BACKGROUND
Blitzkrieg means "lightening war". Blitzkrieg was first used by the Germans in World War Two and was a tactic based on speed and surprise and needed a military force to be based around light tank units supported by planes and infantry (foot soldiers). The tactic was developed in Germany by an army officer called Hans Guderian. He had written a military pamphlet called "Achtung Panzer" which got into the hands of Hitler. As a tactic it was used to devastating effect in the first years of World War Two and resulted in the British and French armies being pushed back in just a few weeks to the beaches of Dunkirk and the Russian army being devastated in the attack on Russia in June 1941.
Hitler had spent four years in World War One fighting a static war with neither side moving far for months on end. He was enthralled by Guderian’s plan that was based purely on speed and movement. When Guderian told Hitler that he could reach the French coast in weeks if an attack on France was ordered, fellow officers openly laughed at him. The German High Command told Hitler that his "boast" was impossible. General Busch said to Guderian, "Well, I don’t think that you’ll cross the River Meuse in the first place." The River Meuse was considered France’s first major line of defence and it was thought of as being impossible to cross in a battle situation.
Blitzkrieg was based on speed, co-ordination and movement. It was designed to hit hard and move on instantly. Its aim was to create panic amongst the civilian population. A civil population on the move can be absolute havoc for a defending army trying to get its forces to the war front. Doubt, confusion and rumour were sure to paralyse both the government and the defending military.
Once a strategic target had been selected, Stuka dive bombers were sent in to ‘soften’ up the enemy, destroy all rail lines, communication centres and major rail links. This was done as the German tanks were approaching and the planes withdrew only at the last minute so that the enemy did not have time to recover their senses when the tanks attacked supported by infantry.
It was used to devastating effect in Poland, western Europe where the Allies were pushed back to the beaches of Dunkirk and in the attack on Russia - Operation Barbarossa.
Blitzkrieg means "lightening war". Blitzkrieg was first used by the Germans in World War Two and was a tactic based on speed and surprise and needed a military force to be based around light tank units supported by planes and infantry (foot soldiers). The tactic was developed in Germany by an army officer called Hans Guderian. He had written a military pamphlet called "Achtung Panzer" which got into the hands of Hitler. As a tactic it was used to devastating effect in the first years of World War Two and resulted in the British and French armies being pushed back in just a few weeks to the beaches of Dunkirk and the Russian army being devastated in the attack on Russia in June 1941.
Hitler had spent four years in World War One fighting a static war with neither side moving far for months on end. He was enthralled by Guderian’s plan that was based purely on speed and movement. When Guderian told Hitler that he could reach the French coast in weeks if an attack on France was ordered, fellow officers openly laughed at him. The German High Command told Hitler that his "boast" was impossible. General Busch said to Guderian, "Well, I don’t think that you’ll cross the River Meuse in the first place." The River Meuse was considered France’s first major line of defence and it was thought of as being impossible to cross in a battle situation.
Blitzkrieg was based on speed, co-ordination and movement. It was designed to hit hard and move on instantly. Its aim was to create panic amongst the civilian population. A civil population on the move can be absolute havoc for a defending army trying to get its forces to the war front. Doubt, confusion and rumour were sure to paralyse both the government and the defending military.
Once a strategic target had been selected, Stuka dive bombers were sent in to ‘soften’ up the enemy, destroy all rail lines, communication centres and major rail links. This was done as the German tanks were approaching and the planes withdrew only at the last minute so that the enemy did not have time to recover their senses when the tanks attacked supported by infantry.
It was used to devastating effect in Poland, western Europe where the Allies were pushed back to the beaches of Dunkirk and in the attack on Russia - Operation Barbarossa.
ROMMEL'S ACCOUNT OF BLITZKRIEG IN FRANCE
General Erwin Rommel, who would later gain fame in the African desert as the "Desert Fox", led the 7th Panzer Division as it crashed through the Belgian defenses into France, skirting the Maginot Line and then smashing it from behind. This was a new kind of warfare integrating tanks, air power, artillery, and motorized infantry into a steel juggernaut emphasizing speedy movement and maximization of battlefield opportunities. Rommel kept a journal of his experiences. In this excerpt, he describes the action on May 14 as he leads a tank attack against French forces near the Muese River on the Belgian border:
"Rothenburg [a subordinate tank commander] now drove off through a hollow to the left with the five tanks which were to accompany the infantry, thus giving these tanks a lead of 100 to 150 yards. There was no sound of enemy fire. Some 20 to 30 tanks followed up behind. When the commander of the five tanks reached the rifle company on the southern edge of Onhaye wood, Colonel Rothenburg moved off with his leading tanks along the edge of the wood going west. We had just reached the southwest corner of the wood and were about to cross a low plantation, from which we could see the five tanks escorting the infantry below us to our left front, when suddenly we came under heavy artillery and anti-tank gunfire from the west. Shells landed all round us and my tank received two hits one after the other, the first on the upper edge of the turret and the second in the periscope.
