Why did France lose in 1940?

[Murph]

Not French Bashing, but why did France lose in the 1940 campaign? Its army was just as big, it had actually more tanks than Germany, and as GdG pointed out its Artillery park was larger. Its air force had modern fighters and light bombers, its infantry weapons (other than anti-tank guns) were the equal of the Germans, so what went wrong?

[Ssnake]

Not French Bashing, but why did France lose in the 1940 campaign?  Its army was just as big, it had actually more tanks than Germany, and as GdG pointed out its Artillery park was larger.  Its air force had modern fighters and light bombers, its infantry weapons (other than anti-tank guns) were the equal of the Germans, so what went wrong?

It wasn't the equipment per se, it was operational surprise. The Ardennes would have been quite defensible, had they bothered to defend them at all; the forces detached to this region were however weak, and weak in their defensice capability against armor.

 

Penny-packing armor as mobile infantry support guns. At tactical level, the lack of practice to control armored formations by radio. A lack of preparedness to direct close air support strikes by the light bombers.

 

 

The German tanks weren't superior, neither were the aircraft nor the soldiers, and there were plenty of minor operational mistakes as well. But the concept of the armored smash through a weak spot, and the rapid exploitation of the breakthrough created chaos because the situation developed faster than the French leadership could react.

de Gaulle had understood it, but was sidelined by a conservative general staff with high inertia. On the other hand, the rapid expansion and transition from Reichswehr to Wehrmacht resulted in better chances for the adoption of innovative concepts like this "combined arms" thing.

[hammerlock]

When your asking why did France lose don't forget it wasn't just France, but the UK as well. They all but pulled and left with have a really big fight and leaving the French to fight on alone, and cause Belgium to surrender as well.

 

So any look at why France might of lost is also a look at the UK failure.

[DKTanker]

When your asking why did France lose don't forget it wasn't just France, but the UK as well.  They all but pulled and left with have a really big fight and leaving the French to fight on alone, and cause Belgium to surrender as well.

 

So any look at why France might of lost is also a look at the UK failure.

405541[/snapback]

That might mean something if France didn't have the material and manpower capability to defend itself from Germany, it did. As has been pointed out ad nauseum, the French Army was larger than the German army, France had more and better tanks. French produced and purchased aircraft were the near equal of German aircraft, certainly shouldn't have been a war decider.

 

Given all that, when people excuse the fall of France as Britian failed them, they are making France look even more pathetic than was the actual case.

[Brummbaer]

When your asking why did France lose don't forget it wasn't just France, but the UK as well.  They all but pulled and left with have a really big fight and leaving the French to fight on alone, and cause Belgium to surrender as well.

 

So any look at why France might of lost is also a look at the UK failure.

405541[/snapback]

It was a plan of both Allies to advance into Belgium, just to be later cut-off and surrounded by german "Sichelsschnitt". So they were both out-smarted by the german move. Once done the Brits could only withdraw, together with many french soldiers, from Dunkeque. And they fought hard and well for this. Belgium was already defeated by that time. Had they let themselves be destroyed that wouldn't have done any good to what was left of France.

[Pachy]

The subject must be popular enough, it gets submitted every year or so

 

A couple points:

 

"Larger army" - in the case of France it essentially meant a larger number of middle-aged untrained conscripts. France was half the size of Germany manpower-wise, and training programs were intentionally poor, with the idea that once battle-hardened, they would be just as good as properly trained troops.

 

"Its air force had modern fighters and light bombers" - one should not forget that models that were comparable in performance with German aircraft (D.520, LeO.451, Bre.693, DB-7, Martin 167, etc) were not numerous at all, and crews were not trained properly on them. The Bre.693 was a OK tactical light bomber, but there were like 60 available, versus approximately 300 Ju 87s. In contrast, the Germans had been operating modern types like Bf 109D, Do 17 and so on for several years. Technical problems delayed the service entry of the D.520 to the point it had a negligible impact, but the alternative was worse: the LeO.451 was mass-manufactured and issued to frontline units with countless problems.

