[5] On the evening of 2 September Brian Horrocks briefed officers of the Guards Armoured Division in Douai that their objective for the following day would be Brussels, 110km further east.

[6] The Welsh Guards advanced from Douai on 3 September crossing into Belgium with minimal resistance until they met some at Halle, but they pressed on that day to Brussels.

[1][7] The British Second Army captured Antwerp, the port city on the river Scheldt in northern Belgium, close to the Netherlands, on 4 September.

[12] Between 9 and 11 September, the 1st Polish Armoured Division attempted to capture control of the Ghent Canal, which resulted in heavy losses for the Poles after they had run into fierce resistance over difficult terrain.

Further up the river, 3 miles (5 kilometres) south of Bruges, the 4th Canadian Armoured Division launched an offensive on 8 September and broke through two days later, after coming under heavy mortar fire.

[citation needed] The First United States Army, under General Courtney Hodges, captured areas south of Brussels in early September 1944.

[citation needed] Adolf Hitler launched Germany's last offensive of the Western Front on 16 December, known as the Battle of the Bulge.