Editing Siegfried Line campaign (section)

====Aachen====
{{main|Battle of Aachen}}
[[File:Pursuit to the West Wall 1944.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|The advance of Allied forces between 26 August and 14 September 1944]]{{Campaignbox Campaign of Germany (WW2)}}
The U.S. First Army was focused on capturing the city of [[Aachen]], which had to be dealt with before advancing to assault the Siegfried Line itself. Initially, the city of Aachen was to be bypassed and cut off in an attempt by the Allies to imitate the ''Blitzkrieg'' tactics the Germans had so effectively used (see below). However, the city was the first to be assaulted on German soil and so had huge historical and cultural significance for the German people. Hitler personally ordered that the garrison there be reinforced and the city held. This forced the Allied commanders to re-think their strategy.

Some historians, including [[Stephen E. Ambrose]], have suggested that the siege of Aachen was a mistake. The battle stalled the eastward advance by the Allies and caused approximately 5,000 Allied casualties. The fighting was, by all accounts, brutal street-to-street, house-to-house style [[urban combat]] and tied up the available resources of the advancing Allied armies. Ambrose has suggested that a more effective strategy would have been to isolate the garrison at Aachen and continue the move east into the heart of Germany. In theory, this would have eliminated the ability of the German garrison to operate as a fighting force by cutting off their supply lines. This might have forced them to surrender or to move out of the city in an attempt to re-establish their supply lines. In the case of the latter, a confrontation in a more neutral setting would probably have resulted in fewer military and civilian casualties.