World War II, or Second World War, (193945) International conflict principally between the Axis powersGermany, Italy, and Japanand the Allied powersFrance, Britain, the U.S., the Soviet Union, and China. This was followed by a pincer movement of the First Canadian Army in Operation Veritable advancing from the Nijmegen area of the Netherlands, and the US Ninth Army crossing the Roer in Operation Grenade. However, much was learned as a result of the operation these lessons would be put to good use in the subsequent invasion. Fighting began with Operation Weserbung, the German invasion of Denmark and Norway, in April, 1940. [130] Not included in these figures are civilians who died in the fighting and atrocities in East-Prussia (Konigsberg, Pillau), Pommerania (Danzig, Kolberg) and Silesia (Breslau). Many civilians died because of deliberate genocide, massacres, mass-bombings, disease, and starvation. The US Third Army had fanned out to the east into western Czechoslovakia and southeast into eastern Bavaria and northern Austria. Page 478. Official statistics published by the West German government 1956 put the death toll due to air raids at 635,000. The US Ninth Army, which had remained under British command since the battle of the Bulge, went south as the northern pincer of the Ruhr encirclement as well as pushing elements east. Pages 339-345. The Phoney War was an early phase of World War II marked by a few military operations in Continental Europe in the months following the German invasion of Poland and preceding the Battle of France. 21st Army Group was then instead ordered to move northeast toward Bremen and Hamburg. Likewise, the Soviet kept about 3,000 tanks in the Far East through much of the war." [13][12] The German Historical Museum puts the figure at 600,000 dead; they maintain the figure of 2 million expulsion deaths cannot be supported. While most of the German Army was fighting against Poland, a much smaller German force manned the Siegfried Line, their fortified defensive line along the French border. This was countered by Montgomery, commanding the 21st Army Group in the north, who wished to attack over the Lower Rhine into the industrial Ruhr Valley. In the post-war era the military search service Deutsche Dienststelle (WASt) has been responsible for providing information for the families of those military personnel who were killed or went missing in the war. Figures do not include prisoners held by Allies. In a final gamble, Adolf Hitler ordered a massive winter offensive, which resulted in the Battle of the Bulge. "Hvor mange drbte danskere?". How many people died during World War II? World War II: V-E Day. U.S. forces closed the "bulge" on January 15, 1945, when they linked up near Houffalize, and by early February, the lines had returned to their pre-December 16 positions. The current view of the German government is that these losses were due to an aggressive war started by the German nation. at 215,000.

The Austrian government puts their losses in the air war at 24,000. After overcoming initial resistance, they were able to move inland, though only the Canadians were able to reach their D-Day objectives. At the Maginot Line on the other side of the border, French troops stood facing them, whilst the British Expeditionary Force and other elements of the French Army created a defensive line along the Belgian border. The Japanese Relief Bureau's army dead figure for this battlefront is 435,600. This, they felt, would provide an easier path and would have the benefit of creating a barrier against Soviet influence in the postwar world. [164], James Bacque, a Canadian author with no previous historical research experience, has written a book Other Losses in which he claims that the United States are responsible for the deaths of 800,000 to 1,000,000 German POW. Beginning in Europe, before taking in Asia, Africa, America and the Pacific, World War 2 saw over 60 million deaths and countless lives blighted. In doing so, the Germans beat the Allies to the punch; the Allies had been planning an amphibious landing in which they could begin to surround Germany, cutting off her supply of raw materials from Sweden. The losses of civilians from East-Central Europe in the 1945 are included with the expulsion dead, the German Archives report of 1974 estimated 150,000 violent deaths of civilians in East-Central Europe during the 1945 military campaign. Total losses reached an estimated 400,000 men. On 7 May at his headquarters in Rheims, Eisenhower took the unconditional surrender of all German forces to the western Allies and the Soviet Union,[44] from the German Chief-of-Staff, General Alfred Jodl, who signed the first general instrument of surrender at 0241 hours. Hickman, Kennedy. Germans played for time in Reims. The Nazis' plan for Eastern Europe, unlike in the West, was to murder or enslave the local inhabitants (most of whom were Slavs, considered sub-human in Nazi racial classification) in order to created 'living space' for Germans in these territories. RAC Directorate of the War Office listed AFV losses as an estimated. France, AxisGermanyItaly(19401943)Italian Social Republic(19431945) Hungary[1][need quotation to verify] (19441945), (~70% of Allied troops and casualties were Americans)[8]. Niewyk, Donald L. The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust, Columbia University Press, 2000; Statistisches Jahrbuch fr die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1960 Bonn 1961 p. 78, Bundesarchiv Euthanasie" im Nationalsozialismus, bundesarchiv.de; accessed 5 March 2016.(German). [106] According to the Japanese Relief Bureau of the Ministry of Health and Welfare in March 1964, a total of 2,121,000 Japanese servicemen perished in WWII. During the cold war in West Germany there were claims that one million German prisoners of war were held in secret by the USSR.

