사용자:Yhljjang/서부 전선 (제2차 세계 대전)

서부 전선
제2차 세계 대전의 일부
날짜 1939년 – 1945년 장소 북유럽과 서유럽 결과 1939년 – 1940년 - 추축국 승리 1944년 – 1945년 - 연합국 승리
교전국
프랑스 영국 네덜란드 벨기에 미국 폴란드 캐나다 자유 프랑스 체코슬로바키아 룩셈부르크 오스트레일리아 뉴질랜드 노르웨이 그리스 왕국 덴마크	나치 독일 이탈리아
지휘관
1939-1940 모리스 가믈랭 막심 베강 고트 경 (영국 원정군) 레오폴드 3세 헨리 빙켈만 1944-1945 드와이트 아이젠하워 (SHAEF) 버나드 몽고메리 (21 집단군) 오마르 브래들리 (12 집단군) 제이콥 데버스 (6 집단군)	1939-1940 게르트 폰 룬트슈테트 (A 집단군) 페도르 폰 보크 (B 집단군) 빌헬름 리터 폰 레프 (C 집단군) 이탈리아의 움베르토 2세 (서부 집단군) 1944-1945 아돌프 히틀러 에르빈 롬멜 게르트 폰 룬트슈테트 발터 모델 알베르트 케셀링 구스타프 아돌프 폰 잔겐

제2차 세계 대전의 서부 유럽 전선은 영국, 프랑스, 벨기에, 네덜란드, 룩셈부르크, 노르웨이, 덴마크에서 벌어진 전투들을 망라하는 전선의 명칭이다. 서부 유럽 전선은 큰 규모의 지상 전투 작전이 벌어진 두 시기에 걸쳐서 이루어졌다. 첫번째 시기는 1940년 5월 - 6월이었는데 프랑스와 저지 국가들이 패배하였고, 독일의 영국 전투로 이어졌다. 두번째 시기는 1944년 6월에 노르망디 상륙 작전이 성공한 후 1945년 5월 독일의 패배가 이루어질 때까지 계속되었다.

1939-40: 전격전

가짜 전쟁

가짜 전쟁은 독일의 폴란드 침공 이후이며 프랑스 공방전 이전인 전쟁의 이른 시기에 유럽 대륙에서 있었던 몇몇 군사 작전들로 특징지어진다. 서로 선전 포고를 하였어도 다른 면으로는 주목할 만한 공격을 할 준비가 안 되어있는 유럽의 강대국들은 상대적으로 소규모의 싸움만 벌였다. The Phoney War, was an early phase of the war marked by few military operations in Continental Europe, in the months following the German invasion of Poland and preceding the Battle of France. Although the great powers of Europe had declared war on one another, neither side had yet committed to launching a significant attack, and there was relatively little fighting on the ground.

대부분의 독일군이 폴란드에 맞서 싸우고 있을 때, 훨씬 적은 규모의 독일군이 프랑스 국경을 따라 강화된 방어선인 지그프리드 선을 침범했다. 국경 맞은편에 위치한 마지노 선에서는 영국군과 프랑스군이 여전히 그들을 대면하고 있었지만 단지 국지적이고 소규모의 접전만 있었을 뿐이다. 서유럽이 이상한 고요에 빠진 7달 동안, 영국 공군은 독일에 선전 삐라들을 뿌렸고 첫번째 캐나다 군이 영국에 상륙했다. While most of the German army was fighting against Poland, a much smaller German force manned the Siegfried Line, their fortified defensive line along the French border. At the Maginot Line on the other side of the border, British and French troops stood facing them, but there were only some local, minor skirmishes. The British Royal Air Force dropped propaganda leaflets on Germany and the first Canadian troops stepped ashore in Britain, while western Europe was in a strange calm for seven months.

영국과 프랑스의 서두른 재무장 중에, 그들은 그들 자신의 무기들에 보충해서 전쟁 발발 때 미국의 제조회사들로부터 많은 양의 무기들을 사기 시작했다. 비교전국인 미국은 군사 장비와 보급품을 싸게 판매함으로서 서방 연합군에 기여했다. 연합군의 대서양간 교역을 저지시키려는 독일군의 노력은 대서양 전투를 점화시켰다. In their hurry to re-arm, Britain and France had both begun buying large amounts of weapons from manufacturers in the United States at the outbreak of hostilities, supplementing their own productions. The non-belligerent United States contributed to the Western Allies by discounted sales of military equipment and supplies. German efforts to interdict the Allies' trans-Atlantic trade at sea ignited the Battle of the Atlantic.

