German invasion sept. 1939

What if the French army and the BEF had attacked Germany just after declaring war, aiming at Sarrebruck and Kaiserslautern ?

At this time, Germany had almost all its army in Poland, only 11 divisions and 23 reserve divisions were facing 85+ allied divisions in the west, with almost no air nor armor power, and the Siegfried line was only 30% completed.

To make it short, Germany was left almost without defense.

Had the French high command shaken its lethargy, what could have been achieved on the field ?

What would have been the impact in Poland ?

 

IMO, it would have saved millions of lives. Germany could not have staved off a concerted drive by French forces if they attacked aggressively. A French offensive would have also probably kept the USSR from joining in on the attack on Poland. Hitler would have had to agree to an armistice. A follow-up question...would Hitler have survived such a defeat or would internal uprisings unseat the Nazi Party?

 

Even had the French shaken off their lethargy, I doubt that they would have made it very far, if only for logistic reasons. The relatively urbanized nature of W Germany would have acted as a breaker for any advance, even in the face of only a light defense. IMO, they would have made it maybe half-way to Munich, and maybe have gotten to the gates of Köln, maybe. However, this is much better than what happened historically! I think the French would have learned some key key key early land-warfare lessons, and then beneficially use them later on. Maybe France would not have fallen. And who knows what political repercussions would have happened because of some early allied successes? Poland might have hung on another 2-4 weeks, and maybe the Soviets might have felt not so compelled to their treaty obligations. French morale would have been quite high after even a successfully mini-campaign. However, would the French army have held their positions in W Germany or retreated to the safety of the Maginot? My guess is the latter, so any territorial gains would have been temporary.

 

There was an attempt to exploit an offensive throught the Saarland region (Saar Offensive). Even if a large scale offensive were to be undertaken, it would have failed, and for several reasons:

1- Despite an overwhelming superiority, French military doctrine at that time did not allow for offensive warfare, and because it was so ingrained there also no flexibility in changing this method in any timely manner, certainly not as on-basis initiative would have required.

2- Allied intellingence at the time was very faulty. The French or the British could not have known to any reliable extent that the might of the German Army was in the east. It's quite easy to criticize the Allies for not taking the offensive given what we now know, but at the time, recieved wisdon told the Allies it was probably not a good idea.

3- Contrary to popular belief, the Seigfreid Line was not unmanned. The bulk of the German army may have been in Poland, but the Seigfreid Line was still manned and the Saarland well sighted in with their artillery pieces, and artillery was one of the biggest concerns of the French commander, a la
WW 1 doctrine again.

4- The topography of the region is not very good for large scale offensives going east. The Saar valley is a nice big bowl with hills and mountains all around. Not exactly an ideal place to thrust entire armies through. this is one reason why the French developed the Dyle plan, because they fully expected the Germans to do what they once did before, go through Holland and Belgium, because these are regions very suitable for mass movements of troops and tanks.

Of course, Holland and Belgium had declared themselves to be neutral, and France wasn't the kind of country to violate her neighbors to the north. Hitler on the other hand, had no problems whatsoever.

I believe the Saar offensive gave many French commanders a somewhat rude awakening as to the many defeciencies within their doctrines, but sadly they failed to capitalize on wide-scale improvements during the following Phoney War. The best thing the French did was put a halt to that little offensive, it was really their only sensible option.

 

Asterix, define 'failed'. Not much territory gained for heavy casualties? Unlike in WW1, Germany's best divisions were in the east at the time, their reserve divisions in the west. The French Plan XVII of WW1 failed on many levels, but primarily because the Germans were prepared for an attack there at the time. In WW2 that was not so. There was a chance at at least limited success, and the worst being a limited failure. What counter-attack or defense-in-depth could a couple dozen German reserve divisions manage against a 40+ division Allied attack through 100's of km of front? Probably not much. Delay them at best, be completely routed at worst.

 

While the outcome of such a push against Germany might be difficult or even impossible to predict, I can not imagine the outcome being worse then what historically happend.

 

Ditto Sloniskp.

 

Limited success/limited failure, sure I could accept that, but to what purpose if the end result is more or less the same? What would it prove? If anything, the pull-out would have been even more demoralizing.

Again, I think the problem with this analysis is the common post-war assumption that the Allies knew then what they were up against. To the contrary, there's much more evidence to suggest they had no idea, only the vaguest of clues at best. This may have stemmed from the fact that Gen. Gamelin made some wild over-estimations of Germany's forces, but once again this goes back to faulty intelligence. I would again state that in order to mount such a concerted push would have required a change in doctrinal thinking, something which they were not about to do. Sure, people like then Col. de Gaulle had their ideas, and pressured both the military and government to adopt them, but his wish would come true only during the dark days of the 1940 Blitz.

