Starting withGermany ’s invasion of Polandin 1939 , Adolf Hitler ’s military machine get out off a string of sensational triumph at the beginning of World War II , perhaps none as shocking as Germany ’s uttertrouncing of Francein 1940 .
" France is basically shoot down in the first 10 days of the war , " says Robert Kirchubel , a military historiographer with Purdue University’sFORCESinitiative and author of " Atlas of the Blitzkrieg : 1939 - 1941 . " " This is a country that had go four long time against Germany a genesis ago in World War I. Now it ’s all over in a little less than two week . "
The cause for Hitler ’s outstanding early achiever in WWII was a brazen raw style of warfare known as Blitzkrieg , a compounding of the German Book for " lightning " ( blitz ) and " warfare " ( krieg ) coined by westerly journalists who were dump by the speed and ferocity of the Nazi onset .
" The Blitzkrieg shocked the world , " say Kirchubel , " that an enemy army could be shoot down so quickly and that nobody seemingly had a retort for it . "
Painful Lessons from World War I
Nearly2 million German soldier were wipe out during World War I , in the main as casualties of an torturously slow style of fighting cognize as trench warfare . In the first battle ofWWI , all side of meat stand such devastating losses from artillery , machine triggerman and other modern weapon that they resorted to digging long trench in the battlefield for protection . The mud - filled , rat - infested trenches became the closest matter to hell on earth for these soldiers .
One of the longest and deadliest examples of trench warfare was the 141 - day Battle of the Somme , in which the British , French and German armies sufferedmore than a million commingle casualty .
Every country that fought in WWI vowed to never fight in another miserable trench , but they each had different ideas for how to achieve it , say Kirchubel . During the interwar years , the British invested to a great extent in aircraft technology , project to fly over trenches and bomb the enemy at home plate . The French decided to build up a more lasting and fortified version of a trench sleep together as theMaginot Line , a serial publication of 58 surreptitious fort constructed along the French - German border in the thirties .
The German military take a dissimilar tack .
" The Germans enjoin , ' We ’re going to blast through the trench with this Modern proficiency , ' " Kirchubel says .
What’s a Blitzkrieg Attack?
The philosophical system of Blitzkrieg is to hit the foeman hard where it ’s the weakest and attack with three components of the armed services at once : armored tanks , infantry and air barrage .
" With Blitzkrieg , your armour would always be the spearhead — the armored combat vehicle would always be at the front . " says Martin King , an Emmy - win military historian and writer ofseveral excellent book on WWII . " The foot would make out up behind , normally in half - truck and trucks . As soon as the armour engaged , the Stukas and the Messerschmitts ( German hoagy and champion planes ) would come in fly low and essentially decimate the opponents . "
Kirchubel says that Blitzkrieg was inspired by old - school Prussian estimation of indirect warfare — not crusade the opponent " strong point against military strength , " but exploiting weaknesses instead . To equate warfare to a packing peer , Blitzkrieg is the one - two lick that quickly knocks your opponent to the mat , not a drawn - out , 12 - round decision .
" Blitzkrieg was fast , it was furious , it was precise and it did the business , " tell King .
A cardinal component of Blitzkrieg was a pliant program line - and - restraint structure within the German army . Early in the war , Hitler had full faith in his general , especially Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian , so the Fuhrer did n’t have to personally authorize every attack plan . In twist , those generals assign authorization in battle to lower - rank line of business officers so they could quickly react to vary conditions on the primer .
German tank , which were inferior in many ways to the French Renault tanks , came with one important technical upgrade — a two - way radio . Tank commanders not only received orders , but passed vital battlefield information back up the chain of command .
Why Couldn’t the Allies Stop the Blitzkrieg?
" The double-dyed example of the Blitzkrieg was the westerly political campaign in 1940 , " says Kirchubel , referring to the Nazi intrusion of France and the achromatic countries of Holland and Belgium . " The Germans did everything right and the Allies did everything wrong . "
France had a standing army of800,000 menand was regarded as the strongest military force in Europe . But their philosophical system of war was stuck in WWI . The French put all of their trust in the fortifiedMaginot Lineas an unbreakable trench - comparable defense against a orotund - scale German invasion .
But the Germans identified a power point of impuissance , a ill defended stretching of Belgian - German border that flow through the dense Ardennes timberland . To the French , a tank attack through the Ardennes would have seemed dispiritedly wild , but the Blitzkrieg was all about assume risks .
" It was the German Blitzkrieg against the Gallic ' methodical struggle , ' which is what the French called their technique , " say Kirchubel . " There are no two more whole polar way of fighting a war . It ’s like watching a wildlife show when the lioness starts chasing the impala . There was only one potential upshot . "
Less than six weeks after Hitler ’s tank roll through the Ardennes , the new Gallic premier Marshal Henri - Philippe Pétain , signed an armistice treatysurrendering three - fifths of French territory to the Nazis .
Blitzkrieg Meets the Soviet Army
After his successful campaigns in the West , Hitler turned his armies East in June 1941 for a full - on Blitzkrieg attack of the Soviet Union . For four month , the Germans ran roughshod over the Red Army using the same one - two punch of panoplied tank , infantry and melodic phrase support .
But unlike Poland , Norway , France and other USA that strike the mat after taking a Blitzkrieg whacking , " the Soviet Union take three to four smasher to the head , but keep standing up , " enounce Kruchibel .
Blitzkrieg was n’t stand for for a months - long besieging or years - long war . The gait and intensity of the fighting take too much of a toll on both man and machine . The Soviet Union was too big and its army too large to subdue with the same lightning - state of war tactics that had shocked Germany ’s neighbour into submission .
" The Germans started unlearn all the clobber they had learned in France and they started to lose , " sound out Kirchubel . " Part of it is because of the foeman , but part of it is spoiled decision - making on the part of the Germans . "
Hitler ’s Blitzkrieg effectively died in the Soviet Union and never returned . The Allies quickly arise their own Blitzkrieg manoeuvre . Operation Cobraemployed a Blitzkrieg - similar shock and reverence campaign to finally bust through the German lines after the D - Day invasion in 1944 .
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