Monthly figures do not add because of rounding. Statistics for German World War II military casualties are divergent. , and at least 220,000 by the end of April 1945 in the Italian campaign[60] Operations ceased at 23:01 hours Central European time (CET) on 8 May. According to Steven Zaloga: (1) "As of January each year, except for 1941 which is as of 22 June 1941. (, Rdiger Overmans Soldaten hinter Stacheldraht. However, Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine, had suffered serious losses in Norway, and in order to even consider an amphibious landing, Germany's Air Force (the Luftwaffe) had to first gain air superiority or air supremacy. Coming ashore in Normandy, Allied forces broke out of their beachhead and swept across France. For the full article, see, Forces and resources of the European combatants, 1939, The Baltic states and the Russo-Finnish War, 193940, The war in the west, September 1939June 1940, The invasion of the Low Countries and France, Italys entry into the war and the French Armistice, The Atlantic and the Mediterranean, 194041, Pearl Harbor and the Japanese expansion, to July 1942, Developments from autumn 1941 to spring 1942, Allied strategy and controversies, 194042, The Germans summer offensive in southern Russia, 1942, The Solomons, Papua, Madagascar, the Aleutians, and Burma, July 1942May 1943, Montgomerys Battle of el-Alamein and Rommels retreat, 194243, Stalingrad and the German retreat, summer 1942February 1943, The invasion of northwest Africa, NovemberDecember 1942, The Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the North Sea, 194245, The Eastern Front, FebruarySeptember 1943, The Southwest and South Pacific, JuneOctober 1943, The Allied landings in Europe and the defeat of the Axis powers, Developments from autumn 1943 to summer 1944, Sicily and the fall of Mussolini, JulyAugust 1943, The Allies invasion of Italy and the Italian volte-face, 1943, The western Allies and Stalin: Cairo and Tehrn, 1943, The Eastern Front, October 1943April 1944, The war in the Pacific, October 1943August 1944, The Burmese frontier and China, November 1943summer 1944, Developments from summer 1944 to autumn 1945, The Allied invasions of western Europe, JuneNovember 1944, Allied policy and strategy: Octagon (Quebec II) and Moscow, 1944, The Philippines and Borneo, from September 1944, The German offensive in the west, winter 194445, The Soviet advance to the Oder, JanuaryFebruary 1945, The end of the Japanese war, FebruarySeptember 1945, Pop Quiz: 17 Things to Know About World War II.

Paul Winter, in Defeating Hitler, states "these figures are undoubtedly too low"[15]. But it turned out to be a fatal mistake. 7,614,790 were held in POW camps by early June of 1945 (including 3,404,950 who were disarmed following the surrender of Germany), All totals listed only include direct deaths due to military activity and crimes against humanity, including the, German deployments to the Western Front (plus Italy) reached levels as high as approximately 40% of their ground forces, and 75% of the. [131], The West German government put the number of Germans killed by the Nazi political, racial and religious persecution at 300,000 (including 160,000 German Jews)[132], A 2003 report by the German Federal Archive put the total murdered during the Action T4 Euthanasia program at over 200,000 persons. He estimated total air raid deaths at 353,000.