Lets also not forget that in order for such a massive armored thrust into Germany to be successful, communications at a tactical level between armor/infantry and aircraft would have to have been very good, though in reality it was generally quite poor and antiquated, perhaps sporadic at best. Communication was horrible in practice during the defensive fight in 1940, how could it have been any better for an offense through forested hills?

I would also like to point out a few French publications which I have documenting French regimental histories involved in the Saar offensive, explaining in good detail that while the average French soldier was actually excited in entering Germany, many were complaining of the lack of modern equipment, modern weapons, and at being held in positions at length until mortars or light artillery could be brought up (per WW 1 rule). While their immediate superiors were very wise and able commander, the rear echelon commander had very liitle idea of what was really happening.

Of particular interest, in Alain Legrand's-Alain leBerre's "La Bretagne a l'epreuve - Sarre,Flandres, Dunkerque" (record of the French regiments from Britanny region, notable the 137e R.I., but also the 65e and 62e R.I.), many men were injured and killed during the first days of the Sarre offensive by minefields, all divisions and regiments involved not having a single working mine detector among them. They rarely had reliable information coming from their adjacent regiments, the 65e and 62e R.I.s. Almost all of these regiments began their advance uphill, through thick woods. Elements of the 48e R.I. were bogged down in the forest by their heavy coats and old gear which were all soaking wet, so they were ordered to dig first foxholes, then trenches for the night!
(pgs. 67 through 98).


Another good work, "8 Septembre, 1939 - Cette Nuit Nous entrons en Allemagne" by Bertrand Le Barillec details almost exclusively the 137e R.I. perspective. These men, mainly 1st Batt. captured Gersheim, are bombed by their own reconnaissance planes, ambushed by a German patrol, attack after them through thick woods with fixed bayonets only to get tangled in the underbrush and thickets. ( pgs. 105-133.)

Not only did the French have no idea of the opposing forces, they didn't even have a clue about the terrain on which they were fighting.

A few small towns and villages were captured, good for propaganda purposes, and there were several sharp skirmishes and many casualties from mines and booby-traps (including one unfortunate casualty who had his old 1886/93 Lebel rifle explode in his hands from the cartridges in the tubular magazine). However, I think it's safe to conclude that a large scale thrust would have suffered the same defficiencies, only on a much larger scale. The French may have captured some more territory, and the Germans probably would have answered by diverting some of their men, armor and airpower to the region, but I seriously doubt that the outcome would have been any different, and Poland would still have fallen.

I would argue that after Sept. 1st-1939, the Allies could not have done anything to save the Poles, their fate being sealed by the Non-Aggression pact between Germany and the USSR signed on the eve of war.

 

Good response Asterix, but I still agree with Sloniksp, I cannot imagine any outcome worse than what happened historically. Maybe the deficiencies in the French army would have been recognized and dealt with in a more timely manner because of said offensive.

What I find funny however, is that from what you wrote, it sounds like the French Army was pretty much defeated by some mines, some trees, and a couple of old guys lol. What a great Army. Why would Winston Churchhill ever have said "Thank God for the French Army". Sorry, but how'd they win WW1 again?!?

 

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.

 

Actually France did invade Germany and Asterix was right in that the French used 9 divisions to occupy the Saarland, although several local skirmishes did take place Hitler shrewdly decided to ignore the French invasion, he knew the French would not go any further and he was proven right, Poland had demanded that France do more but the French Command was up to the job.

Hitler remarked later after the last French troops had evacuated over the border, that had the French had gone onto a full offensive, Germany did not stand a chance, Hitlers gamble had paid off in the short term.

But had France decided that a full invasion was to take place then Germany occupied with it's war in Poland would have been defeated within weeks, Germany would have no choice to divert vast numbers of divisions in Poland westward to face the French giving Poland a valuable opportunity to regroup and maybe launch some offensive action, Germany could not defeat a coordinated two front war against Poland and France. I would say by 15th October 1939 Germany signs the Surrender Treaty and Germany would be carved up, never again to threaten her neighbours. And saving some 50 million lives. Poland becomes bigger with a large slice of Eastern Germany and Western Germany assorbed into France,

 

I respectfully disagree. I don't think Hitler or his generals ignored the Saar offensive at all, but in fact watched it very carefully. If anything, they were probably very surprised that nothing came of it. We have to remember, for all the French knew, the Seigfreid Line was just as intensive and formidable as the Maginot Line, and they certainly weren't about to make headlong attacks in an attempt to penetrate it. I would also like to add that, after the German invasion of Poland, there was a hurried meeting between the Polish attache in Paris and the Senior French High Command. Given the timetable for Gamelin to gather enough strength to mount an attack of any kind would be too late to affect the outcome in Poland. This confirmed the Polish attache's worst fears: the Poles at the meeting knew it would be too late to save Poland even before the Saar attack was launched.

