from Saarlautern to headwaters of the Nahe River, some northeast of Saarlautern, thence along the valley of the Nahe to the Rhine at Bingen. This boundary gave the Third Army responsibility for clearing the northwestern third of the Saar-Palatinate. Bradley and Devers also authorized the commanders of the two armies—Third and Seventh—to deal directly with each other rather than through their respective army group headquarters. Facing the undented fortifications of the Siegfried Line, the Seventh Army commander planned a set-piece attack, preceded by an extensive program of aerial bombardment. Before the attack could begin, supplies had to be accumulated, division and corps boundaries adjusted, some units shuffled, and new divisions joining the army fed into jump-off positions. This meant to General Patch that the Seventh Army could not attack before the target date, 15 March. Assault All along the Mosel, from Koblenz to Trier, the German 7. Armee on 17 March was in peril, if not from direct attack, then from the flanking thrust against the right wing of the 1. Armee by General Walton Walker′s XX Corps. Collapse of the 7. Armee clearly was but a question of time. Soon the German 1. Armee, too, would be in dire straits, for the U.S. Seventh Army two days earlier, on 15 March, had launched a power drive against General Hermann Foertsch′s army along a front from the vicinity of Saarlautern southeastward to the Rhine. Even if that offensive failed to penetrate the Siegfried Line, it might tie the 1. Armee troops to the fortifications while Patton's forces took them from the rear. The U.S. Seventh Army traced its origin back to Sicily where General Patton had first led it into battle. An infantryman who had seen combat many months before on Guadalcanal, "Sandy" Patch, had assumed command for the invasion of southern France and a swift advance northward. Patch's chief of staff was an artilleryman, Maj. Gen. Arthur A. White, who had held a similar post under Patch on Guadalcanal. The Seventh Army numbered among its ranks several relatively inexperienced units but retained a flavoring of long-term veterans. The VI Corps (Maj. Gen. Edward H. Brooks), for example, and three divisions—the 3rd, 36th, and 45th—had fought at length in the Mediterranean theater, including the Anzio beachhead. The XV Corps (Maj. Gen. Wade H. Haislip) had joined the Seventh Army after fighting across France with the Third Army. A third corps,