This Day in History - Germany Attacks [May 10,1940 - Part 2]

The Maginot Line was France’s first line of defense against a German attack.  It was manned by half a million French soldiers.  It was the most elaborate, the most expensive set of fortifications ever built at the time.  These fortifications would halt the Germans, providing the Germans attacked in that direction.  The Maginot Line extended from the along the French border from Switzerland to Belgium.  It stopped 250 miles short of the English Channel.  The French strategists argued it best to fight the Germans in Belgium if not Germany itself.  It was too expensive to extend the Maginot Line all the way to the Channel, and the French didn’t want the Belgians to think that France would abandon them to the Germans when the attack came.  But King Leopold opted for neutrality in 1936. He closed the Belgian border to French military observers.  The French were very defensive-minded in their military thinking.  Most of their tactics were derived from the First World War.  They, like the British, didn’t want a repeat of the carnage of World War I.   The French had done much to introduce the tank and the airplane to warfare, but had done little to develop them.  They had made advancements in mechanized transport, but reverted to using horses and railways.

German thinking was just the opposite.  They too didn’t want a repeat of the First World War, especially since they’re the ones who lost it.  During the interwar years, Heinz Guderian wrote his thoughts on armored warfare in a book Achtung Panzer!  

Achtung Panzer! is not just a work of theory that was intended to help Germany prepare for the warfare of the future.  It is also a historical work.  More than half the book is dedicated to analysis of how tanks were used on the Western Front in World War I.  It emphasizes on how tanks came into existence, the technical development of tanks, the organizational development of the tanks corps, and the actual experience of tank operations.  Guderian was lucky to have a patron who agreed with him [General Oswald Lutz].  Lutz was the Inspector of the Transport Troops, which was charged with motorizing the German army.  Guderian was soon to become Lutz’s chief of staff.  It was in this job that Lutz encouraged Guderian to develop his armored warfare theories, even going as far as to order him to write a book about it [Achtung Panzer!]. 

The things Guderian wrote about in 1936-37 are commonplace today, but in his era, it was a revolution in tactical thinking.  Guderian was multilingual.  He spoke French fluently, and was almost as good at English.  He studied the works of British maneuver warfare theorists [Swinton, J.F.C. Fuller, B.H. Liddell Hart, and Giffard Martel], as well as one French tank advocate named Charles de Gaulle.  He read everything he could get ahold of from these sources, and met face-to-face with German tank veterans from World War I.  So sharp was Guderian that he became a recognized tank expert before he ever set foot in a tank.  Guderian’s thinking was close to that of Mikhail Tukhachevsky, the author of the Deep Battle doctrine [Guderian had seen Russian armor for himself], though Tukhachevsky is not mentioned by name.  Guderian had an audience [Adolf Hitler] that was more receptive to what he had to say than his British, French and Russian/Soviet counterparts.

Prior to World War I, Guderian was attached to a telegraph unit.  During World War, I he became a radio specialist and it was here he developed his appreciation for the use of “signals” as a means of enhancing command and control of armored units.  In 1930, he took command of a motor transport battalion.   This unit was equipped with some armored cars, motorcycles, anti-tank guns and dummy tanks [The Versailles Treaty forbid the Germans from having tanks].  Because the Versailles Treaty limited the size of the Reichswehr to only 100,000 men, the ten-pound brains in the German army [they weren’t allowed to have a General Staff either] had to find a way to create an effective, highly mobile force to meet contingencies.  Guderian’s unit was charged with demonstrating how different mechanized combat arms could work together.  The lessons he learned from World War I include: 1) Tanks should be used in large groups; 2) Tanks should not be wasted on unsuitable ground like swamps; 3) Tanks are best used when you have the element of surprise.  His instructions were clear – strike hard, and quickly, and don’t disperse your forces.  Hit the enemy with a fist – don’t poke them with fingers.  His thoughts about other combat arms included:

Infantry – called “the Queen of battle” by many, but not so Guderian.  He saw infantry as a supporting combat arm rather than a supported combat arm.  He thought infantry needed to be combined in fully motorized formations with other traditional supporting arms – engineers and artillery – all in support of tanks. 

Engineers – go out and find mines, provide pathways over waterways [build bridges], provide means to traverse swamps or other soft ground, reinforce bridges that are too weak to support tanks

Artillery – must be fast-moving, must be sufficiently well-protected to keep up with tanks. Suppress targets and geographical features that tanks can’t take on by themselves.  Long bombardments chew up ground, makes it difficult for tanks to maneuver, betrays the location of impending attack, permits defenders to enhance the readiness of reinforcements.  Joint training of artillery and tanks is a must. 

