Could France have stoped Germany?

[4444]

As a matter of interest, what were the four Polish ports other than Gdynia which you mentioned earlier?

could you please be a bit more careful when reading people who correspond with you, and could you please stop distorting what they wrote?

I wrote "Gdynia was not Poland’s only port – there were at least 4 of them".

The 4 that I had in mind were: Gotenhafen (Gdynia), Putzig (Putzk), Rixhoft (Wladyswowo) and Hela (Hel).

[4444]

Of course I am on occasions guilty of sloppy and imprecise phraseology. Such things inevitably occur because we have limited space on Feldgrau. It is therefore necessary to refine what one means if challenged. This is right, not wrong. I would recommend it to you

My view on this is as follows: if one writes nonsense, one should admit it and correct it. What you do instead is refining your nonsense and pretending it is still the same stuff as before.

There is also the question of whether your proposed modifications, even if correct, substantially alter the substance of what I wrote

indeed, these are 2 different things. Whether correcting nonsenses like “Gdynia was Poland’s only port” and “Danzig was a German port” is material, I leave it to right honourable correspondents of this forum to assess.

I was perfectly aware of Danzig's Free City status. However, it was still an almost entirely German port. Almost nobody else lived there.

There is a significant difference between “export through German ports, particularly Danzig”, and “it was still an almost entirely German port”. The former wrongly suggests that Danzig was in Germany, the latter delivers a vague notion of ethnicity issues.

However one looks at it, Danzig [I understand you mean Gdynia – 4444]was still the only port of any significance in Poland. A floating dock in Hela and fishing quays in a couple of other places won't change that

no, it was not the only port of any significance. The Fall Weiss campaign proved that militarily, Hela was at last as important. And the fact that Gdynia was a 125.000 city and Hela a small village does not change it.
.

I don't know why you keep pressing the Warsaw issue. If the official Polish ministry of defence atlas shows Warsaw surrounded by 16 September, why do you think you know better?

First, let me please tell you one thing: even if a statement is jointly endorsed by the President of the United Nations, Dalai Lama, Bill Gates and Jason Pipes, everyone can still challenge it, of course given he/she can provide reasonable arguments. Maybe in the country where you live once a Ministry of Defence has declared something it is cast in stone and one goes to prison for challenging this, but I presume elsewhere it is fortunately not the case. And by the way, if I prove the alleged German casualty figure of the Warshaw battle, namely 17.000, is endorsed by the Polish Ministry of Defence, you will consider the issue settled?

Second, the book in question is not “official Polish ministry of defence atlas”. It is published by a commercial publishing house, with co-operation of the Military Historical Institute.

Third, the map quoted does not show Warshaw surrounded. The map quoted shows military situation as I have described it – Warshaw having contact with 2 armies fleeing from the Bzura pocket.

Fourth, suggest you have a look at pages 132-133, titled “The Defense of Warszawa on September 1-28, 1939”, which is a section dedicated entirely to the defence of the capital. Narrative on page 132 reads black on white that the German ring around the city (“caklowita blokada”) was closed on Sep 22. I guess now you will no longer consider the Atlas binding and trustworthy?

The fact that Hela handled refugees in 1945 is irrelevant. Open beaches can handle refugees if the situation is desperate enough - and it was

Poland’s situation of Sep 39 was no less desperate than the German situation of Jan 1945.
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The main Polish naval base was on the north shore of Danzig harbour

beg your pardon? I think you will need lots of refining here.

Nope. I never wrote that Hela was "an obscure fishing port"

until you edit it, everyone can read what you have written. Just in case: “hope you are not going to come up with a list of obscure fishing villages as "ports" or Hela as the last Polish "port" to fall?”.

Considering that we are discussing a hypothetical situation, I think you are adopting an unsustainably definite tone in some matters. I don't think we can say anything "for sure" about French, German, Polish or Soviet intentions in these hypothetical circumstances. We can only deal in balances of probability

I do apply a sustainably definite tone where appropriate. It referred to Germans “for sure” shifting a material fraction ot their troops from Poland if onslaugthted by France, and the actual history of 1939 proves this beyond any reasonable doubt – OKW was shifting divisions to France even in case of a symbolic actual French action.

I would say I am on a much more safer ground here than you, claiming to be “absolutely sure” that Gdynia was Poland’s only port.

