Yup, you got me. I did actually read you statement as to the French mobility and communications vs. the Germans. Unfortunately, I read your “certainly were inferior” as “certainly weren’t inferior.”
Could’ve happened to anybody, right?
The French defense wasn’t fixed. The French responded to the German feign to Belgium by moving their forces forward to the eastern Belgian border and engaged the German feign.
So they were engaging with the German feign, the southern thrust curled up and outflanked them. Pretty much encircling the French forces.
Moreover, once the French realized what was happening, they split off forces and sent them south but too late.
In other words, you have a main French defense. But we’re not talking a Maginot Line or fortresses or something, just the bulk of the Allied forces. The Germans send a chunk of their Army north to catch the Allies’ attention, which they do and the Allies move forward to engage before the Germans get through Belgium.
Meanwhile, the Germans have a main thrust going through the Ardennes to the south. The French realize what is going on when the Germans reach French soil and so send some of the troops that were north down south to deal with the new threat. But it’s too late and the Germans outflank the Allies and basically surround them.
Which offensive? The one in France? It lasted less than two months. And most of that occurred after the main defenses had been crushed. The Germans basically just completed their main offensive before logistics issues had time to catch up with them.
Oh, absolutely. Although, I would argue that Belgium’s refusal to cooperate prior to their being invaded was more of a problem than Holland’s.
Very true, but that’s because they believed they would need their main anti-armor units up north and expected mainly infantry through the Ardennes if anything. Which is pretty much in line with what I said originally. The main contributor to French defeat was poor intelligence.
Agreed. This hampered their ability to regroup and reorganize to face a new threat.
Definitely true.
But none of these is a backbreaker by themselves or makes the French defeat inevitable. The French had a number of handicaps, but they weren’t enough to make Germany the unstoppable juggernaut that the OP implies. In the end, it came down to German gambles and a bit of luck.
Had the Germans not modified their plans during the winter, and had done what the Allies expected, I believe they would have been beaten in Belgium. And it was a lot of luck that the Germans were not detected moving through the Ardennes. The Allies wouldn’t have needed a lot to halt that advance if they had known about it. A few well-placed artillery rounds would have created a huge bottleneck. But the Belgian recon forces in the area that were supposed to be keeping an eye on things were called north to deal with the feign just before the Germans pushed through the area.
Again, I don’t think that France’s fall was inevitable until the Germans were able to break through in Sedan and outflank the Allies. It was all over after that.
That’s the expectation now, but at the time, the French expected to contain the initial German push. They planned for another World War I, where the initial German offensive failed, and lines solidified.
If the French really were counting on another WWI on the grounds that an offensive can’t be maintained then the outcome was certainly inevitable in my opinion. And as to the German 1940 spring offensive only lasting 2 months, well, that’s all that was necessary.
I also question the claim that offenses can’t be sustained.
As far back as March of 1864 when US Grant was made overall commander of Union armies in our civil war, his plan was continuous attack by all armies on all fronts to wear down the Conferderates. Lincoln had wanted to do this from the very beginning because he recognized that the Union was sure to win a war of attrition. Grant’s grand strategy was to keep all Union forces continuously moving against the enemy and that is what happened from March 1864 until April 1865 when the war ended.
In WWII the Russian forces were on more or less continuous offensive action from the winter of 1943 after the battles of Stalingrad, Kurk and Karkov until the end of the war. True, the advances weren’t mad and exhilerating blitzkrieg dashes but the continuous offensive pressure on the Wehrmacht in the east was sustained until the end of the war.
It is a bit over the top to say that the outcome for the French in 1940 was inevitable, but given the relative strengths of the two countries and the defensive mind set of the top French commanders, it sure was the next thing to it.
To add to what has been said: the French battle tanks were actually SUPERIOR to the german PanzerKampfwagen MKIII and IV! The French “Char-B” tank had a better gunsight, a larger cannon, and MUCH thicker armor. In fact, General Guderian described (in his memoirs) how german shells BOUNCED off the Char-B’s stout armor. The problem was: very poor communications on the French side-many units were out of contact with HQs for days…not a good thing in modern war.