 

"its infantry weapons (other than anti-tank guns) were the equal of the Germans" The 25 mm AT gun was seen as superior to the German 3,7 cm, but apart from that, infantry weapons were not brilliant. There was no replacement for the Hotchkiss machine gun, for example. AA weapons were a mixed bunch, but effective ones were in insignificant numbers.

[seahawk]

I would not say that the German were so much better equipped. Apart from the forntline squadrons involved in the battle they proactically had no reserves fpr namy of the modern types lost. Reichsverteidigungs squadrons were using obsolete aurcaft, while frontline Me-109 squadrons were running out of enigens and the D model was scare. With some untis converting back to Bs.

 

The equipment surely was not the deciding factor. It was a question of doctrine and mobility on the strategic level. Add bad communications and a slowly reacting command system. I would say the the french generals were to blame for the loss.

[Rod]

You can compare this to Israel's victory in the Six Days War. The Arab nations were more numerous and had in many instances better weapons. However, Israeli training was far superior, coupled with surprise and better tactics and a rapid advance (blitzkrieg), it totally caught its enemies unprepared and unsure as how to respond as the situation at the front rapidly deteriorated.

[Old Tanker]

The equipment surely was not the deciding factor. It was a question of doctrine and mobility on the strategic level. Add bad communications and a slowly reacting command system. I would say the the french generals were to blame for the loss.

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That's about right.

 

The Germans were bigger risk takers and plus battle wise from Poland.

 

But it also showed how they were surprised at their success and fumbled away the opportunity of eliminating the Allies at Dunkerque.

[Pachy]

But it also showed how they were surprised at their success and fumbled away the opportunity of eliminating the Allies at Dunkerque.

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It's easy now the dismiss the late counter-attacks on the German's left flank (Arras, but mostly Abbeville), but they were really serious attempts. The Germans just couldn't turn everything they had versus Dunkerque.

 

The 2e DCr's last push to Abbeville is really interesting BTW. It was the only time where the Allies met ideal conditions in 1940: they had local superiority in everything, including for once in airpower as the Luftwaffe was fully concentrated on Dunkerque and the Channel. Yet, the Allies didn't even get a local success, mostly because of poor coordination between tanks and the infantry.

[Exel]

Command & Control. Or the lack of it. That's why they lost. Couldn't act or react in time, missing all their chances to bring the fight to the Germans and in turn giving the Germans plenty of chances to exploit their weaknesses.

[Yama]

That might mean something if France didn't have the material and manpower capability to defend itself from Germany, it did.  As has been pointed out ad nauseum, the French Army was larger than the German army, France had more and better tanks.

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I don't think French tanks were better. Sure, some may have had heavier guns & armour, but that isn't everything. Heavier French tanks were slow and cumbersome, with very poor visibility, poor crew task distribution etc.

[SILL2]

So self inflicted weakness? France (as GB) was living in the shadow of the "Great War" and wishing Hitler/Germany/it all would just go way.

 

If France had spent the winter extending the Maginot line West until they reached the Channel, could they have made a successful defense? Untrained grunts digging for 6 months can accompish a great deal.

[Cdn Blackshirt]

From what I've read:

1) No tripwire of any sort in the Ardennes

2) Centralized Command System under Gamelin that was incapable of keeping up with the pace of a motorized/mechanized invasion (issued orders to reinforce positions that had long since been bypassed or overrun by the Germans)....and Gamelin in general was a complete putz.

3) Dominance of German Air Power

4) Poor French discipline and Training

5) Lack of French anti-tank guns

6) Incredibly stupid Neutrality position taken by Belgium and Holland which never allowed British Forces to advance their intended lines of defence

 

In short, considering the size of the combined allied forces (including Belgium and Holland), anything they could do wrong, they did....

 

 

Matthew.

[Guest aevans]

Nobody has mentioned probably the single biggest reason -- the Germans were much more motivated at the individual level. In the pivotal breakthrough battles they were willing to take higher casualties and endure more hardship than the French were. The Germans were also better organized at the battalion and division levels, which helped them overcome some truly collosal tactical blunders (like mounting a river crossing at the apex of an accute river bend, into a peninsula).

