In Summer 1940 the Wehrmacht was able to beat
the French Forces in a matter of 6 weeks, this was quite surprising not only to the
Germans, but also the rest of the world: "The collapse of France in 1940 had caused
an enormous shock throughout the world. In the USA most Americans did not want to
believe that the Germans had won and the French were defeated.” Now, we need to see this in context, nowadays
some people have a rather negative view on French military performance, but this was
clearly not the case after the First World War:
“France, not twenty years before, had emerged a victor in the Great War, its army as a result
earning reputation as one of the strongest of the world.” Countries like the United States, the Soviet
Union and the United Kingdom were counting on French fighting power in their strategies. Now, the question is, how was this possible? Why were the French beaten in just mere 6
weeks? And before we go into this, a short reminder
that there is currently an inidiegogo campaign on our translation of a German Panzer Company
Manual from 1941 out, which incorporated the lessons learned by the Germans in the French
campaign. Note due to the high demand we added another
50 signed copies with worldwide shipping to the campaign. Now, back to the French were beaten in 6 weeks. There are several general themes to explain
the French defeat, usually there are two main areas, the first one is about culture, mentality
and psychology, whereas the second is about military aspects, which of course to a certain
degree are influenced by the former. Yet, the military aspects are usually better
backed up with harder data, e.g., you can count the number of available radios, whereas
it is pretty impossible to measure the will to fight even if contemporary survey would
have been available, since such answers often are highly dependent on how, where and when
the questions were asked and answered. As such, we will focus mostly on the military
aspects. First, communications. The French communication setup of the High
Command to the front was complicated and ineffective. Frieser notes:
"As [the commander of the French armed forces] Gamelin later admitted before the Parliamentary
Committee of Inquiry, 'generally 48 hours' passed before an order arrived at the 'executive
unit at the front'." In short it was a mess. This was in stark contrast to the Germans:
“As the French waited for information to filter its way up and down the hierarchy,
German generals took the initiative.” The result was that the French command could
barely act, at best it could react and those reactions were usually too slow and thus too
late as well. Yet, the French communication problem were
not only present on the strategic and operational level, but also on the tactical level. While
“German units tended to issue radio receivers to all tanks, and radio transmitter-receivers
to section leaders’ tanks. French cavalry tanks followed a similar pattern
on paper, though in practice radio distribution was not as complete.” Additionally, French infantry light tanks
had without a few exceptions no radios at all. The second point is clearly linked to the
first one, namely that the French leaders stayed behind the front, whereas the German
leaders were quite often close to the front or directly at it. Probably, the most extreme example was Erwin
Rommel, who quite often came into severe troubles due to this, something outlined more in this
video about the Battle of Arras. Frieser gives an example with a few more names:
"When the German infantry at Sedan began crossing the [river] Meuse at 4 p.m. on 13 May, the
company commanders were often in the first boats. General Guderian took the first storm boat
of the second wave to the other shore, where Lieutenant Colonel Balck, commander of the
Schützenregiment 1, was already waiting for him. The next day even General v. Rundstedt, commander
of Army Group A, appeared and visited the important war bridge of Gaulier, although
it was constantly attacked by allied airplanes". Meanwhile the French generals were far behind,
e.g., "Lieutenant Colonel Pinaud, commander of the
147th Fortress Infantry Regiment deployed in the Meuse Loop of Sedan, had his command
post at Chaumont seven kilometers south of the Meuse." The division commander 10,5 km, the corps
command post 21 km and the Army Command at 45 km. Now, it is important to note here that the
French commanders were not cowards. Yet, they were fighting with a completely
different doctrine that was very similar to that of the First World War and there it was
important to be out of range of the enemy artillery. Both the poor communication and leading from
behind likely lead to rigidity, as Nord points out:
“What is most striking in this account of France’s defeat is the rigidity of thinking
in the French military’s highest ranks. Generals such as Gamelin, Corap, and Huntzinger
knew what was supposed to happen, and when the battle did not unfold according to plan
they were slow to adjust. Even when adjustments were made there was
a tendency to relapse into default mode, which was the defensive.” Meanwhile the Germans were very flexible that