Oh, and tha fact that General Gamelin was 68 years old and tired…and they replaced him with a 73-year old! (General Weygand). Somehow, a 73 year old general seems to be no match for an agressibe 48-year old (like Mantueffel or Dietrich).
Of course, the French had convinced themselves that the Germans would NEVER attempt a move through the “impregnable Ardennes”-the Germans just went and did it! 
They were massed along the belgian border, waiting for Belgium (which was still neutral at this point) to be invaded in order to rush in. They did as soon as the germans attacked belgium and the Netherlands, and that was precisely what the german expected.
The Ardennes were a low mountain and forest region at the junction between the Maginot line and the bulk of the french army and british forces in the plains in northern France. As other posters stated, it was thought to be impasable quickly by a significant force, let alone an armored force (actually, the german armored divisions clogged up the roads leading there, creating a dozens of kilometers long traffic standstill which lasted for a couple day…it would have been a perfect targets for air attacks, but went totally unoticed). The germans also exploited way better than the french high command envisionned the forest roads in the Ardennes.
This area was only defended by older reservist units which had no reserves to counter attack after the german breakthrough.
AFAIK, they weren’t expecting a breakthrough. They expected that the german armies would attack in the belgian plains, a much more convenient terrain for armored units.
They didn’t have such mobility. As pointed out by other posters, the french high command expected a second WWI, not a movement war. The allies had as much tanks and not of inferior quality, but they weren’t organized in large armored units, but scattered amongst infantry units. They were intended as infantry suport weapons.
They certainly didn’t have as good communications, either. And this too was a consequence of the french high command expectations of a WWI style position war. They choose not to rely on radios because the communications could be intercepted. Instead, they used field phones. Of course, as soon as there has been a breakthrough, or as soon as a french units moved, the communications were cut, at all levels of the chain of command. The headquarters had essentially no real-time idea of what was happenning in the Ardennes. Not even the tanks were equipped with radios. I remember an interview where a veteran which participated in one of the very rare tank battles in the campaign of France (tanks hastily gathered to form a larger unit) stated that officers would rely on people running from tank to tank to issue orders.
Nope. As another poster pointed out, their confidence in the Maginot line was well funded. As expected, the Germans didn’t attack in eastern France where it was situated… Still as the poster stated, the overconfidence was in the german attacking in Belgium and being unable to fight their way through the Ardennes.
Great animation. Since this topic apear on a regular basis, I bookmarked it.
I believe you’re right, and that there was no such expectation, and not mut much in the way of depth defense anywhere, including south of Belgium (though there were some troops at least, there.
But since I’m not at all a military buff, perhhaps I’m mistaken and the poster you’re responding to is correct. It doesn’t look like that when looking at the positions at the beginning of the war, but since this knowledge of the unit positionning comes from a wargame, albeit a good one (The Operational Art Of War, for interested people), it’s not a reliable source.
I understand that France and the UK thought they weren’t ready for an offensive during the automn of 1939, and that they needed to reinforce their armies. I also read somewhere that an allied offensive was planned for the automn of 1940.
But that’s what I said…that the French weren’t expecting the Germans to fight through to the Ardennes.
Too late and more importantly way too slowly. The move towards south, and then the complete retreat from Belgium were complete messes. Once again french mobility and logistics was substandart and aggravated by the clogging of roads by civilians refugees (and having people flee was apparently part of the german strategy to slow down allied forces)
Actually, the french didn’t realize what was happening immediatly after the breakthrough. It never crossed my mind before I heard it, but after the german breakthrough, the allies stiil didn’t know what was coming next. The german forces could have headed west to cut the allied force from France, as they did, but they could also have turned west to attack the Maginot line from the rear, or headed south to attack Paris. It’s obvious, of course, but the hindsight prevented me to notice that were several options after the breakthrough in the Ardennes.
I’ve read that actually, the germans were at the end of their logistic capacities when they completed the offensive, in particular that they were sorely lacking gas.
And that the offensive would have failed for this reason if the french army had managed to slow it a little bit more. So, according to this, this offensive wasn’t a sure path to victory, and more of a bet.
I would mention, however, that the german commanders where ordered by Berlin orders to slow down their advance (apparently due to the logistic issues and because some suspected that since the advance was so quick, it could be some trap devised by the allies to destroy the german spearhead), but didn’t comply, insuring german success.
