Essay Example on French Defeat in WWII: Nazi Occupation of France 1940

Introduction

France conceded to Nazi Germany at the early stages of World War II on 24th June in 1940 (Christofferson & Christofferson, 2006). The Nazis inhabited about three-fifths of the territory belonging to France, especially the entire Atlantic coasts of France and North France. According to Christofferson & Christofferson (2006), on 10th July 1940, the Nazis established a different French Government on the basis of the Vichy town. Those who refused collaboration and defeat from the Nazis created resistance movements with the French free forces starting at the exile and getting support from the United Kingdom. Following the Allied landings of Operation Torch in North Africa, the southern part of France was also occupied by the Germans. After four years of strife and occupation, the free French forces, as well as the Allied forces, were able to liberate France in 1944 (Shirer, 2014). During World War II, there were various reasons as to why France fall so quickly as well as some of the significant roles carried out by France during the war, as discussed below.

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Why France Fall so Easily

The falling of France was so quick and shocking. The French leaders, during that particular time, had a belief that they were very ready for any potential war from the Germans. Unfortunately, they were not. Within some months of invasion from German, France ended up collapsing. Cairns (1955) states that at the start of 1940, the white paper reached its testing stage, and almost every individual in Germany was eagerly waiting to publish it. In May 1940, German Wehrmacht established a speedy attack on France, and within a few weeks, they destroyed the combined British and French armies (Christofferson & Christofferson, 2006). This defeat can majorly be attributed to French's combination of their High command attempts intended to refight World War I methodical battle against the adoption of all arms warfare and new firearms by Germany. Although these philosophical factors had a significant role in the outcomes, something more human and elemental could have been the contributing factor; intelligent, fearless, and sometimes some ruthless leaders during the contact time.

In light of the substantial fall of France's armed forces during the 1940s, it becomes hard to imagine that until that time, they were recognized by even the Germans as the major military masters in Europe. According to Len (1979), this is because France had defeated the Germans in the Great War and that they also imposed a punitive, humiliating armistice and the Berlin Treat of Versailles. In the first decades after the war, Germany was limited to have not more than a hundred thousand soldiers, only one search and rescue aircraft and no armored vehicles (Cairns, 1955). France, on the other side, had started rebuilding its armed forces after the end of World War I. By the start of the 1930s, it embarked on a relentless drive to modernization and monitoring most of the countries' infantry decisions and started forming armored units.

Focused on stopping any other German incursion into the France territory, Paris established military doctrine and gave defensive primacy. Their intentions were to majorly blunt or prevent an invasion, and once they had successfully weakened the enemy, they would then transition to the offensives. To show support to that philosophy, the new and the now-infamous extensive defensive pillbox Maginot lines were established as well as some fortifications between France and some of the western neighbors which were heavily defended (Christofferson & Christofferson, 2006). The senior officers in the High Command had strong confidence that their defensive preparations and doctrines would end up successful against any attack by the Germans and especially the Second French Army Commander Gen. Charles Huntziger.

During March in the 1940s when about two months were remaining before Germany carried its surprise invasion, Pierre Charles Taittinger who was a committee member of the Parliamentary Army led a delegation in the parliament to have an inspection on the Sedan defenses and in this city was under the responsibility of General Huntziger(Cairns,1955). According to prophetic reports by Taittinger, that region was entirely too much under the idea that Meuse River and Ardennes Woods would act as the shield to Sedan and that they would assign great importance to the natural obstacle and that the defenses of that particular sector were rudimentary (Len, 1979). Taittinger wrote that the thoughts that Germany could attack that place made him tremble. However, General Huntziger entirely dismissed all the warnings given by Taittinger. He claimed that the Germans were very afraid to even think about attacking them. Less than twenty-four hours before the German invasion on 9th May, Huntzinger decided to tell his troops that the preparations they had seen been made by the Germans were just exercises (Christofferson & Christofferson, 2006). He added that the Germans were not that crazy to attempt taking any other risk of confronting the Belgians twenty-seven divisions. French's High commander confidence had some justifications.

Before May 1940, the combined British and French forces had about one thousand extra tanks as compared to the Germans. Additionally, the tanks belonging to the Frenchmans possessed better armors and more powerful significant guns. Still, during that time, French was being considered the global leader in the artillery's, and it also had some marked advantages over other countries like Germany in this regard. French, therefore, decided to carry out large numbers of the infantry divisions in the Belgium borders, which would take on the Wehrmacht as far as they could. They had a belief that the mountainous and forested terrains of the Ardennes prevented the use of Maginot defenses along with the armor and also felt that those light forces could help in protecting the front part. However, Germans decided the opposite of what the French expected.

