Questions about France in 1940

more about the Loire Battle , note the destroyed Renault tankette

COMMUNES  DU  LOIRET

 

Read the queston badly and assumed the poster was asking for long standing plans .

 

Don't worry Tired , it could be interpreted both ways, I assume the plans were planned to be long standing anyway, but fate decided otherwise. In Orleans all bridges were destroyed on time except one bridge which was taken by surprise (the railroad bridge) It could not be sabotaged on time and German vehicles crossed the bridge while driving on the tracks. Gien was almost entirely burnt , including the castle , the Orleans center was bombed by the Luftwaffe, so were Tours, Jargeau and Saumur. There was a fierce resisance in saumur but the Germans had already crossed the River elswhere and surrounded the last defenders (cadets)

 

Thanks Skipper and TiredOldSoldier for your responses, much appreciated. In terms of fall back plans, I was simply interested as to whether any fall back plans existed or had been developed in the phony war period or during the actual Battle of France campaign.

 

Hi

New on here with a not strictly relevant thought relating more to a couple of points made previously.

My university professor was the Martin Alexander cited by the fella at teh start of the article, and he used to talk endlessly about the fall of France. One discussion I had with him may be of interest here to clarify French strategic planning in 1940. He argued, convincingly, that the Maginot Line has been very much misrepresented over the years and should be viewed not so much as an impenetrable defence as a vast strategic hinge, around which the relatively well equipped French mobile forces could manouver. This was partly through necessity (much French industry in artillery range of Belgian border so undefendable if Belgium occupied) and partly through a desire to force German forces to retrace their steps through Belgium, where they hoped to hold an advantage in picking the terrrain (and presumably assumed that Belgian resistance would provide a bit of breathing space).

There is no doubt that the defence was not a stunning success, but many people assume that the French were stupid and didn't realise that the Germans could go round the Maginot Line; this was actually part of the plan.

One thing I'm interested in finding out is this: When the BEF withdrew from Dunkirk they took an awful lot of Frenchmen with them, I have often wondered what happened to them. Any ideas?

 

Welcome to the forum "Rich", and to the best of my knowledge the French forces which were evacuated with the BEF were re-equipped, and fought under the Free French (Cross of Lorainne) flag with de Gaulle.

 

I may be wrong, and have no evidence to back this up, but have a feeling there was a discrepancy in numbers between those that were lifted off the beaches and those that served with the Free French.

Suspect others may have been sent back into the fight almost immediately?

 

Hi Clint,

you´re completely correct! And they did their part to beat the Wehrmacht very good!

Regards

Ulrich

 

I could've sworn their was a thread almost exacly like this :/

But any case,

The main reason France was defeated so quickly is because their millitary planners were badly organised- many of them old fashioned WW1 and beyond vets.

I believe the Allies found a German plan and assuming it was right displayed out their troops and prepared for a repeat of WW1.

However, Hitler had other ideas; his cheif milltary architect (Erich von Manstein i think his name was) Complained that the Schlieffen plan (after Alfred von Schlieffen a german field marshall who ironically died in 1913l) was unimaginitive and together with Hitler they drew up a new plan, which involved breaking through the Ardennes (a heavy forested area the Allies thought impassable to armour and they left it virtually unguarded) The Manstein plan was highly risky and many high ranking Nazis doubted it, but Hitler loved it.

It went ahead in May 1940 and worked like a charm; before long the panzers had outflanked the BEF and French 1st and 7th armies (Not sure the regiments exacly) and were on their way to Paris, Realising they were about to get slaughtered the bulk of the British and French armies retreated to Dunkirk where the famous evacuation took place (im sure you've all heard of it).

But within a few weeks, after many French towns being utterly destroyed and thousands of people made homeless, France had surrendered; and to makes matters worst- Hitler had the EXACT same train carraiage that the Germans had signed an armistiance after WW1; the French had the choice for their capital to be utterly destroyed or be humilated and sign in the carraige; the French chose the latter and the humilation of France was complete.

After that, old Adolf had the carriage destroyed; he'd acheived the goal that had eluded the Kaiser in 1914 within the space of a month or so. Unbelievable.

 

My take is Kirkland wrote that quite a while ago & did not have the advantage of using opened archives. Second he is writing a brief summary & not anything as deep as a book. But, are you criticizing the methdology, or do you have different numbers? If you have numbers that contradict Kirkland many of us would like to see them.

 

The 'best equipment withheld' story came mostly from a large number on very recently manufactored air frames still in finishing depots. Some were from French factories. Others were the 300 aircraft just delivered from the US. Most of those were airframes not yet completed to combat ready status in early May. A emergency effort prepared several hundred and part were used in combat. The situation in June caused a portion of the remaining best aircraft to be sent to Africa to keep them out of the impending defeat. That was after the RAF had lost any hope of basing any more aircraft in France.