But a position war is also and even mainly a war of attrition. And the allied commanders in 1940 were sure they would win an attrition war, since they controlled the seas and also the access to oil.
Yes. But you stated that this was a result of the overconfidence in the Maginot line. Which isn’t true, since the line didn’t extend to the Ardennes.
I’ve heard this as well, Trevor Dupuy wrote something about it in Understanding War:
There’s an order of battle of the French Army and the BEF on May 10th, 1940 located here. Only Army Group 1, with 4 armies having 11 corps as well as the BEF was deployed facing Belgium to counter the presumed German main thrust. Army Groups 2 and 3 with 4 armies of 14 corps were deployed behind the Maginot Line or covering the Ardennes. Although the forces assigned to Army Group 1 were of higher quality, very large numbers of French forces sat out the breakthrough behind the Maginot Line.
As has been said, most French tanks lacked radios, which greatly hampered their effectiveness on the battlefield. While most German tanks were inferior to French and British models in terms of armor and firepower, the Pz-III and Pz-IV, which constituted a minority of German tank forces, had a substantial advantage over the Char B and all other French tanks in that they had multi-man turrets. French models had a one man turret, which meant that the commander had to do triple service as the gunner and loader in addition to his responsibility as the tank commander, frequently having to rely on signal flags to send or receive orders due to the general lack of radios, a highly inefficient arrangement. The Pz-I, Pz-II, Pz-35(t) and Pz-38(t) all shared the flaw of a one man turret, but were generally equipped with a radio. More importantly though, German tanks were concentrated in Panzer Divisions in turn forming Panzer Corps, while most of the French and British armor was parceled out amongst the infantry.
You know, the more I ponder on this idea that France, and Britain, couldn’t undertake offensive action against Germany the more puzzled I get as to why they declared war in the first place. If this is true then how did they ever expect to help Poland?
I think it is true that they had told Hitler that an attack on Poland would mean war. But really now, Britain and France must have known at the time that all they could do was sit on the the border and wait for the Germans to attack them if what you guys are saying is true. How does that come to Poland’s aid?
You say that the French anticipated a WWI style encounter. Did they really think that they could overcome Hitler by engaging in static, trench warfare on the Belgian-French and German-French border? What was their end game? Did they have plans to somehow break the stalemate and invade Germany to force Hitler to disgorge his conquests? Did they expect to weaken Germany by attrition to the point that Hitler would cede the gains he had made to avoid further losses?
If so their defeat was inevitable and it was on account of stupidity.
So, if I get this right, initial intelligence failures, some key operational insufficiencies (such as communications, joint forces ops, and a plan that called for waiting until Belgium was actually invaded to move), old unimaginative senior commanders, combined with a bold gamble that paid off on the Germans’ part, led to the situation of the Ardennes breakthru and the cut-off of the main allied force. And that even then, the Germans were near the end of their own rope – but the French HQ did NOT have this last bit of information, may have honestly there probably was still more where that came from, and knew they did not have the means to deal with it if there was indeed more-where-that-came-from. IOW, French HQ honestly believed they were beat, fair and square, if only much quicker than expected?
I’ve always thought the French get a raw PR deal just for not having felt it worth it to risk fighting on to the last man on a smoking pile of rubble. We can now, with hindsight, say that they could have actually stood a fighting chance. But the leadership at the time did not see it that way. If so, that would not make a nation defective in character, it would mean those leaders were wrong (and some leaders, like DeGaulle, did disagree). We can also, in hindsight, say that facing Nazi Germany was a cause worth going to the last-man-on-smoking-ruins scenario, but we forget that at the time much of the world considered AH’s worst “evil” to be just plainly that he was taking over other countries, which was not exactly new to history.
Poland would have to help itself. But the hope was that, for one thing, by allying with Poland, Germany would be less likely to invade it in the first place. After Hitler invaded Poland, Britain and France hoped that Poland could hold out while they blockaded Germany and starved it into submission.
Also, I think, there was the attitude that war with Germany was inevitable, and so it was better to do it then than wait until Germany had gobbled up more small Central European states.