Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe sea). In December 1950 it was announced that the forces initially to come under General Eisenhower's command were to be the U.S. Seventh Army in Germany, the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR), with the 2nd Infantry and 7th Armoured Divisions, to be bolstered by the 11th Armoured Division and a further infantry division, three French divisions in Germany and Austria, the Danish, Belgian, and the Independent Norwegian Brigades in Western Germany, and the American and British garrisons in Austria, Trieste, and Berlin. Four days after Eisenhower's arrival in Paris, on 5 January 1951, the Italian defence minister, Randolfo Pacciardi,
Structure of NATO selection of General Dwight D. Eisenhower as the first Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) in December 1950. After Eisenhower arrived in Paris in January 1951, he and the other members of the multinational Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) Planning Group immediately began to devise a structure for the new Allied Command Europe. NATO official documents say '..The corner stone of the NATO Military Command Structure was laid.. when the North Atlantic Council approved D.C. 24/3 on 18 December 1951.' They quickly decided to divide Allied Command Europe into three regions: Allied Forces Northern Europe, containing Scandinavia, the North Sea