Wow! I am continually amazed at some of the things I am supposed to have written. i.e. ".....which is not to say that all 66 divisions were 66 Legion Etranger Divisions as you falsely attribute to me....." Firstly, I have never, at any point in this thread, mentioned the Legion Etrangere, and, secondly, no such Legion Etrangere Divisions existed. Please don't invent my posts. They probably contain quite enough inaccuracies without you creating new ones!

You have falsely attributed to me the opinion that all French divisions fielded in 1939 were elite troops. I see no reason why I am not allowed to fight your nonsense with mine.

Nope. It is not true that, of the German "first rate units" in the West (presumably the twelve or so Welle 1 infantry divisions?) "only a fraction were complete". In fact they were all up to strength. It was the 200-series infantry divisions that had shortages

False. Can you at least list the divisions you mean? The entire HG “C” had only 11 full-strength divisions deployed in the West.

It should also be pointed out that the "fraction" of the German divisions in the West made up of Welle 1 divisions was about a third and that they made up almost all the frontline formations on the only practicable French line of advance between the Luxembourg border and the Rhine

false again. Not “almost all”, but 73% (8 divisions vs 3).

Nope. Your final paragraph not only doesn't reflect what I have written, but it doesn't even agree with your own previous paragraph. When did the "first rate units" in your previous paragraph become the "second rate units" of your final paragraph?

I have already asked you to be a bit more careful when reading what other correspondends write and you stop distorting their posts. I wrote that a handful of German divisions were first-rate, which implies that all the rest were second rate (or worse).

But I think I have overestimated the quality of German troops. The first-rate divisions were overrunning Poland at that time.

**

Which is not to say I consider exciting questions like “was Gdynia Poland’s only port?”, “was Danzig a Free City or part of Germany?”, “were the German Welle 1. divions a fraction or a third of their Western troops?”, “what percentage of Welle 1. divisons were incomplete?” relevant for the problem “could 30 German divisions, the Western Wall and the Rhine have stopped the full-scale French onslaught?”

[sid guttridge]

Hi 4444,

I will read your whole post at leisure.

However, if it is based on your final presumption that I am discussing "could 30 German divisions, the Western Wall and the Rhine have stopped the full-scale French offensive" then it would founded on a false premise. It is blindingly obvious that without support the German defences in the West could not have held the French up indefinitely. This has never been at issue.

As I understand it, the discussion is whether a full-scale French offensive on or after 12 September was likely to have succeeded either in drawing off sufficient German forces from Poland to extend that campaign meaningfully or provoke a revolt within the German military establishment.

I think probably not because: 1) Poland was too far gone; 2) French offensive potential was less than you originally supposed; and 3) German defensive strength was not as limited as you originally supposed.

Now, are we agreed that nobody on this thread has ever proposed that the German defences in the West could have stopped a full-scale French attack and the discussion is essentially about how much time they could buy and whether this was likely to significantly alter outcomes?

Cheers,

Sid.

[sid guttridge]

Hi 4444,

Sorry for the delay in replying.

So, you are resorting to fishing villages as well. Fair enough. Some definitions of "port" allow that port and harbour are synonymous.

However, others do not. How does "A place where people and merchandise can enter or leave a country" grab you? (I got that one by typing "defibnition of port" into Google. That would appear to disqualify all Polish harbours except Gdynia - Poland's only international maritime outlet.

We can both find definitions that suit our purpose, so I suggest that we leave this sterile semantic argument alone now. Thank you for provoking a clarification.

The same is true of applying the adjective "German" to Danzig. Had I written of "ports in Germany" or "Germany's ports" you would have had some reason to correct me, as Danzig was not then in Germany. But I did not. I wrote, as you correctly reproduce, "through German ports, particularly Danzig". Danzig's population was 95% German, 4.3% Polish and 0.7% Jewish. (In fact, the port itself was even more German, as the Poles mostly lived in the rural hinterland.) Most Danzigers had no national identity that was not German.

By logical extension of your apparent argument, if 5% ethnic minority presence disqualifies one from using the adjective "German" to describe Danzig in 1939, then Berlin can no longer be described as "German" either!

