By June 1944 the Germans knew that the launching of the Allied Second Front could not be long delayed and that the main blow would be a cross - Channel invasion. But Hitler expected supplementary ivasions everywhere - and even Rommel came to believe that the Allies would follow up their landings with other operations in France. And so the West was allocated some 58 divisions - but they had to be spread from the Netherlands to the Italian frontier, and divided between two separate army groups.