ardennes

The route is surprisingly Z-shaped mostly due to geography, since the Ardennes lie on the direct line.

It was basically von Manstein's plan (that Hitler took credit for) that pushed through the Ardennes and into France.

Gone are the green divisions that suffered heavily in the Ardennes in the winter of 1944-45.

I believe it's mostly in the more sparsely uninhabited Aisne and Ardennes that there are still no-go zones.

Look at the Ardennes races coming up in Belgium, or even the Amstel Gold race - 4000 meters of climbing in the Netherlands!

Even the surprise of Germany’s incursion through the Ardennes could have been countered if not for blunders on the part of the French.

To get to the nearest wild wolf you'd probably have to look as far as the Ardennes in Belgium, which is roughly 400km away.

I was told that by 1946 almost every French farmer from Normandy to the Ardennes had at least one Jerry Can.

Looking at the first map, the line between Paris and Berlin goes straight through Ardennes where Army Group A broke the French line in May 1940.

That was a hugely risky endeavor, and the offensive would probably have failed if the German movements had been discovered during the several days it took to cross the Ardennes Wood.

Notably, the German operation Sichelschnitt in 1940 was very successful because the French command considered it unlikely that German Panzers would be able to cross the Ardennes in force, even though the French command was probably well aware of their own military history.

A contrario, German troops, although outclassed both on the Western and Eastern fronts by the end of the war, managed a fighting retreat in mostly good order, even mounting a daring counter-offensive in the Ardennes in 1944 which caught Allied troops flat-footed.

The people mentioned in the article are from london and are eating "Ardennes-style pâté".

Looking at the France map, I find that the boundaries are a bit out of shape, as if they were a bit "deflated" (the Ardennes point, Crozon peninsula, or Corsica cape, are very thin lines, and even Normandy looks skinny).

[...] Contacted by Le Monde, the ARS and the prefectures of the Ardennes and Meuse departments sought to reassure: "At this stage, statistically, there are no adverse health indicators demonstrating a health consequence for the populations of these villages." The authorities based their response on the results of a national epidemiological study titled "Esteban" which dates back to 2016.

The German did exactly that, but also pushed through the Ardennes, which the Allied planners hadn't though possible.

Though there were some good thinkers, included Liddell-Hart who showed you could take tanks through the Ardennes...

The assumption under which the Maginot Line was an obstacle was 'you can't go through the Ardennes'.