스칸디나비아

서부 전선이 여전히 조용했던 1940년 4월 동안, 가장 이른 연합군과 독일군의 싸움은 노르웨이 전역에서 독일군이 그들의 덴마크와 노르웨이 침략인 위제르붕 작전에 착수했을 때 시작되었다. 이 전역은 가짜 전쟁의 마무리가 시작된 것을 두드러지게 했다. While the Western Front remained quiet in April 1940, the fighting between the Allies and the Germans began in earnest with Norwegian campaign when the Germans launched Operation Weserübung, the German invasion of Denmark and Norway. This marked in the beginning of the end of the Phoney War.

베네룩스와 프랑스 공방전

 이 부분의 본문은 프랑스 공방전입니다.

1940년 5월에 독일군은 프랑스 공방전에 착수했다. 독일군의 전격전이라는 맹공격 아래에서 서방 연합군 — 주로 프랑스와 영국군 — 은 금방 무너졌다. 프랑스군이 9만 명 사망, 20만 명 부상하며 항복하는 동안 영국군은 덩케르크에서 철수했다. 전선에서의 싸움이 끝나자, 독일군은 영국을 침략할 준비를 하기 시작했다. In May 1940, the Germans launched the Battle of France. The Western Allies — primarily the French and British — soon collapsed under the onslaught of the German blitzkrieg. The British escaped at Dunkirk, while the French Army surrendered with 90,000 dead and 200,000 wounded. Fighting along the Front ended, and the German army began preparations to invade England.

1941-43: 전간기

Following the Luftwaffe’s defeat in the Battle of Britain, the invasion of Great Britain was cancelled. While the majority of the German army was mustered for the invasion of the Soviet Union, construction began on the Atlantic Wall — a series of defensive fortifications along the French coast of the English Channel. These were built in anticipation of a cross-channel British invasion of France.

Dieppe's pebble beach and cliff immediately following the raid on August 19, 1942. A scout car has been abandoned.

Because of the massive logistical obstacles a cross-channel invasion would face, Allied high command decided to conduct a practice attack against the French coast. On August 19, 1942, the Allies began the Dieppe Raid, an attack on Dieppe, France. Most of the troops were Canadian, with an American and some British contingents. The raid was a disaster, and almost two-thirds of the attacking force became casualties. However, much was learned as a result of the operation — these lessons would be put to good use later in subsequent invasions.

For almost two years, there was no land-fighting on the Western Front with the exception of commando raids and the guerrilla actions of the resistance aided by the SOE and OSS. However, in the meantime, the Allies took the war to Germany, with a strategic bombing campaign the US Eighth Air Force bombing Germany by day and the RAF Bomber Command bombing by night.

Two early British raids for which battle honours were awarded were Boulogne (11 June 1940) and Guernsey (14 July, 15 July 1940). The raids for which the British awarded the "North-West Europe Campaign of 1942" battle honour were: Bruneval (27 February, 28 February 1942), St Nazaire (27 March, 28 March 1942), Bayonne (5 April 1942), Hardelot (21 April, 22 April 1942), Dieppe (19 August 1942), Gironde (7 December - 12 December 1942).

A raid on Sark on the night of 3/4 October 1942 is notable because after which a few days later the Germans issued a propaganda communiqué implying at least one prisoner had escaped and two were shot while resisting having their hands tied. This instance of tying prisoner's hands contributed to Hitler's decision to issue his Commando Order instructing all captured Commandos or Commando-type personnel be executed as a matter of procedure.

1944-45: 제2전선

노르망디

Routes taken by the D-Day invasion

 이 부분의 본문은 노르망디 전투입니다.

