Historian Reacts - WW2 - Western Front, 1944-1945. Part 1 by Eastory

welcome back everyone to another reaction video well you guys have been recommending to me for quite some time now that i take a look at the youtube channel eastery hope i'm pronouncing that right uh so that's what we're going to do today and we're going to take a look at his a couple of videos here on a topic i know a little something about for the first time diving into a new channel so we're going to look at world war ii the western front 1944-45 i guess it probably begins here june 1944 with the normandy invasion so we'll take a look at that i'm going to be posting a vote over on patreon we haven't done one of these for a while to get your feedback on what my next series should be so if you are a patron or you'd like to consider being a patron go ahead and head over there and you can cast your vote on what you'd like to see next i'm still feeling a little sick so i don't know how much i'll be interrupting this video to talk but thankfully my covid test did come back negative so it's not that just a bad cold so here we go let's dive in june 1944 the allies had been long preparing to launch an invasion of german-held europe and now all was finally ready for the invasion they had gathered more than 2 million men the germans could only master a force of less than half the size and it's important to note too that while initially the germans are going to have the advantage because obviously the allies can't land 2.4 million men in the first wave uh you know we're talking about maybe a hundred thousand something like that initially uh in the first couple of waves but then you know more and more throughout the next couple of days but the big difference here of course uh a couple of things number one is complete air supremacy for the allies i mean they're just dominating the skies at this point over western europe and the training level i can't speak to all the british soldiers and some of the others but the vast majority of these allied troops uh have been either in combat for the last two years or have been training for a good two years you know you've got like the 82nd airborne division the first infantry division for the united states who have been in combat before you've got new troops like the 101st airborne division who have not been in combat but have been training for the better part of two years most of these german soldiers are fairly new recruits they're conscripts uh they're guys that have only been trained for a couple of weeks and then rushed to the front lines there's a big big difference in the training and the leadership level of these two sides the allies gave the germans the impression that they were to land on the eastern part of the channel and the germans deployed their strongest forces there and you know they had done we've talked about this before there was a whole lot of counter intelligence going on uh the allies had a masterful uh scheme of convincing the germans that this is where it was going to come and there were a lot of reasons why the germans figured it would either come at calais or at normandy calais made sense because of how close it was you can stand there and see you know if you're standing in england you can see france from there and vice versa it's by far the shortest point so there were a lot of reasons why it made sense especially when the germans got convinced that patton's fictitious army was gathering here for that invasion this lessened the german strength in normandy where the allies actually intended to land most of the allies landed with little difficulty and that's something else we don't talk a lot about the vast majority of the landings at normandy did not face a ton of opposition uh there were sectors of omaha beach for example that were brutal that you see in things like saving private ryan but most of the landings at normandy did not look like saving private ryan uh there were just certain areas and this is a huge area i mean we're talking about i think 60 miles from one end to the other this is not you know a beach here a beach there where you can see each beach from the other ones this is a big area and they're divided by rivers and so you've got to hurry up and take inland and when you start looking at the map you start seeing where the key points are khan for example karen tan becomes huge because that is the link up point between the two american beaches utah over here in omaha over here so that's why that becomes a big strong point cherbourg is going to become important because that's a deep water port that the allies have to have in the next few days they completed their second objective by linking up all of their forces in the area the germans concentrated most of their reserves to the eastern section to cover the way into central france it makes sense to concentrate your forces here you figure okay they've already got this far they're probably going to take sherborg let's cut them off and keep them up in the cottonton peninsula there was a lot of debate that went on between the german high command about the most effective strategy for when the allied invasion came some people thought we've got to hold them at the beach if they get off the beach we're done other people said you know what it's not about the beach it's about counter-attacking once they've got there and then pushing them back and you know obviously we know what happened the western sector did not get enough reinforcements the americans broke the german line and cut off their forces around cherbourg the germans pulled back and attempted to dig in around the town but the american pursuit did not give them the time to do that and they were forced to surrender leaving there's a difference there between how the americans pursued the uh germans into cherbourg and how the germans pursued the british at dunkirk a few years earlier didn't give them time and there was probably a lesson that was learned there in that king sherberg in allied hands by that time the germans had lost the opportunity to push the allies into the sea they had deployed only several hundred thousand soldiers while the allies had already landed a million men during the next month the allies launched several offensives in the eastern sector the british pushed the germans back and gained control of khan and the terrain around it at the same time the americans crossed through difficult terrain and reach ground more favorable for starting a larger offensive so it's important to note here if you look at that i mean we're talking a month and a half after normandy in the grand scheme of things they haven't pushed that far i mean they've really just got the cottontown peninsula they've gotten a little bit inland they've taken khan the main thing though is they've got room to work they laid a cable across in the days after the normandy landing to start pumping oil across they had these mulberry artificial harbors they created until they could take cherbourg now they've got a place that they can move men and material in and start preparing for the big offensive and it's it's interesting that a month and a half to take all of this but watch how quickly they break out in the coming weeks by late july the allies had achieved a strong superiority and were ready to launch the breakout the strong german force in the east kept the allied attacks at bay but in the west the americans