Word: belfort
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...here, where the Germans were strongest, that Supreme Commander "Ike" Eisenhower apparently hoped to break them most decisively. The Big Push was violently shaking the German fence from end to end; as pickets fell off, Allied troops were shouldering through to snatch prizes like Strasbourg and Belfort. But such openings would not tear the German fence down. Only when Bradley burst through, or when Montgomery turned the end of the fence in The Netherlands, would the Allies be able to lay it flat...
...south low-grade German troops had been caught holding the forts, the passes and the river lines, and apparently with few mobile reserves. They made only token defenses of Metz, Strasbourg and Belfort. No doubt Bradley had scheduled the start of Patton's push a week ahead of the Cologne offensive on the chance that Field Marshal von Rundstedt might shove reserves into the southern breaches. Rundstedt did not yield to this incitement. Instead he crowded more men, fire power and armor into the sector east of Aachen...
Right Hook. Jake Devers had fashioned his Strasbourg grip on the Rhine-and his opportunity to expand it-out of surprise and dash. Over the weeks of stalemate he had slipped the fresh, enthusiastic army of Major General Jean Delattre de Tassigny into position before Belfort: two French divisions, a colonial Spahi division, a battalion-plus of F.F.I...
...Belfort, a stronghold for more than 700 years,* and a formidable assault objective, was thinly held. Histrionic Delattre de Tassigny (his officers call him Le Général de Théâtre) attempted no frontal siege. He sent his infantrymen over the snow-sogged hills to envelop the city on three sides, finally reduced several of its forts by artillery...
Left Hook. On the eighth day Delattre's Sherman tanks raced past the 78-ft.-long red granite Lion of Belfort (symbolic of its unyielding French defense in 1870-71). They speared into Mulhouse, turned north toward Colmar along the Rhine...