The French were not planning to fight a static war. The French government, in the middle of the great depression and in the aftermath of WWI, had no interest in military spending. French generals were asking for mobile tank forces. The French had mobile infantry, especially for securing Belgium. The Maginot line was in no way outdated. It worked as it should have, the French government just didn't finish it to go all the way to the coast. It was never breached. And through out the war all counties continued to make large lines of vast fortifications, including the Germans who repurposed the guns of the Maginot line and the Czech forts. And even at the end of the day the Germans risky maneuver through the only succeeded because the French Marshal in charged was fired before he could commit his counter attack. By the time it was reordered by his replacement the initiative had been lost.
All in all the French failure was political.
Churchill was frankly a strategic moron. From the man who brought you Gallipoli, here's the soft underbelly of Europe: Italian mountains and a fight through the desert. Genius.
The American favored plan of just invading western Europe from the start was just better. An active swift end to the war against an enemy that was in no way prepared to fight against a well coordinated, well equipped force able to contest and eventually win air superiority.
What Churchill did do was political. We wouldn't have had a WWII without him as when French signed an armistice, they had assumed the British wouldn't the far behind them. France would have been humiliated and lacking Alsace Lorine but the war would be over. Churchill cost Britain their empire, their economy, hundred of thousands of dead Brits but they did resist and they did win in the end.
All in all, should France not fall I think Chamberlin should stay in charge of Britain. And should France fall and Britain rejects a peace treaty as they did historically, Churchill should take over. Without Churchill there really is no war.
<Holds his head in his hand in disbelief>
The only remotely correct statement in this is the French failure was inherentaly political.
The maginot line didn't work as intended. The Germans did not really try to breach it as only did distractionary attacks on it to pin down further French troops. Even with that lack of commitement to breacing it it was still breached in numerous places.
Many nations did continue to invest in static defenses thoughout the war but the successful ones were designed as part of a wider mobile defense. They reinforced key areas or served as a way to funnel the enemy into prepared positions to allow easier counter attacks. The unsuccessful ones such as Eben Emael, Maginot line, the Italian forts in North Africa, Singapore, and the variety of fortification lines in Russia were unsuccessful as they were designed with static defense in mind. They were all broken because the enemy were able to use speed and mobility to go around them.
It is correct to say the failure of the maginot line and the French army was political (which is why i mentioned it would need national change to solve the issues the French had) as the French didn't want it to go all the way to the coast for political reasons.i.e. it didn't want forts on the borders of potential allies but this in effect made it redundant as it was easily bypassable and then because so much of the French economy including most of the defense budget was poured (quite litteraly) into the maginot line this left the French army outdated, severly neglected and weakened all for something which was outdated and for the most part incomplete. Many people see the maginot line as this great line of concrete forts all along the French German border and much of the footage of it looks spectacular but the reality was the vast majority of it was incomplete and large sections of it were little better foxholes. Even many of the gun implacements did not even have guns fitted.
Calling Churchill a strategic moron shows an extremely narrow minded and uneductaed view of the situation and citing Gallipoli only renforces that. Churchill (like many commanders in the first world war) had an inspired and creative idea to break the stalemate on the western front and try to return to some form of mobile warfare, but like most commanders of the first world war he was as much a victim of the circumstance of that war where it was a point in military history where all the cards where held by the defender and it took new offensive weapons being invented to break the stalemate. Most of the war was fought with logic, creativity and care by the commanders but popular history remember lions led by lambs, idiocy and lack of compassion by the commanders which for the most part was very far from the truth.
The classic case being the somme and i often hear how stupid it was to have the solider walk through machine gun fire across no mans land, what did they expect to happen?
Well lets analyse. For a start there was a very detailed and organised plan designed around the realities of the time and designed to support the men on the ground.
Tunnels were dug to plant huge amounts of explosives (mines) to destroy the German lines at the point of attack. This was a good idea but it fell foul of the technology of the day and many of the mines went off early thus the soldiers weren't ready to rush in and exploit their effect, giving the Germans time to regroup and hold the positions. Where the mines went off as planned siignificant breakthroughs were often achieved.
Tanks were used for the first time at the somme. These were quite successful but it was a new technology which no one really knew how to use effectively as well as them being few in number and very unreliable. While they lasted they were very successful but very quickly they were all lost to damages or mechanical failure.