Aircraft – Guderian stressed the impact of airpower on operations of the Western Front.  Aircraft created disorder in German rear areas, hindered the movement of reserves, and brought German batteries under actual attack.  Because of their “great speed, range and effect on target,” aircraft became an offensive weapon of the first order. 

The French did have a plan.  If the Germans attacked through Belgium like they did in World War I, 40 French divisions, along with 10 divisions of British troops [the British Expeditionary Force (BEF)], would move into neutral Belgium to meet them.  The plan was to re-fight the First World War.  The French commander, General Gamelin, looked at the map and decided to guard the Ardennes Forest with 10 of his weakest, worst equipped divisions.  To the French, the Ardennes were impenetrable.  The Germans knew what opposed them in this sector.  They also knew the French had more tanks, better and heavier tanks, but had dispersed them throughout the army.  The Germans had a different idea. 

Erich von Manstein was Gerd von Rundstedt’s Chief of Staff when he served in Army Group A in 1939-40.  When he saw the original plan to attack France he saw a plan that was not a recipe for swift and decisive victory over the Allies.  He saw a plan in which the bulk of the attack would happen north of France through Belgium.  At first he thought it was a rerun of the Von Schlieffen Plan used to attack France in the First World War.  In that plan, the armies moved like a wheel through Belgium, sweeping along the English Channel coast and then heading south toward Paris.  Upon further review, he still saw that the northern forces [Army Group B] would head straight for the Channel coast, which would allow the Allies to counterattack its southern flank [see Map 3 below].  What he proposed [and Hitler eventually agreed to] was to shift the bulk of the attack from Army Group B to the more southern Army Group A.  While Army Group B would attack through Belgium like it would have in the original plan, a more beefed-up Army Group A would attack through the Ardennes, make a breakthrough, get into the enemy’s rear and make a dash for the Channel [see Map 4 below].  His proposal was like a Von Schlieffen Plan in reverse.  Once the breakthrough was made, Army Group A would swing to the northwest while Army Group B pressed directly west, thus catching the Allies in a pincer, cut off from the rest of France.  With the bulk of the French and British armies cut off from France, France would be ripe for the taking.  The French received reports of 50 German divisions on the move.  They even found out the day of the attack, but they preferred to “wait for events”.

The waiting ended on May 10^th.  At 5:30am, the Germans attacked neutral Holland from the air.  Their targets were the bridges over the Maas River [Meuse in France and Belgium].  The boldness of the German attack stunned the Dutch.  Dutch soldiers surrendered in large groups.  The Germans had stunning success in Belgium as well.  Glider troops landed on the roof of Fort Eben Emael, the largest fort in the world at the time, and was the lynchpin of Gamelin’s defensive line.  Gamelin moved his 50 divisions north into Belgium and Holland, straight into the trap the Germans set for them.  The column of troops heading through Luxembourg was a target-rich environment for Allied aircraft, but they were too busy covering the French/British advance into Belgium.  The Luftwaffe hit Allied airfields, catching many aircraft on the ground while they were lined up in neat rows. fThe Luftwaffe attacked Fifty Allied airfields on that first day. 

On the third day of the German offensive, the panzers reached Sedan. Of historical note, Sedan was the place where the Prussians captured French Emperor Napoleon III during the Franco-Prussian War.  Gamelin didn’t think the panzers could get that far so fast.  According to his calculations, the Germans were six days ahead of schedule.  The French had blown all the bridges over the Meuse except for one.  The Germans found a weir to cross 40 miles north of Sedan.  A panzer division commanded by Erwin Rommel found this weir relatively unguarded.  As Rommel got his tanks across the Meuse, the Luftwaffe went into action near Sedan.  Gamelin and his generals were target-fixated on what was going on in Belgium.  By the end of the fourth day of the attack [May 13^th], German infantry were across the Meuse in large numbers, and German engineers were building bridges across the Meuse to get more panzers across. 

The French tried to counterattack Army Group A, but their attacks were poorly organized.  On May 14^th, the Allied air forces attacked the German bridges over the Meuse, but Allied losses were heavy.  Only 50 percent of the planes that made the attack returned to base.  After May 14^th, the Luftwaffe had achieved air superiority.  Holland surrendered that same day.  After the German victory at Sedan, Gamelin thought the Germans would head straight for Paris, so he pulled troops away from the Meuse to protect the capital.  That move just gave the Germans more room for maneuver to make their dash for the Channel coast.  Brussels fell on May 17^th, and on that same day Gamelin was relieved.  He was replaced by General Weygand, who was recalled from virtual retirement in Syria.  A 73-year old general was replacing a 68-year old general.  The French were desperate.  Marshal Henri Petain also became Deputy Prime Minister, and he was 84.  At that time, Petain was the French Ambassador to Spain.  Before he left Spain, Petain told Franco that his country was beaten, a result of “30 years of Marxism”.  French troops surrendered by the thousands. 

