Following the invasion of Poland, Europe settled into the “Sitzkrieg”. If, instead of doing that, France and Britain had attacked Germany, would the war have ended sooner with an Allied victory, or were France and Britain in no shape to attack Germany at that time?
Thanks,
Rob
First item: the question would be “France”, not “Britain and France”, since Britain had only two divisions available for the A.E.F., and even they needed time to get into place. They were prepared to ramp up their standing army by a division or two a month, but any 1939 fighting would have been France (and Poland) vs. Germany.
Second, I believe that the Western Front had only a frelatively thin screening force in place during the invasion of Poland, but that Germany was prepared to pull its forces west to combat French incursion on a quite rapid basis. Nearly all of Poland fell within a month or so anyway, freeing the German armies to combat France thereafter.
I bet that Germany, like Foghorn Leghorn, had made plenty of plans for just such an emergency.
Unless they could somehow convince the Soviets to attack at the same time. But the Soviets where probably keen to avoid conflict at this time as they were still pretty weak.
Most people still thought that pushing the attack would lead to their troops getting slaughtered against the enemy’s static defenses like in WW1. Germany had the Siegfried Line, it’s counterpart to the Maginot Line, and the French were in no hurry to test themselves against it.
That’s true, but doesn’t really explain what WOULD have happened.
France badly outnumbered Germany on the Western Front, and did in fact attempt a small advance, which met with very little resistance.
A substantial attack might well have prevented the disaster of 1940; it would have completely changed the course of the war. Of course, perhaps the result would have been a different sort of disaster, but we can’t know for sure.
The French did invade Germany. in the Saar Offensive. It pitted around 41 French (theoretical) divisions against around 22 German actual divisions, starting on September 7th, four days after France declared war. This was intended as a diversionary measure, to try and draw off German units from Poland. And to provide advanced staging areas for a full bore invasion once France had fully mobilized. The French plan called for full mobilization to be complete on or around the 16th and in theory a full campaign would start on the 17th.
By the 12th there were 11 French divisions which had advanced about 5 miles (a mile a day). At this point resistance had been light, but they were beginning to approach the fortified Siegfried line. Heavy casualties were expected and the mobilization was happening slower than expected. At this point Gamelin ordered a halt. And Poland was informed that the general assault would be delayed until the 20th.
Of course Poland’s defense collapsed far more quickly than anyone anticipated. By the time the French kicked their offensive off, the Germans were already in the Warsaw suburbs. By the 12th (when the advance was halted) Warsaw was well besieged (it would surrender within the week) and the Polish government was fleeing to Romania. When the Soviets invaded Poland on the 17th any hope the campaign had to relieve the Poles was dashed and the French retreated back to their fortifications on the Maginot line.
Although the French offensive amounted to nothing. It is hard to imagine that the French could have done much more than they did. They simply couldn’t mobilize their divisions fast enough to take advantage of the temporary numerical advantage they had on the Rhine. By the end of September the Germans outnumbered the French and were in solid defensive works.
What is generally forgotten is the advantage the Abwher had in experience from the Spanish Civil War. The concept of Blitkreig, lightning war was ‘perfected’ in Spain.
Yet another forgotten European War.
Peter
Britain and France combined had actually the elements of succesful offense: large number of decent aircraft and tanks. However, both countries were particularly wrong in conclusions they drew from WWI. The French tanks were slow and old but they were strong enough, but deployed in small numbers. The RAF concentrated on dreaming of bombing Germany without actual planes to do it. I don’t see them succeeding in taking the war deep into Germany.
But if they had had a spectacular but not too costly failure, maybe they had been smarter in 1940?
Just to be clear, the Siegfried Line was constructed illegally by Germany in 1938, after his earlier illegal invasion of the Rhineland. That was a clear point to say “No” to Hitler’s military ambitions, when he prepared his Western Front in violation of Treaties.