Crossing the Rhine River was the objective of the Battle of the Bulge.
Explanation:
The Battle of the Bulge was the last major German strategic offensive on the Western front during World War II. The codename assigned by the Wehrmacht was originally "operation Wacht am Rhein" (Rhine guard), designed to hide the offensive nature of the operation. Subsequently, in December 1944, the operation was renamed for security reasons "Herbstnebel" (Autumn Fog).
The Battle of the Bulge was very ambitious according to the original design by Adolf Hitler, who even hoped for a resounding Allied defeat and a repetition of the Anglo-French defeat of Dunkerque. Despite the great allied superiority of men and means, during the first week the German forces obtained some significant victories and managed to break through in depth. Totally surprised, the allied commands and the troops in the field, prey to an excessive feeling of superiority and security, initially showed signs of collapse and slip, making them fear a strategic disaster.
The battle ended, after a month of clashes, with the final victory of the Allies and the failure of the German offensive, but the hard losses suffered in the Ardennes, above all by the US army, forced a revision of the deployments and the plans, slowed down the attack on the heart of Germany and also caused a crisis in the supreme command between Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery and the US generals. Indirectly however, due to the use by the Germans of considerable reserves of men and armored vehicles, this battle also facilitated the success of the overwhelming mass offensive of the Red Army on the eastern front which began on 12 January 1945.
