History of the Second World War (7 page)

As a result the largest remaining part of the Polish forces was trapped before it could withdraw over the Vistula. To the advantage which the Germans had gained by their strategic penetration along the line of least resistance was now added the advantage of tactical defence. To complete their victory they had merely to hold their ground — in face of the hurried assaults of an army which was fighting in reverse, cut off from its bases, with its supplies running short, and increasingly pressed from the flank and behind by the converging eastward advance of Blaskowitz’s and Kluge’s armies. Although the Poles fought fiercely, with a bravery that greatly impressed their opponents, only a small proportion ultimately managed to break out, by night, and join the garrison of Warsaw.

On the 10th Marshal Smigly-Rydz had issued orders for a general retreat into south-eastern Poland, where General Sosnkowski was placed in charge, with the idea of organising a defensive position on a relatively narrow front for prolonged resistance. But this was now a vain hope. While the big encirclement west of the Vistula was being tightened the Germans were now penetrating deeply into the area east of the Vistula. Moreover, they had turned both the line of the Bug in the north and the line of the San in the south. On Kuchler’s front, Guderian’s armoured corps drove southward in a wide outflanking thrust to Brest-Litovsk. On List’s front, Kleist’s armoured corps reached the city of Lwow on the 12th. Here the Germans were checked, but they spread northwards to meet Kuchler’s forces.

Although the invading columns were feeling the strain of their deep advances, and were running short of fuel, the Polish command-system was so badly dislocated that it could not profit either by the enemy’s temporary slackening or by the stubbornness that many isolated bodies of Polish troops still showed. These dissipated their energy in random efforts while the Germans were closing up to complete the encirclement.

On September 17 the armies of Soviet Russia crossed Poland’s eastern frontier. That blow in the back sealed her fate, for there were scarcely any troops left to oppose this second invasion. Next day the Polish Government and High Command crossed the Rumanian frontier — the Commander-in-Chief sending back a message to tell his troops to fight on. Perhaps it was as well that it did not reach most of them, but many gallantly fulfilled its intention in the days that followed, although their resistance collapsed bit by bit. The garrison of Warsaw held out until the 28th, despite heavy bombardment from the air and the ground, and the last considerable Polish fragment did not surrender until October 5, while guerrilla resistance continued into the winter. Some 80,000 escaped over neutral frontiers.

The German and Russian forces had met and greeted each other, as partners, on a line running south from East Prussia past Bialystok, Brest-Litovsk, and Lwow to the Carpathians. That partnership was sealed, but not cemented, by a mutual partition of Poland.

Meantime the French had merely made a small dent in Germany’s western front. It looked, and was, a feeble effort to relieve the pressure on their ally. In view of the weakness of the German forces and defences it was natural to feel that they could have done more. But, here again, deeper analysis tends to correct the obvious conclusion suggested by the comparative figures of the opposing forces.

Although the French northern frontier was 500 miles long, in attempting an offensive the French were confined to the narrow ninety-mile sector from the Rhine to the Moselle — unless they violated the neutrality of Belgium and Luxembourg. The Germans were able to concentrate the best part of their available forces on this narrow sector, and they sowed the approaches to their Siegfried Line with a thick belt of minefields, thus imposing delay on the attackers.

Worse still, the French were unable to start their offensive action until about September 17 — except for some preliminary probing attacks. By that date, Poland was so obviously collapsing that they had a good excuse for countermanding it. Their incapacity to strike earlier arose from their mobilisation system, which was inherently out of date. It was the fatal product of their reliance on a conscript army — which could not come effectively into action until the mass of ‘trained reserves’ had been called up from their civil jobs, and the formations had been made ready to operate. But the delay was increased by the French Command’s persistence in old tactical ideas — particularly their view that any offensive must be prepared by a massive artillery bombardment on the lines of World War I. They still regarded heavy artillery as the essential ‘tin-opener’ in dealing with any defended position. But the bulk of their heavy artillery had to be brought out of storage, and could not be available until the last stage of mobilisation, the sixteenth day. That condition governed their preparations to deliver an offensive.

For several years past one of France’s political leaders, Paul Reynaud, had constantly argued that these conceptions were out of date, and had urged the necessity of creating a mechanised force of professional soldiers ready for instant action, instead of relying on the old and slow-mobilising conscript mass. But his had been a voice crying in the wilderness. French statesmen, like most French soldiers, placed their trust in conscription, and numbers.

The military issue in 1939 can be summed up in two sentences. In the East a hopelessly out-of-date army was quickly disintegrated by a small tank force, in combination with a superior air force, which put into practice a novel technique. At the same time, in the West, a slow-motion army could not develop any effective pressure before it was too late.

CHAPTER 4 - ‘THE PHONEY WAR’

‘The Phoney War’ was a phrase coined by the American Press. Like so many vivid Americanisms it soon came to be adopted on both sides of the Atlantic. It has become firmly established as a name for the period of the war from the collapse of Poland in September, 1939, until the opening of Hitler’s Western offensive in the following spring.

Those who coined the phrase meant to convey that the war was spurious — because no great battles were being fought between the Franco-British and German forces. In reality, it was a period of ominous activity — behind the curtain. In the midst of it all a strange accident befell a German staff officer. The incident gave Hitler a fright, and in the following weeks the German military plan was completely changed. The old one would have had nothing like the same chance of success as the new one attained.

But all this was unknown to the world. The people everywhere could only see that the battlefronts remained quiet, and concluded that Mars had fallen into a slumber.