On June 6, 1944, the Allies began Operation Overlord (also known as "D-Day") — the long-awaited liberation of France. The deception operation had the Germans convinced that the invasion would occur at the Pas-de-Calais, while the real target was Normandy. Following two months of slow fighting in hedgerow country, Operation Cobra allowed the Americans to break out at the western end of the lodgement. Soon after, the Allies were racing across France. They circled around and trapped 250,000 Germans in the Falaise pocket. As had so often happened on the Eastern Front Hitler refused to allow a strategic withdrawal until it was too late. 100,000 Germans managed to escape through the Falaise Gap but they left behind most of their equipment and 150,000 were taken prisoner.

The Allies had been arguing about whether to advance on a broad-front or a narrow-front from before D-Day. If the British had broken out of the Normandy bridge-head around Caen when they launched Operation Goodwood and pushed along the coast, facts on the ground might have turned the argument in favour of a narrow front. However, as the breakout took place during Operation Cobra at the western end of the bridge-head, the 21st Army Group that included the British and Canadian forces swung east through Belgium, the Netherlands, and Northern Germany, while the U.S. Twelfth Army Group advanced to their south via eastern France, Luxembourg and the Ruhr Area, rapidly fanning out into a broad front. As this was the strategy favoured by supreme Allied commander Eisenhower and most of the rest of the American high command, it became the strategy which was adopted.

프랑스의 해방

On August 15 in an effort to aid their operations in Normandy, the Allies launched Operation Dragoon — the invasion of Southern France between Toulon and Cannes. The U.S. Seventh Army and French First Army making up US 6th Army Group rapidly consolidated this beachhead and liberated southern France in two weeks, and advanced north up the Rhone valley. Their advance only slowed down as they encountered regrouped and entrenched German troops in the Vosges Mountains.

The Germans in France were now faced by three powerful Allied army groups: in the north British 21st Army Group commanded by Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, in the middle the American 12th Army Group commanded by General Omar Bradley and to the South the US 6th Army Group commanded by Lieutenant General Jacob L. Devers. By mid September 6th Army Group, advancing from the south, came into contact with Bradley's formations advancing from the west and overall control of Devers' force passed from AFHQ in the Mediterranean so that all three army groups came under the central command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower at SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Forces).

Under the onslaught in both the North and South of France, the German Army fell back. On August 19, the French Resistance (FFI) organised a general uprising and the liberation of Paris took place on August 25 when general Dietrich von Choltitz accepted the French ultimatum and surrendered to general Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, commander of the Free French 2nd Armored Division, ignoring orders from Hitler that Paris should be held to the last and to destroy the city.

The liberation of northern France and the Benelux countries was of special significance for the inhabitants of London and the south east of England, because it denied the Germans launch zones for their mobile V-1 and V-2 Vergeltungswaffen (reprisal weapons).

Unfortunately for the Allies, the Germans took special care to thoroughly wreck all port facilities before the Allies could capture them. As the Allies advanced across France, their supply lines stretched to the breaking point. The Red Ball Express, the allied trucking effort, was simply unable to transport enough supplies from the port facilities in Normandy all the way to the front lines, which by September, were close to the German border.

마켓가든 작전

The British Field-Marshal Montgomery persuaded Allied High Command to launch a bold attack, Operation Market Garden which he hoped would get the Allies across the Rhine and create the narrow-front he favoured. Paratroopers would fly in from England and take bridges over the main rivers of the German-occupied Netherlands in three main cities, Eindhoven, Nijmegen, and Arnhem. British XXX (30) Corps would punch through the German lines and link up with the paratroopers. If all went well XXX Corps would advance into Germany without any remaining major obstacles. XXX Corps was able to link up with six of the seven paratrooper-held bridges, but was unable to link up with the troops near the bridge over the Rhine at Arnhem. The result was the near-destruction of the British 1st Airborne Division. These events were summarised by Lieutenant-General Frederick Browning as "a bridge too far". The offensive ended with Arnhem in German hands and the Allies holding an extended salient from the Belgian border to the area between Nijmegen and Arnhem.

연합군의 파리에서 라인 강까지의 진격

 이 부분의 본문은 연합군의 파리에서 라인 강까지의 진격입니다.

American troops cross the Siegfried Line into Germany.

Fighting on the Western front seemed to stabilize, and the Allied advance stalled in front of the Siegfried Line (Westwall) and the southern reaches of the Rhine. Starting in early September, the Americans began slow and bloody fighting through the Hurtgen Forest ("Passchendaele with tree bursts"—Hemingway) to breach the Line.