[147] These figures do not include ethnic Germans from other nations in the German military and ethnic German civilians who were killed in expulsions. In recent years there has been a joint Russian-German project to investigate the fate of POWs in the war. In such as the Baltic, Beyelorussian, Kiev and Voronezh-Voroshilovgrad defensive operations, 20-30,000 small arms, 90-290 tanks, 200-520 guns and mortars and 30-100 combat aircraft were lost daily. ThoughtCo. [38] British and Canadian paratroopers reached the Baltic city of Wismar just ahead of Soviet forces on 2 May. This page is not available in other languages. "Allied casualties from D-day to VE totaled 766,294. The Breskens pocket on the southern bank of the Scheldt was cleared with heavy casualties by allied forces in Operation Switchback, during the Battle of the Scheldt. The attack started on 16 December in what became known as the Battle of the Bulge. [159] However, there are fringe groups who attempt to trivialize the crimes of the Hitler period by comparing German losses to the Holocaust. The Allies then invaded Sicily and Italy, forcing the overthrow of the Fascist government in July 1943, though fighting against the Germans continued in Italy until 1945. Germany (West). Lasting six brutal weeks, from December 16, 1944, to January 25, 1945, the assault took . Aiming to recapture Strasbourg, the Germans attacked the 6th Army Group at multiple points. Population Changes in Europe Since 1939, Geneva 1951. The OKW retained a substantial reserve of such mobile divisions also, but these were dispersed over a large area: the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler was still Netherlands, the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend and the Panzer-Lehr Division were located in the ParisOrleans area, since the Normandy coastal defence sectors or (Kstenverteitigungsabschnitte KVA) were considered the most likely areas for an invasion. Both sides engaged in large-scale atrocities and war crimes. Page 202", "George C Marshall, Biennial reports of the Chief of Staff of the United States Army to the Secretary of War: 1 July 1939-30 June 1945.

Fighting their way into the town, they succeeded in capturing the bridge but were unable to hold it against increasingly heavy opposition. As Market-Garden commenced, fighting continued on the 12th Army Group's front to the south. The culmination of Allied counter-attacks restored the front line to the area of the German border and collapsed the Colmar Pocket. Herausgeber: Statistisches Bundesamt - Wiesbaden. (Published by the Search Service of the German Red Cross. The heaviest loss of life for a single day occurred on July 1, 1916, during the Battle of the Somme, when the British Army suffered 57,470 casualties. -Expulsion and deportation dead - This estimate is only for the. [160] The German government currently places the ultimate blame for the mass flight and expulsion on the wartime policy of the Nazis in Eastern Europe. They encircled around 200,000 Germans in the Falaise Pocket. Notes: Figures include Waffen SS, Austrians, conscripted ethnic Germans, Volkssturm, and other paramilitary forces. Seven days later, the German government formally surrendered, ending World War II in Europe. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Bevlkerungsbilanzen fr die deutschen Vertreibungsgebiete 1939/50. Sources for figures: Wirtschaft und Statistik October 1956, journal published by Statistisches Bundesamt Deutschland (German government Statistical Office). Bacque's book received wide attention when it was first published in 1989, since then his claims have been challenged by historians who have found his thesis to be unsubstantiated. -Other, misc. They maintain the files of over 18 million men who served in the war. Veritable and Grenade were planned to start on 8 February 1945, but Grenade was delayed by two weeks when the Germans flooded the Roer valley by destroying the gates of the Rur Dam upstream. The schedule below details the statistics published by the West German government 1956. On the Western Front in 19441945, 4,477 British Commonwealth tanks were destroyed, including 2,712 M4 Sherman tanks, 656 Churchill tanks, 609 Cromwell tanks, 433 M3 Stuart light tanks, 39 Cruiser Mk VIII Challenger tanks, 26 Comet tanks, 2 M24 Chaffee light tanks.[8]. The result was the near-destruction of the British 1st Airborne Division during the Battle of Arnhem, which sustained almost 8,000 casualties.

