Blitzkrieg

A tactic of invasion

The objective of Blitzkrieg is to neutralize the enemy before it had time to oppose a solid face to the attacks of the attacker. The three essential components are the effect of surprise, the speed of the operation and the brutality of the attack. The purpose of this one is to bore the face, in order to encircle the enemy army in a pocket, which crossed of its supply, will be obliged to go after exhaustion of the ammunition and the fuel.

The massive concentration of the Panzer S in some points made the difference compared to dispersion of the Alliés tanks during the Bataille of France where those were there only to support the infantry according to the doctrines then in force. The German tanks had thus been able to form famous the pocket of Dunkirk which completed the French Army.

It is thanks to this very offensive tactic that the Wehrmacht succeeded in overcoming the allied armies during the first part of the Second world war.

This new tactic paid because it was new, and this in situation of inferiority numerical on the level of the tanks, but as any innovation once included/understood it could be applied in its turn by the allies, like region.

Limits

However, this tactic of combat started to show its limits starting from 1942. Indeed, this strategy of blitzkrieg was applicable only on reduced theaters of operation and in short durations. It is one of the reasons which explain the weakening of the Wehrmacht starting from 1942. There is also the comprehension of this tactic by the allies, which partly explains the beginning of the German defeats in 1942.

It is estimated that the Bataille of Stalingrad was the decisive turn of the war, precisely, because the marshal Joukov applied this technique of the grips of surrounding to the army of Friedrich Paulus which went in February 1943 because famished and without ammunition, and not because it was destroyed.

Other share, it does not have there defensive doctrines in the blitzkrieg what, in the case of Hitler, encouraged it to prohibit the folds, necessary when one is encircled and thus crossed of his supply. It is what explains the first German defeats whereas, in the first days, it was completely possible for the army of Paulus in Stalingrad in November 1942, or the army of Rommel in North Africa in May 1943 to fold up itself, instead of going.

The myth of Blitzkrieg

In addition, a recent study of a German historian, the Myth of Blitzkrieg (Belin editions) of Karl-Heinz Frieser tends to show that this technique was not prepared in advance and that it is the fruit of the events on the ground and the impetuosity of certain generals (Heinz Guderian or Erwin Rommel for example). Indeed, in 1940, the German forces are motorized very little, contrary for example to the British forces. The political leaders and soldiers are divided into two camps: the conservatives who follow the broad outlines traced by the strategies resulting from the First World War and the progressists who fight to impose their ideal of mobile warfare. The German army in 1940 was quite lower of number and in quality than the armies of the West. Frieser affirms that hardly half of the German forces (5,4 million men requisitioned in 1940) were normally equipped. The respite given by the funny one of war especially benefitted the Germans who involved themselves while the French soldiers bury themselves in the opposition to progress.

Hitler was not at all, as tried to make it believe propaganda, an enlightened chief. Before the victory in France, the construction of armoured tanks was far from being a priority, Hitler preferring by far heavy artillery!

The success of the German attack of May 1940 is due especially to a formidable strategic blow, the “blow of sickle” through the the Ardennes, thus renewing one of the fundamental concepts of the art of warfare: to attack where the enemy does not expect it. It is at the head necessary to have the following diagram: when famous the panzerdivizionnen puts in rout the allied armies, the remainder of the German forces crosses painfully to foot or horse (the German army uses twice more horses than at the time of the First World War i.e. 2,5 million approximately) the the Ardennes, not meeting any resistance and often not drawing any shot, being satisfied to occupy the ground.

It is a myth, the German army was higher neither of number, nor out of equipment, quite to the contrary. The difference with the armies of the West east that when Germany attacks in 1940, it concentrates 75% of its forces in the battle whereas the allies face only with 25% of the total of their forces (keeping reserves of it the remainder of the forces in the optics of a long war, it is necessary to save the forces and to take care not to expose large troops and equipment). Here is in fact what allowed the crushing victory of the German army in 1940.

Lastly, for Frieser, Blitzkrieg proved to be a failure as from the moment when it was precisely theorized, after the countryside of France, in particular in the East.

Context

Let us note however that the end of the expansionism German finds its source in precise contexts which show the limits of the blitzkrieg in these precise contexts: the Russian winter (lack of ascribable equipment to a very fast projection), fortifications of the Battle of El-Alamein (Rommel did not have the troops necessary), etc

Pioneers of Blitzkrieg at the allies

Before the Second world war begins, there were soldiers who included/understood the concentrated use of tanks and planes, although they were listened little.

Liddell Binder, reprocessed English captain of the First World War. It theorized a flexible and side approach of the modern war, in opposition with the frontal and rigid attacks of 14-18. Its writings, although still far away from Blitzkrieg, strongly influenced the German military theorists.

Charles de Gaulle, colonel of armoured division. As much in North Africa that over the face of Italy, the Free French Army gained its victories thanks to its skill. On the face of Italy for example, in fact the Moroccan colonial forces broke the Gustav line, and it only after Monte Casino was taken, is already evacuated because the face had precisely already been bored.

the general Joukov who was likely to escape the Stalinist purgings, undoubtedly because it was in load of Siberian divisions, therefore far from the glance. This one inflicted decisive defeats with the Japanese precisely thanks to his massive use of the tanks BT7, factor which persuaded Japanese to direct their offensive towards the South of Asia. Joukov thereafter planned the Bataille of Stalingrad, the Bataille of Koursk, etc…

the general 3 stars Patton also was completely conscious for him of the potentiality of the tanks in the American army, and consequently at the origin of the openings of was combined in Sicily, of the opening of Avranches, and finally of that of the Ligne Siegfried in February 1945.

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