were able to break through the german lines the german divisions in the north attempted to escape the encirclement but several of them were destroyed the germans now had little strength to stop the allies and the americans were soon in the open country so that is just what a week week and a half they've doubled the amount of territory they've taken in the first six weeks and it's about to get a whole lot crazier with the front broken and their troops outnumbered the reasonable decision for the germans might have been to pull their forces back however they chose to counter-attack and close the breakout forces supply route the allies originally planned to concentrate on capturing the ports in brittany but when they realized that the main german force was not going to retreat they turned their troops east to try to encircle the germans the german attempts to cut off the allied breakout had failed they were able to contain the anglo-canadian attack from the north but when the americans approached from the south the germans had no choice but to retreat to avoid an encirclement and this was brilliant by the allies to spread out to get in and around them they've got like a five to one advantage in numbers right now use that advantage you know if you can destroy large parts of the army you make your job a lot easier marching on paris the withdrawal was delayed up to the last moment and this would cost them dearly in the following weeks a lot of the german mobile forces were able to escape the encirclement but most of their infantry divisions were cut off and forced to surrender the remaining german troops now attempted to establish a new defensive line on the seine river however the allies had anticipated that as they were closing the pocket they had already sent their troops towards the sin and it's important to note too that while this was all going on uh there were also allied troops that landed in southeastern france uh on the mediterranean and started pushing up that way so the germans just have fronts to try and contain everywhere they've also got a deal with the soviet army marching in from the east i mean they're just collapsing everywhere they don't have the manpower to hold it pushed away weak german resistance and established a bridgehead over the river as a result the germans were unable to easily access the eastern part of the river the allies used this fact and raced east themselves they established their positions along the eastern zen before the germans could dispatch significant forces to counter them the german garrison in paris was left isolated and surrendered to the allies on the 25th of august the allies had gained the upper hand in france and they had now established more ambitious objectives one was to capture the main german industrial area in the rule occupying it would severely reduce the german ability to maintain their war effort the second object so think about this for a second okay it took them six weeks just to get this little area right here six weeks that's all they had in the next six weeks after that they take all of this territory now all of a sudden they're thinking okay let's go for the roar this is the industrial heartland of the german empire right here uh if we take this we're in good shape uh you know and of course this is where they start to get the plans for market garden which will move them right up in through here and into the rear victim was securing the channel boards in order to improve the allied supply situation in their way there were several man-made and natural obstacles which the germans could use for defense the allies first move was an attack north into belgium which would move them closer to both of their objectives the main goal of the germans was to establish a new defensive line in the north and extract their forces intact from southern france they deployed most of their available reserves to keep open the path of retreat in the north the germans were constructing a new defensive line behind the scene so basically the the defensive line they're drawing is similar to the line of world war one if you look at maps of the western front once they settled into trench warfare it was kind of along this area here they attempted to hold the sand as long as possible and then pull their troops back to the new line however this could not be done the germans had not had the time to cover the eastern section of the river the allies crossed the river and advanced quickly northwards towards the main german defenses then the allies breached the german line in the center and the germans had no hope of holding them back the germans began belatedly withdrawing to their main defenses but by that time the allies had already advanced beyond them and so one of the things that we've talked about when we talk about the airborne uh divisions they've got the allies have this incredible resource in these airborne divisions and they kept planning drops for the airborne divisions in different places uh and to drop behind enemy lines and disrupt things secure bridges over some of these key rivers things like that and what was happening was they were moving so fast that every time they would take the time to plan because you got a lot of planning involved in this uh to plan an airborne mission to give them their you know their targets to let them know what their job was to figure out the drop zones by the time they were ready to run the mission the allied forces on the ground had already overrun that drop zone and they were back to square one and this happened multiple times and that's one of the things that goes into the decision to approve monty's market garden plan was we've got these airborne troops we've got to do something with them and so they came up with this idea of market garden germans retreated in full speed to avoid being trapped but they were unable to save all of their forces the allies linked up and cut off part of their troops the allies continued their advance north and trapped even more germans near the sea the remaining germans continued a fast withdrawal to the east they were able to successfully reach their new defensive positions on the secret line before the allies with germany itself coming under threat the germans would deploy most of their reserve units to the front in the following weeks the allies now had to choose whether to concentrate on clearing the ports or the rule they decided to go for the rule there were two main obstacles separating the allies from the rule the secret line and the rhine river the allies decided to cross them by moving north in a single operation called market garden in this way they would not have to deal with the secret line and they would be able to cross the rhine river with a surprise airborne assault so patton is down here with his men and he's arguing vehemently that he can break through the siegfried line that there's not much resistance there just give me the supplies give me the ammo give me the the gasoline that i need for my tanks we'll break through the siegfried line we'll be into germany and this thing will be done monty on the other hand general field marshall montgomery is arguing for uh a thrust with the airborne divisions you drop the british airborne the american airborne uh you secure all of these uh bridgeheads on this road leading up through einhoven up to arnhem and you're across the the rhine river and you're