The fact of so many modern airframes being unready & partially assembled in May had to do with the ongoing reorganization and retooling of the aircraft industry. A long planned surge in production was just starting that spring & in late summer between 700 & 1000 modern aircraft would have been distributed to the combat squadrons, with as many as another 1,000 by the end of the year.

In the first days of the campaign France lost over half its combat ready LeO45 bombers in attacks on the German mechanized columns in Belgium. Virtually all the operational LeO45, a ultramodern type, were committed to these attacks.

Other than a handfull at the factory gates none of the modern tanks were with held from combat. Some ultra modern machines such as the SAU40 saw the small prototype batch hastly equipped with the guns at hand and sent to battle in June.

 

LeO 451's equipped 8 Groupes during the May and June battles. These flew 288 sorties for 47 losses most to flak and ground fire as they were frequently pressed into making low level attacks on German columns. As a medium altitude bomber the LeO 451 proved quite successful and enjoyed a relatively low loss rate. It also proved capable of defending itself in most cases with its 20mm cannon defensive armament.

 

Hi,

here is a booklet that i had translated from an original Nazi Propaganda booklet of the war in France. The booklet is from KTK. Hope it works!?! Sorry for the errors in the translation.

Regards

Ulrich

 

I am not a fan of the French army but for most part like everyone said(For like the first page and half of the second)the French where the best equipped army in Europe not in all aspects generally speaking at the time of 1940.Apart from some crappy planes(Hey American and Soviet pilots did to *cough*P-40,and I-16) ok so what their tactics were ummmmm.......... what that word O outdated only like what 1-2 decades the French were not that bad yea they collaborated with the Germans but look at the U.S. at the time and that all so embarrassing Boom guy and his Nazi crew. The Brits were being stingy with the Royal Air Force and I don't think their were much coordination between the 2 allied armies.Of course the British doctrine was all to hot either. I guess what I'm trying to say is it's not entirely France's fault.The British weren't to hot either if you ask me the Polish fought better matter in fact they could have won curse Stalin.

 

Thanks for sharing your booklet with us and for taking time to translate it, you did a fine job and don't worry about the few typos.

 

The Leo 451 was certainly a good challenge as a medium bomber but ill use din Belgium and threw in the pit without deep thoughts , too bad that it wasn't built in larger numbers, it could fly up to 495km/h which at the time was almost as fast as fighter planes and faster than mos tother bombers.



Lioré et Olivier LeO 45 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

About French military top leaders: I have read somewhere that in 1938 French military maneuvers proved that it could launch an armored attack in the Ardennes.

Politics: The Popular Front invented the forty-hour work week and paid holidays just when Nazi Germany had begun her rearmament.

The nationalization of industry, especially aerospace, caused the indecent delay in aircraft production,as has already been posted before.


The Dewoitine took so long to get operational among other reasons because they had no exhaust pipes ...the Bloch lacked of tires ...

 

The French knew they Ardennes were not "impassable" but didn't believe the Germans could reach the Meuse and attempt a crossing in just three days and planned accordingly. So the 9th army's divisions were in no great hurry to take position, a few batallions in the critical sectors were actually shuffled around on the 12th and the Germans got across before the troops could dig in properly. Once they did the outdated command chain made it impossible to mount an effective counter attack, the French plans were usually unworkable by the time they reached the troops and when they did achieve local success the Germans were faster in reacting than the French in reinforcing.

 

But what the French didn't expect in their wildest nightmares, was the Germans pushing over 41,000 vehicles through the Ardennes.

Kleist had a massive 41,000 vehicles, including 1,222 tanks, 545 half tracks & 39,373 trucks, plus command, engineering & AAC units, if placed behind each other from the Luxembourg border it would have had it's tail in Koningsburg 1,600 kl distant, as it was four columns some 400 kl long threatened to degenerate into the worlds worst traffic jam and this was only prevented by energetic traffic management directed by staff officers shuttling back and forth on motorbikes and flying overhead in light aircraft.

Highly flammable fuel tank were interspersed with fighting vehicles at the very front of the German columns & all along the march routes prepared fuel dumps were available for the Germans to grab Jerrycans & dump empty containers for recycling by crews refueling on the road during stoppages.

The Germans drove almost non stop for three days & nights, tens of thousands of doses of pervitin, the original formulation of the amphetamine now known as speed but more famous in the 40s as tank chocolate [panzer schokolade] kept them going.

Manstein's masterpiece was the classic Napoleonic equation, achieve success byconcentrating a greater weight of force then the enemy at a single point.

At the point of attack the Germans achieved a ratio of almost three to one.

It was a huge gamble by the Germans, who could not afford a replay of world war one, they threw the dice & pulled it off brilliantly & the rest is history.

 

Ah if L'Armee de l'aie could have drooped a cople of bombs vers these roads... More dewoitines, more Liore 451 , Amiot 354 , more somua ... Would them have been enoug? I don´t think so, tactics ... as all of you posted before were so poor. And the German gamble was impresive, and unespected.

A pair of photos of the Somua SAU 40:




From "Mundo SGM"