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Subject:
An essay and a discussion; French air defense 1940.
Hamilcar
7/30/2010 11:41:33 AM
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Why France Fell to the Nazis: The Air Component Before the War
By Raul Colon
November 4th 2008
After a visit to France in early January 1940, Sir Edmund Ironside, Chief of the British Imperial General Staff, summed up his impressions of the French Army like this: ?I must say that I saw nothing amiss with it on the surface. The Generals are all tired men, if a bit old from our view-point. None of them showed any lack of confidence?Will the Blitzkrieg, when it comes, allow us to rectify things if they are the same? I must say I don?t know. But I say to myself that we must have confidence in the French Army. It?s the only thing in which we can have confidence?All depends on the French Army and we can do nothing about it?. Those were telling words from the top British commander before the start of the Second World War. Unfortunately for the Allies, his fears proved to be right. When Germany finally attacked the West on May 13th 1940 they did it with such a force that caught the Allies by surprise. Fifteen days after the initial attack wave, Belgium capitulated and the combined might of the French Army and British force were defeated time and time again.
Maginot Line
Between May 26th and June 4th, the bulk of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and some remaining elements of the French Army were successfully evacuated from the French Channel port city of Dunkirk. On June 10th, the French government relocated its seat of power from Paris. Four days later, the Germans marched victorious into the Parisian streets. On June 22nd, the new French government caved in and signed an humiliating Armistice, ending one of the most lopsided military campaigns in modern times. The immediate aftermath of the defeat saw the emerging of the ?search for scapegoats? syndrome. A syndrome that is still with us today. The questions regarding the fall of France have resonated since the tragic events of May-June 1940. There are many factors why France was mauled so effortlessly by a numerically inferior adversary. Did the French rearmament investment came too late? Was the Army?s combat doctrine too rigid? Did the French and, to an extend, the BEF; lack innovating and refreshing combat ideas; and so on? In the end, the fall of France is viewed as an example of a what disastrous planning and even more poorly execution can lead to.
Since the mid 1930s, France main effort to gear up for a possible German attack was rearmament. Since the mid 1920s, because of the country?s misplaced belief that its newly developed Maginot Line (a series of reinforced structures/forts along the common German/French border) would contain the expected German columns, not much effort was put on rearming the French armed forces. This is all that changed during the emerging of Hitler?s Germany in the early 1930s and only by the middle of the decade, did French rearmament be finally given top budgetary priority. But the sad state of all three services (army, navy and the air force) made progression towards rearmament painstaking slow at best. The worst problem was experienced by the air force.
The French air force began rearmament in 1934 as part of Plan I, which called for the production of 1,343 new aircraft. Nevertheless, the assembly of such a force was doomed from the beginning. In the mid 1930s, the French aircraft industry was more one of scattered complexes rather than a cohesion structure. One in which up to forty organizations had input in nearly all aspects of aircraft design, development and production. While at the same time competing for those precious newly designated funds. As they originally were setup, France?s aircraft industry was not structured to handle such big orders, thus the structure needed to be altered which would cause further delays in production. Those delays had an adverse effect on the air force?s rearmament effort. Because of them, most of France?s developed aircraft from the late 1930s came through a narrow technological window. One which prevented the newly developed aircraft from achieving its top technological capability thus making them obsolete before they reached operational status.
The problem was compounded by the type of airplanes the French government began to order. Plan I called for the construction of multirole air platforms capable of performing as bombers, fighters and reconnaissance aircraft. Instead of building dedicated platforms, the French government invested on various single type planes. Such aircraft were indeed able to carry out, on a pedestrian basis, each of the various types of missions they were called for, but they could not to distinguish themselves in any single one of them. The decision to develop such platforms was a painful compromise between the Army, the newly formed Air Force and the government. Many inside the air force believed, with passion, in Giulio Douhet?s strategic theory which |
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