British commander Bernard Law Montgomery, commander in charge of Allied ground forces following the Normandy landings (D-day), conceived Operation Market-Garden as a means of hastening the end of the war in Europe by outflanking the "West Wall" German defensive line and establishing a bridgehead across the lower Rhine at Arnhem, Netherlands. This would put the Allied armies at the doorstep of the Ruhr River Valley, thereby gaining early and expeditious entry into the German industrial heartland.

The supreme Allied commander, Dwight D. Eisenhower, approved Market-Garden on September 10, adding to Montgomery's Twenty-first Army Group the First Allied Airborne Army (Lewis Brereton) and then diverting much-needed supplies to the operation. It was a bold gamble.

Under the tactical command of British lieutenant general Frederick Browning, Market-Garden was a twofold operation. The "Market" portion was an airborne assault to capture bridges across eight key waterways; "Garden" was the ground advance of the British XXX Corps (Brian Horrocks) across those bridgeheads.

Market-Garden depended wholly on speed, and this was both its great boldness and terrible vulnerability. XXX Corps was expected to advance nearly 60 miles in three days, from the Meuse-Escaut Canal to Arnhem. The Dutch government in exile, broadcasting from London, called for a railway strike to impede the Germans' ability to resist this movement. The strike was effective in interdicting the flow of German military supplies, but it triggered reprisals in the form of a stoppage of all canal traffic, which created acute food shortages that brought on a winter famine throughout the Netherlands. . .

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