I’ve read that the French crossed into Germany in force sometime in late 1939, and met with some success, and little real resistance. The German Wehrmacht was still committed in Poland, and if the French had created some momentum, they may have done some serious damage… Why did they withdraw?
It’s traditional.
It’s traditional.[/quote]
:lol: :lol: :lol: Good one!
maybe they want to want for the english reinforcement?
Mickdfresh wrote -
I’ve read that the French crossed into Germany in force sometime in late 1939, and met with some success, and little real resistance. The German Wehrmacht was still committed in Poland, and if the French had created some momentum, they may have done some serious damage… Why did they withdraw?
Yep I read something similar although I thought it was 1940. The French and/or British started to get the upper hand at some point but were eventually out flanked, out manoeuvred and out lead.
Have tried to find where I read this but can’t now.
Cuts realy good one. Well I have never heard of it before.
Well I must agree with you Cuts it is their tradition.
Henk
C in C of germanys Western front in September 1939, Colonel general Willhelm Ritter von Loeb had about 800.000 men for the defence of the siegfried line, no tanks, no aircraft to speak of. The defences was not finished and where most exposed against attack from the Dutch and Belgian frontiers. Von Loebs orders was to sit tight and avoid provoking the French, he knew they could get through if they wanted with 2 million men and 2500 tanks at their disposal.
Fortunately for the Germans, france had no plans to attack Germany via Belgium or Holland, since they where neutral.
On the night of 7-8 September, the French Fourth Army`s 11 Infantry Division crossed the Saar, suprised and took a few Germans as prisoners.
Then they ran into minefields and booby traps. They dident have any mine detectors with them so drove cattle over the minefields or poked at the mines with poles, it was slow going. They got about 3 miles inside Germany before they decided that it was time to pull back.
The French returned on the 12th of september when about 150.000 soldiers overran the first line of the siegfried line and the town of Saarbrucken (which had been evacuated by the Germans). The Germans was not worried as their fortificatins was at its strongest where the French was attacking. The French also realised this and decided that they had done enough by taking some 80 square miles of Germany.
They Artillery fired a barrage of shells at the Siegfried line all this time, but without delayed-action fuses the effect was spectacular but ineffecive.
The french army suffered the following casualties in the attack: 98 officers, 78 NCOs and 1578 soldies. The air force lost 32 aircraft.
And that was that, the french relised that they would need to commit a large portion of their army for a real attack and they dident want to risk that. Much safer to hide behind the Maginot line.
You see hide away :lol: :lol: :lol: .
Henk
Now if only they built the line a bit more north…
Well they were planning to do so, the winter came and so they could not construct any more. They were actualy did plan on doing so, but the war did not wait fot them and Hitler knew that he would not need to face the Maginot Line.
Henk
Well they were planning to do so, the winter came and so they could not construct any more. They were actualy did plan on doing so, but the war did not wait fot them and Hitler knew that he would not need to face the Maginot Line.
Oh, I thought they didn’t build it on grounds that Belgium was an allied nation, and it would be an “insulting” act to build it on the border.
True, they did plan too. But hiding behind the line was counterintuitive to the original French strategy regarding the Line. It was never meant to stop the Germans, only slow them down for several months to allow the French to gather an army for a war winning counter offensive… Apparently, they forgot about this intention…
Thanks for the info. I was having difficulty find stuff on the web. Although “Blitzkrieg” by Len Deighton offers some info on the French blitz…
France sent almost al troops to Belgium because the Maginot line was un breakable as so tought.As Blitzfreig progressed in Belgium France had no more men to Defend France causing Retreats
Reopening this thread as I’m a bit older and wiser now…
I agree with most of the following post, but will reply to it as a restarting point…
I’m unsure what the numbers were without checking at the moment, but 800,000 German soldiers sounds a bit on the high side. But many were second, even third rate troops hastily mobilized (much like the French Army facing them actually).
The French Army definitely had the advantage here in armor, artillery, and tactical support aircraft. But it should be noted that the “two million” figure of the French forces would include under-trained reservists called up only a couple of weeks prior…
Fortunately for the Germans, france had no plans to attack Germany via Belgium or Holland, since they where neutral.
