What if Blitzkrieg FAILED? Hitler Is Overthrown & Soviets Push Through Europe | History Undone

0:00 Blitz creig known in English as a lightning War a rapid heavily mobile form of warfare that was able to utilize a combined arms approach to try and overwhelm opposing forces and while its Origins are debated there can be no doubt over its association with Nazi Germany it was used with devastating consequences during the second world war first to invade Poland in 1939 and then to conquer France Belgium the Netherlands Luxembourg Denmark and Norway in a matter of weeks in 1940 it even showed early success against the Soviet Union and though German gains had all but dried up by 1943 what came before left an indelible mark on the war and the [Music]

0:50 world I'm James Hansen this is times radio history and welcome to history undone the show where we look at how the briefest of moments can shape our world every week we focus on a different battle or military campaign with the help of our experts we ask whether split-second decisions could have changed the outcome and history itself today we're discussing the German Blitz Creek and in particular the fall of the Western Front in 1940 what if this Onslaught wasn't so effective could the second world war have looked very different indeed that's a question for our experts and joining me as ever is the historian and author rear Admiral Dr Chris parry and once again the historian and researcher at the tank Museum Chris copson welcome to you both now we have in front of us our

1:37 big map my favorite map of Europe as it would have been at the early stages of the second world war now a few things to point out and we'll come on to these places in depth as the discussion continues Poland of course and you'll notice that Poland is divided at this point and whether of course the Germans actually used Blitz cre tactics per se for the invasion of Poland is something we will come on to we're going to talk about Denmark of course also invaded by the Germans we're going to talk about Norway in due course as well and then crucially also Holland Belgium the low countries Luxembourg and France and the Battle of France and the fall of Paris all things we're going to be discussing over the course of this episode now Chris copson I want to start with you on this blitz cig is a term I mean it's heavily

2:23 debated as to what it actually means and whether what the Germans were doing in 1940 really constitutes Blitz Creek but the popular imagination Define it as a military tactic if you can okay um I mean Blitz cre is a synthesis of a number of different theories in the 1920s and 1930s the British army had been experimenting with the use of mechanization they actually formed something the experimental mechanized forms the Soviets um had been uh trying something called Deep battle um what happens is that the uh German Army particularly hin Garian takes these ideas synthesizes them it's not called Blitz Creed to start with it's called

3:09 vong's C V's it's maneuver Warfare now the concept is as old as the hills at maneuver your enemy and even the combined arms operations they piled in First World War notably um the Australian General monach round about am8 and this is actually used all your assets together um in World War II terms what that involves is the use of armor artillery aircraft and what they're doing excuse me is proving for a sh um a point of weakness that the armored columns can actually drive through now the whole thing about it is that if there are strong points you bypass them

3:56 you avoid them you carry on uh you plow forward and you leave the strong points to be rolled up by uh the second as on troops following behind the whole idea is to pierce your enemy's line of defense and make progress and cause chaos and confusion particularly once you actually through their their their front lines that's the essence of Blitz cre and as I said what it is is a massive use of armor use of particularly ground attack aircraft use of artillery and I mean later on these guys will be called paner grenadiers uh at this point uh they are just Rifleman shitzen um but it's mechanized infantry to work with the armor that is the essence of Blitz

4:42 Creek those elements put together and Dr Chris Parry you've got an interesting take on this because you think Blitz cre itself is a bit of a myth almost it doesn't exist uh the Germans never use it in their Doctrine Hitler calls it a silly idea he calls it an Italian affectation um and he's be being laudable about that the fact of life is it is combined arms Warfare It's maneuver Warfare it comes straight out of the 19th century doctrine that the prussians have developed it looks very much like the war of 1870 1871 with modern technology applied uh Chris is right what you're trying to do is get inside what we in modern terms call the UDA Loop you want to make decisions faster than your enemy so you confuse him you act faster than him the key

5:29 element with with German operations I think in this era is the fact they've got radios and we'll see later this is a fundamental Force multiplier for uh the the Germans they can actually talk to each other they can say look this is happening over here we need to do something the other thing the Germans excel at is um Mission command they actually delegate down to people and say look if you see something worth exploiting do it and I think the key other thing that I would emphasize and Garian kept on saying this the whole point of the way we're operating is that we can sustain our operations greater than the enemy can so we're going to keep going so when you look at the way in which they use their armored uh Warfare but also they use

6:14 drugs perver in to keep their Crews awake and alert you can see the key issue here is to actually go as far as you can sustain that momentum while your enemy is flagging confused and not sure what is going on it's what we've been trying to do in the modern era to tell you the truth it is maneuver Warfare it is combined arms Warfare and incorporating the latest technology the Germans never used the term Blick Creek it's a journalistic device which people have picked up it is interesting though isn't it how as a term it kind of it Legacy lives on it's almost become Shand I suppose for the German tactics in the early part of the war do you think also part of its significance is the fact that the Allies were kind of fighting the last war in their mind they were thinking trench warfare world War One

6:59 attritional Warfare and so frankly the tactics that the Germans used took them by surprise there's no doubt that the French said look we took so many casualties in World War I we can't really go for this one thing that's not really noticed at the start of the second world war is the French actually push into uh the zarand they actually attack in early September uh against some very weak German forces up to what is known as the SE freed line and then they withdraw um what they haven't done though is taken on board for the leading exponent of armored Warfare a chap called Charles deal who's written a very good book in 1933 he says towards a professional Army and he actually says these are the sort of tactics that we should be adopting he is shunned by the high command of the um uh the French

