To his audience of the most powerful and seasoned generals in Germany, many of whom preferred to remain on the defensive in the west, he stated, “Attack is to be preferred to defense as the decisive war-winning method.”23 Though he said he did not have a detailed plan of operations, he wanted the operation to “concentrate solely on the annihilation of the…enemy resources.” If this attack failed for some reason, then the secondary objective would be to “secure an area possessing favorable conditions for the successful conduct of a long drawn-out war.” This area was obviously the Netherlands and Belgium, which could be used by German aircraft and U-boats. The occupation of the Low Countries would also deny their use to the Allies.24
Hitler then described the major outlines of German military strategy.
The German attack is to be mounted with the object of destroying the French army; but in any case it must create a favorable initial situation which is a prerequisite for a successful continuation of the war. In these circumstances the only possible area of attack is the sector between Luxembourg in the south and Nijmegen in the north, excluding the Liège fortress. The objective of the two attacking groups thus formed is to attempt to penetrate the area of Luxembourg-Belgium-Holland in the shortest possible time, and to engage and defeat the opposing Belgian-French-English forces…. An offensive which does not aim at the destruction of the enemy forces from the start is senseless and leads to useless waste of human life.25
Hitler's vision of appropriate strategy then was of an attack west on a broad front into Luxembourg, Belgium, and Holland. Though the attack aimed at destroying the French and British armies, its chances of success were small, but an attack on a broad front into the Low Countries would also seize a large portion of the Channel coast for the launching of operations against Great Britain and prevent the Allies from using the Low Countries for aerial attacks into the Ruhr. To ensure his reluctant military leaders complied with his directions, Hitler issued “Directive No. 6 for the Conduct of the War,” which ordered his generals to give him detailed reports and to keep him informed about the status of preparations.26
From the beginning, German military leaders recognized the improbability of “annihilating” the British and French forces with an attack into the Low Countries. On 14 October a careful examination by General Halder and General Walther von Brauchitsch (the Commander-in-Chief of the Army) of three possible alternatives pertaining to the overall situation yielded the conclusion, “None…offers prospects of decisive success.”27 After becoming convinced that his military leaders were dragging their feet on preparations for an attack against the west, Hitler became more insistent and then announced his “irrevocable decision” to launch an offensive against the west. He also fixed 12 November as the beginning date of the offensive.28
German military leaders continued to have reservations about the wisdom of attacking in the west. To emphasize the unpreparedness of the army, General von Brauchitsch and Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, the Chief of the German Armed Forces, met with Hitler on 5 November, the predetermined date for the issuance of the attack order for 12 November. Brauchitsch expressed concerns about the aggressiveness and training of the infantry, the adequacy of noncommissioned officers, and the status of discipline. After emphasizing his having discussed the problems with subordinate commanders and of their having concurred with his views, he concluded by saying that the army needed intensive training before engaging in another campaign. Indignant, Hitler rudely dismissed him.29 The scheduled date for the attack was soon changed. In coming months, scheduled attacks were delayed twenty-eight additional times.
Despite the reservations of German military leaders, the first plan for an attack on the west, which was given the code name “Yellow,” was issued on 19 October 1939, and it closely followed the ideas outlined in Hitler's memorandum of 9 October. Though the plan did not call for a repetition of the 1914 Schlieffen Plan, a strong north wing (Army Group B) would attack in a westerly direction through Belgium, while a weaker southern wing (Army Group A) protected its flank. Army Group B had responsibility for the main attack. Instead of seeking a decisive victory by driving into France, capturing Paris, and crushing the French Army, the objective of the first Plan Yellow was limited.30
On 25 October Hitler met with some of his leading generals, including Brauchitsch and Halder, to discuss the new plan. During the discussion, Hitler suddenly questioned whether it would be possible to attack west through the Ardennes and then turn northwest, thus enveloping the Belgian fortresses from the south.31 Strangely enough, this was apparently the first suggestion from anyone about making the main attack through the Ardennes and then enveloping the Allied left flank. While Hitler's idea did not include crossings of the Meuse as far south as Sedan, he soon became extremely interested in the possibility of placing the main weight of a German offensive to the south of Liège.
On 29 October the High Command finished the second draft of Plan Yellow. Though the new draft strongly resembled the earlier draft, and though Army Group B retained responsibility for the main attack, it envisaged a deeper thrust by Army Group A, including a move toward Laon in France.32 While Hitler's heightened interest in the Ardennes may have influenced the General Staff, the plan still did little more than call for a broad attack that would push the Allies toward the English Channel. The plan stated, “All available forces will be employed…with the aim to engage in battle forces as large as possible from the French Army and their Allies on Northern French and Belgian territory and to defeat them, creating thereby favorable conditions for carrying on the war on land and in the air against England and France.”33 Unlike Schlieffen's plan, the 29 October plan promised a drawn-out war, an alternative that disturbed Hitler even though the plan closely adhered to his guidance of 9 October.
