"Why didn't France attack Germany in 1939?" Topic

Interesting…

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Amicalement
Armand

I suspect they knew they'd lose even worse on offense than on defense, the latter of which is usually more advantageous for those using that tactic, from a numerical perspective.

Because after WWI their entire mentality and indeed strategy was totally. defensive. There was no desire or public or political will to repeat the slaughter of WWI. A million dead Frenchmen had a lot to do with it.

Yep, doctrinal deficit. If the French army of 1939 had been instructed to invade someone, it would have had no playbook at all by which to do so.

AFAIK, there was literally no planning for or rehearsal of large scale offensive actions or invasions by the interwar French army. There was no canon of military exercises undertaken by the French army in which attack on a foreign enemy was simulated so that lessons could be learned and plans for future invasions developed. It was simply unthinkable that France would ever undertake such a thing.

There may have been and probably were exercises to work out how an enemy would go about it, the better to prepare one's defensive arrangements. But that's not the same as practicing to do so yourself.

It's actually a really interesting counterfactual to wonder how France could have put up a better defence in 1940. Tethering itself to fixed positions and easily-disrupted communications are often pointed to as obvious errors, but I wonder if the defensive plan needed to encompass an aggressive air strategy so that Germany fails to control the air. Maybe the first 100 miles inside the border should have consisted of blocking / delaying positions, so you don't try to hold the Ardennes but you do make it a protracted business getting through. Maybe you have stay-behind parties shooting up the rear echelon. Stuff like that.

I believe there were political reasons. When France declared war on Germany by unleashing the Second World War, it was allied with Russia. In French society and in the army there were many communists who sympathized with the Germans for this. It was therefore thought that with a defensive war it would have been possible to stem phenomena of sabotage and insubordination (which in fact there were and on which we have never investigated thoroughly for the interest of the Communist party), which would have had much more importance in an offensive war .

Apparently therefore, the French refused to enter into an anti-Nazi military alliance with the USSR, which he repeatedly proposed?)))

In some way the French were fighting the last war. They were not really geared at that time for an invasion. Plus I still have to believe the French and UK still had very bad memories of the war previously that happened 25 years before. Causing horrendous lose of blood & treasure, etc.

Trying to avoid that happening again may have been in the calculations before engaging in another war.

When France declared war on Germany by unleashing the Second World War, it was allied with Russia.

?? Pretty sure it was allied with Britain.

Russia had an understanding with Germany at the time to divide Poland and all the lands between the two countries.

Maybe you mean World War One (?).

I wonder how much naval policy affected the decision. Blockade had worked in WWI. The disparity of the French and British fleets vs German was much larger in WWII. So there would be no reason to think they couldn't stave them again.

?? Pretty sure it was allied with Britain.

Russia had an understanding with Germany at the time to divide Poland and all the lands between the two countries.

Maybe you mean World War One (?).

No, he means WWII. That initial sentence is badly constructed, probably because English is not his first language (but it's infinitely better than my Italian), and makes understanding the post more difficult.

I believe the meaning should be that when France declared war on Germany, Germany was already allied with Russia. The following sentences then make more sense.

I think that given the reason for going to war was Germany invading Poland and given the defensive preference of the French army there was no interest in French troops dying to keep Poland free – plus as noted the French General Staff has no plan on how to invade Germany either

The allies knew that by 1942 they would have overwhelming strenght and then they would go on the offensive. The French actually had offensive tactics that were similar to their 1918 attacks.

Thanks!.

Amicalement
Armand

You are right Deephorse, thank you.
Frederick the excuse was Germany invading Poland, the true reason was the same target that led to First World War "reduce Germany".

As I understand it the French plan was to in the beginning, remain on the defensive and absorb Germanys offensive, attrite it and after defeating the attaks go on the offensive with set piece attacks to win the war.

You know, all the diplomatic, political and doctrinal points are true, but sometimes when I contemplate the sheer lack of urgency in "Phoney War" France--not just the lack of a fall 1939 offensive but the minimal training that winter--I wonder whether they weren't all quietly hoping it would go away.

Hitler and Stalin would digest Poland, Hitler would demand Imperial Germany's colonies back, and as long as no one escalated things, there would be a peace treaty and everyone could go home.

The Allies just aren't acting as though there was going to be brutal fighting come spring and they needed to be ready for it. No one in authority says this, of course, but it's very easy to believe something you want to be true.

The French did launch limited objective attacks in the southern region. Interesting reading on the attacks is available.

If you look at the inventory of French weapons captured by the Germans. They had some pretty good ones, but they were low numbers of them. It seems the French weren't geared up for war production.

There's something else going on there, Mobius--at least in tank production. The French kept "spreading the wealth"--awarding small contracts for different designs to different companies instead of saying "this is the official French infantry support tank, and this is how much we'll pay you for each one." So the number of any given tank tended to be small, complicating maintenance and training, but the overall numbers weren't so bad.

