Did Germany Invade France Through Belgium Again in Ww2

Early tactics

Adolf Hitler came to power in Frg in 1933, leading Winston Churchill to remark, shortly later, 'Thank God for the French Army'. To Churchill at that time, France's army seemed a powerful bulwark confronting possible Nazi aggression towards other European nations.

The defeat of this powerful ground forces in a mere six weeks in 1940 stands as one of the most remarkable military campaigns in history.

...the British and French planned to fight an updated version of what happened in 1914-18...

In 1939, every bit World War Two loomed, the British and French planned to fight an updated version of what happened in 1914-eighteen during Earth State of war 1, merely with some essential differences. The French had suffered massive casualties in frontal attacks in 1914. This time they were going to remain on the defensive in western Europe, while mobilising their military forces and industrial base to fight a total war. They planned to take the offensive some two to three years after the start of hostilities.

The 'Maginot Line' replaced the crude trenches in which so much of the 1914-eighteen state of war was fought. It consisted of a sophisticated series of fortifications, which were confidently expected to protect France's frontier with Germany, although crucially the line did not cover the Franco-Belgian frontier. In full general, the deadening-tempo, attritional fighting of World State of war 1 heavily influenced French armed forces doctrine at the outbreak of World War Two.

Hitler'southward programme

Hitler was eager to follow up his victory over Poland in 1939 by attacking in the w, merely bad weather condition forced the planned offensive to exist postponed. So, in January 1940, a German plane crashed in neutral Belgium, with a copy of the assail orders on board.

Hitler was forced to rethink, assertive the program compromised he turned for advice to Full general Erich von Manstein, who argued for a daring entrada. In result, Manstein recognised that the Maginot Line was also formidable for a direct attack from Frg. Instead, he proposed a subsidiary assail through neutral Holland and Kingdom of belgium, with the main blow confronting France to exist launched a piffling after through the Ardennes. This was a hilly and heavily forested expanse on the High german-Belgian-French border, where the Allies would be unlikely to expect an attack. The programme was to rely heavily on surprise blitzkrieg ('lightning war') techniques.

Opposite to a more often than not held belief, the Germans had fewer tanks than the Allies...

Contrary to a generally held belief, the Germans had fewer tanks than the Allies (2,500 against 3,500) at this point. Notwithstanding, the tanks were concentrated into Panzer (armoured) formations. The French had some equivalent formations that were of good quality, but they were dispersed rather than full-bodied in the High german fashion.

Manstein'southward plan envisaged these Panzer divisions in a semi-independent role, striking alee of the main body of the ground forces, to disrupt and disorientate the Allies. This was a very risky plan - much more ambitious than the strategy used in Poland - and was opposed by the more conservative-minded generals. Hitler, nonetheless, although not without some misgivings, gave his approval.

Start of the attack

The assail began on 10 May 1940, with German air raids on Kingdom of belgium and Kingdom of the netherlands, followed by parachute drops and attacks past ground forces. The two beleaguered nations were hastily added to the anti-German language ad-hoc coalition that included France and Britain, only this only served to further complicate Allied command and command arrangements.

The Germans seized the initiative, capturing the primal Belgian fort of Eban Emael with a daring airborne operation. The speed of the German advance and the brutality of the air raids gave them a huge psychological advantage, and on xiv May the Dutch surrendered.

The British and French had responded to the original attack by putting into operation a plan to advance to the River Dyle, in Belgium. The Allies pushed their best forces, including the British, into Belgium. Although the initial stages went reasonably well, a French force advancing towards Breda, in Holland, was pushed back.

...by advancing into the Low Countries the Allies were dancing to Hitler'southward melody.

Information technology presently became articulate that by advancing into the Depression Countries the Allies were dancing to Hitler's tune. On thirteen May, the first German forces emerged from the Ardennes near Sedan, on the River Meuse. In a ii-24-hour interval battle, the Panzers crossed the river, despite some surprisingly stiff resistance from the second-grade French defenders, and about-suicidal attacks by Allied aircraft.

Race to the declension

The conclusion to evacuate saved the BEF from annihilation  © A potentially decisive counterattack past ii high quality French armoured and motorised divisions fizzled out into some vehement, but ultimately inconclusive fighting. Under the dynamic control of Full general Heinz Guderian, a pioneer of armoured warfare known euphemistically as 'Hurry-up Heinz', the German Panzers bankrupt out of their bridgehead. They began to race towards the Channel coast, aided past the German aircraft that ruled the skies.

With the bulk of the Allied forces fighting in Kingdom of belgium, at that place was trivial to cease the German language forces equally they sliced across the Allied supply-lines. The German language spearheads reached the English Aqueduct on xx May.

...there was little to stop the German forces as they sliced beyond the Allied supply-lines.

Lacking a centrally placed strategic reserve, the Allies tried to pull their armies out of Belgium to respond to the new threat emerging in their rear. And the Germans did not accept information technology all their ain way, as French forces under Charles de Gaulle showed how vulnerable the flanks of the German forces were to assuming counterattacks.

