French civilians streamed out of Strasbourg, back into the Vosges Mountains. There was talk of evacuating the city. The Germans might be coming back.
For ten days Allied reconnaissance planes had been reporting troop move ments in the Palatinate (southwestern corner of the German Rhineland), so the attack could not have been another sur prise. But the U.S. Seventh Army troops in that area found it hard to deal with. The deepest thrust reached 15 miles to the south before it was stopped.
Faced by this sudden threat to its rear, the Seventh withdrew from its two footholds in Germany. Then the Germans...