In addition, you've left out one key player in all of this: Stalin. The French had managed to gather their forces for the Saar offensive on the very eve of the Russian invasion of Poland. The carving up of Poland had been decided by Hitler and Stalin, via Ribbentroop and Molotov, and I seriously doubt Hitler would have gone it alone into Poland if he wasn't sure how Britain and France would react. Hitler knew how to gamble and take risks, but I believe he would have thought going it alone into Poland was too great a risk. It was much more beneficial for Hitler to have Stalin eat half the cake.

Yes, the French could have done this, and done that, and so on and so on.....but that is exactly my point. The French could have done something had a VERY many circumstances changed within their military and government, but I simply believe there were way too many circumstances that required changing to be anything near realistic in order to achieve a dramatic and different result.

If we're to really engage in alternate history, then we could say: Had France not fallen into economic and societal dissaray between the wars, and had their been no huge labor and communist movements, had their industries both civilian and defense not been paralysed by massive strikes and worker's revolts, had the French not been divided by extremist political chaos in the 1920s and 1930s, had all the old generals been retired, had all the old and obsolecent weapons and equipment been abandoned and replaced with new materiel beginning in the early 1930s and not late 1930s and early 1940, had Belgium and Holland not remained neutral, had their intelligence on German forces been more accurate and reliable, had they trashed their old doctrinal method of warfare, had they done ALL that and then some....then yes, perhaps the war could have been over by Fall, or Winter of 1939 at the latest.

However, I still maintain that given what the French did have and what they did know (and for that matter, what they did not know), I still don't see how the outcome would have been much different. Far too much would have had to change for it to be otherwise. There were simply too many things which had gone wrong within France itself in the 20 years leaning up to WW 2.

 

Very valid, interesting and well documented points, Gentlemen.

So far, I agree with...all of you !

I agree with Slo and Avatar when they say that a large scale offensive, or a stronger and deeper Saar offensive couldn't possibly end upworse than that happened for real.

I agree with Grossborn and Von Run when they insist on how Germany was vulnerable at that time. I'd like to remind that the Siegfried line was only 30% achieved, and that the invasion of Poland left very large section of it unmanned. In 1939 the Siegfried line was very far from being " as intensive and formidable as the Maginot Line".

I also doubt that the German army, which had almost no heavy weapons left in the west, was mechanized enough to very quickly move troops, tanks guns etc from Poland to the west.

I agree with Asterix when he says on the doctrinal flaws that prevented the French army to efficiently drive a large scale combined arms offensive, and also the very deep French political troubles in the 20s and 30s, that lead to a very divided country (look what happened in Spain) – very well explained in Mr Shirer's book "The fall of the 3rd Republic". These could hardly be solved in a few weeks.

 

I fail to understand why the French High Command didn't prepare for such a plausible scenario, especially in the summer months of 39. Didn't they realize Poland would fall quickly without their help? Didn't they realize how much more difficult their situation would be without an East front? Totally unprepared, and totally unforgiveable from the view of the French people.....

 

Because they looked back on the damage WW1 did to France and decided that they wouldn't let it happen again, they decided to fight on their boarders leading to a defensive mentality which would not allow them to prepare for an attack on Germany.

 

I could have sworn that the French military doctrine in WW1 was that it was critical to carry the war to the enemy's soil, and not to fight on one's own land. I assumed that the Maginot line was to be the last and best 'trench' in front of which a combined Allied offensive could advance from. I.E. to carry the war to Germany as soon as possible, while keeping a formidable defensive line behind them in case of failure. My opinion regarding french failure? The reason was not this complicated mess of communists and social paralysis in the 30's, but a simple answer that the French General Staff was old and incompetent. They lacked drive, daring, flexibility, foresight, and vision. Their 'battle plan' was: Let them take out Poland, we'll stay here, and when they come through Belgium (again) we just hope to beat them. Wow, what innovativeness. Good job guys. The German Staff was far from perfect, but compared to those old foggies, it's no suprise at all they won the BoFrance in such a short time.

 

Yes, this is true, but we knew this only after the fact. Did the French know this at the time in 1939, no they didn't. If they had known, then perhaps they may have made a concerted effort to beakout from the Saarland, but the fact remains they had very little reliable information to warrant attacking a fortified area, one which they believed at the time was very strong, which is why I stated earlier, "for all the French knew, the Seigfreid Line was just as intensive and formidable as the Maginot Line".

