Blitzkrieg

Myth, Reality and Hitler's Lightning War - France, 1940

Lloyd Clark

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781782397427
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

The German campaign in France during the summer of 1940 was pivotal to Hitler's ambitions and fundamentally affected the course of the Second World War. Having squabbled about fighting methods right up to the start of the campaign, the German forces provided the Führer with a swift, efficient and decisive military victory over the Allied forces.

In achieving in just six weeks what their fathers had failed to accomplish during the four years of the First World War, Germany altered the balance of power in Europe at a stroke. Yet, as Lloyd Clark shows in this enthralling new book, it was far from a foregone conclusion. Blitzkrieg tells the story of the campaign, while highlighting the key technologies, decisions and events that led to German success, and details the mistakes, good fortune and chronic weaknesses in their planning process and approach to war fighting. There are also compelling portraits of the officers who played key roles, including Heinz Guderian, Erwin Rommel, Kurt Student, Charles de Gaulle and Bernard Montgomery.

Clark argues that far from being undefeatable, the France 1940 campaign revealed Germany and its armed forces to be highly vulnerable - a fact dismissed by Hitler as he began to plan for his invasion of the Soviet Union - and offers a gripping reassessment of the myths that have built up around one of the Second World War's greatest military victories.

For my parents – John and Pauline Clark – and Jasper Clark

Illustrations

Section one

Adolf Hitler arrives in Poland (Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-013-0060-20)

Hitler at OKH headquarters in Berlin (Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1971-070-61)

Franz Halder and von Brauchitsch (Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-H27722)

General Fedor von Bock (Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-1986-0226-500)

General Gerd von Rundstedt and Maximilian von Weichs (Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-056-1643-29A)

Heinz Guderian with Georg-Hans Reinhardt (Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1988-120-10)

General Erich Hoepner (Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1971-068-10)

General Ewald von Kleist (Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-1986-0210-503)

General Friedrich Kirchner (Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1997-018-33)

General Erich von Manstein (Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-H01757)

French prime minister Paul Reynaud (© IWM, HU70629)

General Maurice Gamelin and General Lord Gort (© IWM, O158)

Winston Churchill talks to General Lord Gort (© IWM, O190)

General Alphonse Joseph Georges inspects men from the BEF’s Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers with General Lord Gort (© IWM, F3959)

A German armoured fighting vehicle factory (Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-L04352)

French troops prepare defences (© IWM, GSA Album 17 850, Image 145)

German pilots’ briefing at an airfield near Arras (Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-383-0338-03)

French fighter patrol (© IWM, GSA Album 17 850, Image 76)

Joachim Meissner, Rudolf Witzig and Walter Koch listen to Hitler (Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1993-033-26)

A Bren Carrier passes across the Belgian border (© IWM, F4348)

Section two

Two light German tanks in the Ardennes (Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-382-0248-33A)

The pontoon bridge over the Meuse at Gaulier (Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1978-062-24)

A French army signals post (© IWM, GSA Album 15 848, Image 219)

Sergeant Walther Rubarth (Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-L05202)

Hermann Balck (Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-L05202)

German tanks advance across Belgian terrain (Bundesarchiv, RH 82 Bild-00058)

Heinz Guderian in his command and communications halftrack (Bundesarchiv, 101I-769-0229-11A)

Rommel with General Hermann Hoth (© IWM, RML182)

French tank crews run to their Renault D2 tanks (© IWM, HU75654)

Rommel and a group of officers from 7th Panzer Division (Bundesarchiv, 146-1972-045-02)

Heinz Guderian receives the remains of a captured French Army standard (© IWM, MH10935)

British troops march through Dunkirk (© IWM, MH24141)

Major General Victor Fortune glowers at Rommel (© IWM, RML342)

Surrendered Belgian troops being goaded by Wehrmacht troops (© IWM, HU75891)

French refugees heading south (© IWM, GSA Album 16 849, Image 270)

Two Schutzpolizisten visit a damaged bunker (Bundesarchiv, 121-0486)

An RAF Fairey Battle attacks a German transport column (© IWM, C1737)

German infantry march through Paris (Bundesarchiv, 183-L11769)

German infantry and armour pushing deeper into France (Bundesarchiv, 101I-769-0228-22)

Marshal Philippe Pétain greets Hitler (© IWM, HU76027)

