Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "Eastory"
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@Ludo M The French army in 1939 consisted of 900,000 regulars, together with a further five million men who had undergone regular training and could be called up with little delay.
At the outbreak of war in September 1939, the British Army in the United Kingdom consisted of four infantry divisions up to strength, and one under strength infantry division (the 5 Infantry Division). The recently formed 1 Armoured Division was slowly being equipped with tanks and was undertaking training. There were twelve other infantry battalions scattered around the U.K.
The bulk of the British Army was to the be found in the twelve first line Territorial Army divisions and twelve second line divisions. Most of the personnel in these formations were still undergoing basic training and the divisions were poorly equipped, particularly in terms of artillery and machine guns.
The priority for the British Army was to put together an expeditionary force for deployment to France. This was in anticipation of a German invasion of Belgium and The Netherlands to reach France, in a similar manner to what happened in 1914. The 1 Infantry Division and 2 Infantry Division left immediately for France, with the embryonic I Corps headquarters formed from elements of Aldershot Command. The 3 Infantry Division and 4 Infantry Division followed soon afterwards, allowing II Corps to be formed in France.
By May, 1940, the BEF in France consisted of 13 divisions, of which 5 were regular, 5 Territorial, and 3 semi-trained divisions to be used in second-line duties. There was also 1 Armoured Division and 1 Army Tank Brigade.
The 'only' 500,000 men represented every operational division available to the British in May, 1940. Indeed, three of the divisions were neither trained nor equipped. Would you suggest that the British should have sent men who were in the early stages of training, or even those who had been in the army for a matter of days?
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@andreleclerc7231 Lord Gort thought he would have 2-3 weeks to prepare for the arrival of the Germans at the Dyle because he had received assurances to that effect from his superior, Gamelin. Gamelin was confident that Belgian built anti-tank defences at the Gembloux Gap and along the Dyle would enable the British & French quickly to establish defensive positions, and the French 7th Army would link up with Dutch forces via Breda. As Julian Jackson ( 'The Fall of France. The Nazi Invasion of 1940' OUP 2003,) wrote :- ' The fall of France can be greatly attributed to the poor strategic planning of the French High Command.'
As early as 15 May, Paul Reynaud telephoned Churchill to say "We have been defeated. We are beaten; we have lost the battle." Churchill immediately flew to Paris, to be told by Gamelin that the French Army had no strategic reserve.
On 19 May, General Edmund Ironside, the British Chief of the Imperial General Staff,conferred with Gort at his headquarters near Lens. He urged Gort to save the BEF by attacking south-west toward Amiens. Gort replied that seven of his nine divisions were already engaged on the Scheldt River and he had only two divisions left to mount such an attack. He then said that he was under the orders of General Billotte, the commander of the French 1st Army Group but that Billotte had issued no orders for eight days. Ironside confronted Billotte, whose own headquarters was nearby and found him apparently incapable of taking action.
At this point, Weygand devised a plan for an attack southward by the trapped Allied forces in the north. This information was disclosed to Billotte, but not to Gort. When Billotte was killed in a car crash on 23 May, 1st Army Group was left leaderless for three days, and knowledge of the plan was lost. King Leopold, by the way, on 21 May had announced that the Belgian Army could not conduct offensive operations, as it lacked tanks and aircraft and that unoccupied Belgium had enough food for only two weeks. Leopold did not expect the BEF to endanger itself to keep contact with the Belgian Army but warned that if it persisted with the southern offensive, the Belgian army would collapse. Leopold suggested the establishment of a beach-head covering Dunkirk and the Belgian channel ports.
There were two local allied offensives at the time, by the way. On 21 May the British & French attacked attacked southward at Arras, and on 22 May the French attacked from the south at Cambrai. Neither force knew of the other, and no attempt seems to have been made to co-ordinate the two.
There is much more in this vein, but in short Gort had totally lost any confidence he might have had in his superiors, did not believe Weygand capable of rescuing the situation ( apparently by establishing a 'Flanders Redoubt' using ports no longer in allied hands), and, in the absence of coherent orders to the contrary, began a withdrawal to Dunkirk, thus making possible the evacuation of 192,000 British & 140, 000 French troops trapped in the north. On 28 May, the British 3rd Division made an overnight march to block the gap in the allied line resulting from the surrender of the Belgian army.
Immediately after Dynamo, the British began landing a 'Reconstituted BEF' in Cherbourg, only to be told by Weygand that the French army was no longer able to offer organised resistance.
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@andreleclerc7231 With a population of around 41 million, the British managed to build and man the largest navy on earth. Moreover, a navy which, by the imposition of a blockade by the Northern Patrol, played a major role in the defeat of Kaiser Bill's Germany by, effectively, starving it to defeat.
Fighting a war on the cheap! You really don't have a clue, do you?