7:47 army even though uh he he's a prote of PETA who's the hero of course of done from World War I and as we'll see later Charles deal does exactly what you should do in response to what is invert commas called a plitz Greek and we can talk about that later um but I'm afraid to say in the west everybody's thinking about a defensive War um that's why the majino line has been built uh that's why the bulk of uh F French and eventually British forces are facing to the Northeast into the low countries and Belgium they think they can contain anything there uh and that's the whole point um the strategy of France and Britain at this stage is to fight this defensive War blockade Germany and uh and its it sort

8:33 of allies and basically conduct trade and embargo Warfare against them they want to rearm over about two or three years then they'll go on the offensive you mentioned the M no line there Chris I'm sure we'll come back to that in due course and we'll start sort of getting into what happened particularly with the uh invasion of France in due course um Chris copson there are some historians who say that actually Blitz grig and we'll just use it use that term for the time being as kind of shorthand that the German tactics were a bit of a fluke is that true or do you think actually it was a stroke of Genius I don't think it's a fluke I mean they had redesigned their army uh with the emphasis on the panav bafa the tank

9:19 core with the intention of fighting that way they' learned from um the British I mean like little um Advocates mechanization um they had also learned from as I said earlier the Russians um this uh deep battle Theory and it's a synthesis of those two but as um Chris's alluded to uh a few minutes ago their big Advantage is they really nailed down Communications their tanks actually have uh talk speech radio uh other people's don't uh other people are relying on se4 flags and things like that French and they' also nailed down the G4 the logistic

10:07 side of things so um they are able to keep their tanks moving so I think I don't think it's a flute I think is Thoroughly well thought out I think in the end it works better than they'd ever envisaged it was going to do um but no um I think that's you know that's what they're prepared for that's what they're doing um and you can argue about you know whether is called Blitz green how deliberate it is but I mean that's the thing that actually works in the end um you know the proof of the pudding all that stuff and it's not it's not different to the way the Germans are operating in the 19th century we've just applied modern technology to it uh and said look what does this mean for our army the other critical factor of course is Aviation um which has come on the

10:53 scene uh particularly since uh the end of the first world war and if you look at the saly rate generated by lwa in relation to some of these campaigns it is quite significant um it's aerial artillery at the end of the day and one of the critical things about all the battles that we're going to talk about is the application of Firepower and if you can bring it from the air as well it's much more flexible it's much more accessible and of course much more uh powerful because it's going to terrorize your opposition we're going to zoom in very briefly and focus on the Western Front but first let's just talk about the invasion of Poland um Chris you would that this was what has become known as Blitz Creek tactics at all no and the Germans themselves said this this is not typical of the way we would normally operate the the Germans attack

11:38 from the north the West uh and the Southwest with the slovaks in fact everybody forgets the slovaks and the invasion of of Poland and essentially it's an infantry Mass Attack um the polls actually had anticipated the fact that Germans might use armored tactics and said look we'll let them come in we'll suck them in and then basically we encircle them um unfortunately given the aviation strength that the uh lufa had and considerable uh infantry uh divisions Germans put 66 divisions into this they simply overwhelmed the the polls through Mass alone and of course in the end the Russians came in and stabbed the poles in the back as well so they weren't able to cope with this vast amount of infantry that came in but you

12:25 don't see any evidence of armored Warfare really playing a decisive part in the Polish campaign and historians subsequently have have struggled to see where you've got the origins of Blitz Creek here and yet you know with stokers coming out of the sky with their Jericho trumpets um with pictures of Tanks going across into Poland there's this myth that somehow this is what happened but frankly it was three directions initially four directions eventually with the Russians and a lot of Divisions uh coming in and encircling warsa and also the Polish armies and Chris copson I don't know if you want to briefly talk us through the tactics we saw used in in Denmark and Norway um Denmark is I mean they they

13:11 roll into Denmark the the Danes are unable effectively to um provide much in the way of opposition they but a very small army and of course it just straight over the over the frontier Norway is a different kettle of fish Norway uh is where the um German Army and the craigman and the German Navy actually come quite close to to to coming unstuck it is a very difficult campaign um they are using their alpine troops because it's a mountainous um the German the cman the German Navy takes heavy losses off the Norwegian coast and um there is a stage where you know they're saying well you know if frankly

13:57 if the British had Carri it on for 10 more minutes uh we' have we' have thrown in the towel so that's actually a very difficult campaign largely because of deter resistance um and because of the terrain it's not like anywhere else it's not like Poland it's not like France um it's it's a very difficult Place uh to take I mean geography dictates in this particular occasion well we're going to zoom in now we've talked a bit about Poland we've talked a bit about Norway and Denmark let's Focus specifically on the Western Front the low countries and [Music] France okay now as you can see we got a new map in front of us now and this

14:43 shows the situation in Northwestern Europe on the 21st of May just five days of course before the British evacuation of dun Kirk before we get into that let's just run through some of the key stats involved with the fall of France the Germans committed over three million troops around two 2,500 tanks and over 5,000 aircraft of the assault and despite these huge numbers their casualties were only around 156,000 the Allies paid a heavy price with around 400,000 casualties 1.8 million captured and of course over 338,000 evacuated at Dunkirk now let's go back to the map now and the first thing to say you'll notice we have some representative models of tanks on the board now tank afficionados don't beat us up they're not meant to be exact