sometimes was close to subordination like Rommel when he took some parts of his division
for a ride that earned it the name Ghost Division. The third point is about the overall mindset,
namely defensive versus offensive. Now, popular opinion usually blames the Maginot
line and I have fell for this oversimplification as well in the past. Yet, this is far too simple. The Maginot Line was not necessarily a bad
idea, since a fortification line means one can use his troops more efficiently and effectively
thus create reserves for other areas. The main problem was not the fortification
line, but more the “Maginot line thinking” as Frieser calls it, namely of being defensive
to a degree of being passive. And here is where the main difference comes
in: "While the Germans were striving for a renaissance
of the 'operative war of movement', the French seemed to want to avoid the 'open field battle'
at all costs and hid behind the Maginot Line, as it were." Which brings us to the fourth point. The strong defensive stance of the French
was in stark contrast to the Germans, who took the initiative as such the French could
only react. And due to the French’s poor communication
and rigidity the Germans could basically overload their whole system on the tactical, operational
and strategic level. What do I mean by “overload their system”. Now there is this theoretical model by John
Boyd for combat operations called the OODA loop. Which stands for:
Observe, Orient, Decide and Act. So, basically one side or actor observes,
orients himself then decides and finally acts. The issue is, if one side is particularly
faster the other side can’t react anymore. This is not limited to warfare by the way,
you might have experienced something yourself it could be in arguments with other people
or playing a real-time strategy games. According to the OODA Loop Model, whoever
can perform this process faster might overwhelm the enemy, depending on the discrepancy. If we look at the Battle France, the French
quite often were stunned by the German advances, one extreme example is Rommel’s advance:
"Never again in this campaign did such apocalyptic scenes occur as in the night of 16 to 17 May
on the road from Solre-le-Château to Avesnes. The 5th Motorized Infantry Division was literally
rolled over during the sleep. Even German soldiers, whose units followed
this road a few hours later in daylight, were stunned: [...]".
And as if this was not bad enough, there are more points, namely the fifth. The concentration of forces, particularly
the Panzer Forces. Although, we need to be careful here, as Zaloga
notes. “One of the most prevalent legends of the
1940 campaign was that French tanks were foolishly broken up into ‘penny-packets’ compared
to the concentration of the German tanks in the Panzer divisions and Panzer corps. During the Battle of France 1940, 44 percent
of French tanks were in the armored and mechanized division (DCR and DLM) and 66 percent were
in separate infantry and cavalry tank units. In contrast, virtually all of the German tanks
were in the 10 Panzer divisions.” Zaloga continues that for the French it made
little sense to have a similar concentration of tanks, since they were defending. Additionally, he notes that the main issue
was not French doctrine, but the French did defend at the wrong areas. Furthermore, he points out that the French
armored forces were dispersed mostly operationally: “While all of the German tank was concentrated
in the attack zone in Belgium and the Ardennes, the French army had several of its field armies
in Lorraine, Alsace, and the Italian frontier. In total, about 885 tanks or over a quarter
of its tank force was deployed away from the main battle zone.” Now, this concentration of the German Panzers
in just 10 divisions and also at the decisive point lead tactically to the situation that
the Panzers were usually available in far larger numbers than the French tanks, or as
the Commander of Panzer-Regiment 35 of the 4th Panzer Division put it:
“The decisive cause for the German success in battle against French tanks was the fact
that the French always fought against the regiment only with a small number of tanks. Therefore it was possible to destroy them
with the concentrated fire of our relatively few armor-defeating weapons. It could lead to a very difficult situation
if the French employed a large number of Somua tanks against us.” The Sixth point is that the German forces
were usually better trained and also had non-combat and combat experience. What do I mean with non-combat experience,
well, one instance of course was the occupation of Austria in 1938, the Anschluss. Why did this matter? Well, if you need to move large formations
like a Panzer division over a greater distance in a different, you learn a lot when it comes
to handling the vehicles, maintenance, logistics and regulating the traffic. Remember, one division had about 10 000 men
and a lot of vehicles. This issue becomes very apparent if we consider
the problem some French tankers had with their newly issued S-35 Somua tanks. Those tanks had 2 fuel tanks, yet, many did