By the way, military casualties in WW2.
UK 383,700 ( 0.82% of population )
France 210,000 ( 0.50% of population )
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@andreleclerc7231 Perhaps you are truly ignorant of the facts, or perhaps you have allowed your prejudices to blind you to them. The Allied (largely, French dominated) plan for 1939-40 was for a defensive strategy to be followed. The bulk of the French army would stand behind the Maginot Line, whilst the best French, and the (entirely motorised) BEF units would move up in support of Belgium. British & Commonwealth contribution on land would be gradually increased, as conscription (which did not exist in Britain in peacetime) was introduced in the UK, and troops from the Commonwealth ( Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, mainly) and Empire (India) were ferried to France by the Royal Navy. At the same time, the Royal Navy would re-impose the blockade on Germany which had been so successful in WW1. In other words, a re-run of WW1.
It should have worked. 135 Allied divisions ought to have been able to fight a defensive battle against 141 German ones, especially since the Allies had a significant superiority in armour, and the bulk of the French army was secure behind formidable defences.
Perhaps the question you should ask yourself is, why didn't it? Do you really believe that, had the BEF been twice the size it actually was (20 divisions instead of 10, perhaps) it would have made any difference at all when the French army largely disintegrated in a matter of days? In other words, what was the difference between the French army of WW1, which fought so gallantly and doggedly, and the French army of WW2, which, for the most part, apparently didn't?
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@andreleclerc7231 You do know that the High Commands of the British & French armies talked to each other, I trust? If the British had promised thirty divisions and turned up with ten , you might have had a case, albeit a flimsy case, but the reality is that the French planners knew exactly what the British brought with them in any alliance, which was unchallenged control of the sea (enabling France, as well as Britain to bring in troops from overseas), the support of a modern air force, and a small, but professional and fully motorised army. The French even knew what the size of the BEF would be.
Incidentally, an army of 93 divisions, supported by 40 allied (Belgian & British) mainly behind prepared defensive positions, should have been able to fight successfully against an enemy army of 141 divisions, few of which were armoured or even motorised.
What happened in 1930? The Rhineland was re-occupied in 1936, when the Deuxieme Bureau claimed that the Germans had used 295,000 troops, rather than the 3000 they actually used, and General Gamelin informed his government that the could not be expelled without full mobilisation, which was unacceptable because of the French economic situation at the time.
Certainly, there was little support for intervention in Britain either, but as Britain had no means of responding unless France did, and as France, despite your charmingly ill-informed belief to the contrary, had no intention of doing anything, this was academic in any case.
So, this comment 'They tried to rally the UK to face them in the '30' is simply nonsensical, in more ways than one.
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@andreleclerc7231 Oh, so you claim to know what Churchill did or did not mean, now? Oh well.
As to the 'Token Force' that forced the French into Belgium, haven't you even heard of Escaut/PlanE or Dyle/PlanD? You should have, as they were the brainchild of Maurice Gamelin. The 'Token Force' was actually the French 1st Army Group, which consisted of the French 1st, 2nd, 7th, & 9th Armies, and the BEF. A total of 38 French Divisions, & 12 British Divisions. 5 of the French Divisions were armoured. The French First Army Group was the best-equipped French Army Group at the time, by the way. Add to that 22 Belgian Divisions, and 9 Dutch Divisions, and that gives you a total of 81 Divisions. The whole purpose of the Plan was to prevent a German thrust around the north of the Maginot Line.
I do admire your amusing claim that the Ardennes was guarded, but not with enough people. Brilliant! Do you really not understand the difference between defensive & offensive operations? Do you really not appreciate the advantages of fighting a battle from prepared defensive positions? You really cannot truly be as ill-informed as you pretend.
As to 'vetting' do you really believe that the British forces which supported the US invasion of Iraq had any influence at all over the plan determined by Norman Schwarzkopf and his staff? Of course not. Do you really believe that the French High Command with 90 divisions would have been swayed by the opinions of the British, with their 12, two of which were territorial units not ready for front line action? Of course not. Just as the Admiralty would not have agreed to alter their dispositions of the Royal Navy on French suggestions.
Have you heard of the French General Pretelat? You should have. In 1938 he organised a military exercise, using seven divisions, representing a German force, in which he inflicted a severe defeat upon the opposing French forces. Where? You ask. THE BLOODY ARDENNES, that's where. In point of fact, the defeat was more of a rout. Much like what happened in 1940, actually. Read about it in 'The Fall of France.' ( Oxford: Osprey, 2000.) by Martin Evans. Gamelin knew about the Ardennes danger, but did nothing about it. Apart from guarding it with 'not enough men' of course.
Seriously, I really don't feel like wasting any further time trying to educate you and correcting the more asinine of your posts. Therefore, I choose to cease reading your nonsense as of now.
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