The port of Antwerp was liberated on September 4 by British 11th Armoured Division. However, it lay at the end of a long Scheldt Estuary, and so it could not be used until its approaches were clear of heavily fortified German positions. The Breskens pocket on the southern bank of the Scheldt was cleared with heavy casualties by Canadian and Polish forces in Operation Switchback, during the Battle of the Scheldt. This was followed by a tedious campaign to clear a peninsula dominating the estuary, and finally, the amphibious assault on Walcheren Island in November. The campaign to clear the Scheldt Estuary was a decisive victory for the First Canadian Army and the Allies, as it allowed greatly improved delivery of supplies directly from the port of Antwerp, which was far closer to the front than the beaches of Normandy.

This German armored vehicle was destroyed by an American tank near Saint Aubin, the burning remains are inspected by US soldiers.

In October the Americans decided that they could not just invest Aachen and let it fall in a slow siege, because it threatened the flanks of the U.S. Ninth Army. As it was the first major German city to face invasion, Hitler ordered that the city be held at all costs. In the resulting battle of Aachen, after a very hard fight, the city was taken, at a cost of 5,000 casualties on both sides, with an additional 5,600 German prisoners.

South of the Ardennes, U.S. forces fought from September until mid-December to push the Germans out of Lorraine and behind the Siegfried Line. The crossing of the Moselle River and the capture of the fortress of Metz proved difficult for the U.S. troops in the face of German reinforcements, supply shortages, and unfavorable weather. During September and October, the Allied 6th Army Group (U.S. Seventh Army and French First Army) fought a difficult campaign through the Vosges Mountains that was marked by dogged German resistance and slow advances. In November, however, the German front snapped under the pressure, resulting in sudden Allied advances that liberated Belfort, Mulhouse, and Strasbourg, and placed Allied forces along the Rhine River. The Germans managed to hold a large bridgehead (Colmar Pocket) on the western bank of the Rhine centered around the city of Colmar.

겨울의 결정적 공격들

American soldiers taking up defensive positions in the Ardennes during the Battle of the Bulge.

The Germans had been preparing a massive counter-attack in the West since the Allied breakout from Normandy. The plan called Wacht am Rhein ("Watch on the Rhine") was to attack through the Ardennes and swing North to Antwerp, splitting the American and British armies. The attack started on December 16 in what became known as the Battle of the Bulge. Defending the Ardennes were troops of the U.S. First Army. After initial successes in bad weather, which gave them cover from the Allied air forces, the Germans' vanguard almost reach the Meuse River. the Germans were eventually pushed back to their starting points by January 15, 1945.

The Germans launched a second, smaller offensive (Nordwind) into Alsace on New Year's Day, 1945. Aiming to recapture Strasbourg, the Germans attacked the 6th Army Group at multiple points. Because Allied lines had become severely stretched in response to the crisis in the Ardennes, holding and throwing back the Nordwind offensive was a costly affair that lasted almost four weeks. The culmination of Allied counter-attacks restored the front line to the area of the German border and collapsed the Colmar Pocket.

독일 침공

 이 부분의 본문은 서부 연합군의 독일 침공입니다.

The pincer movement of the First Canadian Army in Operation Veritable advancing from Nijmegen area of the Netherlands and the U.S. Ninth Army crossing the Rur (Roer) in Operation Grenade was planned to start on February 8 1945, but it was delayed by two weeks when the Germans flooded the river valley by destroying the dam gates upstream. During the two weeks that the river was flooded Hitler would not allow Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt to withdraw East behind the Rhine arguing that it would only delay the inevitable fight. Hitler ordered him to fight where his forces stood.

By the time the water had subsided and the U.S. Ninth Army was able to cross the Roer on February 23, other Allied forces were also close to the Rhine's west bank. Rundstedt's divisions which had remained on the west bank of the Rhine were cut to pieces in the battle of the Rhineland and 290,000 men were taken prisoner.

US soldiers cross the Rhine river in assault boats.

The crossing of the Rhine was achieved at four points: One was an opportunity taken by U.S. forces when the Germans failed to blow up the Ludendorff bridge at Remagen, one crossing was a hasty assault, and two crossings were planned.