15:29 replicas of the tanks that would have been involved in this campaign but they are just representative now a few key points to point out on this map first of all you got the three Army groups you've got Army Group B in the north you've got Army group a that's Von runadp.com as well and then crucially up here you've got Dunkirk where the British will evacuate uh you've also got Aras as well which we've previously done a whole episode of History undone about go back and check it out that's a really significant engagement in Aras that we may touch on as well in Du course as well and then of course you've got Paris

16:16 as well so Dr Chris Parry to start with you what what are the Germans planning here from about um October 1939 Hitler and his staff are thinking about what they need to do in the west and initial plan actually is just to take over Holland and Belgium they're not thinking about an invasion of France um but gradually it evolves into well if we're going to get involved in Holland and France uh in Holland and the Netherlands then the French are going to get involved at some stage so it's best that we take the initiative so it gradually evolves into how are we going to take out uh France and any British expeditionary force uh as well uh and initially uh the plan is well let's just go through uh the Netherlands uh and

17:02 Belgium um and people are saying well hang on that's going to cause about half a million casualties if we do it in the old way and there's a real debate going on uh right up to the point where Von runet and his chief of staff manstein say look we think we've got a better way of doing this why don't we go through the Arden and there's uproar uh the German general say this is way too risky uh we can't do this H and what happens in fact is manstein is reallocated he's sent to East Prussia um almost into internal Exile by hder uh who who is um the chief of staff of the army um and then Hitler gets to hear about it and asks to be briefed and what happens in the end is they say right what we're going to do is

17:48 we're going to set up uh about 29 divisions in the north under van Bach they're going to invade uh the Netherlands and Belgium as we planned um we're going to form a huge group of about 49 divisions of which uh uh most of the armor is in the center here with army group a under runet uh and in the South we've got Von Lee who provide essentially flank defense and also fix the armies that are actually on the magino uh line here uh and what reinforces that is their original plan was captured by the Allies back in January 1940 when uh a German aircraft crashed at meslin in the Netherlands um and so initially the Allies thought this is a bluff this is a man that never was

18:34 in Reverse um but in fact they're attracted by it but the whole point of the German plan is to attract the bulk of the French Army and the British expeditionary Force to the Northeast here to face uh Von Bach uh it's what is known subsequently as the matadors cloak we're going to tempt them to come north and while they're facing uh North and Northeast we're going to punch this armored thrust across the mys through the ardens forest and we're going to go straight for the coast thus encircling and cutting off this huge uh Army uh uh French and uh British Army to the north uh and Northeast and that essentially is

19:20 the plan everybody thinks it's risky and there's no question about that what is frustrating from the the French and British side is the French have already thought about the Arden Forest they think a it's impenetrable and even if they do come through here what we'll do is we'll concentrate armies in a pincer formation to cut anything off that comes through the Arden even more frustrating is in the buildup to this the Swiss intelligence are saying we're seeing quite a lot of buildup of motorized and armored German units on the Luxembourg border um the uh Consul General in burn says I'm getting indications here that the 8th to the 10th of May is looking pretty pregnant for an attack here and

20:06 there's a 100 kilometer um essentially traffic jam of German armor and vehicles Happening Here what's interesting is out of the 157 German divisions only 16 are motorized almost everything that's coming West right now is hor drawn and of course that's much more difficult to pick up um with aerial Rec reconnaissance what is also squeezing the French is that almost all their reconnaissance flights are being shot down by the luffer so they're not actually getting Eyes On The Ground about what's happening here but gamler uh the commander-in-chief of the French forces he doesn't care he wants a defensive War he doesn't want to go onto the offensive too early doesn't want to take huge casualties and by the way we've got this one Rogue element called

20:52 Charles deal who thinks we should do armored Warfare we're not doing that even though we've got great tanks well that's a really interesting point you raised and I suppose one of the key things to understand about this Chris copson is the fact that yeah if you are Gamblin if you are the French you're thinking well you know we're set up for defensive War here between the mno line and the natural defense that they assume the Arden is going to be will will kind of be okay yeah I think that's very much it um the mjo line was built um it's not it's the French are hiding behind mjo Lan no mol Lan is there to force Invader to go further north to actually come through Belgium where he can be in theory for to a standstill um I mean there are three options for

21:37 Belgium you can either steam right the way through and join up with the Belgian Army um somewhere like the AL Canal right over in the East you can sit on the French border but that's too close for comfort so what they opt for is something called Plan D going to advance to the river dial which is roughly halfway um between the German border and the French border and that is where they will make a stand but it's one of those you it's they are thinking defensively they're taking on an army which is committed to Rapid offense with a defensive plan and that is all going to come unstuck I mean it it works from

22:24 the German perspective um French armies and the f are pulled into Belgium but it is it's sub is the matadors cloak right let's get them out of the way bog down in Belgium then we'll go through the Arden that's fundamentally what it's all about well Dr Chris Parry let's come on to their offensive operations we've got the tanks on the map do you want to move them around and and talk us through if you can in about five minutes what actually happens with what became known as the German Blitz Cree campaign okay so this is what was subsequently called by Church all the sickle cut and you can see the sweep of uh the German attack right through to Abbyville or on the coast uh up in the uh Northeast there so

23:10 what what happens is we initially get uh a Thrust into um basically Belgium and the Netherlands you get obviously uh the Germans spreading out all over that you have Airborne attacks parachute attacks on some of the Brussels for fortresses there's a famous uh glider born attack uh on on very heavily fortified Belgian fortresses um and totally disrupted and to be fair the belgians and the Dutch put up a pretty good fight but they're overwhelmed very much not only by uh the the 29 divisions that are devoted to that uh but also to the aviation that is coming in and hitting them uh from the air um in the South the armor uh and the Panza