The driver promptly opened the throttle wide and drove straight into the nearest bushes. He had only gone a few yards, however, when the tank slid down a steep slope on the western edge of the wood and finally stopped, canted over on its side, in such a position that the enemy, whose guns were in position about 500 yards away on the edge of the next wood, could not fail to see it. I had been wounded in the right check by a small splinter from the shell which had landed in the periscope. It was not serious though it bled a great deal.
I tried to swing the turret round so as to bring our 37 mm-gun to bear on the enemy in the opposite wood, but with the heavy slant of' the tank it was immovable.
The French battery now opened rapid fire on our wood and at any moment we could expect their fire to be aimed at our tank, which was in full view. I therefore decided to abandon it as fast as I could, taking the crew with me. At that moment the subaltern in command of the tanks escorting the infantry reported himself wounded, with the words: 'Herr General, my left arm has been shot off.' We clamored up through the sandy pit, shells crashing and splintering all round. Close in front of us trundled Rothenburg's tank with flames pouring out of the rear. The adjutant of the Panzer Regiment had also left his tank. I thought at first that the command tank had been set alight by a hit in petrol tank and was extremely worried for Colonel Rothenbttrg's safety. However, it turned out to be only the smoke candles that had caught light, the smoke from which now served us very well. In the meantime Lieutenant Most had driven my armored signals vehicle into the wood, where it had been hit in the engine and now stood immobilized. The crew was unhurt."
SOURCE: eyewitnesstohistory
Piercing the Maginot Line
Two days later, Rommel and his forces raced behind and parallel to the Maginot Line, and then turned north to attack the fortifications from behind. He describes the action as his tank formations plunge through the French defenses:
"The tanks now rolled in a long column through the line of fortifications and on towards the first houses, which had been set alight by our fire. In the moonlight we could see the men Of 7th Motorcycle Battalion moving forward on foot beside us. Occasionally an enemy machine-gun or anti-tank gun fired, but none of their shots came anywhere near us. Our artillery was dropping heavy harassing fire on villages and the road far ahead of the regiment. Gradually the speed increased. Before long we were 500 -1,000 - 2,000 - 3,000 yards into the fortified zone. Engines roared, tank tracks clanked and clattered. Whether or not the enemy was firing was impossible to tell in the ear-splitting noise. We crossed the railway line a mile or so southwest of Solre le Chateau, and then swung north to the main road which was soon reached. Then off along the road and past the first houses.
The people in the houses were rudely awoken by the din of our tanks, the clatter and roar of tracks and engines. Troops lay bivouacked beside the road, military vehicles stood parked in farmyards and in some places on the road itself. Civilians and French troops, their faces distorted with terror, lay huddled in the ditches, alongside hedges and in every hollow beside the road. We passed refugee columns, the carts abandoned by their owners, who had fled in panic into the fields. On we went, at a steady speed, towards our objective. Every so often a quick glance at the map by a shaded light and a short wireless message to Divisional H.Q. to report the position and thus the success of 25th Panzer Regiment. Every so often a look out of the hatch to assure myself that there was still no resistance and that contact was being maintained to the rear. The flat countryside lay spread out around us under the cold light of the moon. We were through the Maginot Line! It was hardly conceivable. Twenty-two years before we had stood for four and a half long years before this self-same enemy and had won victory after victory and yet finally lost the war. And now we had broken through the renowned Maginot Line and were driving deep into enemy territory. It was not just a beautiful dream. It was reality."
BLITZKRIEG (Source: BBC)
Shocked by their experience, the Allied military observers who had survived the fall of France attributed their defeat to the completely new form of warfare pioneered by the Wehrmacht - the blitzkrieg. Blitzkrieg seemed to be based around the pervasive use of new technology. After all, during the disastrous campaign in Belgium and France, it had seemed as if German tanks and aircraft were everywhere.
This view that the Germans used technology, namely the tank and the dive-bomber, to create a new and unique form of warfare has often dominated understanding of how the Germans fought in World War Two.
