For the Allies, their losses had to be accepted. They were now the aggressors in Italy and France, and nothing less than the unconditional surrender of the Germans was going to be satisfactory. For the Russians, they wanted to exact a more horrible penalty for the slaughter carried on by the Germans while occupying eastern Russia. Not, however, the Jewish slaughter about which they have never given anything other than perfunctory lip-service since the end of the war, but the killing and enslavement of so many Slavic Russians, as a ‘sub-human’ race. In north west Europe, where forces could be concentrated every yard of ground was contested, enforced by Hitler’s no-retreat orders. And they had to contest the ground with less and less troops, as Hitler was forced to reverse his policy of pre-20th June, and to take seasoned troops from the western front, to try to stem the flow of Russian troops and armour that seemed about to take Berlin within weeks.
In Italy, after being held up for weeks by the clever defence line that had been built by Kesselring to replace the line south of Rome, and which fell to the Allies in June 1944, progress quickened although the German armies still found strength from somewhere to deny Alexander, the Allied C-in-C, any form of surrender. Along the Second Front, progress was spectacular as Patton literally swung through southern France, while Montgomery after being held up for so long suddenly, in the first 4 days of September, advanced 200 miles through France and into Belgium, finally taking Antwerp on 4th. Hodges, further south, had nearly reached the German border and had linked up with Patton who, in turn, had met up with Patch as he advanced up the Rhone Valley from his own D-Day landing on 15th August, on the French Riviera. All seemed set for the final step into Germany, when everything became bogged down. On the German side the generals, even Rundstedt, had assumed that the end had already come. Not so Hitler. If not for the right reason, wishful thinking about a split between the Allies, he insisted that every effort still be made to defend Germany itself. Whether it is accepted that he did so as a commander, or as a madman intent on a final bloodletting to justify all that he had done, it nevertheless gave the generals pause as they realized that something had happened. The reason was really very simple. No plans had been made by the Allies to cover the possibility of such complete success and their armies had all outrun their supplies! Until the capture of Antwerp, the closest port capable of handling the quantities involved was Cherbourg, and that was now 400 miles away. From mid-September to December the front settled down to a slugging match.
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