Military History | How To Make War | Wars Around the World Rules of Use How to Behave on an Internet Forum
The French "Union" Discussion Board
   Return to Topic Page
Subject: Battle of France 1940 ... what if...
Godofgamblers    10/23/2007 6:06:34 AM
Let me play devil's advocate: What if the other allied countries supplied troops in the same proportion as France did for the Battle of France? France had mobilized 6m troops (!) and had stationed 2.2m in the North of France. All the other allies combined only contributed 1.3m troops (UK, Holland, Belgium). While France marshalled 93 divisions, UK only marshalled 10, Holland 9 and Belgium 22. The French military actually surpassed the Wehrmacht in numbers. The question is, what would have happpened if the Allies had mobilized troops in proportionate numbers to their populations? This would have brought allied numbers up by millions. This means that France would have had strategic reserves (which they didn't in the actual battle) to defend Paris, to threaten the German A Group (the 'Sichelschnitt'). It would have greatly increased the morale of the French political leaders and although losses would have still been heavy in the beginning, like the Russian campaign, despite the huge initial losses, the Allies would have the strategic reserves and strategic depth (in Bretagne and Normandie) to launch counter attacks. Paris would have become the French Stalingrad, as the German army met the million man + Allied reserves in street to street battle. Despite their early gains over the Allies on the relatively flat plains of Picardie and Champagne, in the urban environment, faced with millions of French, Brits, Poles, Czechs, Dutch and Belgians, the Wehrmacht's vaunted tactical mobile prowess would have come to nought and superior Allied numbers would, after a long bloody contest, have won the day...
 
Quote    Reply

Show Only Poster Name and Title     Newest to Oldest
Pages: 1 2 3   NEXT
FJV    With similar force numbers:   10/23/2007 3:23:37 PM
What if the French had a similar doctrine to the Germans or a defense in depth doctrine like the Russians later in the war?




 
Quote    Reply

Herald1234    Sometimes you might consider.................    10/23/2007 6:07:28 PM
Using what you have and applying a little innovation instead of just passively waiting to be beaten.

Antitank ditches in the Ardennes, minefields, and antitank gun screens  across good tank country were within the realm of defensive imagination, even of that idiot, Gamelin.

If you don't have the men, use explosives instead. A proper artillery supported minefield defense in 1940 even without the Maginot forts could have been worth a quarter million additional men.

Herald



 
Quote    Reply

JIMF       10/23/2007 8:27:53 PM
Considering the problems the small British counter attack at Arras caused Rommel, one can only imagine what 50 British divisions could have accomplished.  On the other hand if the French had modified their methodical battle concept the Germans would have had a  much more difficult time.  For those who are disposed to ridicule the French effort the Battle of Gembloux Gap where the French without air support inflicted a tactical reverse on a superior German force should be required reading.  Julian Jackson has an excellent book on the campaign.     
 
Quote    Reply

Godofgamblers       10/23/2007 10:16:40 PM

Considering the problems the small British counter attack at Arras caused Rommel, one can only imagine what 50 British divisions could have accomplished.  On the other hand if the French had modified their methodical battle concept the Germans would have had a  much more difficult time.  For those who are disposed to ridicule the French effort the Battle of Gembloux Gap where the French without air support inflicted a tactical reverse on a superior German force should be required reading.  Julian Jackson has an excellent book on the campaign.     


Why were there so few UK troops in France, JIMF? Sheer optimism or sheer pessimism?!?!?
 
Quote    Reply

Godofgamblers       10/23/2007 10:25:27 PM

What if the French had a similar doctrine to the Germans or a defense in depth doctrine like the Russians later in the war?






France had some strategic depth but when Paris fell their will was broken. It was 1870 all over again. If they had had the troop numbers I am suggesting, it could be argued that they would have needed a Churchill to lead them too. Stalin himself, the ruthless butcher, had his 'dark night of the soul' when the Germans invaded. Reportedly he drunk himself into oblivion and couldn't be reached for days while the Germans made mincemeat of the Russian armies. Upon the approach to Moscow, I wonder if he abandoned the city too... But he recovered his fighting spirit and got a second wind.
 
The French generals and politicians could have rallied but it would have taken a massive jolt to pull them out of their mindset. We can only postulate if , faced with German armies marching on Paris, but with a million men in reserve, would they have retreated to 'regroup' or would they have screwed up their courage, thrown the dice, and engaged in a massive no-holds-barred life or death struggle in the streets of Paris?
 
It was a domino effect. The Belgiums gave up too quickly even though they could have fought on for weeks; the Dutch surrendered with their army entirely intact; the British pulled out their expeditionary force at Dunkerke. This train of events surely blunted French spirit. If everyone had had a 'do or die' attitude with troop numbers to match, it would have been very very different.
 
 
 
Quote    Reply

Godofgamblers       10/23/2007 10:28:07 PM

Using what you have and applying a little innovation instead of just passively waiting to be beaten.

Antitank ditches in the Ardennes, minefields, and antitank gun screens  across good tank country were within the realm of defensive imagination, even of that idiot, Gamelin.

If you don't have the men, use explosives instead. A proper artillery supported minefield defense in 1940 even without the Maginot forts could have been worth a quarter million additional men.