True in 1939, but not entirely true. The French were in fact contemplating a full invasion through the advanced Belgian and Dutch road networks in a ‘Grand Offensive’ slated for sometime around the summer of 1941. This was one of the reasons for the abysmal Dyle Plan and the sending the best, most mobile armored parts of the French Army galloping into Belgium in May of 1940. Generalissimo Gamelin actually was generating a plan not dissimilar to the Market Garden plan of 1944 to force a crossing of the Rhine --once the French Army had achieved strategic superiority over the Heer and full war production had peaked corresponding with a blockade of Germany. Belgian neutrality notwithstanding. However, the French had nothing more than a few nominal incursion plans in 1939, and the Saar region was a poor one for an offensive featuring motorized forces as it was basically a depression with a poor road network…
On the night of 7-8 September, the French Fourth Army`s 11 Infantry Division crossed the Saar, suprised and took a few Germans as prisoners.
Then they ran into minefields and booby traps. They dident have any mine detectors with them so drove cattle over the minefields or poked at the mines with poles, it was slow going. They got about 3 miles inside Germany before they decided that it was time to pull back.
The French returned on the 12th of september when about 150.000 soldiers overran the first line of the siegfried line and the town of Saarbrucken (which had been evacuated by the Germans). The Germans was not worried as their fortificatins was at its strongest where the French was attacking. The French also realised this and decided that they had done enough by taking some 80 square miles of Germany.
They Artillery fired a barrage of shells at the Siegfried line all this time, but without delayed-action fuses the effect was spectacular but ineffecive.
The french army suffered the following casualties in the attack: 98 officers, 78 NCOs and 1578 soldies. The air force lost 32 aircraft.
And that was that, the french relised that they would need to commit a large portion of their army for a real attack and they dident want to risk that. Much safer to hide behind the Maginot line.
A good synapses. However, I would contend the French weren’t just hiding behind the Maginot but more so thought they, with the British, would have a massive strategic advantage in production and resources and the risk of getting bogged down in Germany --then facing experienced Heer Panzerwaffe units pulled out of Poland in a mobile battle they weren’t as prepared for-- might have tempered French aggressiveness…
But I think the “Saar Offensive,” halfheartedly launched to fulfill a promise of offensive action to Poland per treaty, is one of the War’s great “what ifs”…
It’s a myth that the Maginot line ended at the Belgian border. It was connected to the Belgian fortification system. The Germans broke through at fort Eben-Emael. The fort surrendered in less than two days, allowing the invasion of France.
It did, but to be fair they were attacked in a manner that was never envisioned - from above.
While now it seems obvious to attack a fort in this manner, in 1940 the idea of using a gliderborne attack was utterly novel and, in many circles, an impossibility.
It was one of Hitler’s mad ideas that actually had some viability and Student ran with it. Add to this the new hollow-charge explosives, specifically designed for the operation, a unit trained for the express purpose of attacking the fort, and you have a violent mix that took the Belgians utterly by surprise. That said it was still a hard fought engagement but the Germans on the fort roof quickly put several key locations out of service and effectively pinned the defenders in the fort. One of the side effects of the attack was that the the air purification system stopped working and the fumes that polluted the fort were thought to contribute greatly to the ability of the defenders to keep up resistance. Two of the Fallschirmjager who ventured into the fort to secure a scetion of it withdrew when nearly overcome by fumes.
It was a superb military venture that showed a new way forward in military thinking.
My friend, you said it all. Thank you. 
The attack on Eben-Emael only indirectly “allowed” the invasion of France. The main German emphasis, or Schwerpunkt, was not through the Belgian frontier, but through the Ardennes at the Sedan sector. The attack on Belgium was more or less a deception to insure the best, most motorized parts of the Allied armies would drive into Belgium, as German planners knew they would do, and be strategically outflanked via “Sickle Cut,” and that in sending their best divisions, the French were hardly counting on Belgian fortifications for holding the Germans at bay. It should also be stated that many of the Maginot Line fortifications nearest Belgium were at best unfinished, if not completely inadequate hollow shells…