into germany and they darn near did it and if you've if you've watched everything that's happened how quickly they've been moving and how the germans have just collapsed you can start to understand why it would seem like this is a chance worth taking you know it's easy when you just look at market garden and you look in hindsight at what happened you can judge it and say this was stupid it was a big mistake but when you take in everything that has happened and you take in the consideration of using the airborne divisions it starts to make a little more sense as a gamble worth taking the paratroopers would capture the two breaches over the rhine river at arnhem and neumagen then with the aid of other airborne drops the ground forces would quickly link up with them and cross the ryan in strength the paratroopers landed but they were unable to capture either of the bridges with the help of the ground forces the allies were able to take the bridge at nijmegen but by that time the germans had fully secured arnhem the path over the rhine was closed and the allies were only able to rescue the surviving paratroopers yeah so the british first airborne just gets slaughtered and very few of them make it back and it was that last bridge that's why i always say a bridge too far it was the bridge over into arnhem that they considered to be the bridge too far now this did not work out but the allies did continue to hold this territory eventually they send the 101st up here closer to arnhem this is where um we see in band of brothers the things that happened in october of 1944 some of that stuff and eventually there is continued fighting here for a couple of months during the following weeks the german reserves reached the front the allies needed much more strength to breach the german defenses in order to build it up it was necessary to recover the channel ports and improved the supply situation the alas were able to capture the port of antwerp with its stocking facilities intact however they had then concentrated on market garden and had not cleared out their approaches to antwerp which prevented its use the allies first captured bologna and calais but their facilities turned out to be so damaged by the germans that they needed to open antwerp by that time the germans had heavily fortified the antwerp approaches the allies now had to launch a difficult assault and it took them more than a month to dislodge the german defenders clearing the water of mines took several more weeks and only by late november the allies had fully restored their supply flow during that time their other forces were fighting on the german border and isn't it interesting that dunkirk is still in german hands so much like with the allies how they were able to hang on to it now the germans are hanging on to dunkirk but you see the situation here by this point germany's right here um you know it's easy to feel like okay we're gonna sit back we're not gonna take germany by christmas kind of get lulled into a false sense of security and this creates the opportunity for that last big push in what we call the battle of the bulge but i'm guessing i'm guessing that's not going to be in this video i guess we'll see september the allies attempted to breach the german defenses in three locations with the operation market garden and with the attacks in the north and south of their den in the north they had to cross the secret line the allies made progress through the first line of defense but the arrival of german emergency reinforcements halted them on the second line after waiting to replenish their supplies the allies got off ahen from the german lines and captured the town they then began building up supplies for another attack in the south the events played out somewhat differently the germans had deployed their early reinforcements to this sector and set up their defenses on the moselle river in france the allies reached the area in early september and when they had arrived in force they broke into the german line and captured the town of nan si then the alice had to stop the offensive for two months to improve their supply situation and that goes back to not having antwerp not having some of these ports uh you know they were pushing pushing pushing the germans but they ran out of supplies ran out of gasoline couldn't keep going had to stop and wait until they had the supplies to push forward that's the only thing stopping them from winning the war earlier the allied forces in the southernmost part of the front reached the area from southern france after the allies had broken out of normandy their forces landed in the south on the 15th of august by that time the germans in the south had already sent a lot of their forces to normandy and didn't have the strength to resist the allies they began to retreat north to the german border the americans began to pursue the retreating germans they moved north and attempted to cut the german path of retreat but their forces were too weak to do that and they were only able to inflict some casualties the french forces arrived on the shore and moved to secure the major harbors now you keep seeing all these pows that are being captured by the allies what happened to all of them well it's pretty interesting to look at maps that show you all the pow camps in the united states i mean there were hundreds of camps in the u.s camp toccoa where the men of easy company trained got turned into a pow camp they were holding german prisoners there i think nearly all 50 states had pow camps morale of the german garrisons was low and they fell after only brief resistance the french prepared to join the pursuit on the american western plank the american forces were continuing the pursuit but the germans used their tank division to plant their advances and were able to continue their retreat soon the germans made a stand to allow the german forces retreating from southwest and france to catch up they were able to hold the line for some time but then were compelled to continue the retreat at that time the allied forces coming from southern france linked up with those coming from normandy the germans finished their retreat during the pursuit they had lost around half of their troops but they had brought out enough soldiers to man their section of the main german defensive line by early november of 1944 the allies were about to launch a major offensive into germany along the whole front the end of the war had never seemed so close but what they did not know was that germany had used the pause in fighting to prepare its own offensive and that would be the battle of the bulge which we will talk about when we look at the next part of his video series so let me know your thoughts what do you think about this channel what do you think about what we talked about today what would you add to what i've discussed uh use the comment section below please don't forget to hit that like button thank you so much to all of our patrons all of our members here on youtube and uh head on over to patreon if you're a patron and vote about the upcoming series thanks for watching you

Channel: Vlogging Through History

Views: 65,263

Keywords: world war 2, western front, ww2 oversimplified, ww2 animated, world war two, history reaction, eastory reaction, tommykay eastory

Id: qIY9i_Y1qfA

Length: 21min 22sec (1282 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 18 2021