Reddit reviews The Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign in the West
We found 6 Reddit comments about The Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign in the West. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
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I would credit the victory over France more to his generals, especially Guderian. The German doctrine at the time allowed for significant leeway on the part of field commanders and many of them showed incredible aggressiveness that led to that victory. Hitler and much of his staff at the time did not want the Panzer divisions to keep pressing into France, they feared that the lines would become too vulnerable and France would be able to counterattack. The Panzer divisions were actually ordered to stop, but Guderian pretended there was a problem with the radio and claimed he didn't receive the order. Then, he requested permission to send an "armed recon" mission to scout ahead -- and then he sent his whole division forward, claiming they were all part of the "recon" team. Eventually, Hitler asserted a halt order that is still a little controversial among military historians, and it caused the German advance to stop long enough for the Dunkirk evacuation. Had Hitler not given this order, Dunkirk may not have happened.
Sources for all this: http://www.amazon.com/The-Blitzkrieg-Legend-1940-Campaign/dp/1591142954/ and http://www.amazon.com/Quest-Decisive-Victory-Stalemate-Blitzkrieg/dp/0700616551/
Overall, the German army seemed to struggle most with intelligence (not meaning they were dumb, I mean in terms of getting information on the enemy, and counter-intelligence = keeping the enemy from finding out about you). They didn't seem to have great intel, and the allies often had solid intel on German movements, which plagued a lot of the German operations.
It seems that over the course of the war, Hitler went from an open policy, allowing his field commanders to improvise at their discretion, which tended to work well and give them flexibility -- to a more micro-managing, hands-on approach as the war went on. This kept the army from being able to respond as quickly and effectively.
That's all right, no doubt, 'but':
> This meant that yet again the German Armored forces where exposed to counter attacks. And indeed the French did attempt more counter-attacks, however, they where unorganized - and French Armour was not consolidated into large formations rather instead they where distributed in several smaller formations and distributed along the front lines.
Well, I find the expression 'unorganized' for 'misleading'. The French were rather 'over-organized'. The actual problem was that the French command and control structure, and pace of operations, were 'custom-tailored' to the pace of operations from WWI. Thus, they simply couldn't keep up with developments of May 1940.
Countless units were ordered into counterattacks, but usually didn't receive their orders on time, and couldn't reach designated starting points on time - because their headquarters were far too far in the rear, and because they lacked even telephone connections (not to talk about most of army-level headquarters not even having a single radio). Result was that by the time the orders would reach commanders in the field, the situation usually experienced a fundamental change: say, the Germans either forced the unit to withdraw, or passed by its flank. Furthermore, French commanders didn't trust themselves to act on their own (nor were actually granted permission to do so - and that by their very own field regulations).
In most of cases, the result was that the counterattacks were cancelled even before they were launched - and majority of units ordered to stabilise a frontline and build-up a defensive frontline, 'instead'. Or to withdraw.
The few counter-attacks that were actually launched were run haphazardly and generally insufficient. Amid growing chaos there were actually just three attempts of counterattacks at 'operational level'. Except for Arras, these were those at Stone (this village south of Sedan changed hands some 17 - or more - times between 13 and 20 May), and then de Gaule's attempt to reach Montcornet (spelling?) - which was destroyed by Luftwaffe's Stukas, although highly promising, and - at least early on - quite effective, too. Even most of these have not really 'worked', because of poor, slow command and control.
> These tenets for Combined Mobile & Armored Warfare would be put into place in the Blitz of Poland...
There was no 'Blitzkrieg'-style of thinking during the Poland campaign: that one was still fought along decades-old theories of 'Kesselschlacht'.
Recommended read (actually a 'must read' to this topic): Karl-Heinz Frieser's The Blitzkrieg-Legend.
You can pick some tactic and call it blitzkrieg, but it was not what others call blitzkrieg. In the end it was just just normal German maneuver warfare.
German generals had the same opinion and modern historians agree with that.
The best and definitive source on the issue is Karl-Heinz Frieser's The Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign in the West
"Blitzkrieg" was never planned as a blitzkrieg. The “miracle of 1940” was a result of three factors;
I'd say sadly most of the interesting sources are in french and not really translated. And sometimes out of print in France too.
I know the blitzkrieg legend about the 1940 campaign, but it's about military stuffs. Maybe it's too specific for you.
Although I do not have a detailed understanding, I found the following interesting (I interpreted it as, the outcome of the initial invasion could (should?) have been completely different, subject to the outcome of initial engagements/strategies), that you may also:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Blitzkrieg-Legend-1940-Campaign/dp/1591142954
> France's defeat within mere weeks was unprecedented and shocked the world. However this stands more as evidence of Germany's sheer military power, and not as any nation's inherent 'weakness'.
Actually, depending on how you define "military power," it's not hard to argue that France was militarily more powerful than Germany in 1940. Two highly recommended books (links to reviews):
A choice quote from the first review:
> Ernest R. May, a professor of history at Harvard and the author of ''Strange Victory: Hitler's Conquest of France,'' will have none of this. Panzer-like, he sweeps it aside as myth. France and its Allies, he points out, had more trained men, more guns, more and better tanks and more bombers and fighters than did Germany.
And from the second:
> Frieser argues persuasively that Germany took several huge risks by attacking France, Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands (the Western Allies) on May 10, 1940. Germany was unprepared for anything more than a very short war and chose a strategy (thrusting through the supposedly impenetrable Ardennes, crossing the Meuse, and driving to the Atlantic Coast) that could have been frustrated in a half-dozen ways by the Western Allies, especially France. [...] Frieser's narration of Sichelschnitt is buttressed by extensive data--including production numbers, weapon comparisons and useful logistical information in addition to troop numbers and dispositions. The data and discussion serve to underline both the numerical and the marginal qualitative equipment inferiority of the Wehrmacht in 1940 relative to its Allied opponents.
In these arguments, the Germans were materially inferior to the French, and a big part of their victory was due to luck. The Germans' surprise attack through the Ardennes was a huge gamble; if the French had caught on to it earlier, the Germans would have lost catastrophically.
This isn't to take credit away from the Germans—luck smiles on those prepared to seize it, and they sure did seize it in those six weeks. But even though the Germans' military skill was higher than the French, it's hard to argue that that was enough to guarantee a crushing victory like they achieved.