The Death of France’s Forgotten Armies

METZ, FRANCE – The dramatic seaborne rescue of 328,000 Allied troops from Dunkirk in June, 1940 is well known. But the tragic effort of almost 300,000 French troops to break out of encirclement in eastern France along the Maginot Line is almost totally unknown.
On 10 May, 1940, Germany unleashed a new form of mobile warfare known as ‘blitzkrieg’ against the combined armies of France, Britain, Holland and Belgium.
At the time, France had Europe’s most powerful, battle-hardened army with more tanks, artillery and warplanes than Germany possessed. France and her British allies were prepared to re-fight the same static battles of World War I that had ended only 22 years earlier. By contrast, the rebuilt German armed forces were determined to fight a fluid war of movement to avoid the terrible slaughter of World War I.
Chancellor Adolf Hitler rejected the more conventional campaign plans proposed by his generals, choosing instead a daring, radical plan, ‘Fall Gelb,’ drawn up by the brilliant Gen. Eric von Manstein.
This audacious proposal called for the bulk of Germany’s armor, mechanized and logistical units to negotiate the dirt tracks, ravines and dense woods of the vast Ardennes Forest that straddles the Franco-Belgian border and Luxembourg. The Germans would then fall upon the hinge of two massive French armies (north on the Belgian border and south behind the Maginot Line facing Belgium and Germany), then drive northwest for the Channel, so isolating the Allied armies corps in northern France.

This post was published at Lew Rockwell on June 13, 2015.