not know that it had two, as such only one fuel tank was filled up, severely reducing
the range of the vehicle as pointed out by Chieftain on his video on the S-35. Of course, the combat experience from Poland
provided the Germans with an additional edge, especially considering that they the High
Command was not particularly happy with the performance and issued major retraining. Now, time to move up a bit, the seventh point
is about the Control of the Air. Which again is related to a certain degree
the high amount of initiative and speed the Germans acted, as outlined by Corum:
“In the battle of France in 1940, Luftwaffe fighter and Stuka units averaged an impressive
four to six sorties a day, whereas the French air force fighters average only one per day.” Of course, there were other reasons for limited
effectiveness of the French Air Force. There were major reforms in the inter-war
years, but those were rolled back prior to the Second World War and again the French
opted for a defensive approach: “The offensive use of air power that had
proven itself in Spain and had been emphasized by the French Air Force between 1936 and 1938
was played down as General Gamelin insisted that the role of the air force was to be primarily
defensive.” The results of the loss of the control of
the air should not be underestimated. It allowed the Germans to call in close Air
Support, but also to have a better understanding of the overall situation, since their recon
planes could act more freely. This knowledge combined with good communications
and rapid decision making was a key element for the German speed and initiative. And the control of the air brings us to the
final point, namely weak morale or better the weakening of morale. The issue is, there is the so called “decadence
thesis” that blames the defeat on social issues. Yet, I think we don’t need to look that
far, since we know that control of the air, especially in early war had usually disastrous
effects on the ground troops. As such I intentionally use the British as
an example, since their reputation is generally very good. This quote refers of the British during the
Battle of Crete: “Weston’s report, much like that of the
Bartholomew Committee, stressed the morale rather than material impacts of air power. At Malame, after several days of straffing
[sic!], ‘only one N.C.O. had been killed and 3 other ranks wounded’. ‘The effect produced on the troops’, he
said, ‘appear[ed] out of all proportion to the actual damage inflicted’.” As such it would be not surprising that the
breaking of French morale was more due to Luftwaffe then more far-fetched views. As Philipp Nord puts it:
“France’s defeat in 1940 was a military phenomenon, not the inevitable expression
of some generalized national malaise or moral deficiency. And it was the army brass, far more than the
common fighting man, who deserve the lion’s share of the blame.” To conclude, the French defeat in 1940 was
due numerous factors that in some cases are a bit similar. The French suffered from poor communication
on the strategic, operational, tactical and also technical level. Furthermore, their doctrine focused on commanding
from behind, both of these issues combined turned the French Army into a cumbersome behemoth
that could barely react to German forces that made excellent use of their radios and were
led from their commanders at the front. The overall offensive mindset of the Germans
compared to the French defensive approach that sometimes was rather close to being passive
made the behemoth even more sluggish. Additionally, the German concentrated their
trained and experienced forces and thus could deliver striking blows. Finally, the control of their air, allowed
the Germans to have a far better picture of the situation and also weaken French morale,
while at the same time calling in flying artillery in case the regular artillery could not keep
up. Although, it seems rather obvious in hindsight,
many contemporaries – including the Germans – were very surprised by this outcome and
they all knew far more about warfare than most of us will ever know. Now, in case you like to learn more about
German Tank Warfare, Bismarck and I have translated a German Army Regulation about the Medium
Tank Company from May 1941, which builds upon the experience of the successful campaigns
in Poland, the Low Countries and of course France. It encompasses topics such as tank crew specialization,
training, formations, how to engage enemy positions and tanks. It is not a mere translation; it also comes
with the German original text on one page and the English one on the other. Additionally, we added notes on terminology,
translation decisions, a glossary and several other supplements as well. If you are interested check out our indiegogo
campaign. Well, I hope you learned something new. Thank you to Jack and Michael for sending
me various books that were crucial for making this video. As always sources are linked in the description. I hope you enjoyed this episode, thank you
for watching and see you next time.
