19/05/2026
For centuries, battlefields have been all about roads. Although armies can move slowly and for short distances cross-country, they need roads to properly move across a landscape. So if you control a town where roads intersect, you can control a startlingly large area.
Gettysburg only became a battlefield because nine roads converge there. Wellington defended the ridge near Waterloo because it straddled the road that Napoleon would need to get to Brussels. In the German Spring Offensive of 1918, their objective was the town of Amiens, the main road and rail hub in the Somme.
I saw a perfect example of this while researching the 1944 Normandy campaign for our D-Day cruise next year. On August 2, 1944, the US 4th Armored Division broke through German lines and charged for the city of Rennes in Brittany. They were low on fuel and ammunition so had no hope of capturing the city, so instead they set up as a blocking force west of the city and with that one action cut off the entire German force in Brittany.
And you can see why from this map. The only way the Germans could move in Brittany was by utilising the small number of main roads, which all converge in Rennes. With Rennes cut off, they were marooned on the peninsula.
Although major strongpoints like Brest held out until September, Brittany was cut off and liberated by the Allies within 10 days of the 4th Armored’s arrival on the outskirts of Rennes.
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