• General Omar Bradley's US forces aggressive pursuit of the disintegrating German troops resulted in the capture of the Ludendorff bridge across the Rhine River at Remagen by the U.S. First Army. Bradley and his subordinates quickly exploited the crossing made on March 7 and expanded the bridgehead into a full scale crossing.
• Bradley told General Patton whose U.S. Third Army had been fighting through the Palatinate, to "take the Rhine on the run". The Third Army did just that on the night of March 22 crossing the river with a hasty assault south of Mainz at Oppenheim.
• In the North Operation Plunder was the crossing of the Rhine river at Rees and Wesel by the British 21st Army Group on the night of March 23. It included the largest airborne operation in history codenamed Operation Varsity. At the point the British crossed the Rhine, it is twice as wide, with a far higher volume of water, than the points where the Americans crossed and Montgomery decided it could only be crossed safely with a carefully planned operation.
• In the Allied 6th Army Group area, the U.S. Seventh Army assaulted across the Rhine in the area between Mannheim and Worms on March 26. A fifth crossing on a much smaller scale was later achieved by the French First Army at Speyer.

US soldiers advance through the hazy ruins of Waldenburg Germany, April 1945.

Once the Allies had crossed the Rhine, the British fanned out Northeast towards Hamburg crossing the river Elbe and on towards Denmark and the Baltic. British and Canadian paratroopers reached the Baltic city of Wismar just ahead of Soviet forces on May 2. The U.S. Ninth Army, which had remained under British command since the battle of the Bulge went south as the northern pincer of the Ruhr encirclement.

The U.S. 12th Army Group fanned out, the First Army went north as the southern pincer of the Ruhr encirclement. On April 4 the encirclement was completed and the Ninth Army reverted to the command of Bradley's 12th Army Group. German Army Group B commanded by Field Marshal Walther Model was trapped in the Ruhr Pocket and 300,000 soldiers became POWs. The Ninth and First American armies then turned east and pushed to the Elbe River by mid-April. During the push east, the cities of Frankfurt am Main, Kassel, Magdeburg, Halle, and Leipzig were strongly defended by ad hoc German garrisons made up of regular troops, Flak units, Volkssturm, and armed Nazi Party auxiliaries. Generals Eisenhower and Bradley concluded that pushing beyond the Elbe made no sense since eastern Germany was destined in any case to be occupied by the Red Army. The Ninth and First Armies stopped along the Elbe and Mulde Rivers, making contact with Soviet forces near the River Elbe in late April. U.S. Third Army had fanned out to the East into western Czechoslovakia, and Southeast into eastern Bavaria and northern Austria. By V-E Day, the U.S. 12th Army Group was a force of four armies (First, Third, Ninth, and Fifteenth) that numbered over 1.3 million men.

제3제국의 최후

The U.S. 6th Army Group fanned out to the Southwest passing to the east of Switzerland through Bavaria into Austria and North Italy. The Black Forest and Baden were overrun by the French First Army. Determined stands were made in April by German forces at Heilbronn, Nuremberg, and Munich but were overcome after battles that lasted several days. Elements of the US 3rd Infantry Division were the first Allied troops to arrive at Berchtesgaden, which they secured along with the Berghof (Hitler's Alpine residence). German Army Group G surrendered to U.S. forces at Haar, in Bavaria, Germany on May 5, 1945. Field Marshal Montgomery took the German military surrender of all German forces in Holland, Northwest Germany and Denmark on Lüneburg Heath an area between the cities of Hamburg, Hanover and Bremen, on the May 4 1945. As the operational commander of some of these forces was Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, the new Reichspräsident (head of state) of the Third Reich this signaled that the European war was over.

On May 7 at his headquarters in Rheims, Eisenhower took the unconditional surrender of all German forces to the western Allies and the Soviet Union, from the German Chief-of-Staff, General Alfred Jodl, who signed the surrender document[1] at 0241 hours. General Franz Böhme announced the unconditional surrender of German troops in Norway. Operations ceased at 2301 hours Central European time (CET) on May 8. On that same day Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, a head of OKW and Jodl's superior was brought to Marshal Georgy K. Zhukov in Karlshorst and signed the instrument of surrender[2] that was essentially identical to that signed in Reims with certain additions requested by the Soviets.