My argument here, is simply that we cannot take post-war knowledge and apply it to the past, then place fault and blame on certain parties for not doing/knowing any better. 20/20 hindsight can only be played so far.

If I were to fault the French commanders for anything, it was not taking care of themselves first. We sometimes forget that the Maginot Line, as originally intended, was to run clear into Belgium and connect with Eben Emael. As the French were looking for historical evidence to take all precautions into account, they should have known (and remembered) that in WW 1 the Dutch and Belgians were also neutral when the Germans attacked. Because of this, the French should have NEVER asked the Dutch and Belgians for mutual assistance and co-operation in military planning. It was very clear that Holland and Belgium did not want to antagonize Hitler by joining in defense planning with France. Once this was made clear, the French should have simply continued the Maginot along the Franco-Belgian border all the way to the Channel, even if that did antagonize the Belgians (granted, there was concern of pushing segments of Dutch and Belgian population further into the German camp by doing this, especially the Flemish-speaking regions). Still, Dutch and especially Belgian neutrality left northen France dangerously exposed. Would it have made a difference in 1939 for Poland? Probably not, but in 1940 it could have made a big difference to the French.

Sorry, but I disagree. The problems of the 1930s did play a huge role in the wide politico-varietal and extremists attitude of the French populace, one which would affect the government and military alike in many ways. I think it is wrong to ignore this aspect. Nor do I think the "old foggies' were so non-chalant about the Germans taking Poland. The French (and British) agreement with Poland was to declare war on Germany if Poland was invaded. As for saving Poland, I think most concluded it was logistically a near impossibility, especially once the Russians were in the fray. If Poland was of no concern, then the French could have simply not honored their agreement with Poland, not declare war on Germany, and be done with it right then and there!

Secondly, I would not at all be surprised if many in the French government believed that the Non-Aggression pact between Germany and the USSR also meant that Stalin would aid Hitler in the event of a French incursion into Germany (not too far from the truth either, considering that much of the oil, fuel, and raw materiel used by the Germans in their Blitz of 1940 came from Russia). Given the strong communist tendencies of the large syndicates in France (labor unions) connected to strong leftist political parties, there was reason to worry about making enemies of Germany AND Russia. *An interesting footnote, the British and French had even considered sending troops to aid Finland in their fight against the Soviets.

The French generals may have been old with old ideas, but they weren't stupid either. I think it is more a case of France having many options, all of them ranging from bad to worse, in the short time they had. They were choosing from the many of lesser evils and having to hope for the best. France could have been saved with drastic changes starting in the late 1920s-early 1930s at all levels. After 1936, it was too late.

 

I agree with you Asterix, I think I'm just much more critical of the French High Command. They had plenty of time before the war to make preparations. They could have sent a few, umm...spies, to see how far the Siegfried line construction had gone, and quickly realized there was not much to see. Maybe they should have prepared stockpiles essential to immediate offensive operations before the war even begun. No mine detectors somebody said? Well, umm.... why? Doesn't an army, umm, need those things? I bet that was only 1 of many items that they were lacking. I'm going to also put forward that the french command was incredibly overconfident in their defenses.

 

Yes, I agree. Any improvement on their intel agencies and spy networks could only have benefitted them. I'm sure they had their sources, but were they compromised and fed false information themselves, or were they killed or bought-out? I don't know too much about this so I cannot say. As for the lack of mine detecting equipment, I have no idea why they didn't have any for those troops entering the Saarland. I vaguely recall reading somewhere (a long time ago) that they did have some, but that were in the colonies in North Africa. Why? Maybe they thought the desert was more the terrain for land mines than densely forested hills.

Again, I agree with you on the high commander's overconfidence of their defense networks, especially knowing that by it's original design, it was essentially incomplete.

 

Whether the French knew that the Seifried Line was 30% complete is mute the whole point is that France with a perfect opportunity did bugger all, yes they sent in 9 division into the Saarland, big deal, so what, they sat there and did nothing, if memory serves the Germans did not have one panzer division in Western Germany, almost all of the Luftwaffe was in Poland, had the French amassed as one indicated some 35 to 40 divisions, and launched an invasion of Germany, nothing, i repeat nothing was going to stop them.

Even if the Soviets invaded, with a full scale French invasion of Germany, Germany would have to withdraw from Poland, which would leave the Polish Army although heavily mauled to concentrate on the Soviets, but this brings out another point, If France had launched a full on invasion of Germany would France and Britain have declared war on the Soviet Union.

As i have said Germany by mid October would have no choice but to surrender. Hitler and his Nazi Regime would end in 1939 and save 50 million lives.