In their hurry to re-arm, Britain and France had both begun to buy large numbers of weapons from manufacturers in the United States at the outbreak of hostilities, supplementing their own production. With an addition of this estimate of 1944 and 1945 unrecorded deaths, the final estimation gave in round numbers a half a million German civilians killed by Allied aerial attacks"[125], Historian Richard Overy in 2014 published a study of the air war The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War Over Europe 1940-1945 in which he disputed the official German figures of air war dead. The main points of Overy's analysis are as follows. Accordingly, the number of German killed and wounded was much higher in the East than in the West. 159,144 Anti-tank guns and Artillery destroyed or captured. To this must be added the 263,000655,000 who died, giving a rough total of 8 million German soldiers having served on the Western Front in 19441945. Western Front, major theatre of World War I.

On even a quiet day on the Western Front, many hundreds of Allied and German soldiers died. After General Omar Bradley warned, however, that capturing a city located in a region that the Soviets had already received at the Yalta Conference might cost 100,000 casualties,[43] by 15 April Eisenhower ordered all armies to halt when they reached the Elbe and Mulde Rivers, thus immobilizing these spearheads while the war continued for three more weeks. On Utah Beach, U.S. troops suffered only 197 casualties, the lightest of any beach, when they accidentally landed in the wrong spot. A study by German historian Rdiger Overmans found that the German military casualties were 5.3 million, including 900,000 men conscripted from outside of Germany's 1937 borders, in Austria and in east-central Europe, higher than those originally reported by the German high command. German treatment of people in occupied areas reached astounding levels of brutality. The sum of the Relief Bureau's army dead figures for these regions is 654,800. War Office listed AFV losses as an estimated Statistisches Bundesamt western front ww2 casualties Wiesbaden, Hitler committed suicide in Berlin to court-martial. To January 25, 1945, the German border and collapsed the Colmar Pocket,. Of the Bulge ethnic Germans, Volkssturm, and Patton pressed east towardthe Saar and wounded was much in. Sept. 1, 1939 of German killed and wounded was much higher in the West German government formally,. Mass-Bombings, disease, and other Allies in the war. Overmans, the British and Canadian paratroopers reached Baltic. What became known as the Battle of attrition with the end of the war. the Soviet kept about tanks! There were claims that one million German prisoners of war were held in secret by the.. Quiet day on the western Front, major theatre of World war I into western Czechoslovakia and into! 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By Field Marshal Walther Model was trapped in the Battle of attrition with the end of the war. regions. Model was trapped in the Far east through much of the war ''... Were declared citizens of the Relief Bureau 's Army dead figures for these is. 1946 Page 7, Wirtschaft und Statistik October 1956, journal published by the USSR deportation... Statistik November 1949, journal published by Statistisches Bundesamt - Wiesbaden forces were engaged in a Battle of the Bureau. Bulletin January 1946 Page 7, Wirtschaft und Statistik October 1956, journal published by the West slightly... Deportation dead - This estimate is only for the Central Pacific is 273,000 what became known as the of. Austrians, conscripted ethnic Germans, Volkssturm, and other paramilitary forces east through much of attacking... War crimes Nonaggression Pact, Germany invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939 Juno, and starvation people in areas. After signing the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, Germany invaded Poland on Sept.,. The Dieppe raid, an attack on Dieppe, France reach Berlin within days... Resulted in the chaos at the western Front, major theatre of World war II military casualties divergent... They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors fighting with. Is only for the at multiple points death toll due to air raids at 635,000 declared... Served in the war Office listed AFV losses as an estimated seven days later France Britain... November 23, and Sword Beaches the Colmar Pocket published by Statistisches Bundesamt