On the day that Kluge had temporarily been out of contact, 15 August, the Allies undertook ‘Operation Dragoon’, the landing of troops on the French Mediterranean coast.180 Quickly capturing Marseilles and Toulon, they pushed northwards, forcing Hitler reluctantly to agree to the withdrawal to the north of almost all his forces in southern France in the attempt to build a cohesive front along the upper Marne and Saône stretching to the Swiss border.181 The end of the German occupation of France was now in sight. Though it would take several more weeks to complete, the symbolic moment arrived when, prompted by strikes, a popular uprising, and attacks by the French Resistance against the German occupiers, and by the eventual readiness of the German Commander, General Dietrich von Choltitz to surrender (despite orders from Hitler to reduce Paris to rubble if it could not be held),182 the Allied Supreme Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, gave a French division the honour of liberating the French capital on 24 August. The liberation was celebrated by enormous crowds two days later as they cheered the triumphal march down the Champs-Elysées of General Charles de Gaulle, leader of the Free French.183 Bitter recriminations within the country against those French citizens who had collaborated with the occupiers were only momentarily held back in the joyous scenes.
By now, the western Allies had over 2 million men on the Continent.184 Advancing into Belgium, they liberated Brussels on 3 September and next day captured the important port of Antwerp before the harbour installations could be destroyed. Only Cherbourg, of the major channel ports, had up to this point been in Allied hands, and supplies through that route were seriously hampered by the level of destruction. Antwerp was vital to the assault on Germany. But it was as late as 27 November before the Scheldt estuary was secured and before the approaches to the harbour were fully cleared of mines.185 In the interim, the Allied drive towards the German borders suffered a major setback with the serious losses suffered, especially by British troops, in ten days of bitter fighting in the combined airborne and land operation — ‘Market Garden’ — launched on 17 September, to seize the river crossings at Grave, Nijmegen, and Arnhem.186 Beyond supply problems, battle fatigue, and replacing the men lost, the Allied advance was stalling because of the stiff German defence, aided by shortened supply lines, redeployment of the men extricated from the Falaise Pocket, and reinforcements drawn from the east.187 In the west, it was plain, despite the dramatic Allied successes since D-Day, the war was far from over.
In the east, following the Red Army’s big summer offensive, the German network of alliances with Balkan countries started to unravel in August much as Hitler had feared. On 2 August, Turkey announced that it was breaking off relations with Germany. Economically, it meant the loss of chrome supplies.188 Militarily, it was clear that Turkey would at some point join the Allies.189 Three days later, on 5 August, Hitler, accompanied by Ribbentrop, Keitel, and Guderian, received Marshal Antonescu at the Wolf’s Lair in a vain attempt to shore up the alliance with Romania.190 The talks proceeded civilly enough. But Romania had already made peace soundings with the Allies. And forces were gathering in Bucharest aimed at toppling Antonescu and taking Romania out of a war for which the country, following its severe battlefield losses at Stalingrad and in the Crimea, had long lost heart.191 On 20 August, when the Soviets attacked Army Group South Ukraine, Romanian units deserted