I am delighted you feel that, "If one writes nonsense, one should admit it and correct it" and fully agree. However, I do not agree with your later contention that you "see no reason why I (4444) am not allowed to fight your nonsense with mine". I doon't think that either of us should consciously and deliberately put out nonsense, even in retaliation. An honest mistake and an honest correction or clarification is worthy of respect, but not tit-for-tat "nonsense". Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that the object of this and other threads is to be informative?

You feel that the Fall Weiss Campaign proved that militarily, Hela was at least as important as Gdynia. Why?

Yup. Everyone is free to challenge anything. Nothing controversial there. They don't even have to be able to provide reasonable arguments, though it is rather more productive if they do. Your point is?

Just going to post this quickly so it doesn't get lost, as do so many of my longer posts.

[sid guttridge]

.......

Given that the UK publishes more military book titles than any other country, precious few of which are official publications, and I am aware of no show trials of free-lance military historians accused of plying their trade in defiance of official history, I think it safe to say that the threat of prison for challenging MOD orthodoxy in this country must be pretty remote. I, at least, am not quaking in my boots on account of my heretical past posts on Feldgrau! Thank you for your concern, anyway.

Sorry, the 16 September map quoted does, indeed, show that Warsaw was surrounded before 18 September. The fact that the Bzura (and Modlin) forces were caught in the same encirclement doesn't change that. If you can trace a viable line of overland communication between these encircled forces and the Polish "mainland" or an ally at any time after 18 September, then I would be happy to concede your point. Can you?

As a matter of interest, when do you date the Stalingrad encirclement from? The date the Russian pincers closed in late November 1942 or, as in the methodology you appear to be proposing at Warsaw, in late January 1943, when the German troops were forced back into the city itself?

"Caklowita (Calkowita?) blokada" appears to mean "total blockade". It doesn't, at face value, refer to the date of the encirclement of of Warsaw, only the rigidity with which its blockade was imposed. Can you give the full context? I have a Polish translator available.

"Binding" and "Trustworthy" are your words, not mine, so I don't have to defend them.

Poland's situation was, indeed, no less desperate than Germany's in 1945. However, it was not directly analogous as regards Hela and it therefore remains irrelevant to our discussion.

Gdynia-Oksywie WAS Poland's main naval base. It was defended by the Polish Naval Brigade. All the major warships were based there. The three destroyers that feld to Britain on 30 August did so from there. The remaining large vessels left there for Hela roadstead on 3 September, where they were sunk the same day. When Gdynia fell, Polish submarines were ordered to head for the UK or neutral ports, not Hela. The minesweepers were also not based in Hela. Hela was a secondary base that proved of little utility, notwithstanding the endurance of its garrison.

On a point of information, it s not true that Hela was Poland's naval headquarters. This was in Warsaw. All this is in the source we have both used - http://www.polishnavy.org. You ask my pardon? Granted.

You will be glad to learn that I have never edited any of my posts on Feldgrau after thery have been posted and I shan't need to start now. (You have my full permission to check with Jason if you so wish). The quote you purport to fear that I might retrospectively alter doesn't actually say that Hela was "an obscure fishng port" as you contend. It is worth repeating; "hope you are not going to come up with a list of obscure fishing villages as "ports" OR Hela as the last Polish "port" to fall?" I emphasise the word "OR".

Which were these divisions that OKW was shifting (from Poland?) to France and what was this "symbolic actual French action" that provoked it? The Saar/Sarre Offensive? Do you know when these divisions reached the Western theatre? And what do you mean by "symbolic actual"? At first glance this appears internally contradictory.

Nope. I am happy to repeat (again!) that I never attributed to you the opinion that all French divisions fielded in 1939 were elite troops. However, I did point out, as you had not, that many French divisions were definitely not elite and that the disposable French offensive strength was far short of 60 divisions. Was this wrong?

Must stop now. Library closing. I will finish with some more substantive stuff on Monday.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Ironrat]

Interesting discussion. I belive it is time to give my humble opinion on the subject.
Could have France.....
I think there is only one answer (in 1939 or in 1940) - NO. The French could have the equipment, and enough men to win in both cases, but they didn't have the spirit, the will and especially the COs that would realise that wars fought Verdun style were over. It was now blitzkrieg time.
If one read the description of the french aviators behavior in 1940 one can realise why the French couldn't won this confrontation, and I can tell you, still today they are feeling uncomfortable about it, at least those who are interested in history.

Cheers,
Ironrat

[Thomas-Raynal]

Hello,

[...]the COs that would realise that wars fought Verdun style were over. It was now blitzkrieg time.

