I would also agree with Sloniksp's statement. However, I would also add that if there was one time the world could have done something, and been effective at doing it, it was in 1936 when Hitler marched his forces into the Rhineland. Ironically, it was the French that wanted to react and push them out, but through heavy diplomatic pressure and negative government responses from UK and US, France was forced to acquiece.


I'm not sure what you mean by this. W. Churhill had every reason to believe this, afterall he had visited the French front on several occassions during WW 1. He knew fully well what the French soldier was made of, and what he was capable and willing to do. It's certainly not because the French were lazy or scared of a fight. It is in fact almost purely a result of over 20 years of unflinching adherence to the teachings at the military academies, that what they did during WW 1 was obviously the right way to do it, and very few officers dared to stand up and say otherwise. French Gen. Beaufre said it best in a post-war interview, "Victory can be a very dangerous thing". The advantage here was for the Germans, who lost WW 1 and thus became more studious in the offensive approach for quick and decisive victory. In very general terms, these are the two very different doctrines presented by the opposing forces. One side had decided that if it worked once, it can work again (if it ain't broke, don't fix it!). The other side decided to learn from their mistakes and fix what was broken.

Also, you must take into account that between the wars, French society was at several points near civil war, political strife being the game of the day. This strife would permeate through all aspects of French society, government, industry and even personal thinking. There have been thousands of books written on just this subject. Some of this was rectified on the eve of WW 2, but there were still a lot of problems, much of them unfortunately affecting defense industries as well. Thanks to the Non-Aggression pact, communists elements within France thought they had been given a green light to cause a lot of problems, and there were several highly publicized intances of sabotage on the defense industries as well. The list could go on and on.

Back to the Saar offensive, a total of 31 divisions were planned, though only 9 were eventually used. I think this "whittling down" of the attacking forces was due in part that 1- the French didn't really know what to expect, and perhaps didn't want the possibility a larger force being cut off in the event of a large German counter-attack, and 2- Most of the French high command knew that by the time they had assembled their attacking force, Poland would already be overwhelmed.

In short, if your enemy decides not to play by your rules, you'd better watch out.