Germans in World War II
If you use an idiom to describe the combat effectiveness of Germany in the early stages of World War II, it must be "the speed of the soldiers", starting from the attack on Poland in September 1939, a month and the Soviet Union divided Poland, to June 1940, France was occupied, Britain was bombed, and the Germans swept the entire Western European region in only one year, so how did the Germans do it? Why did France, which claimed to be invincible, collapse? How did the Dunkirk evacuation, known as the "largest military evacuation", take place? How did the British survive the German attacks?
Dunkirk evacuation
Versailles Conference
Let's first look at the international situation before World War II. With Hitler's rise to power, Germany was very dissatisfied with the reparations and regulations made by the original Versailles Conference, so Germany began to expand to the surrounding areas to regain the land lost in the First World War, and britain and France at that time, as the bosses of Europe, not only did not stop this behavior, but adopted a policy of moderation, trying to sacrifice the interests of small countries in exchange for peace, but the desire of man was endless, and as Germany attacked Poland in September 1931, Britain and France declared war on Germany. World War II broke out.
Germany attacks Poland
So why was Poland defeated in just a month with an Anglo-French support?
On the one hand, because Poland's own combat effectiveness is weak, on the other hand, because Poland is located in the plains, which is more conducive to the deployment of German mechanized troops, this war also played the prestige of Germany's "blitzkrieg". More importantly, Britain and France declared no war, and apart from some skirmishes between France and Germany on the Maginot Line, there was actually a state of peace between them.
Soviet-German non-aggression pact
With the German occupation of Poland, which by this time Germany had signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, Germany began to set its sights on Britain and France after solving the great dangers in the east. At that time, the French were actually still very strong, after all, after the First World War, France was known as the invincible army.
Let's take a look at how strong the French Army was at that time, the Anglo-French coalition army had a total of 144 divisions, close to 3.3 million troops, with 14,000 cannons, more than 3,000 fighters, and in terms of the tank equipment that the Germans valued most, the number of French tanks was 3,500, 1,100 more than germany, and both in terms of model and combat ability, they crushed German tanks, how to see britain and france combined can not lose to Germany? Could it be that their army has mutinied en masse? Of course not, there are three main reasons for France's failure.
The first reason was that the French were afraid of war.
Napoleonic era
France was a very brave nation and country in the Napoleonic era, but the First World War brought too much pain to France, the First World War made France lose 4.6% of the population, and at the same time, in the First World War, the most important Battle of Verdun and the Battle of the Somme were fought in France, which destroyed a large number of industrial bases in France, brought a lot of harm to the French people, so the French people at that time were afraid of war, which was also an important reason for France to agree to the appeasement policy. When a country and a nation are afraid of war, then when war comes, it will become vulnerable.
The second reason is the backwardness of military ideology.
The famous German general Rommel
At this point you have to admire the Germans, the famous German generals during World War II have high achievements in military theory, especially blitzkrieg, not only played the advantages of modern armored corps, but also the combination of multi-service operations on land, sea and air, these are extremely modern methods of warfare, compared with the First World War period has made great progress, and France became very conservative after the victory of World War I, and even in World War II they still firmly believe that the Maginot Line can protect France, backward will be beaten. When your military thinking has fallen seriously behind others, then the fiasco of war will be inevitable.
Ruins of the Maginot Line
The third reason is the mistakes of decision-making at the top.
Although France's war ideology at that time was relatively backward, after all, the total number of people's weapons and equipment and troops was there, so why did France declare a total rout in a month's time? At the beginning, the Yellow Plan formulated by the German side was to avoid the Marchello Line and fight a war of attrition with France in Belgium and the Netherlands, when the German army internally assessed at least 5 million casualties, and could not launch a full-scale offensive until 1942, although Hitler still hoped to solve it through blitzkrieg, but it was opposed by other military leaders, but with the leakage of the Yellow Plan and Manstein's proposed new battle plan, the German side changed its mind.
Ardennes
But the French military top brass still insisted that the Maginot Line built by France on the border had considerable deterrent power, and the Germans did not dare to attack, so the most likely direction of Germany's attack was from Belgium and the Netherlands, when France was holding the way of fighting a war of attrition with Germany, after all, Britain and France combined to surpass Germany, but they ignored that Army Group A actually passed through the Ardennes and went deep into France.
According to the Sickle Plan drawn up by Germany, Germany would attack the Maginot Line on the one hand, and from France and Belgium on the other, with the aim of containing the British and French Allied forces, transferring the troops originally deployed in the north of France, and then the German Army Group A would pass through the Ardennes Mountains and pounce directly on the rear of the Maginot Line.
And the course of the war was exactly as the Germans expected, as the German Army Group A penetrated deep into France, after breaking through the defensive line, it encountered almost no obstacles, and the entire French army was thus divided, the surrender of surrender, the withdrawal of retreat, and more than 400,000 Anglo-French troops were driven to Dunkirk by the Germans.