23:57 divisions there are seven specific pan of Divisions that are uh allocated here they're making their way through the Arden they're not being seen some of the French um some of the French officers are saying look why don't we faill some trees across the roads because you know go down the roads in the ardens you can't actually go across the hills and through the forest and they're saying no no we might have to Counterattack at some stage so we don't want the roads clogged up it's absolutely incredible but at this time uh the Lu waffer is is in the air and and if you think about the fact that at this stage the BL waer is generating 1,500 sorties a day compared to the French and British 600 sorties a day it is absolutely significant um and so they're on top they're actually creating the conditions ahead uh destroying artillery destroying

24:44 a disrupting formations as they make their way through here now the critical point comes when uh they get to the MS because the the French are you know defending that area quite strongly and the two points that are quite significant ad Dino you point in out James and sedan uh to the South here just under this tank uh and the fact of life is the Germans keep going um and all the while the French are trying to get forces in place to stop it um but the aviation is completely destroying them the Germans are also bringing up their artillery what we've got to bear in mind is that these armored formations are way ahead of the Infantry and Logistics well let's put a bit of infantry on the board we've got these red blocks symbolize some of the the German

25:30 infantry um the fact of life is that the what is able to happen is the Germans are able to bridge the MS quite successfully and get their armor across and they're heading this way now at this point the French are quite worried about what's going on um because they weren't expecting this they don't have the forces to actually counter it these armies down here are recent conscripts uh they're also reserving they're very weak armies if you look at their constituents so the Germans quite by chance have actually hit the area where the French are we weakest now what's really interesting here is if you look at how to deal with blitz cre as we're euphemistically call it what you do is you let the armor come

26:17 forward and you basically pinch off the shoulders yeah and on the 17th of May Charles deul who's in charge uh of tank formation here he says look I'm going to have a go at this and he tries to pinch off the head of the attack the problem is unless you support it with artillery and infantry you're never going to do it and as we saw later at K if you've got that must artillery you can devastate what's in the head here um that doesn't work because he's not supported by Aviation artillery and can't actually reach uh the Germans push all the way continue through and then turn up towards uh the Northwest uh and by this stage uh the French are in total disarray they can

27:03 see that they have been uh basically encircled here and really going to be cut off now the critical mistake that the French made is they had the French seventh Army as a strategic Reserve down here but gamala has actually sent his strategic Reserve up to reinforce this flank here so there's no strategic Reserve that can actually take um the uh uh the Germans in the flank and that to me is actually quite a critical decision in this um because they're quite well equipped they've got what Chris will appreciate some of the best tanks in the Western World the sh B uh and they're not available for deployment at this stage Chris cson just to bring you in on this I mean the first thing to note is that at this point now the Germans are what 80 miles or so from Paris they've

27:50 swept through the ardan and and much of France um they they they they haven't incurred much in web casualties I mean just going back a little bit uh down on the MS the French 9th Army are reservists they're commanded by a general called Andre Corp I mean he was a staff officer in the first world war he spent the intervening years commanding forts in North Africa as the Riff and um you know he's completely um unable to cope with the realities of modern armored Warfare um going forward from that they do manage to get some armored divisions the French have they've begun to mechanize they've actually got three um division QA armored divisions um but

28:37 those are thrown in peac Mill the first French armor division which is probably the best unit of the lot is destroyed at a place called flavon um mainly because it's out of fuel because their Logistics um system has collapsed so um that's the point where there are Crossings at dool a Crossings at sidel and um one guy in particular comes in here we talked about him before and that is RL uh roml has um never commanded an Armored Division before but he's got seventh Panza and he's a very quick learner and he goes screeching across Countryside uh he is I mean his division the seventh the um over Commander

29:24 vermark they calling it The genser Division ghost division because not even they knew how far he'd got he goes straight across country and he is uh that division is the one that actually halts pretty well for the first time at Aras well Dr Chris Parry let's bring you in on on the topic of our ass and as I mentioned a moment ago we we did a full episode of history and done about this because it really is it's one of the not necessarily one of the most famous battles of World War II but arguably one of the most significant just give a sense of a brief summary of what happens there and and and why this shows how in a sense you can take the fight to the blitz Creek approach yes I mean I think we need to give a call out to somebody else as well here and that's Hein Garian

30:10 who's actually alongside rumel in this push forward I mean the Germans call him hurry up heints because he's so Keen to get to Abbyville um so he's alongside this and they race forward um up towards Aras and you get this very impro improvised attack by uh the British which as you say we've covered it before and the idea is to pinch off the head o of the the attack here the problem again same with Charles dore's attack back here it's not supported by Aviation and artillery to the extent that you can destroy what's in the head yeah and the Matilda tanks the 74 of them do really well a lot of them break down but they come up against the anti-tank weapons of the German divisions but not before uh they've put both German divisions into

30:56 considerable turmoil and reverse the situation by which the Germans are a bit confused and yet again rl's leadership and he nearly gets killed at this point uh um comes to the four and he really improvises to try and make sure that they can provide a line of anti-tank uh defense and I'm afraid to say it Peters out we also know of course that that delay that speed bump uh provides vital breathing space for the bef and the French forces in the north here to be able to get back to Dunkirk yeah I mean the evacuation probably doesn't happen or certainly not in the way it did without RS Chris cson do you want to come in on that yeah ARS is significant um but it is too little too late really it's Fourth and 7th RTR uh