On May 20^th, the Germans that had broken through at Sedan reached the English Channel.  The British withdrew to Dunkirk.  The French were not happy with the British.  On May 25^th Boulogne fell, and Calais fell the next day.  On May 28^th, news reached Paris that Belgium surrendered.  Dunkirk held out until June 4^th.  The British managed to evacuate over 300,000 troops back to Britain before then, but they left behind their tanks, their trucks, all their heavy equipment.  The evacuation was celebrated, but Churchill remarked that “wars aren’t won by evacuations.”  The panzers had time to reorganize, re-equip, and catch their breath and began the push south toward Paris on June 5^th.  After three days of fighting, Rommel reached the Seine.  On June 10^th, the French government fled Paris.  Two days after Paris fell, Petain [who by then was Prime Minister] asked the Germans for an armistice. 

Hitler insisted on using the same railroad car in Compiegne used to sign the armistice that ended World War I.  The Battle of France was over.  It took Hitler’s Wermacht five weeks to do what the Kaiser’s armies couldn’t do in four years.

Sources:
The World at War - France Falls: May-June 1940
Heinz Guderian - Achtung Panzer!
Erich von Manstein - Lost Victories

This Day in History - Churchill Takes Over [May 10,1940 - Part 1]

Two things happened on this day in 1940: 1) Germany invaded France, Holland, Luxembourg, and Belgium; 2) Winston Churchill became Prime Minister of England.  Hostilities between the United Kingdom and France on one hand and Germany on the other had been ongoing since Sept. 3^rd, 1939.  Germany invaded Poland two days prior.  When Hitler’s armies occupied what was left of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, both the UK and France made guarantees to Poland that should Germany invade, they would come to their aid.  Germany did just that on Sept 1^st, 1939.  The Allied response?  Not much.  Yes, they did declare war on Germany two days later, but other than that…  There was what was called the Saar Offensive.  On Sept. 7^th, France attacked Germany in the Saar.  There wasn’t much opposition, and the French advanced about 5 miles into Germany.  Two weeks after the attack began, the French withdrew back into France.  They were content to wait for a German attack behind their Maginot Line, and thus began the eight-month “Phoney War”.  Conservative MP Leo Amery [we’ll get back to him shortly] wanted to bomb German munitions factories.  The Air Minister, Kingsley Wood, said “no” because the German factories were private property, and that the Germans would retaliate [isn’t that what you do in wartime?].

One constructive thing the British did was to bring Winston Churchill into the War Cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty [the post he held at the beginning of World War I].  Churchill had been in the political wilderness as a backbencher since 1931.  He [and pretty much he alone, save for Leo Amery] criticized his own party’s government [first under Stanley Baldwin, then Baldwin’s successor Neville Chamberlain] for what he perceived as the UK’s lack of preparedness in the face of what he saw as a credible threat to the UK, namely, Nazi Germany.  He had pushed both Baldwin and Chamberlain to spend more money on armaments with limited success.  He denounced the government’s policy of appeasement.  Churchill had a sense that once the UK and France acquiesced to Adolf Hitler’s hunger for territory, Hitler would not be satisfied and would want more.  When Chamberlain and French Premier Daladier agreed to allow Hitler to have the part of Czechoslovakia known as the Sudetenland, Chamberlain believed Hitler when he told him he had no further territorial claims to make.  Chamberlain waved the piece of paper with his signature and Hitler’s, and proclaimed “peace in our time”.  Six months after that, Hitler proved Churchill to be right when he occupied the rest of what was left of Czechoslovakia.  The scales had finally fallen from Chamberlain’s eyes, hence the guarantee of support to Poland.

But first, there is a prologue to the invasion of France and the Low Countries – Norway.  While the French and the Germans were content to exchange artillery fire after the fall of Poland, the Soviet Union invaded Poland on Sept. 17^th [as discussed in a previous blog] and Finland in November 1939 [more on that in a separate blog].  Churchill, now in the government, saw much value to be gained by occupying then-neutral Norway.  He thought two things could be achieved by this move:  1) the British could stop Germany’s supply of iron ore from Sweden by occupying the northern port of Narvik; 2) Once secured, Narvik could be used as a base to help Finland against the Soviets.  It took a lot of persuasion, but Chamberlain agreed to the Norway operation.  This operation was in his mind a way to engage the Germans far from home, would have the appearance of “doing something”, and would avoid the repetition of the mass carnage of the Somme and Passchendaele from World War I.   