Edited December 18, 2006 by aevans

[Paul F Jungnitsch]

2)  Centralized Command System under Gamelin that was incapable of keeping up with the pace of a motorized/mechanized invasion (issued orders to reinforce  positions that had long since been bypassed or overrun by the Germans)....and Gamelin in general was a complete putz.

I understand that to be the main issue, failure in the high command.

 

When they brought Weygand in he doubled German casualties IIRC, with all the same intrinsic problems his predecessors had plus a greatly reduced army, a terrible strategic position, and allies who were either finished (Holland and Belgium) or on their way out (the Brits).

 

Of course the Germans got lucky, if the mapcase with the original plan had not been lost, and Hitler not backed the radical alternative, the Germans would have attacked exactly as the Allies had expected.

[Detonable]

Did French troops abandon their positions in some cases? I think there was a morale issue

 

How come they didn't advance into Germany more forcefully when Poland was invaded? Certainly it would be easier to fight Germany when much of their army was tied down in Poland. Were they waiting for Poland to defeat the Germans? The strategy just doesn't make sense. Admittedly, this doesn't make use of the Maginot Line, but you cannot defeat Germany from the Maginot Line. You have to advance sometime.

 

Maybe the French just didn't want to win. They hoped there would be a cease fire or something. Sort of like American troops near the end of the Vietnam War - you know you're not allowed to win, so why risk your neck?

 

I can see why Belgium might want to remain neutral, after their experience of the first World War. But their position was a little naive, considering the Germans invaded through Belgium in WW1 to avoid French fortifications, and the Maginot line was now in service. Where did they expect the Germans to go once war was declared?

 

On another note, I wonder if their are any good books on the battle at Eban Emael (spelling?). Is it totally closed up or are their tours?

[Scott Cunningham]

Basically it was a WWI era army fighting attrition based warfare against a WWII era army figfhting time based warfare. It had nothing to do with the Maginot line (which functioned as designed), and everything to do with a creaky command structure unable to respond to a rapidly developing tactical situation.

 

I used to run staff rides on the 1940 France Campaign with the overall goal being to teach the main tenets of maneuver warfare theory. It was the perfect example. No two armies were ever so dedicated to the opposite approaches to combat as in this campaign.

[Ssnake]

If France had spent the winter extending the Maginot line West until they reached the Channel, could they have made a successful defense?  Untrained grunts digging for 6 months can accompish a great deal.

The question suggests that this would have been a realistic option, which it was not. The Maginot was not a "line" as a single , big trench. It was a complicated array of mutually supporting forts. Millions of tons of concrete were poured into this, plus lots of prepared and hardened artillery firing positions etc.

 

Even if there had been a better coordination between Belgium and France, digging a big trench from the Rhine to the North Sea wouldn't have cut it, besides the fact that I question the feasibility in the given time frame. Yes, enough quantity has a quality of its own etc., but erecting the Maginot from the Alps to the Ardennes consumed a large portion of the French GDP for one and a half decades. There was no simple fix to create the second half up to the shore in just half a year.

 

 

And then, why even reinforce by and large unpassable terrain anyway?

It's not as if the Ardennes were a piece of cake to negotiate. There were very defensible positions there with few, vital choke points. It's just, you actually have to put someone there, difficult terrain doesn't defend itself. It would have bought the time to reposition the strategic reserves.

The Maginot was not a collossal failure. I mean, it worked, after all. It was intact until the day of capitulation. It's just that the French command was so mesmerized with their beautiful and intricate forts that they developed a blind spot for the weaknesses of some fundamental assumptions - and this was combined with serious personal and organizational failures to react adequately, once that war broke out. Luck was with the daring, if I were to mint the explanation into a single sentence.