31:44 accompanied by infantry they do attack they cause um a certain amount of chaos to start with but then as Chris said um roml actually organizes a gun line and he is uh he is actually signaling targets for the uh British Ms for the guns to take out and the attack is uh staggers to a halt a lot of the British armor is knocked out and that really is is the end of that but the significant thing is and Churchill at this point says oh well you know the toris has stuck his head out his shell we're going to chop it off that doesn't happen but it gives Hitler in particular sufficient P the

32:30 whole thing about this is nobody's expecting it to be this easy they'd expected a drawn out conflict Hitler actually has a fairly massive forward headquarters built for himself at a place called bruly dep PES just inside the Franco Belgian border they're expecting a long drawn out campaign they can't believe it's going this well and that's the point where they think well hang on a second the must must be this is a trap there are forces waiting for us and Hitler actually issues the halt beel halt order that brings everything to a standstill the significant thing about that is that by that point the bef a lot of French forces are withdrawing it

33:17 gives us the chance to escape effectively to move up and organize a Dunkirk evacuation uh whereas if the panzas had carried on rolling uh you that wouldn't have happened um Don Kirk would have happened uh we would have been pretty well wiped out in France well that is a really interesting point and we may well come back to that a bit later on when we talk about the long-term consequences of what if Blitz Creek plays out differently we should say Dr Chris Parry just kind of wrap things up a bit three weeks later 14th of June Paris Falls yeah I mean I think just just to expand I mean I'm doubtful that Hitler made that decision to actually halt uh uh the th there's quite a lot of pressure coming from uh the German generals themselves saying look almost all our tanks are

34:02 Knack it now we are running out of fuel we need to do maintenance we've also got quite a lot down here to the South and there's another plan this is plan yellow there's plan red uh you know that actually says we've got to actually deal with the rest of the French and British to the South mustn't forget we've got 60 French divisions and two British divisions back here south of the Som so they're actually thinking we we might actually have to deal with a Counterattack here we may have to go and deal with them there and quite a lot of German correspondents within the Army itself is saying you know we want to Halt um and it's only Garian who's saying well actually if you won't let me attack I'll do a reconnaissance in force I may come into contact with the enemy of course which is a neat trick um but in fact this this sort of momentum has

34:49 run out of steam um they can't actually go any further um that's the point uh and if you look at the ammunition stocks and you look at the fuel you look at the maintenance requirement at this stage the Germans are genuinely worried that actually if they put their armored formations in they're going to get a Ming um that's when of course they bring in the lffa uh and say right you need to deal with this if you can while we Face South and that's quite an interesting study if you look at it in detail everybody thinks Hitler makes the decision I'm not sure that's the case I think the Germans say to Hitler look we expose ourselves here really badly and what what you see throughout the second world war and Chris is right they're really surprised at their own success both with the Japanese and the Germans

35:35 is consolidating what you've won happens at Pearl Harbor we won't continue the attack we've done well enough already and there's a bit of that here to tell you the truth um and so it's quite an interesting case but we mustn't forget you know we we know that Paris fell uh uh on the 18th we know that they surrendered on the 22nd but at this stage they didn't know that there's quite substantial forces to the South um and if you're the Germans you're thinking well what would we do here we consolidate and it's only when they bring huge amounts of Firepower uh from the air and also from their armored uh divisions that the French are already demoralized and frankly ready to give up their High command at that stage is saying look unless we give up now Paris

36:23 is going to fall to the Communists I mean vand who's the general who takes over from gaman actually says the real R we got is not so much the Nazis but the Communists taking over like they did with a commune in 1870 and there's a real fear that there's going to be a breakdown of Law and Order in in France if they don't get an Armistice none of this is known to the Germans so you know we don't need to be determinative here in relation to what would have happened but the fact of life is you know the French army demoralized um Germans are saying you know our our L weer controls the skies we never see any Allied planes um it's all over for us up here well there we go that's the real history now let's undo all of that this is history [Music]

37:13 undone okay now let's ask ourselves some really big questions and could the blitz Cree campaign have played out differently Chris copson I want to start with you the first thing is if the Allies are on to it a bit more if they're expecting it a bit more if it does doesn't catch them by surprise and if they're not having this false assumption that the majino line and the natural defenses that they assume the aren will provide if they're not banking on that and they approached it differently could they have blunted the threat of the German attack I think that is entirely possible um the thing you have to remember is that for the I mean the the the share point um the point of Maximum Impact

37:58 is down in the Arden and it involves getting across the Ms and um going very very quickly across country um and this is roml Garian um the thing that really does uh destabilize um French High command is when sedon Falls and there appears to be a mass of German troops piling through cross Ms and heading in into you know the depths of the country um as I said earlier um the MS is weekly defended um the the French ninth Army it's general office commanding isn't up to the job uh they are mostly uh fairly elderly reservists if they'd actually

38:43 thought if they' made use of the intel was coming through and earlier on um Chris P mentioned that you know the likes of the Swiss are saying well hang on a second there are things happening here if they'd actually had the she noose to realize that um Belgium is the matador's cloak and the serious threat was down in the Ard if they' moved units in there and done more to actually hold the MS I mean an opposed River Crossing on a river like Ms is not an easy thing to do I think it's entirely possible they could have held up uh the the German thrust across the m and that would have put an entirely

