It aimed at no decision. It didn’t even anticipate a victory over France.
The initial proposal, produced on Hitler’s orders by the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH), or army command, in October 1939, hoped merely to defeat large portions of the Allied armies and gain territory in Holland, Belgium, and northern France “for successful air and sea operations against Britain and as a broad protective zone for the Ruhr” industrial region east of Holland.
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Once the Germans tipped their hand, the Allies intended to throw forward strong forces to meet the Germans in Belgium, though it was the wrong thing to do. The sensible course would be to remain in already prepared defenses along the Belgian frontier, or withdraw to the Somme River fifty miles south, form a powerful defensive line, take advantage of the Allies’ two-to-one superiority in artillery, and launch a counterstroke against the exposed southern flank of the Germans as they drove westward.
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But France had suffered great devastation in World War I and did not want to fight the next war on French soil.
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They expected to use the Dyle, a north-flowing river some fifteen miles east of Brussels, as the main defensive barrier, sending their most mobile forces forty miles farther east to the Meuse (Maas) River to slow the German advance.
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It required their main forces to abandon already built fortifications along the frontier, move rapidly to the Dyle, and dig a new defensive line in the two or three days they were likely to have before the Germans arrived.
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They anticipated a stalemate, the same condition the Germans had to accept at the end of the autumn battles in 1914. The only improvement would be that the coast of northern France, Belgium, and Holland would be available to pursue a naval and air war against Britain.
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With Rundstedt’s approval, Manstein proposed that the main weight of the German attack be shifted to Army Group A and the Ardennes, a heavily forested region of low mountains in eastern Belgium and northern Luxembourg. He advocated that the vast bulk of Germany’s ten panzer divisions be concentrated there to press through to Sedan on the Meuse River, cross it before a substantial French defense could be set up, then turn westward and drive through virtually undefended territory to the English Channel. This would cut off all the Allied armies in Belgium and force them to surrender.
Manstein urged that a major decoy offensive still should be launched into northern Belgium and Holland under Army Group B, commanded by Fedor von Bock. Bock’s armies should make as much noise as possible to convince the Allies that the main effort was coming just where they expected it. This would induce them to commit most of their mobile forces to Belgium. The farther they advanced, the more certain would be their destruction.
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Walther von Brauchitsch, commander of the Germany army, and Franz Halder, chief of the army staff, did not like the idea of their plan being tossed out, and they did not share Manstein and Guderian’s enthusiasm for tanks.
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Manstein and Guderian were certain the Meuse could be breached quickly with only panzer divisions and Luftwaffe bombers, and they believed speed would guarantee that the French would not have time to bring up enough troops to stop them. Speed also would ensure that few enemy units would be in place to block the panzers as they drove right across France to the Channel.
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On February 17, Manstein was summoned to Berlin to report to Hitler for an interview and luncheon, along with other newly appointed corps commanders.
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On February 17, Manstein was summoned to Berlin to report to Hitler for an interview and luncheon, along with other newly appointed corps commanders.
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“I found him surprisingly quick to grasp the points which our army group had been advocating for many months past, and he entirely agreed with what I had to say,” Manstein wrote later.
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Manstein’s idea became known in the German army as the Sichelschnitt, or “sickle-cut plan,” an apt description signifying that a strong armored thrust would cut through the weak portion of the Allied defenses like a harvester’s sickle cut through soft stalks of grass or grain.
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It was a radical and astonishing transformation and the best military decision Adolf Hitler ever made. By shifting the Schwerpunkt to the Ardennes Hitler set up the conditions for an overwhelming victory that could transform the world.
Last time I was in the local church (rural SW France) I checked out the names on the World War I memorial. There were 20 or so dead from a population at the time of at most 300. What was striking was the last names that were no longer in the commune. A lot of families lost all their male heirs in the conflict.
I’m reminded of St. Cyr’s Class of 1914.
This was only possible because the French commander disastrously moved the mobile forces to the North and Belgium instead of leaving them as a mobile reserve.