Many friends can't help but ask, are those at the top of france not making strategic arrangements? If the Ardennes are so important, why not set up heavy troops to "watch over"? In fact, as early as the end of the First World War, the French examined the Ardennes, when they thought that this mountain range was a natural barrier given to France by god, the Germans could not cross it at all, but the German Army General Guderian had been practicing here as early as the First World War, he could be said to know the Ardenne Mountains very well, which was the unequal information between the two sides caused a serious mistake in strategic decision-making, with the fall of France, the famous Dunkirk evacuation in history arrived.
The Anglo-French forces were trapped in Dunkirk
At that time, hundreds of thousands of Anglo-French troops were trapped in Dunkirk, which was the last force of France and Britain, so britain had to save them, on the one hand, britain recruited a large number of ships at home, marched to Dunkirk, hoping to transport these soldiers back to Dunkirk, at that time more than 850 civilian ships participated in the rescue, of course, the Dunkirk evacuation was successful, mainly because Hitler ordered the German army not to launch an attack.
In fact, this is difficult to understand, because we all know that the Dunkirk evacuation is of great significance in the history of World War II, and the 330,000 soldiers he rescued became the last counter-offensive force of Britain and France, accumulating strength for the subsequent landings in North Africa and even later Normandy, so what is the reason why Germany will spare these more than 400,000 troops so well?
First of all, we must know that the Dunkirk evacuation did not take place at the end of the battle, when Paris had not yet surrendered, France had not yet been completely occupied, so for Germany the most important task was to destroy the French governmental organization, not to eliminate these living forces, although it sounds very incomprehensible, we may wish to think about it, if during the War of Resistance Against Japan, the National Government and the Yan'an Government were destroyed, then china can organize the resistance to Japan in the short term. I'm afraid it's going to be hard! Thus destroying the government leadership could devastate France in a short period of time.
German air fighter bombing
At the same time, these more than 400,000 British and French troops are not soft persimmons, at that time they had a variety of heavy weapons, just like a tiger on the verge of extinction, after all, it is not just talk about putting it to death and being born later, the germans' most advantageous air fighter bombing, due to the continuous fog in the region, did not play a very good effect.
Coupled with the fact that Dunkirk is a port city, the water network here is densely populated, which is not conducive to the impact of tanks and armored vehicles, and the war between the two sides can only rely on infantry to decide the victory or defeat, if Germany does not achieve the final victory in the contest with the British and French allies, but is defeated by the other side, then this will undoubtedly give the British and French allies from France, providing self-confidence, and it will be more difficult to occupy France at that time. Although the German offensive was reorganized by May 27, by this time the combined forces in Dunkirk had effectively defended and retreated, and the last 330,000 people were successfully evacuated, which was also a miraculous retreat in human history!
Although the Anglo-French forces successfully withdrew from Dunkirk, Germany at this time also launched a final attack on France like a bamboo. On June 10, 1950, the French government withdrew from Paris. With the defeat of France, Germany essentially swept across Western Europe, and the next target was Britain, known as the Empire of the Rising Sun. But britain and Europe are separated by a natural English channel, although Germany's aircraft and tanks at that time were very powerful, but the navy and britain are still a bit of a gap, after all, Germany is a land country, and the British naval-born country does not have the advantage in naval warfare.
Therefore, the war between Britain and Germany was mainly used to fight in the air, although britain suffered heavy losses in air raids, but this inspired the confidence of the British to resist and resist Germany, and Hitler's idea at that time was not to fight britain to the death. In Hitler's view at that time, Germany's Western Front had no resistance force, and it was only a matter of time before Britain was defeated, so why waste time fighting a war of attrition with Britain.
Hitler
Therefore, Hitler wanted to change his strategy, attack the Soviet Union, and take the Eastern Front, so he needed to sign a treaty with Britain to ensure the tranquility of the Western Front, but at that time, it could be said that there was no end between Britain and Germany, and how could Britain obey Germany's arrangement at this time.
With the outbreak of the Soviet-German War in 1941, Germany pumped a large number of military tanks and aircraft to the Eastern Front in the Western Front, so that the pressure on Britain was weakened a lot, so many scholars said that it was the biggest mistake made by Germany in World War II by going to war with the Soviet Union without completely destroying Britain, and that in the later stages of the war, with the participation of the United States in the war, Germany was once again caught in a two-front struggle, and under the attack of the two fronts and the joint efforts of the world's anti-fascist forces, the German fascist forces were finally completely eliminated.
German fascism
But between 1939 and 1941, Germany's glorious achievements on the battlefields of Western Europe were unimaginable, whether it was the "impregnable" Maginot Line or the self-proclaimed Power France, which was defeated in a month's time. But evil does not suppress is the eternal truth, and unjust acts of aggression will eventually lead to failure.