39:30 different complexion on the whole thing uh whether that would actually mean that um army Group B up in the north um has rather more to do um in terms of they the the main offensive thrust switches to them but what it would have done is I mean when sedon Falls as I said you know the heart goes out of the um um French High command yeah oh cool we have lost stop that happening might have been a different uh an entirely different scenario I mean Chris Par do you agree with that I mean I suppose in essence you've got to stop them somewhere and and would the MS have been the most realistic place to stop them I think we're got to look at French psychology here um sedan's really

40:18 important this is the site of a famous battle in the 18771 um war and it sticks in the French memory here it's a real nightmare but of course in 18771 the Germans went straight for Paris so even if you're thinking they're coming from that direction what you're worried about is that turned down to the Southwest by the way could they have done that could they have just gone that way they could have done that and I mean it's interesting you Chris says you know about how weak the French are here we got to bear in mind that 45% of the German Army is over 40 so they've got experience but you know they're getting on a bit and over 50 50% of them have only had about a few weeks training so the German sort of ability to get people together and and fight together is quite

41:05 extraordinary in this so that that is another Force multiplier the fact of life is if you knew they were coming through the ardens forest and your gaman and gaman said when he was told that the Germans might do to France what they did to Poland he said look France isn't Poland you know look at look at what we've got here um but he actually said yeah if we do get a problem like this and one of the big things in Warfare is assuming uh that something isn't possible if you can't do it yourself yeah okay so it's not impossible it's possible and that's what the ger the French made a big mistake with regard to this is the ardens is possible uh they as we saw they didn't take any account of the intelligence it didn't suit their

41:50 picture of the sort of war that they wanted to fight so the French essentially are fighting the war they want to fight rather than the one they've got in front of them they make no attempt as I said earlier to block the AR the ardens forest their reconnaissance must be suspicious when all your aircraft are being shot down that there's something going on there um and in fact the French are discussing that if we do get a punch through here um in the Ardent what we'll do is we'll pinch off the shoulders of the attack but they don't have the forces in place to do that the aviation the artillery or indeed the armor to be able to do that Charles the G's got it he he has a go at that on one side but he hasn't got the aviation or the artillery to do that and so they just go forward uh it's as

42:35 simple as that it I mean what's extraordinary about the Arden is of course they show it to the French um in 1940 and they do it again in 1944 to the Allies it's quite extraordinary that people don't cover this sector I mean the Germans love the place yeah um Chris copson is there a scenario in which if the majino line spreads further north North that that changes things well the problem with that is that um the mar line was constructed on obviously the uh Franco German border the reason it doesn't go any further north two one is the actual geology um a lot of the land is low Ling it's not suited to building the sort of uh

43:20 fortifications that you need um for something like the magino line um and the other thing is that up to 9 1936 Belgium is an ally in 1936 Belgium becomes neutral and that totally changes things um I mean the belgians have actually built a line of fortresses um on their Bor on the AL Canal um I mean um Chris P mentioned earlier um German Glide assault on the massive fortifications at eban and mile um but the problem is that you don't build um a for a massive fortified line um between yourself and an ally a friendly country 36 that changes 36 are right

44:09 okay well we' actually got the invited into Belgium um if an invasion starts that will put us on the back foot but we are still going to push forward and what we'll do instead is to move up to um Plan D the defensive line that they' projected on the river dial so I mean those are the reasons why the mno line doesn't go all the way through to the coast one of the things I think we're underestimating here is the dominance of the Germans in the air um they're generating probably three times the salty rate that the uh allies are the French aren't even putting their best bombers in there because they're anticipating a long war that will save them for later um and they've got some of the best fighters as well the ms406

44:55 really good fighter but they don't actually get them up in the air they don't have a a control system be able to get them to operate with the Army um and I think in this in this respect if you look at the MS Crossing uh throughout that crossing the Germans generated 4,000 sorties on one day alone a thousand sorties the other issue is that the Germans have got nearly 10,000 anti-aircraft guns rapid firing in the famous 88 mm and nearly 56% of Allied aircraft are lost to groundfire so this is an element that is always underestimated and under considerer in this battle and if you're going to do this properly let's just have a look at D-Day the Allies generate

45:42 14,200 sorties on the 6th of June 1944 against the Germans 600 now look at that Pro prance it took to actually defeat the Germans yeah the Germans have managed to do that much smaller scale but of course the ratios um you know are quite critical here and I think that's one aspect of so-called Blitz cre that is underestimated at the expense of the armor just one final thought on on how the campaign itself could have played out differently you know we've obviously been discussing really how Blitz greed could have been stopped but it it could have been even more successful for the Germans could it not Chris copson because as we've discussed if Aras doesn't happen the way it happens if the Dunkirk evacuation doesn't go ahead I mean I mean you're

46:27 talking about some enormous long-term consequences for the rest of the war yes um if the Battle of ARS hadn't been fought um I mean as chrisp was saying earlier um the I mean the panzas have done a colossal number of miles they are actually needing to uh to Halt they are needing uh to rest and refit and resupply but if Aris hadn't happened I'm quite convinced the likes of gadarian and roml would have kept on going and that would have meant that the long uh streams of Allied troops retreating north towards the coast would have been cut off that pocket would have been pinched off um

47:15 Dunkirk would have happened and you'd have 330 Allied soldiers either killed or going into German into um German captivity um and the reason where actually Dunkirk is thought of as a victory I mean as Churchill said Retreats are not victories effectively but it does mean that we've got the core of an army uh which will'll be able to fight again um this is going to be a bit um or I'm G to stray off subject here um but I was think British tanks in 1940 are junk they really are I was thinking one of the advantages of dunker is the fact we had to leave all that rubbish behind in

