Myths of Blitzkrieg —The Enduring Mythology of the 1940 Campaign

Abstract

March/April 2005 · Historically Speaking1 1 Myths of Blitzkrieg—The Enduring Mythology of the 1940 Campaign James S. Corum The first great Blitzkrieg campaigns of World War II have provided a fertile field for the growth ofmilitary myths. There are many origins of military mythology , but the major myths that arose from the 1940 campaign originate from two sources: the need for the defeated powers to explain a disastrous campaign and, much later, the need to find historical justification for current military theories. Of the five most important myths of the 1940 campaign, some were refuted decades ago, but others seem to have an enduring appeal and still affect the way military historians and theorists conceptualize warfare. Myth 1: Blitzkrieg was a strategy. In the early years of World War II the form of war that quickly became known as "Blitzkrieg" became a major topic ofdiscussion by British and American soldiers, journalists, politicians , and most ofthe educated populace. The rapid German conquest ofPoland, the speedy campaign in Norway, and the fall of France and the Low Countries demanded an explanation . While the German victory in Poland could be explained by the enormous advantages of population, wealth, and technology that the Germans enjoyed, the defeat of the British and French in Norway and northern France in 1 940 signaled a genuine revolution in warfare. Why had the British and French succumbed so easily to the Germans? The answer was quick in coming: the Germans had employed a long-prepared Blitzkrieg strategy against the Western allies. Yet there really was no such thing as a Blitzkrieg strategy. Blitzkrieg, a term coined and popularized by journalists in the early years of World War II, was not commonly used in the Wehrmacht before or even during the war. Campaigns led by armored and motorized spearheads that aimed to outflank and destroy the enemy forces were known in German military doctrine as Bewegungskrieg (translation: war of maneuver). Maneuver warfare, to use the correct term, included several concepts such as combined arms (the effective use of infantry, artillery, tanks, engineers , and motor vehicles in concert) and joint operations (operational coordination of air and ground forces to attain an operational objective). The Germans were well trained in both the combined arms tactics and joint operations necessary to carry out a war of maneuver, and this operational method fit in well with the preference to fight short and decisive wars. But a tactical and operational method cannot in itself be called a strategy. In fact, while the Wehrmacht had long thought through the plans for a war against Poland, it was well behind the planning curve in the Scandinavian campaign. There had been no prewar planning or even a serious effort at intelligence gathering for a campaign in Norway. Only in December 1939 did the Germans put together a planning staff for the Norway/Denmark operation. It was a hurried and incomplete effort, and as late as three weeks before the invasion the German staff still lacked intelligence as to the location of some ofthe Norwegian airfields. It was still a successful effort because the British and French plan to intervene in Norway (started before the Germans) was worse than the German plan. The long-prepared German plan for the 1940 offensive was a fairly cautious piece of work, essentially a rehash of the 1914 Schlieffen Plan. In a lucky stroke for the Germans, a stray plane carrying a copy ofthe plan crashed in Belgium in January 1 940, so a new plan had to be created—one that was based on von Manstein's concept of concentrating most ofthe mechanized forces for one great breakthrough in the Ardennes. The German plan relied on poor French leadership to work, and in this assumption the Germans were quite correct. Myth 2: One of the most popular myths promulgated by the French and British leadership at the time is that the German army simply overwhelmed the Allies with masses of modern tanks. This explanation was circulated by many ofthe most prominent military commentators and served to insulate the French and British military leaders from charges of incompetence. Generals can scarcely be blamed if they are overwhelmed by superior numbers. If...