The battle of the Mons pocket was an engagement fought between Allied and German forces during late August and early September 1944.

In late July and August 1944, Allied forces broke out of the Normandy beachhead and rapidly advanced across France, liberating the country from German occupation.

[1] The overriding goal of the Allied forces at this time was to advance quickly enough to reach the Rhine river before the Germans could man and reactivate the Siegfried Line defences which ran along the border between France and Germany.

[2] The US Army was well-suited to this type of warfare, as its units were highly motorized and trained to conduct large scale mobile operations.

[3] At the start of the Allied breakout the German dictator Adolf Hitler directed that defensive positions be prepared along the Somme and Marne rivers in northern France.

[6] In late August Bradley decided that the First Army should temporarily prioritise cutting off the retreat of German units in northern France and Belgium over reaching the Rhine.

The Army's commander, Lieutenant general Courtney Hodges, was directed on 31 August to advance to the north to cut the highway between Lille and Brussels.

[9] The 5th Panzer Army was the main unit facing the Allies in northern France during late August, and was responsible initially for forces in the region from the channel coast to Paris.

[10] The Army's headquarters at Amiens was overrun by British troops on 31 August, though its commander SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer Sepp Dietrich and his staff escaped.

[11] In late August large numbers of German military personnel were moving through the area to the south west of Mons.

[12] These corps included the badly battered remnants of ten combat divisions, as well as smaller units and many support personnel.

In response, he decided to withdraw his forces to an area near Mons where canals and marshy conditions would aid defensive efforts.

[16] The 3rd Armored Division advanced rapidly, and communications problems meant that Collins did not receive orders from Hodges on 2 September to stop short of Mons to conserve fuel supplies.

The 1st Infantry Division continued to eliminate German positions with the assistance of Belgian Resistance fighters, and took large numbers of prisoners.

[17] On 3 September the German High Commander in the West, Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model, decided it was impossible to hold positions in northern France and Belgium, and that his forces should withdraw to the Siegfried Line.

[25] This proved too optimistic: logistical problems, difficult terrain, and the recovery of the German Army as it neared the national border slowed the Allied advance.

[23] In 1961 the US Army official historian Martin Blumenson wrote that "the head-on encounter at Mons was, from the tactical point of view, a surprise for both sides.