Over the next two months the General Staff continued to work on its plans for an attack against the west, and some modifications occurred in the basic thrust of the plan. Meanwhile, Hitler became interested in employing mechanized forces in the Ardennes. At the end of October he suggested using motorized forces for an attack in the direction of Sedan. On 12 November Hitler directed that the XIXth Panzer Corps (with two Panzer divisions and one motorized division) attack through southern Belgium and seize the southern bank of the Meuse near Sedan. Though Hitler directed that the XIXth Corps be attached to Army Group A for the attack, he did not direct the moving of the responsibility of the main attack from Army Group B in the north to Army Group A in the center. At the end of November the Army's High Command moved the XIVth Motorized Corps into the assembly area of Army Group A but retained the corps as part of the General Reserve.34
While none of the changes signified a shifting of the main attack, they permitted—after the campaign began—the shifting of the main effort from Army Group B to Army Group A. On 20 November Directive No. 8 from the High Command of the German Armed Forces formally authorized such a switch and ordered preparations for such a switch to be made.35 Thus, in a slight alteration of Army Group B having sole responsibility for the main attack, the Germans were prepared to reinforce any success achieved by Army Group A.
After World War II, General Halder explained the rationale for retaining the flexibility to shift the responsibility for the main attack from one Army Group to another. He pointed out that the most important unknown in German planning was information about how far the Allies would advance in Belgium before they made contact with German forces. It was clear from the beginning, according to Halder, that if the Allies moved deep into central Belgium and the Netherlands, Army Group A in the German center could probably “force a decision by an encircling attack from the south.” Since the Germans could not predict how far the Allies would advance, they had to retain the flexibility of making either Army Group B in the north or Army Group A in the center the main attack. In summarizing “the fundamental idea” of the first plan, Halder wrote, “Decision as to where main efforts were to be formed was reserved until attack began.”36
Despit
e several changes, the plan provided the Germans little or no chance of annihilating the Allied forces. One critic later explained that the plan sought only “partial victory…and territorial gains.”37 Though criticisms and efforts for improvement continued, German military leaders recognized that the plan offered little more than a chance of seizing the Channel coast in Belgium and subsequently launching air and sea attacks on the Allies. Except for a few dreamers, virtually no one, including Hitler, expected a swift victory.
In an unlikely sequence of events, the necessity to make fundamental changes forced itself on the Germans when information about the plan fell into the hands of the Allies. A Luftwaffe major carrying a briefcase full of secret documents relating to Plan Yellow strayed in a light airplane across the Belgian border and crash-landed near Mechelen-sur-Meuse on 10 January 1940. Though the documents carried by the German officer primarily concerned the operations of the Luftwaffe, they contained enough information to reveal the outlines of the German plan if they were obtained by the Allies. As the major attempted to burn the documents, a Belgian patrol happened to come by and captured him. When the major was later being interrogated, he somehow managed to thrust the documents into a stove, but a Belgian officer shoved his hands in the stove and retrieved some of the burning documents. Extracts of the documents were provided to the French military attaché in Brussels that afternoon.38
Believing he was successful in destroying the papers, the Luftwaffe major later informed the German military attaché in Brussels that except for a few fragments, they had been burned. For a short period, Berlin was relieved, but soon after receiving this information, the monitoring of Belgian radio traffic revealed that the Mechelen documents had divulged critical information about Plan Yellow.39
At a time when Hitler was deeply displeased with the Allies’ having learned of Plan Yellow, he remained concerned about the improbability of a rapid defeat of the Allies if the old plan were followed. The idea of possibly making the main German attack south of Liège also intrigued him. Then one of his military assistants informed him about General Erich von Manstein's opposition to the existing plan and of his advocating a radically different alternative that called for a decisive defeat of the Allies. Beginning at the end of October, Manstein had completed six memoranda on his concept for launching the main German attack through the Ardennes south of Namur and for cutting off the Allied forces sent into Belgium. In contrast to the existing plan, which called for the main attack to come from Army Group B in the north, Manstein—who was the chief of staff of Army Group A—called for the main attack to come from Army Group A in the center. Under his concept, Army Group C remained east of Luxembourg, in front of the Maginot Line.40
On 17 February Manstein had the opportunity to present his ideas personally to Hitler. The following day Hitler summoned Brauchitsch and Halder and directed them to come up with a new plan in which the aim was to get “behind the fortifications line in Northern France at the very start.”41
Although the evidence is not completely clear, Halder had apparently begun working in November on a thorough analysis of Manstein's suggestion. A war game on 27 December 1939 examined Manstein's concept against three French options: defending along the Franco-Belgian border, advancing into Belgium to the Dyle line, or advancing into Belgium to the Albert Canal. Though the war game demonstrated that Manstein's concept had merit in each case, the possibility of the French launching an attack from the vicinity of Verdun into the flank of the Germans created great concern, especially since the Germans could not foresee where the French reserves would be located.42
Despite these concerns, Manstein noticed in another war game on 7 February that Halder was “beginning” to recognize the potential of his suggestion. Perhaps more importantly, the map exercises in February demonstrated that shifting the responsibility for the main attack from one army group to another after the battle began could lead to confusion and loss of time. During this same period, the German General Staff concluded that while the Allies would not move forward into Belgium until the Belgian or Dutch borders were crossed by the Germans, they would definitely move forward. Halder later explained, “Clearly defined focal points could now be formed from the very outset, with corresponding alterations in the assigned missions.”43
In other words, after the Germans discerned the intent of the Allies to move forward into Belgium, the advantages of launching the main attack through the Ardennes and enveloping the Allied left flank became apparent. Thus Hitler and the military's senior leadership apparently came to the same conclusion independently but almost simultaneously about the merits of making the main attack through the Ardennes with Army Group A. The new concept, however, was not fundamentally new, for in reality the German High Command had toyed with its most important part when it established in November the possibility of reinforcing the success of Army Group A in the center.