Edited December 18, 2006 by Ssnake

[Xavier]

On another note, I wonder if their are any good books on the battle at Eban Emael (spelling?). Is it totally closed up or are their tours?

official website

there are tours, in French and Dutch, don't know about English

 

basically, some sticks and barb wire combined with ap mines and some field works on top of the fortress woul've slaughtered the german Fallschirmjäger

 

I can see why Belgium might want to remain neutral, after their experience of the first World War. But their position was a little naive, considering the Germans invaded through Belgium in WW1 to avoid French fortifications, and the Maginot line was now in service. Where did they expect the Germans to go once war was declared?

I'd say it was incredibly stupid to give up the alliance with France in 1936, everyone knows that Belgium is basically the highway between Frande and Germany, so while the French may want to defend France to the last Belgian, we needed them anyway...

 

and about the ardennes, the French only had some fieldworks IIRC along the ardennes border, the Maginot extension only covering the Franco-Luxembourgian border. And Belgium basically gave up the region from day one, the defence line following the Meuse river

 

And between the Albert Canal and the Dutch Waterline there was a gap nicely running from the German border to the Scheldt, being about 40km wide at least and flat as a pancake, nice coordination huh

[vkun]

Xavier:

read this book and you will know...:

http://www.amazon.com/Blitzkrieg-Legend-19...ie=UTF8&s=books

[67th Tigers]

Lack of Economy of Force

 

The French maintained a large (20 Division) reserve to counter major penetrations like Guderians, but they frittered it away trying to prop up various sectors under pressure. When the crunch came, and Guderian made his penetration the French only had a single Division in reserve to counterattack.

 

The Germans OTOH made excellent use of Concentration of Force, Offensive Action, Flexibility and Cooperation. Especially Flexibility when a Corps Commander (Guderian) entered an exploitation phase explicitly against the orders of High Command (who envisioned a rerun of WW1 and simply were fighting for Position).

[Pachy]

Heavier French tanks were slow and cumbersome, with very poor visibility, poor crew task distribution etc.

I'm not sure the visibility was that poor, the TC had plenty of vision devices, but he was too busy too use them...

 

Nobody has mentioned probably the single biggest reason -- the Germans were much more motivated at the individual level. In the pivotal breakthrough battles they were willing to take higher casualties and endure more hardship than the French were.

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This doesn't make sense - Frieser has proved that the Germans too were less than enthusiastic about the war. It is expected for 3rd rate troops with little training and inferior equipment to collapse in the (improbable) case they would be attacked by the cream of the enemy force. French HC had thought of a motorized breakthrough through the Ardennes, but they didn't see it as pivotal. They expected the counterattack to be efficient. Frieser also explains well how vulnerable the initial German advance was.

 

Did French troops abandon their positions in some cases? I think there was a morale issue

Blah blah blah, US troops collapsed at Kasserine Pass too.

[Marek Tucan]

Did French troops abandon their positions in some cases?  I think there was a morale issue

405692[/snapback]

 

Everyone's troops abandoned positions sometimes, esp. third-rate troops that suddenly found themselves in the middle of enemy attack led with skill, force ad weapons that were hard to counter.

No army (except maybe the Japanese) was safe from this. Some armies routed faster, some slower, but for example stiff defense of French troops around Lille was one of crucial points of Dunkerque evacuation. I think the main reason of the collapse at Meuse was inability of high command to react properly and issue riht orders. If you receive message you have to defend at all cost some city that is already for a day in enemy's hands, it won't improve your morale, it's even worse not to be given any orders due to failed comms and confusion.

TheItalians are infamous for being not-oh-so-effective troops in WWII but, under a good commander, they were able to put up a hard fight even in very adverse conditions (like the troops in Ethiopia) and the large collapse during the op. Compass was more due to absolutely surprising attack and bad leadership plus better British tactics (goes along with the leadership) - generally the same as the attack into France through Ardennes, the British were also able to pass impassable terrains and emerge on unexpected places.

[RETAC21]

Well, if you need a significantly French factor, that would be the over-reliance on fortifications over maneuver. The breakout at Sedan had the Germans overwhelming successive forts and ouvrages without a French counterattack, and significant forces remained propping up the Maginot line as the Panzers raced to the channel rather than trying to cut into the flank of the German attack.