Cueball said:
No. It was not a feint. A feint means implies fake. There was nothing about the attempt by Hoepner's troops to cross the Meuse that was fake. Crossing the Meuse and breaking out of the bridgehead there was an important military objective all on its own, which the Germans pursued agressively, as part of their plan to squeeze the Allies and knock the Belgian army out of the war. It was, if anything, in the grand scale of things a pinning action.
This does not mean that the Germans pretended to attack, and does not mean that the fighting was not real and intense. Hoepner's orders were to make a bridgehead, and advance, while the French orders were to hold Hannut, for two days. That is what they did -- it was not one of Hitler's ridiculous stand firm orders. Success is measure on how well one carries out ones mission: The French Cavalry succeeded in their mission and then withdrew as according to their plan.
But that is really irrelevant to the whole issue at hand, because, even if it was a feint, as part of a larger operation to fool the French and English into making bad choices, that has nothing to do with doctrine. Generals have been trying to fool each other, and disguise their intentions, since the dawn of war, and that has nothing to do with "Blitzkreig" as a doctrine.
It was a feint, not fake attack, meant to tie down the enemy from redeploying. The German Army Group B was by far the weakest of the two main German commands, going up against fortifications and a numerically superior enemy, the best of the French and British, as well as the Belgians.
Cueball said:
You have no evidence to support this assessement. I have outlined specific things that Gemelin did that entirely fit within a concept of mobile warfare, using the French Cavalry Army to stem the advance of the German attack in Belgium, in order to delay the attack in order to set up proper defenses is one, ordering an immediate counter attack from the North against the flank of German attack in the Ardennes is another.
Try not to forget that the assements of contemporaries such William Shrirer, are highly influenced by politics, and that he was first and foremost a journalist trying to sell popular books, while anything said by the British, especially Winston Churchill are also highly political statements intended to argue a case that reflects well on the British army that he led during the war.
That is true, but most historians is in complete agreement here. I do own Churchill's memoirs, and admit to having used that as one of my sources, but my arguements are based as much as i can (crossreferenced with other sources), on written accounts (meaning notes, letters, orders), rather than personal opinions of the writer(s) (IE, "i thought this move to be stupid").
Churchill for example, says there was a lot to be liked about Gamelin. He was sharp, intelligent, and had a good military mind.
On the other hand (this is not from Churchill, hehe), his whole military career had been revolving around WW1, and he did not seem to be able to quite comprehend mobile warfare. He seemed very deeply set in the static war doctrine, and continued throughout the invasion (as long as he remained in office) to propose new scenarios of this type (fortification and entrenchment).
This is a very common failure of the era, affecting many of German high command as well, being mostly infantry commanders. Germany had the advantage in visionaries like Guderian, who shifted the focus of the German army into a breakthrough and mobility doctrine. France had their own visionary in Charles De Gaulle, but he was only a colonel at the time, and couldnt get much done.
Cueball said:
As Stephen T points out the problems were to do with the lack of co-ordination, and the British attack at Arras would more rightly considered a probing action, one which almost defeated Rommel, and had this attack been part of a larger assault carried out with French support, and hypothetically speaking had not the Allied command misintepretted the German actions, and had the First French Cavalry been on hand, then I dare say the attack on Rommel at Arras would have been succesful.
Very true, but as with most "what if's", it is very easy to say later that "they should have done this". Rommel was definitely in deeeep.. on that occation