48:01 France and go and find something better that's just that's that's that's just me straying off the subject but no potentially if they'd managed to roll through through Advil um and cut off the coast um that would have been an utter disaster Chris P yeah I think you know it one thing we have to really consider here it is possible to defeat this type of warfare we've hinted at it already and if you go later on in the war if you are the sort of opponent who can absorb the initial shock you've got defense in depth and you've got the aviation and the artillery to be able to hit the head of the uh assault from uh the flags then you're going to defeat this cuz they tried it again at the

48:46 Battle of the Bulge absolutely and if you remember Camp group Piper was destroyed in that way exactly that way it was the most advanced uh Camp group that got in the battle the bul and if you think about it on a bigger scale the Battle of KK is that yes it's defeated entirely um this combined armed approach to defeated entirely by absorbing the shock defense in depth and being able to funnel artillery in particular Aviation again uh and enough troops to be able to staunch the wound if you like and that's how you defeat the so-called combined arm approach Blitz Creek of the Germans that's how you do it and dare I say it that's how we were going to do it during the Cold War if the Russians ever came Westward and we're going to use Aviation

49:33 we're going to used Mass fire power to destroy U an enemy that had penetrated into Germany well I'll tell you what this has been really interesting because it's told us that actually you know Blitz cre what's become known as Blitz Creek wasn't necessarily inevitably going to work it could have played out very differently so let's hold that thought and ask ourselves if it had played out differently what some of the long-term consequences would have been [Music] okay we've zoomed out again now we've got our big map of Continental Europe in front of us um Dr Chris Parry I mean first of all as we explore some of these long-term consequences of Blitz Creek we should probably just answer did it achieve its aims both from a military but also from a political

50:18 perspective well I think uh obviously from a military point of view uh the matador's cloak and the sickle cut work perfectly um and is used in reductive terms now now to justify all sorts of modern Doctrine to tell you the truth so yes of course it worked um was what was the political intention uh in the end um I'm not sure what the political intention was initially it certainly wasn't to take over the whole of France uh it was certainly to uh get Belgium and the Netherlands I think it was to push the French back to a point where they would probably have an Armistice convinced Britain too actually that was probably worth coming to the peace table I think it's only once they turn South and start taking on the remainder o of the French

51:04 divisions and the two British divisions that they realize actually there's more to this uh that we can exploit and certainly if you look at the Hitler conferences with his generals they're always exploring the possibilities at each stage here mustn't forget Italy comes in on The Winning Side once it's obvious that the Germans are going to win they're looking for all sorts of um uh Terr torial Acquisitions they actually Advance into the Alps and get absolutely hammered by the French the French lose 200 and the the Italians lose 6,000 um so they're not very well placed to exploit this in military terms um but of course it's additional pressure on the French one of the things I that that strikes me in this is is that the German generals have created a situation where

51:52 things are moving too fast uh for the brains of the French General to be able to cope with it uh and the Germans are saying look we're making our action on the ground we're learning as we're doing uh we're forcing you to react and frankly your system isn't capable of reacting nor by the way gaman are you capable of coordinating the range of forces that you have under your command in within your authoritarian system we've got Mission command we delegate downwards and one of the big rules of of second world war Warfare is you need to be authoritarian in organization in other words to have a great grip on what you've got but you need to deregulate decentralized in terms of operation and that's what the french are

52:39 incapable of doing so the tempo is increased by the Germans things are happening all over the place German generals can't react and all of them show signs of having nervous breakdowns it's quite extraordinary people are Weeping on their beds people you see Lord Gort you go to see so John Dill coming in the chief of the general staff and he finds German generals weeping and having emotional crisis and right at the end the French government is virtually overthrown by a combination of generals who say France will fall apart if we don't get an Armistice and Peta vant who are pretty right-wing anyway are saying look it'll fall to the Communists if we don't do something here and the Armistice is forced essentially by the

53:25 high command not by the Pol Ians Chris copson Chris Perry made a really interesting point there about obviously the fact that as Blitz cre is happening the Italians haven't formerly joined the war so let's just say that blitzk is stopped at the MS do the Italians join the War I think probably they don't I think they um I mean they musini jumps in when he realizes that um the German Army has been massively successful and he sees the opportunity uh to as Chris said uh make territorial gains in the Mediterranean and especially in North Africa um but I

54:10 think it would have been um he'd been thinking slightly different if if the German Army has been fought to a standstill um on the Ms and up in Belgium that puts an entirely different um light on things um and and I don't think he would necessarily have have have jumped in because of course we've got another fascist dictator Franco who not through the entire War um doesn't make that jump he actually very very PR German he's been helped um out in the Spanish Civil War massively um but at the same time he is resolutely not entering into the armed conflict uh despite the fact that he

54:56 could probably have um again made territorial gains potentially expanded the um Spanish possessions in North Africa um that he I think rather wisely sits on the fence well musini think no mus yeah if you look at if you again if you look at the Italian archives the discussion they're having internally at the time is well how about we just take Malta okay we'll take Malta okay but it's going to fall into our lap anyway in because Britain's going to surrender um the other thing that he says to his generals is well you know we'll make a push in the Alps we'll declare war but we're not going to fight he actually says that I I mean so that tells you what the Italian position is in these situations um okay let let's just go

55:41 with this scenario that Blitz G is stopped at the MS because we kind of discussed that might have been one of the most realistic points therefore you don't get the fall of Paris therefore you don't get vishy France oh yeah I mean the whole situation then becomes I think very much like the first World War uh you've got a face off uh well even more like Ukraine today I suspect that's what it looks like a very ragged front line got the majino line still intact of course um so the Germans are pretty stuck on On the Border there they've taken over Belgium and the Netherlands but the really intriguing Prospect is that in 1938 when Hitler went into Czechoslovakia there was a German Army plot to say if this isn't successful