Herald




Gamelin deserved to be court martialed for that fiasco, I agree with you, H. Even the Maginot line was breached, by the way, as I'm sure you're aware.
By the way, Herald, on a related topic, do you agree with the treatment handed out to Short and Kimmel after Pearl?
 
Quote    Reply

Herald1234       10/24/2007 12:34:29 AM



Using what you have and applying a little innovation instead of just passively waiting to be beaten.

Antitank ditches in the Ardennes, minefields, and antitank gun screens  across good tank country were within the realm of defensive imagination, even of that idiot, Gamelin.

If you don't have the men, use explosives instead. A proper artillery supported minefield defense in 1940 even without the Maginot forts could have been worth a quarter million additional men.

Herald





Gamelin deserved to be court martialed for that fiasco, I agree with you, H. Even the Maginot line was breached, by the way, as I'm sure you're aware.

By the way, Herald, on a related topic, do you agree with the treatment handed out to Short and Kimmel after Pearl?

Yes. We needed to shock our generals and admirals out of their funk and make them as fighting mad as the line soldiery. We Americans don't hang our beaten generals and admirals, though, we reassign them to a place where their expensive training can serve the war effort and where they can do the least harm politically and militarily.. We usually find the meanest SoB we can find to replace them though. Don't think that Kimmel and Short were the only ones cashiered and disgraced in WW II. Fredendall and Bissell , two more gross American incompetents, come to mind off the top of my head.  Fredendall  at Kasserine was  truly someone who needed a court martial.

Herald

 
Quote    Reply

Godofgamblers       10/24/2007 4:57:52 AM
I think so too. Not because they should have known the attack was coming. The higher ups should have known as well. Their incompetence did not reside in the fact that they did not decipher/anticipate the exact date of the attack, but rather because there were no anti torpedo nets at Pearl; ammunition boxes were locked and the keys located far from the AA guns, making defence almost impossible; no planes were regularly patrolling but all were neatly lined up; no ships were patrolling/rotated , all were sitting ducks in the port.
 
I mention this though because I noted that they may well be exonerated and the court martial may be rescinded by Presidential order.  The powers that be , and historians, may now be seeing them as scapegoats for mistakes made higher up in the chain of command. But for the reasons I stated above, I think their incompetence lies somewhere else: in pure common sense.
 
"On May 25, 1999, the United States Senate, by a vote of 52-47, passed a nonbinding resolution exonerating Kimmel and Short, and asking the President to posthumously promote Kimmel, and others, to the admiral rank.[3] Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC), one of the sponsors of the resolution, called Kimmel and Short "the two final victims of Pearl Harbor." However, neither President Clinton nor his successor, President George W. Bush, have undertaken to posthumously promote Kimmel."
 
(wiki)
 
Much like Gamelin: I don't expect him to have matched German tactics, to have mastered German armored warfare techniques; I judge him harshly because, as you stated, he failed to take rudimentary defence measures (anti tank minefields, massed artillery); he relied on the "Imaginot Line", he refused to communicate with his troops by phone or radio but solely by motorcycle messengers (madness!); he failed to allocate reserves around Paris but threw them all into the Low Countries, thus falling right into the German trap. His failures , like Short and Kimmel, were not that he failed to guess enemy intentions, but that he failed to take common sense, logical measures.
 
 
 
Quote    Reply

EssexBoy    UK divisions   10/24/2007 12:49:12 PM




Considering the problems the small British counter attack at Arras caused Rommel, one can only imagine what 50 British divisions could have accomplished.  On the other hand if the French had modified their methodical battle concept the Germans would have had a  much more difficult time.  For those who are disposed to ridicule the French effort the Battle of Gembloux Gap where the French without air support inflicted a tactical reverse on a superior German force should be required reading.  Julian Jackson has an excellent book on the campaign.     




Why were there so few UK troops in France, JIMF? Sheer optimism or sheer pessimism?!?!?


The reason there were so few UK divisions in France is that there weren't many others to send. Unlike France, the UK did not have national service (although this was introduced after the war) and so did not have large reserves of trained men to be called up and deployed.
The question that's really puzzled me is, even allowing for the divisions deployed in Italy, Burma and the Mid-East, why was the UK only able to send 14 divisions to Normandy in '44? Furthermore, the remnants of two of those divisions (50th and 59th) were disbanded before the end of '44 to provide replacements for other divisions. (Although the 52nd division was sent out to France around August/September '44 to re-inforce 2nd Army).
 
Seems a fairly poor effort overall.
 
Essex
 
Quote    Reply

Herald1234    Probably for the same reason that the US Army was so small.   10/24/2007 2:36:40 PM
We didn't have that many divisions ourselves, something less than 100 overall including the training base. Most of our manpower was service troops, maintenance, logistics, air forces, and navy. I suppose Britain which had much the same wartime problems, had much the same manpower shortages-plus Britain fought a much longer and in some practical cases much harder war, and had a smaller population cohort from which to draw for its infantry.
 
I'm not surprised at how small the British effort was. I'm amazed that Britain did as much so well with what she had.
 
Herald  
 
Quote    Reply
1 2 3   NEXT



 Latest
 News
 
 Most
 Read
 
 Most
 Commented
 Hot
 Topics