A carefully timed creeping barrage was planned to go in front of the advancing soldiers both the detonate land mines and cut the barbed wire but also to obscure the advancing troops from the Germans and then to pound the German positions as they got close. Again technology of the time this was all based on syncronised watches so the barrage and the soliders were often out of step, either killing friendly soldiers or leaving them exposed and then obviously the barrage had to stop for the actual assault on the trenches which often gave the Germans just enough time to get out of their bunkers to their positions and mow down the advancing troops.
Now we get back to the classic walking slowly across no mans land. Lets look at the reality and logic. At this point radio virtually didn't exist, telephone lines were usually cut by the fighting, sending word back by messenger was extremely risky and carrier pigeons were often targeted specifically by snipers this mean that in all likelyhood troops who were successful often had no way of communicating back their success and would often be left alone and isolated to their own means, sometimes for day before reinforcement arrived thus soliders needed to be preapred for that sutuation and often had to carry over 100 pounds of equipment into battle. Now if soldiers lie down with that equipement on their back they are highly unlikely to be able to stand back up again so they have to stay standing. If they try to run with all that equipment on their back they aren't going to get very far and will be completely worn out by the time the encounter the enemy.
So what do you do, you walk slowly across the battlefield, relying on all the other preparations to protect you in your advance so when you encounter the enemy you have enough strength to fight the enemy and enough supplies to hold the position if you take it until reinforcements arrive.
The popular portrayal of commanders as inept, uncaring and unfit for purpose in the first world war is completely unjustified for the most part due to the balance of power at the time.
Even with the balance of power Gallipoli very nearly succeeded in dealing a significant blow to the Ottoman Empire as they were taken by surprise and unprepared. The invasion suffered a great deal from the fact that the establishment commited what they saw as cast offs to the campaign, and i do say that in full knowledge that the mian contingent was the ANZACS which i will clarify i do not see them as cast offs but were in fact extremely brave and capable soldiers but i say that to point out the attitude by the establishment at that point, although in the sake of balance they were untried and untested at that point. Overall the campaign was ill supplied and ill equiped and that is not the fault of Churchill, he was just the scape goat as it was his idea. He had a good idea, was not given adequate resources and then scape goated for it's failure.
Again it was very nearly successful due to the element of surprise but the commanders on the ground were very cautious and looked to secure the beach-head which gave the Ottomans enough time to create defensive positions and thus it turned into an extended version of the western front.
As for the American concept of the war in Europe in 1942, much like their entry into the first world war they entered with arrogance and assumed the British had simply being doing it all wrong for the past couple of years and they were going to walk in and it would soon be over. In many quarters there was a distinnctly anti-British mindset and a general stubborn refusal to learn from the British.e.g. Hundreds of ships were lost off the American coast during the "Second happy time" because the Amercans refused to listen to the experience of the British and implement a convoy system.
The American got a very bloody nose at the Kessrine pass which was their first major encounter with the Germans who were actually in headlong retreat at this point yet were easily able to defeat the Americans. Admittedly the commanders on the ground were good enough (for the most part) to learn from their mistakes after realising that the British weren't just idiots who didn't know how to fight a real war and eventually came listen to the British at least and create their own (sometimes better) ideas of how to fight the war.
I am not saying everything the British did was perfect in hindsight and of course there were political reasons for many things but then that is true of all nations. Once the war had turned all the Allies were looking at the post war situation and many of their objectives were based on that rather than purely the immidiate situation.
The soft underbelly is generally quoted by American centric, Churchill bashers without looking at the reality of the situation. In 1942 the Americans wanted to go storming into Europe but the ability to do so had no basis in reality as was bourne out by the Dieppe raid which showed that to do so at that point would have been a complete disaster. Dieppe taught the allies what they needed to do and invent to undertake a major successful landing in France.
Air superiority was vital which as the Battle of Britain showed, even with vastly superior numbers was difficult to achieve across the channel.
Complete dominance of the seas was required not only for the safety and secrecy of the landings themselves but to be able to reliably and securely transport the vast numbers of men, equipment and supplies from American to be able to undertake it.
A large number of ships, many of which the designs had to be invented to carry the troops, support them and supply them. I should be noted that D-Day was planned to go ahead in 1943 but was put back to 1944 in great part because it was realised the shipping required for the landiing could not be completed by 1943.