On 24 February 1940 the Germans published another plan. In addition to calling for the main attack to be launched by Army Group A through the Ardennes, the plan rested on a strategy seeking a decisive and swift victory over the Allies. To accomplish its mission, Army Group A in the German center had five field armies—three forward on line and two following in reserve. From north to south, the field armies were the Fourth, Twelfth, and Sixteenth. Panzer Group von Kleist, which contained the XIXth and XLIst Panzer Corps and the XIVth Motorized Infantry Corps, moved ahead of the Twelfth and Sixteenth armies. When the XLIst Corps moved through the Ardennes, it would follow the XIXth Corps. To their north, the XVth Panzer Corps was attached to the Fourth Army and marched to its front. Thus the XIXth Corps and the XVth Corps acted as the spearheads for a massive phalanx of troops that included five field armies. If either of the two leading corps were halted, a gigantic and vulnerable traffic jam would occur to their rear.
In addition to having the mission of seizing the Netherlands, Army Group B, in the north, had the very important responsibility of ensuring the Allies believed the main attack was coming through northern and central Belgium. The Army Group's forces included the Eighteenth Army and the Sixth Army with a total of twenty-nine divisions, but the two field armies had only three Panzer divisions and two motorized divisions. To deceive the Allies as to the location of the main German attack, Army Group B would launch glider troops against the key bridges over the Albert Canal west of Maastricht and against the fortress at Eben Emael. It also would spread out its tanks in Holland and in Belgium along the Albert Canal near Maastricht. The mission of these forces, however, was not to drive deep into Belgium; rather, it was to draw the French and British into Belgium.
In sharp contrast to the first plan, the second German plan sought a decisive victory over France and her allies. By rapidly moving through the Ardennes and crossing the Meuse between Dinant and Sedan, the Germans could break through to the rear of the French and British advancing into Belgium and cut them off. After destroying these forces, the German forces would march to the south and complete their victory with an enveloping maneuver.
Despite the great success later achieved by the strategy, one should not forget the significant risks surrounding it. If the main German attack were identified early by the Allies, if Allied bombers caught German columns moving through the Ardennes, or if the French managed to hold along the Meuse long enough for reinforcements to arrive, the strategy may have resulted in disaster, rather than victory.
In other words, German strategy was riskier than French strategy. Yet, it sought a swift victory, while the French strategy initially sought only to avoid defeat.
FRENCH DOCTRINE
Though the development of doctrine in both countries was influenced by numerous factors other than strategy, both the French and the Germans formulated doctrines that accorded with their strategies. While French doctrine strongly emphasized the defensive and the strength of firepower, German doctrine emphasized the offensive and the importance of mobility and flexibility. Although the development of their doctrines will not be discussed
, it is important to recognize that in both countries, but particularly in France, the strategies were greatly influenced by doctrinal considerations.44
In formulating its doctrine, the French Army placed the greatest emphasis on the requirements for firepower. From their perspective, advances in weaponry after 1918 had increased the importance of firepower and made the possibility of maneuver less likely. Both the 1921 and the 1936 field service regulations stressed the importance of firepower. In its description of firepower as “the preponderant factor of combat,” the 1936 field service regulations repeated another sentence that had appeared in the 1921 edition: “The attack is the fire that advances, the defense is the fire that halts [the enemy].”45 Fire permitted the maneuver or movement of the infantry, which remained the “queen of battle.”
The perception of an immense amount of fire being available on the battlefield contributed to the French belief that the defense was stronger than the offense. The employment of automatic weapons, antitank weapons, and artillery permitted the establishment of “curtains” of fire that would extract a terrible toll from any attacker. For an attack to succeed, France believed a larger number of troops and materiel were required than for the defense. The 1921 field service regulations argued that the offense was favored only after the “massing of powerful materiel means, artillery, combat tanks, munitions, etc.”46 A hasty attack against a well-prepared position would probably lead to failure, since the defender had the advantage and could inflict heavy casualties on an attacker. The only way an attacker could penetrate a deadly curtain of defensive fire would be to create a much greater concentration of fire with “three times as much infantry, six times the artillery, and fifteen times the ammunition.”47 Obviously the complexity of such an effort limited the possibility of maneuver dramatically, and its coordination could most effectively be done through the use of what the French called the “methodical battle.”
The Breaking Point Page 4