Contrary to the beliefs of the Allied military establishment of the day, however, blitzkrieg was not a brand-new way of waging war. In fact, although it is a German word, the term itself was created by an English newspaper sometime in 1939.
In reality, the way in which the Wehrmacht fought, their 'doctrine' in today's parlance, was based more upon ideas than technology. And the ideas that shaped how Hitler's army fought were influenced by the fighting methods German soldiers had used since the 1870s. The so-called blitzkrieg of 1940 was really the German doctrine of 1914 with technology bolted on.
ROOTS OF BLITZKRIEG LAY IN WW1
Before 1914-18, Germany had perceived itself as surrounded by enemies who were superior both in numbers and resources. And German strategists, most notably Alfred von Schlieffen, had concluded that Germany could not win a long, protracted war against such opposition.
Thus, in order to win, Schlieffen knew the German army would have to defeat its opponents quickly and decisively. Always outnumbered by its enemies, it would have to match quantity with quality.
Schlieffen set about creating a doctrine that would allow the outnumbered German army to outfight its opponents. This doctrine stressed speed of manoeuvre and attacking the enemy where he was weakest, and usually this meant attacking the flanks.
Schlieffen also stressed the need to keep the enemy reacting to German moves. In other words, he foresaw the need to maintain the initiative. To accomplish this, he advocated the use of the flexible command system pioneered by Helmuth von Moltke the Elder.
Recognising that battlefield conditions changed rapidly and that orders often became overtaken by events, the German army encouraged its commanders to make decisions without waiting for orders from above, thus allowing them to take advantage of fleeting opportunities as they arose. Above all else, this doctrine created aggressive and flexible leaders.
Schlieffen and his successor, Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, trained the German army well in what they termed Bewegungskrieg, or 'war of manoeuvre'. In 1914, German units inevitably outfought their opponents whenever they encountered each other on the battlefield.
One element that was lacking from the German army in 1914 was the ability to move long distances quickly. Had the German army been mechanised at the outbreak of World War One, it is likely that the outcome of the war would have been very different. As things were then, the German army was unable to defeat its enemies decisively in the war's early battles, and reluctantly settled into trench warfare in late 1914.
Throughout the remainder of the war, German officers searched for a process by which the stalemate of the trenches could be broken. In March 1918, they found such a means.
HOW THE BLITZKRIEG DEVELOPED INTO MATURITY
Schlieffen's ideas were largely aimed at operational-level leaders, that is, the commanders of Germany's divisions and army corps. The biggest problems in World War One, however, were at the lower, tactical level. And the German solution to these problems was to apply Schlieffen's operational principles to small units as well as to large ones. Thus, by decentralising command and by increasing the firepower of the infantry, they created a large number of platoon-sized units capable of independent action on the battlefield.
These units had the freedom to fight as they thought best, without having to refer constantly to a higher commander. While the Allies relied upon tanks to break through the stalemate of the trenches in 1918, the Germans used a largely infantry force empowered by a sound tactical doctrine.
After their defeat in 1918, German military intellectuals began reshaping the army. Under the direction of Hans von Seeckt, commanders fashioned the doctrine that the Wehrmacht was to employ in World War Two. Repelled by the waste and indecisiveness of trench warfare, they returned to the ideas of Schlieffen, and in 1921 the army published its new doctrine, Command and Combat with Combined Arms.
This doctrine integrated the operational-level ideas taught by Schlieffen with the tactical concepts developed during World War One. And as military technology, including that of tanks, motor vehicles, aircraft and radios, was developed during the 1920s and 30s, so it was grafted onto this doctrinal framework.
Innovators such as Heinz Guderian and Erich von Manstein recognised that the protection given by tanks increased the ability of the German army to manoeuvre in the face of enemy artillery, and that this enhanced speed and mobility. However, the modern technology was merely used to enhance the capabilities that had already been provided, thanks to the army's strategic doctrine.
Thus, unlike the Allied armies, the German army in 1940 had an offensive doctrine that emphasised speed of decision-making, speed of manoeuvre and decentralised action. From the operational ideas of Schlieffen they placed the emphasis on speed, flank attacks, encirclements and decisive battle.
The experience of World War One had convinced German leaders that these ideas needed to be applied not only at top operational level, but also at the tactical level - by combined-arms teams capable of independent fire and manoeuvre. Tanks, motor vehicles and aircraft merely enabled the Wehrmacht to apply these principles more efficiently.
With this doctrine, despite being outnumbered in tanks and combat aircraft, they were able to outfight the Allies at every turn in 1940, and cause the rapid and total collapse of Allied resistance.
BBC