56:26 we're going to overthrow Hitler and that persists right through to this point here and one of the things that people have found out recently is that Hower and the general staff are saying again if this doesn't work then what we're going to do is we're going to overthrow the regime and of course it's the fact that it works so spectacularly that of course the German army goes well you know he's been right twice now three times now he's been right and of course then it leads to to Barbarosa but what's really intriguing is if howder and Hower was very nervous about it uh that actually what he'd been doing uh was uh below the radar and later on in the war of course he's actually arrested um in 1944 and very narrowly escapes at the

57:13 end of the war what would have happened with the German Army saying right you were wrong Hitler you were wrong Nazi party we're now we' we've mobilized 4 million troops by the way we're in a position now to reverse this so you then think that we have like a military coup in in Germany and the Hitler's replaced by a leading general uh I think it's it's highly possible you never know um Kaiser vilhelm the second might have made a comeback he's living in Dawn in the Netherland and he actually says to Hitler during the campaign if you need me I'm here and Hitler goes what I can't believe he just said that Chris do you agree with that um I think that's entirely possible um I mean Hitler is born on this tide of

58:00 success but he certainly in the in in terms of over Commander DE after general staff he's still not popular um I think the other thing though of course is um what would happen in the East now imagine that the German Army has been fought to a stand still it's heavily committed in the west um there's a BL called Stalin now I know the um motov ribbon PCT but you know Nazi Germany and the USSR they're not the best of buddies as is demonstrated in 1941 but does Stalin see the opportunity now I've already got part Poland can I grab the rest um if he thinks that uh the German

58:45 Army is overcommitted is weakened in the west if he thinks there's possibility of a conquest take Poland and then well okay we're at War let's see where we go from there um would the uh Red Army have rolled Westward that's a really interesting point I mean that that of course Chris was the Neurosis in 1941 ahead of Barbarosa anyway the the Germans were thinking that they were going to be attacked we all thought it was a propaganda move but actually you look again at the records the Germans are thinking well do we hit them before they hit us yeah um and I think it's a really really uh valid prospect that the Russians would have exploited that what

59:30 I find interesting about the Russians at this stage is they're very interested in the Baltic and so yeah uh this area here now would the Germans have withdrawn from Norway and Denmark as a result would they have been forced to do so by the Allies probably as part of any sort of settlement so that's interesting if you look at the molotov ribon pack what Russia wanted of part of that was Denmark and why was that so they can control the Baltic which is one of their big neuroses um and the Germans said there's no way you're doing that we we've got an interest in the Baltic as well but it was part of the demands from the Russians at the time so you're looking you know the Russians even if they're not coming against the Germans they might have another go at Finland

1:00:15 because they've got a score to settle there after the winter War they're also going to push into probably the Balkans maybe yeah so I think it's very Fant Stalin was always an opportunist so that that is entirely I think a valid Prospect couple of really really and I need you to be super brief on these other counteracts put out there first of all does Churchill even come to power Chris Perry If Blitz Creek has failed okay uh he's he's coming to power just as uh it starts so he's there I mean I think the critical uh thing with this is you know what is the appetite of Britain to continue waging a war that does look like the first world war for example how how does do you deal with that I mean we have to bear in mind there was a a

1:01:01 really really serious debate between Churchill and Halifax as to whether once this had started and it looked like France was going to collapse whether we should actually come into an Armistice as well yeah Churchill's there you know there's no doubt about that um I think what's interesting is if you have an Armes and you settle along certain lines you're almost certain to have a general election so so yes so would church have been reelected under those circumstances um not sure so much to unpick here we could talk about this for hours I'm afraid that is all we've got time for but I think what we've learned today is that first of all blitz creig could have failed it wasn't guaranteed necessarily to be the success that it ended up being from a military perspective at least and had it failed let's say the Germans had been stopped at the river Ms what could

1:01:49 the long-term consequences have been well first of all Paris doesn't fall you don't get Vichy France and you end up with a second world war that looks a l lot more like the first world war trench warfare attritional Warfare what then happens as a result and how does Stalin in the USSR feel about that does he sense an opportunity therefore that if the Germans are bogged down in this attritional trench warfare much like World War I does he think hang on I've already got half of Poland I'm going to push further into Poland maybe I'm going to look at the baltics maybe I'm going to look at Finland can I end up getting Denmark even very very significant consequences and crucially what does melini do he almost certainly doesn't enter the war because he was inspired by the success of Blitz Greek he was a bit of a glory Hunter he wanted to come in

1:02:34 behind the Germans does that happen if Blitz creig fails and also crucially what happens to Hitler personally because if he is a busted flush if his great strategy of Blitz C and rolling into the low countries in France fails then is he Ed by a coup a military coup in Germany does the Nazi regime fall and is is Hitler replac some massive long-term consequences all stemming from what became known as The Blitz Creek campaign that is all we've got time for today my thanks to Chris copson and reare Admiral Dr Chris Parry for joining me and we'll be back undoing more battles from history very soon but in the meantime remember to like this video And subscribe to our Channel times radio history on YouTube and if you like this why not subscribe to times radio's main

1:03:20 Channel where you can also catch me presenting Frontline our interview series about the war in Ukraine and other Global conflicts and we'll see you next time goodbye [Music]