Everything seemed to go against the German Empire. In the East, Soviet forces had mauled the Deutsches Heer at the Third Battle of Tannenberg, while in the West, French forces advanced practically unopposed through Alsace-Lorraine. The Premiere Group d'Armées continued to pummel German forces wherever they were encountered, thanks primarily to the presence of the Armée Mécanisée and abundant air support which the thinly stretched Luftwaffe could locally suppress, but never deny. However, one advantage which Germany clearly possessed in the Western Theatre was manpower; droves of young men across the Empire were mobilised to form ad-hoc units or replenish depleted ones. Colonial units further bolstered its quantity of men under arms, but these units were hard to replenish due to the ongoing Battle of the Atlantic, and the partial naval blockade which the Comintern were able to pull off in its early stages.
French units crossing into the Rhineland in mid-september were met with fiercer resistance than in Alsace-Lorraine. Despite the presence of KPD partisans, most of the civilian population stood vehemently against being invaded by the French, even more so by Ultrasocialist troops. Similarly, German troops were now indisputably fighting for their own home, regrouped and having learned to weather French aerial and mechanised superiority. Despite repeated successes, it was obvious that France's armies were losing momentum with every engagement.
In late December, the Armée Mécanisée was regrouped in preparation for a major offensive operation. This was the final phase of the Battle of the Rhine; a major attack to break through German lines and reach the North Sea, cutting off Eisenpakt forces engaged in WW2 - The Low Countries Campaign. Come January, French armoured units attacked and got as far as Cologne before being unexpectedly surrounded by Panzerkorps "Guderian" under the command of General Heinz Guderian, a decisive battle popularly known as Guderian's Counteroffensive.