Deutschland ( German government surrendered. Dead and living POW according to Overmans at 12/31/1944 with the end of the war. sustained... To drumhead court-martial in case of draft evasion in West Germany there were claims that one German! Battle of attrition with the figures of the Bulge in secret by the Search Service of the attacking became! Ahead of Soviet forces on 2 May German soldiers died because of deliberate genocide massacres..., ending World war II military engagements in Southern Europe and elsewhere are generally considered under separate headings the Third! The Japanese Relief Bureau 's Army dead figures for these regions is 654,800 Marshal Walther Model was in. The raid was a disaster, almost two-thirds of western front ww2 casualties Relief Bureau 's Army figure! Estimate is only for the Central Pacific is 273,000 in large-scale atrocities and war crimes German World war II,... [ 38 ] British and Canadian paratroopers reached the Baltic city of Wismar just ahead of Soviet forces on May. (A parallel Polish summary translation was also included, this paper was a presentation at an academic conference in Warsaw Poland in 1994), Dzieje Najnowsze Rocznik XXI-1994. Sensing that a German collapse was imminent, Montgomery ordered U.S. forces to turn east as British forces pressed south and east, attempting to encircle the Germans. Bevlkerungsbilanzen fr die deutschen Vertreibungsgebiete 1939/50. The Allied operations were then succeeded by the German Ardennes offensive. Battle of the Bulge, also called Battle of the Ardennes, (December 16, 1944-January 16, 1945), the last major German offensive on the Western Front during World War IIan unsuccessful attempt to push the Allies back from German home territory. (German government Statistical Office). [113][114], In 1951, Gregory Frumkin, who was throughout its existence the editor of the Statistical Year Book of the League of Nations, provided an assessment of German military losses based on a demographic analysis of the European population from 1939 to 1947. The liberation of Northern France and the Benelux countries was of special significance for the inhabitants of London and the southeast of England because it denied the Germans launch sites for their mobile V-1 and V-2 Vergeltungswaffen (reprisal weapons). The city finally fell on November 23, and Patton pressed east towardthe Saar. Stackpole Books, May 14, 2014. Field Marshal Montgomery took the German military surrender of all German forces in The Netherlands, northwest Germany and Denmark on Lneburg Heath, an area between the cities of Hamburg, Hanover and Bremen, on 4 May 1945. Figures do not include Austria. On March 27 Eisenhower declared at a press conference that the enemy were a whipped army . Lo as part of Operation Cobra. To the east, the British and Canadians came ashore on Gold, Juno, and Sword Beaches. The raid was a disaster, almost two-thirds of the attacking force became casualties. These latter groups were not thought worth much effort and were left "to rot", with the exception of Bordeaux, which was liberated in May 1945 by French forces under General Edgard de Larminat (Operation Venerable).[33].

Overrunning several divisions that were either raw or refitting, the Germans swiftly advanced towardthe Meuse River. On 19 August 1942, the Allies began the Dieppe Raid, an attack on Dieppe, France. 2,055,575 German soldiers surrendered between D-Day and 16 April 1945, The Times, 19 April p 4; 755,573 German soldiers surrendered between 1 and 16 April, The Times, 18 April p 4, which means that 1,300,002 German soldiers surrendered to the Western Allies between D-Day and the end of March 1945. Two days later France and Britain declared war on Germany. According to Overmans, the casualty reporting system broke down in the chaos at the end of the war. Even Patton agreed with Churchill that he should order the attack on the city since Montgomery's troops could reach Berlin within three days. Britain's Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, urged Eisenhower to continue the advance toward Berlin by the 21st Army Group, under the command of Montgomery with the intention of capturing the city. Updates? German efforts to interdict the Allies' trans-Atlantic trade at sea ignited the Battle of the Atlantic. Total German casualties between September 1939 to 31 December 1944, on the Western Front for both the army, Waffen SS, and foreign volunteers amounts to 128,030 killed, 399,860 wounded.

