Operation Market Garden
By the late summer of 1944 the most critical factor facing the allied troops in Europe was supply, and when Belgian resistance fighters seized the port of Antwerp intact, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery was directed to provide troops under his command to help clear the Scheldt Estuary to allow the port to be used to resupply the front line troops. Montgomery refused to provide the requested assistance until after his completion of Operation Market Garden, an ambitious and complicated airborne and ground attack to seize bridges which would provide his troops a pathway into Germany and end the war in Europe by Christmas of 1944.
Operation Market Garden was a mistake on at least two levels. Its execution delayed the clearing of the Scheldt of German troops, exacerbating the logistics problems and contributing to difficulties later encountered by poorly supplied troops in the Ardennes. It also failed as a tactical operation, leading to heavy casualties among the airborne troops, heavy loss of equipment, and encouraged Hitler in his decision to launch the winter offensive against the allies in December 1944. Its target objective was the retaking of Antwerp. The mostly Canadian troops who eventually cleared the Scheldt did so with heavy casualties, many of which could have been alleviated if Montgomery had not been obsessed with going a bridge too far.