They might have been much better, though. Contracts were signed for very small batches, reducing the urge to expand production capacity, and the unions--with government backing--fought overtime and multiple shifts, so they didn't get the use they could out of the factories they had.

Even in actual combat in many cases both the French and UK had a tendency to "penny-packet" out their AFVs. In direct Infantry support, as in WWI many times.

The German's predilection was to keep their AFVs in larger formations, a "mailed fist", so to speak. Plus their use of combined arms was much better than any of the Allies at that time generally.

Regarding politics:

I do not believe the "alliance" with Russia entered into French policy in any meaningful way. At least not in September of 1939. Maybe in March or April of 1940.

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed on August 23. Poland was invaded on September 1. I do not believe that the French had any meaningful time to digest the impact of the M-R Pact, much less to revise national policy regarding potential war with Germany, in just one week. And they certainly didn't have enough information to assess it as limiting their own (French) actions with regard to Germany.

Let us recall that it was not an alliance. It was a non-aggression pact -- neither Germany nor the Soviet Union would attack the other. There was nothing in the Pact about Soviets coming to Germany's aid if anyone (ie: France) attacked Germany. (Also, no words about dividing Poland in the version that was published for the world to see. That was in a secret protocol, that was not made public.)

All the published agreement could have told them was that the Soviets were not going to help them in any war against Germany. But this was already baked into French policy, as they had rejected Soviet diplomatic efforts to form an anti-German coalition.

French foreign policy vis-a-vis a resurgent Germany had been a policy of surrounding the Germans. The French focused on nations bordering Germany. The Soviet Union was not on the list. The great failing of French politics in this regard is that they did nothing to coordinate any military force build-up or strategies, they only sought to built politically friendly relations and sign general cooperation stuff (and supply some military hardware). The more strongly worded alliance they formed with Poland was tragically (for the Poles) pretty much just stronger words on the same path. There was no joint military planning, no joint field excersizes. The two nations' militaries had no idea how to cooperate, even though they promised they would.

Regarding Military Equipment:
The French started their build-up after the Germans. It wasn't until about 1938 that the alarm bells were finally ringing so loudly that they could no longer be denied. Up until that time, it was perfectly fitting to buy small quantities of new stuff -- because a year or two later there would be even newer stuff that would obsolete the prior "new stuff". It was very tricky to determine exactly when to build for war. The Italians got it wrong, building Europe's largest known tank force, but with 1933 equipment. That left them hopelessly behind in 1940. The Germans didn't launch large scale production of their Pz III or IV until 1938, instead focusing on small lots and rapid improvements. They had the advantage, though, of extremely sound basic designs that could be upgraded, while the French and British were still starting from scratch on each new round.

And the penny-packets thing is also not quite true. Yes, the French had infantry support battalions. But they also had mech and armored divisions. It's just that they had formed them too recently, hadn't excersized them properly, and in any case had no real offensive doctrine by which to employ them.

Offensive Doctrine:
The French took a different set of lessons from WW1. They had entered that war with an offensive doctrine, and it nearly CRUSHED their nation. Again and again, hundreds of thousands of French soldiers were wasted in frontal attacks against German trenches that achieved almost nothing. They decided that in the next war they wouldn't do that, that they would let the Germans waste their soldiers in assaults on French positions.

Only then were they planning to go on the offensive, with large assaults led by heavy tanks and well coordinated with massive numbers of fast-firing artillery.

Didn't quite work out that way. But that's what the French were trying to do. At least as far as my readings tell me.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Interesting… thanks!.

Amiacalement
Armand

And the penny-packets thing is also not quite true. Yes, the French had infantry support battalions. But they also had mech and armored divisions. It's just that they had formed them too recently, hadn't excersized them properly, and in any case had no real offensive doctrine by which to employ them.

Yes, they had Armor and Mech Divs – 7 motorized infantry divisions;
3 armored divisions;
3 light mechanized divisions;
5 cavalry divisions
But as noted they were not used properly, etc. The Germans were the only ones at that time that not only understood modern combined arms war but knew how to put it into practice in the field effectively.

And in some cases, the French armor and mech units were very poorly handle by their leadership. Didn't concentrate their armor/mech units along with using combined arms doctrine.

The basic armored unit was the tank battalion, comprising a staff, three tank companies and a reserve company (in all, some 45 to 60 tanks). There were 39 tank battalions in 1940 and for tactical purposes they were twinned to form tank battalion groups.

link

Hence those Tank Bn Groups were in many cases not concentrated as with the Germans in the right place, at the right time, etc.

As you said,

It's just that they had formed them too recently, hadn't excersized them properly, and in any case had no real offensive doctrine by which to employ them.

"The Last European War: September 1939-December 1941" by John Lukacs link

Excellent resource covering many of the issues raised here.