Actually, both the French doctrine and GHQ didn't envisionned a second Verdun as the main kind of battle to be fought in the 1930-40's comtemporary wars. The doctrine ,Instructions to large units [divisions and upward] of 1921 and 1936 (IGU 21 and 36), did considered that the future war would be managed from a continious front. There is a major difference here: a continious front is the support on which a war may be fought, "Verdun"-position warfare- is a way to fought a war.

The IGU 36 clearly mentioned that the decision on the battlefield is taken by manoeuver warfare and the use of units being able to combine speed and mobility, it is even envisioned that those units may be able to fight as an independant structure (but not in an independant formation), thus, nothing new under the blue sky: attacks need the units to be mobile in order to achieved the transformation of a breakthrought into a successfull offensive with exploitation. This is,IMO, an important point: the French doctrine did not seek, at least for the IGU 36, to be a codification of the way WW1 was fought: coping with position warfare, but to wage war from a continious front.

The main problem faced by French commanders was how to cope with the initial period of war which is understood as a very instable period due to the possibility of considerable movements coming from the fact that there was not enought troops to field the front line, the mobilisation being underway. This is a part of the idea behind the Maginot line which was supposed to act like a phalanx refusing a flank thus allowing concentration of troops in a smaller area. Everything was to be done to reduce the lenght of this period in order to quickly come to a continious front (considered by the doctrine as to be inevitable) where offensive operations were to be launched. Thus I agree with you that this approach have nothing to do with Blitzkrieg, understood as a decisive offensive operation launched early in war with everything available in order to gain a strategical victory, it is a somewhat more rational vision of war which saw the last as a long enterprise which have to be won using huge concentration of materials for limited offensive, in a word pretty much the same things one could observed in USSR beetween 1943 and 1945. But in the other hand, it have nothing to do with position warfare: it doesn't focus on attrition and did considered manoeuver as the key for victory.

I hope that my english is not to hard to decode.

Best Regards,

Thomas

[Ironrat]

You are right.
It is my fault. By making reference to Verdun, I meant this war would be totally different from the WWI.
The biggest difference (as for me) in 1939/40 period between the french and the german army were armored divisions. The French didn't have any, and the quality of the communication system.
Cheers
Ironrat

[Thomas-Raynal]

Hello Ironrat,

Well, French Army had armored Ddvisions (3 Divisions Cuirassées-DCR) and light mechanised divisions-in fact Armored Divisions for the French Cavalry (3 Divisions légères Mécaniques-DLM) on May 10th 1940, 1 DCR and 2 DLM were created afterward, during the campaign. But this could not be compared to the German Panzer-Divisions in either the way they had to be use (Although the light mechanised division come closer to the Panzer division regarding this point), the way they were builded-up, the way they have been used on the battlefield, and last but not least the time taken to build them up (4 of the 6 pre-cited divisions were builded-up during early 1940). The last point is maybe, and strangly, one of the most important because it shows that the French armoured forces were still seeking for a structure (and a way to use these structures) after the country was engaged in war.

Fundamentaly, French did not believed that large armored tactical units (not to mention operational echelon's armored units!) may have the importance German gave them during the France Campaign for the simple reason that the density of troops on the envisioned battlefield (Germano/French frontiers and to an extent Belgium,one third of the ground having been covered with the Maginot Line) would be so high and with such weaponry at hand that deep thrust with armored units would be negated with little harm for the defending side. Thus, those units had to be integrated in the battle system as a part of it just like artillery or infantry with the idea either to back-up the old Infantry/Artillery tandem or to allow cavalry to fullfill it missions (Covering forces, projection forces, exploitation forces) which have been made difficult since the growth of firepower. In retrospect, this was not a bad way to see things: Barbarossa ultimatly failed, the Soviets Winter 1942-1943 offensives came to a bloody halt, both despite great success in the beginning and both envisioned deep thrust aimed at decisive victory but still, it missed the point that comtemporary war have to count with armored units and formations as a major part of modern warfare and not just another element to be include in the order of battle and the battle plan. There was a trend, in the early 1940, to change this way of thinking and to consider that armored and mechanised force should be seen as a new component (With the creation of the Armored Divisions particularly) : that the specificities and the perspectives offered by armoured/ mechanised units could not allow the later to be disolved into an existing battle system but it came too little too late.

