The Germans launched a surprise counter offensive in the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 which was turned back in early 1945 by the Allies after Eisenhower repositioned his armies and improved weather allowed the Air Force to engage.

It could then deploy when, or if, the Germans launched an invasion.

On 22 June 1941, the Germans launched Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union.

In Western Europe, British troops deployed to the Continent, but in a phase nicknamed the Phoney War by the British and " Sitzkrieg " ( sitting war ) by the Germans, neither side launched major operations against the other until April 1940.

The port city was also the main objective of German armies in December ; the inability of the Allies to end the war in 1944 meant that Allied troops had to winter in Belgium, during which time the Ardennes Offensive was launched by the Germans, resulting in heavy fighting on Belgian soil that lasted into 1945.

The Allies only recognized this after several heavy setbacks, and the Germans were able to hold the region until they launched their last-ditch offensive on the Western Front into the Ardennes.

After storming the Bois des Corbeaux, and then losing it to a determined French counter-attack, the Germans launched another assault on Le Mort Homme on 9 March and this time from the direction of Béthincourt to the north-west.

On 2 April 1945, the Soviets launched the Vienna Offensive against the Germans holding the city and besieged it.

Szálasi was installed by the Germans after Hitler launched Operation Panzerfaust and had the Hungarian Regent, Admiral Miklós Horthy, removed and placed under house arrest.

The Germans developed even odder designs, like the Bachem Ba 349 Natter, which launched vertically and thus eliminated the need for an airbase.

In advance of the land battle, the Germans launched frequent bombing raids against the island in order to establish air superiority.

Two days after the Germans launched their Ardennes offensive, the 4th Armored entered the fight ( 18 December 1944 ), racing northwest into Belgium, covering 150 miles in 19 hours.

On February 16 the Germans launched a new offensive ( Operation Fischfang ) down the line of the Via Anziate.

During this meeting, Papagos laid stress on the importance of a joint Greco-Yugoslavian offensive against the Italians as soon as the Germans launched their offensive against Yugoslavia and Greece.

The Germans launched their last great offensive in December, resulting in the Battle of the Bulge.

After a turbulent conflict and war against the North German cities and the Hanseatic League, Haakon was again free to turn his attention to Sweden, and launched a successful campaign against the Germans in Sweden.

With reinforcements arriving the Germans then launched an assault on the town.

That same day the Germans launched a counter-attack against the French advance into Lorraine.

One of the first examples of coordinated large-scale use of IEDs was the Belarussian Rail War launched by Belarussian guerrillas against the Germans during World War II.

The following day the Germans launched another counterattack against Übach, again failing to dislodge the Americans.

On 12 October, the Germans launched a major counterattack against the American 30th Infantry Division.

In conjunction with Operation Star the Soviets also launched Operation Gallop south of Star, pushing the Germans away from the Donets, taking Voroshilovgrad and Izium, worsening the German situation further.

The Russians also initiated the disastrous Lake Naroch Offensive in the Vilno area, during which the Germans suffered only one-fifth as many casualties as the Russians, which was launched at French request, in the hope that the Germans would transfer more units to the East after their attack on Verdun.

At 10: 00 on the last day, the Germans launched an assault with infantry and tanks on the south-east portion of the perimeter.

The Germans attacked Russia on 18 February ; the offensive led to a rapid collapse and retreat of the Russian troops and to signature of the first Treaty of Brest-Litovsk by the Bolsheviks on 3 March 1918.

After limited initial gains by the Germans, the Americans halted the offensive.

* 1945 – World War II: Soviet forces begin an offensive to push Germans from Upper Silesia.

Despite these successes, the Germans were pushed back from Moscow and could never again mount a simultaneous offensive along the entire strategic Soviet – German front.

** British forces launch Operation Goodwood, an armoured offensive aimed at driving the Germans from the high ground to the south of Caen.

Germans and Finns did work closely together during Operation Silverfox, a joint offensive against Murmansk.

On 25 May 1941, the Germans stepped up offensive operations.

The Germans planned to coordinate a combined German-Italian offensive against the British in Egypt, Palestine, and Iraq.

In the event the Germans conducted a Flanders offensive at Ypres ( 22 April – 15 May 1915 ), making the Ypres salient more costly and harder to defend.

An offensive at Ypres would continue the wearing-out process, on a front where the Germans could not refuse to fight.

Lossberg disagreed, believing that the British would launch a broad front offensive, that the ground east of the Sehnen Iine was easy to defend, that the Menin Road Ridge could be held if it was made the schwerpunkt ( point of main effort ) and that Pilckem Ridge deprived the British of ground observation over the Steenbeek Valley, while the Germans could see the area from Passchendaele Ridge, allowing German infantry to be supported by observed artillery fire.

Paddy Griffith wrote that the bite and hold system kept moving until November ; the BEF had developed a workable system of offensive tactics against which the Germans ultimately had no answer.

In the meantime, while Souville was under assault, the opening of the Battle of the Somme on 1 July, had forced the Germans to withdraw some of their artillery from Verdun to counter the combined Anglo-French offensive to the north.

A broader offensive, planned by General Nivelle and executed by General Mangin, began on 15 December and drove the Germans back close to their initial February starting lines.

The Allied offensive was slowed and the Germans were able to counterattack in southeast France.

On the first day of the offensive the Belgian fortifications were penetrated before any French or British troops could arrive and the country was overwhelmed by the numerically superior Germans.

Haig favoured a British offensive in Flanders — it was close to BEF supply routes via the Channel ports and had a strategic goal of driving the Germans from the North Sea coast of Belgium, from which their U-boats were menacing Britain.

During February 1916, plans for the joint offensive on the Somme were still in the hands of the General Staff when the Germans began an offensive against the French at Verdun.

' However clumsy the British offensive, it had wrested the initiative from the Germans and was inflicting punishing casualties on them.

On their arrival, the British Royal Engineer tunnelling companies became actively engaged in offensive mining against German miners, first stopping the German underground advance and then developing a defensive strategy that prevented the Germans from gaining a tactical advance through their mining activities.

However, this work did not go unimpeded ; the Germans actively counter-mined British tunnelling and were successful in destroying a number of British attempts at placing offensive mines under or near their lines.

German foreign intelligence gathering, large-scale Allied trench raids and observed troop concentrations west of Arras made it clear to the Germans that a spring offensive near Arras was being planned.