Popular explanations of this outwardly passive state differed. One was that Britain and France were not really serious in their war-making intentions, despite their declaration of war on behalf of Poland, and were waiting to negotiate peace. The other popular explanation was that they were being cunning. The American Press contained many ‘reports’ that the Allied High Command had deliberately adopted a subtly conceived scheme of defensive strategy, and was preparing a trap for the Germans.

There was no foundation for either of these explanations. During that autumn and winter the Allied Governments and High Command spent much time in discussing offensive plans against Germany or Germany’s flanks — which they had no possibility of achieving with their resources — instead of concentrating on the preparation of an effective defence against Hitler’s coming attack.

After the fall of France, the Germans captured the files of the French High Command — and published a collection of sensational documents from them. These showed how the Allied chiefs had spent the winter in contemplating offensive plans all round the circle — for striking at Germany’s rear flank through Norway, Sweden, and Finland; for striking at the Ruhr through Belgium; for striking at her remote eastern flank through Greece and the Balkans; for cutting off her loan-source of petrol supply by striking at Russia’s great oilfields in the Caucasus. It was a wonderful collection of fantasies — the vain imaginings of Allied leaders, living in a dream-world until the cold douche of Hitler’s own offensive awoke them.

Hitler, whose mind was always moving ahead of events, began to think of taking the offensive in the West while the Polish campaign was drawing to a close, and before he made his public proposal for a general peace conference. It is evident that he had already come to realise that any such proposal was unlikely to receive consideration by the Western Allies. For the moment, however, he allowed only his immediate entourage to know how his mind was turning. He kept the General Staff in the dark until after he had publicly made his peace offer, on October 6, and it had been publicly rebuffed.

Three days later he set out his views in a long directive* for the German Army chiefs, giving the reasons for his conviction that an offensive in the West was the only possible course left to Germany. It is a most illuminating document. In it he set forth his conclusion that a prolonged war with France and Britain would exhaust Germany’s resources, and expose her to a deadly attack in the back from Russia. He feared that his pact with Russia would not ensure her neutrality a moment longer than suited her purpose. His fear urged him to force peace on France by an early offensive. He believed that once France fell out Britain would come to terms.

* Nuremberg Documents C-62.

He reckoned that for the moment he had the strength and equipment to beat France — because Germany possessed a superiority in the new arms that mattered most:

The tank-arm and air force have, at the present time, attained technical heights — not only as weapons of attack but also for defence — that no other power has reached. Their strategic potential for operations is ensured by their organisation and well-practised leadership, which is better than in any other country.

While recognising that the French had a superiority in the older weapons, particularly heavy artillery, he argued that ‘these weapons are of no decisive significance whatsoever in mobile warfare’. With his technical superiority in the newer arms he could also discount the French superiority in the number of trained soldiers.

He went on to argue that if he waited, in the hope that the French would get tired of war, ‘the development of British fighting power would bring to France a new fighting element that would be of great value to her, both psychologically and materially’ — to buttress her defence.

What must be prevented above all is that the enemy should make good the weakness of his own armaments, particularly in anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons — thereby creating a balance of power. In this respect the passing of every further month represents a loss of time unfavourable to the German power of attack.

He showed anxiety about the ‘will to war’ of the German soldier once the exhilarating effect of the easy conquest of Poland wore off. ‘His respect for himself is as great as the respect he commands from others, at present. But six months of delaying warfare and effective propaganda on the part of the enemy might cause these important qualities to weaken once more.’* Hitler felt that he must strike soon, before it was too late, saying: ‘In the present situation, time may be reckoned an ally of the Western powers rather than of ours.’ His memorandum wound up with the conclusion that: The attack is to be launched this autumn, if conditions are at all possible.’

* Events showed that Hitler’s anxiety was misplaced. French morale declined more than the German in the seven months’ delay that actually occurred. Allied propaganda was not effective — there was far too much talk of overthrowing Germany, and far too little attempt to distinguish between the ordinary German and the Nazi chiefs. Worse still, scant encouragement was given by the British Government to several secret approaches made by groups in Germany who wanted to overthrow Hitler and make peace if they could get satisfactory assurance as to the peace conditions that the Allies had in mind.

He insisted that Belgium must be included in the area of attack, not only to obtain room for manoeuvre to outflank the French Maginot Line, but also to forestall the danger of the Anglo-French forces entering Belgium and deploying on the frontier close to the Ruhr, ‘thereby bringing the war near to the heart of our armaments industry’. (As the French archives reveal, that was exactly what Gamelin, the French Commander-in-Chief, had been advocating.)

The disclosure of Hitler’s intentions came as a shock to Brauchitsch, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and Halder, the Chief of the General Staff. In common with most of the senior German generals, they did not share Hitler’s belief in the power of the new arms to overcome the opponents’ superiority in military trained manpower. Reckoning on customary lines in numbers of divisions, they argued that the German Army had not nearly enough strength to defeat the Western armies. They pointed out that the ninety-eight divisions which Germany had managed to mobilise were considerably fewer than the total on the other side, and that thirty-six of these divisions were badly armed and barely trained. They were apprehensive, too, that the war would spread into another world war, fearing that it would have a fatal ending for Germany.

They were so disturbed that they contemplated desperate remedies. Just as at the time of the Munich crisis, a year before, they started to consider taking action to overthrow Hitler. The idea was to despatch a picked force from the front to march on Berlin. But General Friedrich Fromm, the Commander-in-Chief of the Home Forces, declined to co-operate — and his help was essential. Fromm argued that if the troops were ordered to turn against Hitler they would not obey — because most of the ordinary soldiers put their trust in Hitler. Fromm’s judgement about the troops’ reaction was probably correct. It is corroborated by most of the officers who were in touch with troops and did not know what was being discussed in higher headquarters.