The RAF dropped propaganda leaflets instead of bombs on Germany in the hope there would be some “revolt of the generals” to overthrow Hitler, or he would be assassinated, and mass bloodshed could be avoided.  But by the time the British got around to going into Norway, Finland surrendered to the Soviets.  French Premier Daladier had staked his government’s survival on helping Finland.  When Finland surrendered, Daladier was replaced by Paul Reynaud.  Reynaud supported Churchill’s Norwegian plan.  The Allies agreed to mine Norwegian waters.  The mines were laid on April 8, 1940.  Chamberlain proclaimed that Hitler had “missed the bus”.  The Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Ironside, taunted the Germans to “do their worst”.  Little did the British know, Hitler had his own plans for Norway.  Also, unknown to the British, the German invasion fleet sailed for Norway on April 6^th.

The German invasion of Norway began April 9^th.  They beat the British to the punch.  On that first day, the Luftwaffe took control of most Norwegian airfields.  The Germans quickly captured the coastal cities of Bergen and Trondheim, and they landed in Narvik just ahead of the British.  There the first clash between Allied forces and German forces occurred.  The Royal Navy bombarded Narvik and pummeled the German Kreigsmarine, but British troops didn’t follow-up their success with a direct assault on the town.  British troops also landed in Namsos and Andalsnes to capture Trondheim in a pincer attack.  But they had no skis, no proper maps of Norway, and no heavy guns.  Nor did they have any air support.  There wasn’t much they could do when they ran into the well-equipped Germans.  German control of the airfields was the key to the battle.  The British learned a hard lesson that sea power alone without airpower couldn’t win battles anymore.  The British withdrew from Norway and returned home.  When they got back, and angry Parliament wanted answers for why the British failed in Norway.

For nearly a year before the debate over the conduct of the war in general and the debacle in Norway there had been a building up of bitterness and anger by those who wanted Britain to go all out against the Germans.  Not only the Labour opposition but members from Chamberlain’s own Conservative party felt the conduct of the war couldn’t be carried out by Chamberlain.  During the debate, deputy Labor leader Herbert Morrison announced Labour would vote against Chamberlain when the debate was over.  For all intents and purposes, this debate was over confidence in Chamberlain’s government.  Ironically, Churchill put up a vigorous defense of Chamberlain.  Although the Norway campaign was Churchill’s idea, Chamberlain was getting the blame for its failure.  And then Leo Amery spoke.  Like Churchill, he too had been an opponent of appeasement.  He quoted Oliver Cromwell’s words –

“You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”

David Lloyd George gave an equally damning speech about Chamberlain, and advocated that since Chamberlain had asked the British public to make sacrifices to support the war effort, that Chamberlain too should make a sacrifice.  To wit:

“He has appealed for sacrifice. The nation is prepared for every sacrifice so long as it has leadership, so long as the Government show clearly what they are aiming at and so long as the nation is confident that those who are leading it are doing their best. I say solemnly that the Prime Minister should give an example of sacrifice, because there is nothing which can contribute more to victory in this war than that he should sacrifice the seals of office.”

After the debate finished on May 8th, the House of Commons divided.  The vote went Chamberlain’s way, but it was a pyrrhic victory.  The vote was 281-200 in Chamberlain’s favor.  The Conservatives had a 213-seat majority, but in this vote 41 Conservative MPs voted with Labour against Chamberlain, while 60 other Conservatives abstained.  Chamberlain knew that he needed to form a coalition government.  On May 9^th Labour told him they would serve in such a government, but not if he was the Prime Minister.  The choice was between Churchill and the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax.  Halifax was a Peer.  No Peer had been Prime Minister in 40 years at that time.  Churchill was viewed with suspicion.  In the First World War, Gallipoli was his idea.  It was also a spectacular failure.  Chamberlain favored Halifax to succeed him.  In a meeting in the Cabinet Room at Downing Street on May 10^th, Chamberlain asked Churchill if he saw any reason why the next Prime Minister couldn’t be from the House of Lords.  Uncharacteristically, Churchill said nothing.  According to Churchill, Halifax said his position as a peer would make it difficult for him to be Prime Minister.  He would be responsible for everything, but couldn’t “guide the assembly” [the House of Commons] upon whose confidence his government would need.  

At dawn that same morning, the Germans invaded the Low Countries.    That same day, Chamberlain resigned.  Later that evening, the King sent for Winston Churchill.  Upon his arrival at Buckingham Palace, Churchill recalled:

I was taken immediately to the King.  His Majesty received me most graciously and bade me sit down.  He looked at me searchingly and quizzingly for some moments, and then said, ‘I suppose you don’t know why I have sent for you?’  Adopting his mood, I replied, ‘Sir, I simply couldn’t imagine why”.  He laughed and said ‘I want to ask you to form a Government’.  I said I would certainly do so.

Sources:

The World at War – Distant War:  September 1939 – May 1940

Winston Churchill – The Gathering Storm