Arnhem was described as "a tactical change of plan, designed to meet a favourable local situation within the main plan of campaign" but the result "dispelled the hope that the enemy would be beaten before the winter. First and Third U.S. Armies had already been checked, the former at Aachen and in the Ardennes, the latter at Metz and south of Nancy. The failure to outflank the Siegfried Line finally dictated the pause in the general advance which Montgomery had feared" and meant that General Dwight D. Eisenhower "turned to Antwerp, which despite the long-delayed capture of Le Havre on 12 September, of Brest on the 18th and of Calais on the 30th, remained, as the closest, largest and best-preserved of the ports, the necessary solution to the difficulties of supply.