919, is a military installation near Metz. Constituted as forts Sommy and Saint-Blaise, the fortified group is part of the second fortified belt of forts of Metz. It had its baptism of fire in late 1944, when the Battle of Metz occurred.
The Feste Prinz Regent Luitpold, renamed Group Fortification Yser after 1919, is a military installation near Metz. It is part of the second fortified belt of forts of Metz and had its baptism of fire in late 1944, when the Battle of Metz occurred.
The broad front versus narrow front controversy in World War II arose after General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, decided to advance into Germany on a broad front in 1944, against the suggestions of his principal subordinates, Lieutenant Generals Omar Bradley and George S. Patton and Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, who argued instead to stage competing advances on narrow fronts. The decision was controversial initially because the British government wanted to raise the profile of the minority British contingent in what was by then an overwhelmingly American army, and they perceived that a British-led thrust to Berlin would achieve this aim. Montgomery's strident advocacy raised political and nationalistic complications that strained the wartime alliance. During the subsequent Cold War, suggestions were made that the Soviet presence in Eastern Europe may have been reduced had Eisenhower sent a narrow-front thrust to race the USSR to Berlin in 1945.
The Battle of Dompaire was fought between French and German armoured forces near the town of Dompaire in France. It took place between 12 and 14 September 1944 during the Lorraine campaign on the Western Front of World War II. The battle saw a new German Panzer brigade hastily set up by the Wehrmacht to stop the Allied advance after the collapse of the Normandy front, and a unit of the French 2nd Armoured Division under General Philippe Leclerc.
The 559th Volksgrenadier Division was a volksgrenadier division of the German Army during World War II that fought entirely on the Western Front.
The 553rd Volksgrenadier Division was a volksgrenadier division of the German Army during World War II that fought entirely on the Western Front.
United States 
France [1] 
Germany 