German's intentions of Sending high numbers of mechanized and infantry divisions into Nether lands and Belgium were to make sure that the alliance between Franco and British believed that their intelligence was correct and that their major attack would come from the northern side. However, German's major attack came from the southern side, especially at the Ardennes with the Panzer (Hoffmann, 1968). One of the significant aims of German armor was Meuse Rivers' penetration in Sedan, which was within France. Lt. Col. Hermann Balck, who later distinguished himself as one of the best-accomplished war leaders, and he was the commander during the tip of this battle. He was tasked to lead the initial Rifle Regiment of the initial Panzer divisions around the Meuse in Sedan (Len, 1979). The breakthrough made by Balck across the river as a result of proper preparation, courageous leadership, ruthlessness at the point of attack as well as a vigorous filed training, which inspired individuals to achieve the tasks they thought they could not have accomplished.

Cairns (1955) argues that the French started its preparation for defeating the Meuse several years ago. Still, the effort ended up taking on an earnestness at around September in 1989 when Wehrmacht unveiled the warfare tactics "blitzkrieg" for the very first time when confronting Poland's. The Poland armed forces got defeated by the Nazis about four weeks with the use of combined armored firepower, mobile troops, and the paralyzation of the air attacks, which featured the Stuka dive bombers who seemed very frightening. Most of the French leaders kept the belief that the plants and their defensive system would be successful where Poles never took any additional measures, nor did they change the already existing plans, and this contributed to their failure (Morison, 2002). Some of the leaders like commander Balck was soon to expose how wrong he was.

As part of the initial Panzer Division, the First Rifle Regiment by Balck was chosen to be the significant guard which would cause the division at the enemy's territory on 10th May 1940 during the morning hours. After some light resistance, the regiment by Balck got the approaches to the Meuse in the outer side of Sedan after two days at around 11:00 pm (Christofferson & Christofferson, 2006). However, on the early morning of 13th May, a devastating barrage by the French artillery opened up. According to the memoir, by Balck, Order in the Chaos, the bombardment by the French was very fierce with enormous demoralizing effect on most of his troops. Balck claimed that he had requested the Stuka attack to the French artillery positions and that the consequences he got were overwhelming (Shirer, 2014). The artillery positions belonging to the French got silenced with his troops' mood turning into jubilation. However, the positive feeling they got never lasted for long since Balck gave an order to his forces to march to the highly defended teeth, the concrete bunkers reinforced by the French. Moreover, the attack started losing energy, with most of the troops dropping due to fatigue (Hoffmann, 1968). During that time, Balck was left with no other option but to carry out a tactical withdrawal along with the frontline troops and gave orders to new soldiers to fight or just press the confrontation and risk failing in their objective.

According to Shirer (2014), Balck also argued that what seemed very easy today could have severe consequences the following day. He, therefore, decided to advance about ten extra kilometers to the enemy, although his courageous and resolute adjutant argued that such an act would cause more destruction to the regiment. Balck was sure that extending ten more kilometers would not destroy the regime but would instead destroy French, and he was very right about it. After about two days since the attack was pressed beyond the limit his men thought they were able to endure, Balck did not stop them because, after the end, bouvellemont belonged to them, which meant that he had not done any miscalculations (Hoffmann, 1968). The only remaining French's resistance got broken, and the crossing at the Meuse was secured. Balck was therefore promoted to be a commander of the Panzer brigade the following day with the fight continuing to other parts up to the channel coast.

Some of the German leaders like the well-known Erwin Rommel and Balck gave fearless and more brutal leadership and management from the front side, and this inspired their forces to get rid of all the fear they had and push themselves far beyond the limits they thought they would endure. However, it is worth to note that French troops were not lucky enough to enjoy the same kind of leadership (Morison, 2002). Although most of the French forces used to fight with signal bravery, it was hard to say the exact thing about the bulk of their officer leaders. None of them pushed the French soldiers to endure what they thought they could not survive, and on arrival of the crisis movement, the French leaders would always freeze into inaction. Hoffmann (1968), states that the French staff officer wrote one of the significant events which were well captured the French's leadership spirit to collapse during the 1940s, Frenchman Marc Bloch in one of the books "Strange Defeat."

Bloch was asked to go to the Attiches headquarters, which was about eight miles far from the Belgium border. His main task was to coordinate the actions with the British, and as he was there, Bloch saw something which seriously haunted him. He saw a French general seated in a frozen chair saying nothing in tragic immobility, and also doing nothing but just staring at the map which was spread on the table between them and appeared to be hoping that the hard decision he was incapable of taking was to be found there. Chri...