Why Was France Defeated So Quickly During WW2?

00:06

One of the most dramatic and unexpected  events of WWII was the collapse of France  

00:11

and the Low Countries in 1940. France was the most  powerful military power in the world at the time.

00:22

Britain, its ally, was the largest naval  force. Both had greater economies than  

00:30

Germany and could draw resources from  the world's most powerful empires.

00:37

Yet, the Germans defeated France, Britain,  Belgium and the Netherlands in a short campaign.

00:44

The defeat of this formidable  army in under six weeks in 1940,  

00:48

stands as one of the most remarkable  military campaigns in history.

00:57

Following the heavy casualties in the First  World War for France, around 40% of the active  

01:02

male population, the French military rejected  the concept of improvised unplanned offensives.

01:11

They intended to stay on the defensive  in western Europe while mobilizing  

01:14

their military forces and industrial  base in preparation for a total war.  

01:21

They expected to launch the offensive two  to three years after hostilities began.

01:29

During the 1930s, the French  constructed the Maginot Line,  

01:33

a series of fortifications  along the German border.

01:37

The line was intended to save manpower  

01:39

by diverting a German invasion beyond  the Franco–German border into Belgium  

01:44

where it could be confronted by the  French Army's strongest divisions.

01:49

The war would be fought  outside of French territory  

01:51

avoiding the destruction of the First World War.

01:57

The main stretch of the Maginot Line ran  from the Swiss border to Longwy with the  

02:01

hills and woods of the Ardennes region,  supposed to cover the area to the north.

02:08

The Ardennes Forest and the Meuse River  according to French military authorities  

02:13

were "impenetrable" and a death  trap for any attacking force.

02:19

In general, the slow-paced,  attritional fighting of World War One  

02:22

heavily influenced French military  strategy at the onset of World War Two.

02:32

Following the German invasion of Poland on  September 3, 1939, France declared war on Germany.  

02:39

They launched the limited Saar  Offensive in early September 1939  

02:43

and had withdrew to their  starting positions by mid-October.

02:49

Hitler was keen to follow up his triumph over  Poland in 1939 with an invasion in the west  

02:55

but bad weather forced the  planned offensive to be postponed.

03:02

The invasion finally began on May 10,  1940, with German air raids on Belgium  

03:07

and Holland followed by parachute  drops and ground troops operations.

03:14

The British and French had  responded to the initial  

03:16

offensive by implementing a plan to  push to the River Dyle in Belgium.  

03:22

The Allies pushed their strongest forces  into Belgium including the British.

03:30

The two opposing armies were nearly  equal in troop numbers and divisions.

03:35

The French and British forces had nearly a 3 to  2 advantage in the number of tanks and a 2 to  

03:40

1 advantage in guns. However, The Germans had a  significant advantage in the number of aircraft.

03:52

Light Panzer II and even lighter Panzer I tanks,  made up the bulk of the German tank force.

03:58

The German Army lacked a heavy  tank like the French Char B1.  

04:05

French tanks were better designs, more  numerous and with superior armour and armament  

04:09

but slower and with inferior mechanical  reliability than the German designs.

04:16

The German Army had equipped radios in all of  its tanks allowing for greater command control  

04:21

during battle. In comparison, just 80% of  French tanks were equipped with radios.

04:33

The initial plans were for an invasion  through the Low Countries (Case Yellow),  

04:37

similar to the Germans' Schlieffen Plan of 1914.

04:43

However, the German invasion preparations  were compromised and they switched to the  

04:47

Manstein Plan, which involved a deep  armored drive through the Ardennes  

04:51

(which the French believed impassable by armor).

04:58

By marching into the Low Countries,  

04:59

the Allies quickly demonstrated that  they were dancing to Hitler's tune.  

05:07

The first German forces emerged from the Ardennes  near Sedan on the Meuse River, on the 13th of May.

05:16

Though the German forces in the north faced  stiff resistance from the French and Belgians,  

05:20

the main German thrust through  the Ardennes was a huge success.