Regarding theorical structures and in my opignon, the main differences beetween the French armored units and the German armoured division would be :

1) A more balanced combined arms structure for the Panzer-Division although the DLM came close to the Panzer-Divison regarding the main units ( 2 Tank Regiments, 1 Motorised Infantry Regiment, 1 Reco/Armored Cars Regiment for the DLM, 2 bataillons of motorcyclists/Reco for the PzD, 1 Artillery Regiment). The PzD did have more specialists units (AT,Engineers, not to mention attached FlaK Abteilung) and those were under command of a specific HQ (Bataillon/Abteilung) unlike the French units.

2) The PzD had a far more stronger logistic abilities with organic transport troops and service compagnies integrated into the Panzer-Division's units.

3) As you said, transmissions were a weakness of the French tanks with no radios for light tanks and extensive use of wire cables for divisional transmissions.

Thus, the Panzer-Division was far more autonomous and designed to conduct operations with its own means.

Best Regards,

Thomas

[sid guttridge]

Hi Thomas,

Excellent stuff.

I have found it very difficult to find any published details of Plans C, D and E. Can you recommend any sources that detail the French objectives and French orders of battle for these operations?

For example, I can find references to a corps available for the re-occupation of the Saarland in the early 1930s, but no details as to its composition. Similarly, I have a reproduction (from one of Weygand's books) of the French outline orders for an advance to the Rhine south of the Moselle at the time of the Munich crisis in 1938, but it gives no idea of the forces to be used or the time lines envisaged.

Have details of French deployments in response to the Rhineland and Sudeten Crises every been published? It is very difficult to pass any judgement on French diplomatic responses on these occasions when France's military situation remains so obscure.

Cheers,

Sid.

[sid guttridge]

Hi 4444,

You will be delighted to hear that your information that "the entire HG "C" had only 11 full-strength divisions" coincides closely with the number of "first rate" Welle 1 infantry divisions that I have as being at the front in the West - eleven in in position and a twelfth arriving.

They were 5, 6, 9, 15, 16, 22, 25, 26 33, 34, 35, 36 Infantry Divisions. Doubtless you will point out that in peacetime a minority of these divisions did not possess a fourth artillery battalion and some were short of infantry battalions (as were some divisions used in Poland). However, it should be pointed out that these were mobilised at the outbreak of war and that in a war state these divisions were not short of these units.

You appear to have three more front line divisions between the Luxembourg border and the Rhine than me. On 13 September I have 1st Army with six Welle 1 (34, 15, 6, 36, 25, 33) and two Welle 2 divisions in the front line. One of the latter was covering a stretch of the Luxembourg border as well. Another Welle 1 division (9) was coming up near Kaiserslautern. There were also three Welle 3 infantry divisions in reserve.

I would suggest that, as a general rule, first-rate German divisions in September 1939 were those that were active in peacetime. They had insitutional continuity, the highest proportion of the best trained manpower and the best equipment. By my calculation, twelve such divisions existed on the Western Front in September 1939, all infantry. They were not there because they were inferior to the infantry divisions used against Poland, but because their depots were in the five westernmost wehrkreise.

The German Welle 2 divisions also had some combat value. They were made up of about 10% active men thrown off by the Welle 1 divisions, but were over 80% made up of Class I Reservists. Class I Reservists were "fully trained fit men below 35 or time served post 1935 conscripts". Thus they were presumably either ex-professionals who had served in the highly selective Reichswehr or recent conscripts who had undergone two years of concription in the Wehrmacht over 1936-38. Welle 2 divisions were therefore roughly equivalent to French Serie A divisions. If you wish to classify Welle 2 divisions as second rate, be my guest, but then the same description would have to be extended to the French Serie A divisions.

You have a couple of times asked that I be a bit more careful when reading what other correspondents write. This is always good advice and I will, of course, continue to do so.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Thomas-Raynal]

Hello Sid,

Your questions are far too big for me I'm afraid. On the other hand, there is a French forum where some people might gave you indications on publications as well as some answers regarding your inquiries. I send you a PM.

Best Regards,

Thomas

[Dackel Staffel]

Hi Thomas,

Can you give me the adress of this forum you mention to Sid, I'am still searching info especially on the BEF in may 1940 near Lille.

Thanks

So long.