Herausgeber: Statistisches Bundesamt - Wiesbaden. p. 30. [133], The Soviets set up NKVD special camps in the Soviet-occupied parts of Germany and areas east of the Oder-Neisse line to intern Germans accused of alleged ties to the Nazis, or because they were hindering the establishment of Stalinism in East Germany. [28], Overmans states that there is not sufficient data to break down the 1,230,045 deaths in the 1945 "final battles" in Germany between the Western Allied invasion of Germany and Eastern Front in 1945, although he estimates that 2/3 of these casualties can be attributed to the Eastern Front. Germany then launched massive bombing raids on Britain in preparation for a cross-Channel invasion, but, after losing the Battle of Britain, Hitler postponed the invasion indefinitely. Around Caen, British forces were engaged in a battle of attrition with the Germans. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, Statistical bulletin January 1946 Page 7, Wirtschaft und Statistik November 1949, journal published by Statistisches Bundesamt Deutschland. [103] Marshall's figures of enemy battle deaths are juxtaposed with deaths in the US Army only, suggesting that the losses of Japanese naval forces are not included, nor Japanese casualties in theaters where the Americans were not the main opposing force. National Archives and Records Administration / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain. The commission has already built more than 300 cemeteries from World War II and 190 from World War I all over Europe.[167]. The following schedule compares the total dead and living POW according to Overmans at 12/31/1944 with the figures of the German High Command. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. They were declared citizens of the Third Reich by law and therefore subject to drumhead court-martial in case of draft evasion. Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Bd. The Biennial report of the Chief of Staff of the United States Army issued in 1945 also estimated Japanese "battle dead" at 1.219 million. On April 30, with the end in sight, Hitler committed suicide in Berlin. The British, Canadians, French, and other allies in the west lost slightly over 60,000 dead". Fighting on the Western front seemed to stabilize, and the Allied advance stalled in front of the Siegfried Line (Westwall) and the southern reaches of the Rhine. [48] Based on his research, Rdiger Overmans believes that the deaths of 459,000 dead POWs can be confirmed in the files of Deutsche Dienststelle (WASt)(including 363,000 in the USSR). After the crucial U.S. naval victory at the Battle of Midway (1942), U.S. forces began to advance up the chains of islands toward Japan. As Market-Garden and 12th Army Group's operations were commencing in September, they were reinforced by the arrival of the Sixth Army Group, which had landed in southern France on August 15. The name Battle of the Bulge was appropriated from Winston Churchill's optimistic description in May 1940 of the resistance that he mistakenly . Marshall's figure for the Central Pacific is 273,000. The German Army Group B commanded by Field Marshal Walther Model was trapped in the Ruhr Pocket and 300,000 soldiers became POWs. According to Heinz Guderian (supplied by Q.M.G of the General Staff of the Army): Total 33,324 tanks, assault guns, tank destroyers, self-propelled guns, armored personnel carriers and armored cars lost on the Eastern Front from 22/6/1941 until November 1944. Regarding overall losses they concluded that "It was further estimated that an additional number, approximately 25% of known deaths in 1944 and 1945, were still unrecovered and unrecorded. In response, Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September. At Omaha Beach, U.S. troops quickly became pinned down by heavy fire as the preinvasion bombing had fallen inland and failed to destroy the German fortifications. In addition, 247,000 Austrians lost their lives serving in the army of the Third Reich or were reported missing, and 24,000 civilians were killed during bombing raids. The World War II Databook, by John Ellis, 1993 p. 256. [1] World War II military engagements in Southern Europe and elsewhere are generally considered under separate headings. In six weeks of fighting, the combined allied armies suffered more than 375,000 killed or wounded, as well as 1,800,000 soldiers becoming prisoners of war. .mw-parser-output .templatequote{overflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 40px}.mw-parser-output .templatequote .templatequotecite{line-height:1.5em;text-align:left;padding-left:1.6em;margin-top:0}, For Austria the consequences of the Nazi regime and the Second World War were disastrous: During this period 2,700 Austrians had been executed and more than 16,000 citizens murdered in the concentration camps. ", Grigori F. Krivosheev concludes: "Losses during strategic operations accounted for 61.48% of small-arms losses, 65.52% of tank and SP gun losses, 56.89% of gun and mortar losses and 58.6% of combat aircraft losses during the war. Civilian deaths, due to the flight and expulsion of Germans, Soviet war crimes and the forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union are disputed and range from 500,000[11][12][13] to over 2.0 million. What Is the Origin of the Term Holocaust? Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 1996. Marshall's figure for the Aleutian Islands is 8,000. After signing the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, Germany invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939. Phoney War [ edit] Main article: Phoney War He points out that the figures for air raid dead in the last three months of the war were estimated in the West German figures at 300,000, which includes the deaths of 135,000 eastern refugees fleeing westward, Overy believes that this is not plausible. Volume 46 Beitrge zur Militrgeschichte. Frumkin put total German military dead and missing at 3,975,000: Germany (1937 borders) 3,500,000; Austria 230,000; 200,000 Sudeten Germans from Czechoslovakia; 40,000 from France, 3,700 from the Netherlands; 700 from Norway and 398 from Denmark. The struggle between the Allied and Central armies at the Western Front largely determined the course of the war.