05:31

The French second-rate divisions in the area were  not prepared or equipped to deal with the major  

05:36

armoured thrust that developed and they were  hammered by relentless German bomber attacks.

05:44

Despite surprisingly tough resistance from  the French defenders and near-suicidal Allied  

05:49

air attacks, the Panzers crossed  the river in a two-day battle.

05:57

France was militarily organized to refight WWI  

06:01

and had dispersed its tanks across the army  to support the infantry, allowing weaker  

06:05

German tanks which were massed to repeatedly  overpower small groupings of French armor.

06:10

Two high-quality French armoured and motorised  divisions attempted a potentially decisive  

06:12

counterattack which devolved into furious  but ultimately inconclusive fighting.

06:15

The German Panzers broke out of their  bridgehead under the command of General  

06:18

Heinz Guderian, a pioneer of armoured  warfare. They started racing towards  

06:25

the Channel coast aided by the German  fighter planes that commanded the skies.

06:33

The British Expeditionary Force along  with the best units of the French army  

06:38

were still in the north and  had seen little fighting.

06:44

However, the German breakthrough to the  south prompted them to retreat quickly  

06:48

to avoid being cut off with  their backs to the sea.

06:54

With German forces pressing through Belgium  and Panzers looping up from the south and west,  

06:59

the Allies were trapped.  

07:04

On May 28, the Belgian army surrendered creating  a huge hole in the Allied forces' British flank.

07:16

German tactics were not just  modern but also aggressive.  

07:22

The panzer units took full advantage of deep  penetrations causing great chaos in the French  

07:27

Army which had never experienced  losing communication lines before.

07:33

The deep penetrations could have been easily  destroyed by French forces but they were not,  

07:38

owing to broken lines of communication and  senior command's inability to make decisions.

07:45

The Allied high command appeared paralyzed.

07:50

On May 20, German tanks arrived at Amiens,  

07:53

essentially trapping the British who fled to  Dunkirk in the hope of escaping to England.

08:02

Mutual distrust plagued the Allies with  the French bemoaning Britain's decision  

08:06

to remove the RAF from France and the British  believing the French lacked the resolve to fight.

08:15

Between May 26 and June 4, a hastily  organized maritime evacuation  

08:20

codenamed Operation Dynamo rescued  338,000 Allied troops from Dunkirk.

08:31

The Germans swung southwards on June 5 and  the French resistance ultimately collapsed  

08:35

though not without a fight. On the 10th of  June, Italy entered the war on Germany's side.

08:49

Four days later Paris, the French capital fell  

08:52

provoking the flight of the  French Government to Bordeaux.

08:58

The surrender of France on June  22 marked the end of the battle.

09:05

Hitler insisted on signing the surrender  document in the same railway carriage  

09:08

used when Germany surrendered in 1918.  The humiliation of France was complete.

09:18

The collapse of France was  both sudden and unexpected.  

09:22

It upended Europe's power balance and  rendered the strategic assumptions  

09:25

on which Britain had prepared to  defeat Hitler obsolete overnight.

09:35

Historians attribute the French defeat on  low morale and a divided pre-war society.  

09:41

This may be true, but the Germans were a far  superior military force (although not in numbers).

09:51

The Germans were more disciplined, better trained  and had recent combat experience in Poland whereas  

09:57

the French Army was completely untested and led  by WWI generals who were past retirement age.

10:05

The Germans made better use of their  mechanization and maneuverability  

10:09

and they benefited from air superiority. German  military doctrine was more advanced and German  

10:17

commanders handled high-tempo operations  far better than their Allied counterparts.

10:25

The French were totally unprepared  for the German Plan of attack.

10:31

However, the risky blitzkrieg strategy's success  

10:34

led the Germans to bet even more heavily on  their next big operation, the invasion of Russia.  

10:41

But, the gamble backfired this time with  catastrophic implications for the Nazi regime.