Then at Arras on 21 May, a scratch forcefulness of British tanks and infantry gave a rough reception to Erwin Rommel's 7th Panzer Division. Yet this was all too little, also late. With German forces pushing through Belgium and the Panzers looping up from the south and west, the Allies were encircled. The Belgian regular army surrendered on 28 May, leaving a gaping hole on the British flank of the Allied forces.

Allied high control seemed paralysed. General Weygand replaced General Gamelin as French commander-in-master, but information technology made no difference. Then General Lord Gort, the commander of the British Expeditionary Strength (BEF), on 23/four May took the morally courageous decision to abandon his function in a projected Anglo-French counterattack, and barbarous dorsum on the Channel ports.

The French, not surprisingly, regarded this equally a betrayal, merely Gort'south decision saved the BEF. Between 26 May and 4 June, a hastily organised evacuation by sea, code-named Performance Dynamo, lifted 338,000 Allied troops from Dunkirk.

That the German forces failed to press their attack on Dunkirk was largely thanks to grim defence of the Dunkirk perimeter by British and French troops, and the efforts of the much-depleted RAF.

Although as Churchill, who had become Prime number Minster on 10 May rightly commented, 'wars are not won past evacuation', Dynamo was a victory of incalculable importance for the BEF. The return of the troops, even without much of their equipment, gave Britain a basis on which to rebuild the Army, sheltering behind the Navy and the RAF. It also strengthened the credibility of Churchill's insistence that Britain would fight on, thus influencing the neutral USA at a time when American help was vital.

Second deed

British and French prisoners of war at St Valéry-en-Caux  © The 2d act of the Battle of France began on 5 June, with the Germans striking southwards from the River Somme. Despite the fact that the French in many areas fought well, the Germans destroyed the Allied forces in the field in short club. The 51st Highland Division, which had not been grouped with the residue of the British army, was surrounded at St Valéry-en-Caux, and was forced to surrender on 12 June.

The Germans launched a major offensive on Paris on 9 June, and on 13 June Paris was declared an open city, every bit the French government fled to Bordeaux. The first High german troops entered the French capital letter on xiv June, little more than than a month after the campaign began.

There were still spasms of fighting. A fresh British strength was sent to Normandy, only to be evacuated almost immediately. The Regal Navy carried out evacuations from ports down the French coast almost as far every bit the Spanish frontier. Meanwhile, the victorious Panzers raced in different directions across France, finishing off pockets of resistance, crossing the River Loire in the west on 17 June, and reaching the Swiss borderland a few days later.

...on 13 June Paris was declared an open city, equally the French regime fled to Bordeaux ...

The end came with the surrender of France on 22 June. Hitler insisted on signing the document of capitulation in the aforementioned railway carriage used when Germany had surrendered in 1918. The humiliation of France was consummate.

Legacy

4 years passed betwixt Dunkirk and D-Day  © The French collapse was as sudden as it was unexpected. Information technology ripped up the residue of power in Europe, and overnight left the strategic assumptions on which U.k. had planned to fight Hitler completely obsolete. With French republic out of the equation, Britain'due south war for the next four years was fought in the air, at sea, and in the Mediterranean - but not on the Western Front. Not until D-Day, 6 June 1944, did a major British regular army render to France.

The legacy for France itself was complex. Resistance groups formed, simply risked bringing savage reprisals on the civilian population if they attacked the occupying forces. While de Gaulle formed an ground forces and a government in exile in Britain, he was technically a rebel.

The French collapse was as sudden as it was unexpected.

The 'legitimate' French regime was that of Marshal Philippe Pétain, an aged World War One veteran, and had its capital at Vichy in central France. The Vichy regime was authoritarian and collaborated with the Germans. Arguably, the wartime divisions inside French society that were created by this system are withal not fully healed.

Historians have located the seeds of the French defeat in low morale and a divided pre-war society. This may be so, but in purely military terms, the Germans were a vastly superior strength (although not in numbers). They used their mechanisation and manoeuvre more effectively, and benefited from domination in the air. German military doctrine was more advanced, and generally their commanders coped much meliorate with high-tempo operations than did their Allied counterparts.

Allied command and control was cumbersome, and the Anglo-French operational plan was deeply flawed. However, the very success of the risky blitzkrieg approach led the Germans to gamble even more than heavily on their next major functioning - the invasion of Russia. But this time the strategy failed, with consequences for the Nazi regime that were ultimately fatal.

Observe out more

Books

Pillar of Fire: Dunkirk 1940 by Ronald Atkin (Birlinn, 2000)

The Battle for France and Flanders 1940 Sixty Years On edited by Brian Bond and Michael Taylor (Pen & Sword, 2001)

To Lose a Battle: French republic 1940 by Alistair Horne (Penguin, 1979 and many reprints)

The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940 by Julian Jackson (Oxford University Press, 2004)

Well-nigh the author

Dr Gary Sheffield is Senior Lecturer in the State of war Studies Grouping at King's College London, and State Warfare Historian at the Joint Services Command and Staff College, Shrivenham.

grittonthro1991.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/fall_france_01.shtml