Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe of "Général d'Armée" Alphonse Juin, French Army. "Holdfast" was a major allied air-ground exercise involving 150,000 British Army of the Rhine, Dutch, Belgian and Canadian troops of NATO's Northern Army Group in coordination with the Allied Air Forces Central Europe. They maneuvered east of the Rhine River in the British Zone under the overall command of Lt. General Sir Richard Nelson Gale, British Army. Finally, "Rosebud" involved ground maneuvers by the U.S. Seventh Army in the American Zone of Occupation of Allied-occupied Germany. The initial plans saw the defence of Western Europe from a Soviet invasion resting heavily on nuclear
Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in on a reduction to two commands, it was successful in that a European officer was not placed in charge of the new southern command (now Allied Joint Force Command Naples), a move which France and Germany supported. Despite French President Jacques Chirac exchanging letters with Bill Clinton personally over the issue in September–October 1997, the United States stood firm and today an American admiral remains in charge of the Naples command. In addition to the two continental commands AFNORTHWEST covered the United Kingdom and Scandinavia. An early retirement again disrupted the Mons headquarters in 2000 as General Wesley Clark