Maps

p. xii The Invasions of Poland, Denmark and Norway, 1939–40

p. xiii Defences, Deployments and Plans, May 1940

p. xiv 10–11 May 1940

p. xv The Ardennes, 10–12 May 1940

p. xvi Approach and Crossing of Meuse by Panzer Corps Guderian, 13 May 1940

p. xvii German Advances and French Counter Attack, 14 May 1940

p. xviii Advance to the Coast, 15–20 May 1940

p. xix The Weygand Line and Fall Rot, 5–18 June 1940

p. xx The Advance to the Armistice, 25 June 1940

The Invasions of Poland, Denmark and Norway, 1939–40

Defences, Deployments and Plans, May 1940

10–11 May 1940

The Ardennes, 10–12 May 1940

Approach and Crossing of Meuse by Panzer Corps Guderian, 13 May 1940

German Advances and French Counter Attack, 14 May 1940

Advance to the Coast, 15–20 May 1940

The Weygand Line and Fall Rot, 5–18 June 1940

The Advance to the Armistice, 25 June 1940

Prologue

Hordes of Parisians choked the streets on their journey to the Gare de l’Est. A mother used the time to tell her thirty-seven-year-old son André how proud she was of him and, looking into his tired eyes, told him that his decision to fight was the correct one. The son felt no fear, no excitement, just a desire to get to the front now that he had made his decision. On arriving at the station, he was keen to be on his way. He scythed through the masses which blocked his route to the platform from where his train was due to depart. He made slow progress through fretful soldiers who embraced ashen-faced women. Both were on the cusp of an entirely new and shocking reality of war.

What would André’s fate be? His mother could not help but recall a similar farewell to her brother, who had left her to fight the Prussians in 1870 and returned with a mortal illness. André had enlisted as a private soldier – just another poilu with a wife and young children – ignoring the opportunity to take a comfortable staff job in a headquarters away from the fighting. In fact, the only influence he had used as under-secretary of state for war was to ensure that he was assigned to a unit defending his beloved Lorraine. Consequently, on 1 August 1914, André Maginot slipped off to war without public fanfare or farewell.

André’s destination was Verdun, a city which lay in a vulnerable salient created by the German thrust through the heavily wooded Ardennes. The French had fallen back towards Sedan, Stenay and Verdun, but only Verdun held, protected by enhancements to Vauban’s original seventeenth-century fortifications. The totemic city remained in French hands that autumn, an achievement assisted in a small way by André’s reconnaissance patrols. At six foot three inches tall, he was not an inconspicuous figure on the battlefield clad in his horizon-blue jacket and red pantaloons but, unlike many others, he remained unharmed after fifty patrols. On 9 November 1914, however, the newly promoted sergeant’s good fortune came to an end. The day after he had been awarded the Médaille Militaire for his personal courage and leadership, André was leading a patrol when he was struck by a great blow to his left leg and then another to his knee. Lying in a pool of blood and in agony, he expected to die.

Six years later, on 10 November 1920, walking with the assistance of canes, his left leg useless, André Maginot, who was now minister of pensions, found himself in Verdun’s cold, damp underground citadel. In exquisite pain, he watched as Auguste Thien, a young soldier of the 123rd Regiment of Infantry who had been invited to make a choice, pointed to the sixth of eight caskets containing the remains of an unknown soldier. Three years later, on 11 November 1923, the casket was interred below the Arc de Triomphe in Paris in a ceremony during which Maginot, now minister of war, ignited an eternal flame on the tomb.

It was five years since the armistice that had ended the First World War. France was still in mourning, traumatized by the hideous destructiveness of protracted industrial warfare and fractured, just like the bodies and minds of so many of its surviving veterans. It was an experience that Maginot was determined to spare the next generation and he supported Marshal Philippe Pétain, France’s senior soldier and the Victor of Verdun, in his desire to fortify the common border with Germany. Completed after his death, the defences took André’s name – the Maginot Line – and so it was that a brave and principled man became forever associated with his nation’s defeat.1

Introduction

They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force – nothing to boast of when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others.

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

The Fall of France and the Low Countries in May and June 1940 was one of the most remarkable military campaigns in Western history and, arguably, one of the most distinguished victories ever won. The fighting in those weeks shocked the world, not for its protracted horror but for the lack of it. The Germans managed to conjure up a decisive victory over a first-class military power that was predicted by very few and which proved to be a significant step towards an increasingly global and destructive conflict. As such, it is an event that has retained a great vibrancy to all of those who have recognized its military and historical importance. There are few other campaigns that have raised more questions about its origins, conduct and outcome, and offered so many contrasting answers in response. Part of its fascination – and complexity – stems from the fact that its main participants had been fighting each other over much of the same terrain a little over two decades before. It is, of course, almost impossible not to contrast images of the Stuka dive-bomber and dust-coated panzer in a war of great movement wi...