Counterattack

[1] The general objective is to negate or thwart the advantage gained by the enemy during attack, while the specific objectives typically seek to regain lost ground or destroy the attacking enemy (this may take the form of an opposing sports team or military units).

A counter-offensive was considered by Clausewitz to be the most efficient means of forcing the attacker to abandon offensive plans.

A saying, attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte illustrates the tactical importance of the counterattack : "the greatest danger occurs at the moment of victory".

In the same spirit, in his Battle Studies, Ardant du Pic noticed that "he, general or mere captain, who employs every one in the storming of a position can be sure of seeing it retaken by an organised counter-attack of four men and a corporal".

In the summer of 1944 the assault, made up by roughly 1.7 million Red Army soldiers, succeeded in putting the Red Army on the offensive in the Eastern Front, as well as recapturing a large portion of the Soviet Union territory that Nazi Germany had captured 3 years prior in the summer of 1941 during Operation Barbarossa.

[8] To aid the deception, the Red Army established fake army camps in Ukraine and after German reconnaissance planes reported Soviet troop concentrations in the area, panzer and infantry divisions were rushed south from Belorussia, leaving it vulnerable to a major assault.

[8] On 22 June 1944, the attack on Belarus by 1.7 million Soviet troops began and overwhelmed the depleted Germans defenders.

Operation Bagration was a huge Soviet success and opened a direct route to Berlin after the fall of Belorussia, leading to the Red Army beginning to take over the territory that had been taken by the Wehrmacht three years before.

Given the task of countering the German advance, US General Bruce C. Clarke decided that a mobile defense was the best solution.