A suitable target location had to be found which could support beach landing and was within aircover from Britain which obviously couldn't be a port which would be highly defended and thus a way to supply the troops untill a port could eventually be captured and then likely rebuilt as the Germans would likely destroy it before giving it up.
The vast majority of the American army was extremely green and the Americans were still finding their feet, as well as the British who were only at that point starting to implement some sense of integrated warfare and therefore learning many harsh lessons in 1942 so the Allies needed more experience both on land and in the art of invasions.
All of these factors were not in place until 1944 and that was the earliest reasonable time it could have occured and even then it was far from certain. Eisenhower wrote two speeches for the day after D-Day, one if it was successful and one if it failed. And we must remember that the Americans were nearly pushed back into the sea at Omaha which even with the successful landing at the other beaches would have severly compromised the allied position if they had been.
When looking at the campaigns in North Africa and "soft underbelly of Europe" Churchills main argument, which the Americans agreed with, was there were various advantages of the theatre. North Africa gave the allies a prime training ground to develop tactics against the Germans and allow the extremely green Americans to learn some vital lessons in a reasonably safe space against a predominantly defeated enemy. Once North Africa was finished with you had a coupke of armies worth of seasoned troops with nothing to do and it was by then obvious that an invasion of France was not possible for at least another year. Allowing veteran troops to just hang around for a year or two will take the edge off them and then when they are called on again they will no longer be as effective so where do you use them?
Well Italy is just across the pond. The allies now have naval supremacy in the Med and the allies need experience with contested naval invasions so Italy is the perfect choice. On top of that securing the Med would allow supplies to flow freely through the Med and Suez canal to Asia for the concurrent war against Japan where supplies had been being sent on the long and very dangerous journey around the African cape as well as allowing supplies to be sent through the region to Russia instead of the extremely dangerous and costly Arctic convoys.
And of course it had the potential benefit of knocking Italy out of the war (which it did).
Now i won't proclaim that Italy was the "soft underbelly" of Europe by any means and i doubt Churchill actually thought it was either. His speech was meant to rouse the people, much like "we shall fight them on the beeches..." and numerous other examples but it was a strategically sound choice at the time and was in a large part successful.
Ironically it suffered in many of the ways Galipoli did though also. The Americans were never really fully commited to it and less so as the fighting got tougher. The most experienced troops were increasingly withdrawn to prepare for D-Day and again ironcially the Anzio landings which most parallel Galipoli, being concieved by Churchill to break the stalemate around Monte Casino, caught the enemy off guard and achieved complete surprise and should have been a major breakthough as there were virtually no German troops in the area at the time, yet again the (American) commander on the ground decided to consolidate the beach-head rather than push forward and completely cut off the Germans thus allowing the Germans to create a defensive perimiter and stalemate to ensue again.
Once the allies did eventually break thorugh and relieve Anzio and they had the Germans on the run another American commander had a prime opportunity again to completely cut off the Germans thus essentially defeating the Germans in Italy, yet he want for thegGlory of taking Rome, allowing the Germans to escape to their next prepared position and the campaign to drag on until the end of the war.
Aight, I'm a Churchill hater, mainly because of how he callously threw Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Romania to the Soviet Wolves in exchange for a promise for Greece that almost was reneged by the Greek Civil War. But I will give him some credits:
Churchill did not sell Yugoslavia, Romania and Bulgaria to the wolves...Massive hole in your train of thought is why is Poland, the nation Britain went to war to save not included, as well as all the other eastern European countries the Soviets occupied after WW2?
Churchill wanted all the European nations and the Balkans to be freed from the soviets as he saw the threat from the soviets and had a general idea what was going to happen with the cold war, yet at the point the fate of the occupied countries were being decided, essentially the Yalta conference, Roosevelt sidelined Churchill and did most of the negotiating in secret meetings with Stalin, which Churchill wasan't invited to.
For Yugoslavia in particular the country, or specifically Tito, the person in charge of the country was happy to be in the Soviet sphere and interestingly wasn't actually occupied like the rest of the nations the Soviets brought into their sphere.
Bulgaria and Romania were actually part of the Axis, we can discuss the technicalities of how much choice they had in that as it is also complex but in the end they were part of the defeated nations who fought against Russia and thus it is extremely hard for Britain and America plea for their freedom after the war.
Stalin also had the upperhand in the post war negotiations because he was the last of the "Big Three" left with Roosevelt obviously dying and a new post war primie minster voted in Britain.
