A Fitter Italian Military

Croesus · Feb 16, 2008

The invasion of France focused all attention on the line of the Dyle-Meuse. All eyes except those serving in Norway. At the time of the great tank battle at Rocroi the French Chasseurs Alpin were withdrawing from Sweden, with Swedish army units on their trail, and Germans not far behind. Politically the Scandinavian operation was an unmitigated disaster as Sweden had fallen grudgingly into the German sphere in the face of the French incursion. Now that the French were falling back the Germans were very polite, but still did not consider it wise to give up control of Lulea just yet.

Narvik had become by June the most heavily bombed part of Europe, with the Luftwaffe commencing operations from 9 May and by the end of the month there was genuine concern that Narvik would become untenable. It was at this point that von Falkenhorst, hitherto comfortable in restricting German operations in the region to making small hops up the coast while consolidating their control in southern and central Norway, managed to place German troops around the British stronghold and so commencing a siege that would at times compete with the Battle of France for the attention of the world.

Where the siege began as an army operation it quickly became a navy one. The army had to focus increasingly on the implications of the war in France and could not afford to invest heavily in Norway. The navy however was in no such mood. The shock of the loss of the Repulse and Effingham at the Battle of the Bergen Leads hardened the mood of the Royal Navy, while at the same time giving some encouragement to their German counterparts. Their mood was not improved by the loss on 8 June of the aircraft carrier Glorious to the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. Against the Glorious, Repulse, Effingham and Royal Oak for the British, the Germans had lost only the Graf Spee. That was an impressive result given the disparity of strength between the two navies, and was viewed as a grave insult by the Admiralty. It was this that motivated the Royal Navy to maintain the garrison at Narvik and so leading to the one of the more compelling episodes of the war.

Croesus · Feb 19, 2008

The battle of Rocroi was the decisive event of the first phase of the German invasion of France and was the largest tank engagement of the war to date. It developed when von Kleist sought to push west and achieve the panzer breakthrough he had sought since the start of the campaign, and where Prioux arrived to counterattack the German push across the Meuse between Revin and Charleville-Mezieres. Its result led to fundamental changes of strategy by both sides.

The Manstein plan called for an armoured thrust to the sea that would trap the Anglo-French armies in Belgium and thus lead to their destruction. This thrust would come from across the Meuse between Namur and Sedan and would see the majority of German armour concentrated for its purpose. In spite of tactical surprise a breakthrough had not been forthcoming and time was running out as the French colmatage was beginning to close down further avenues of substantial exploitation. A bitter weeklong fight at Sedan had seen three panzer divisions held up and their strength blunted, while the tank friendly country between Namur and Givet had resulted only in a humiliating setback accompanied by the loss of a divisional commander. Only in the middle section between Revin and Charleville-Mezieres had resulted in a major breach of the French continuous line, but even then it had taken valuable time to reduce the French defenders and get the tanks across the river. The attack west seemed to have come down to its last chance.

The German plan was straightforward. Reinhardt would push 6 Pz, 8 Pz and 2 Mot Inf of XXXI Corps due west from Revin at Rocroi and thence towards Cambrai via Hirson while Guderians reduced XIX Corps of 1 Pz, 2 Pz and 13 Mot Inf would drive northwest from Charleville-Mezieres and towards St Quentin, again via Hirson. Substantial Luftwaffe support had been organised, to the detriment of von Reichenau at Louvain/Wavre and von Kluge at Dinant/Givet, and all units were briefed to drive as hard and fast as they could. All commanders felt instinctively that here was the last chance for a decisive breakthrough in this phase of the battle. Of the German units many of the tanks were having mechanical problems, none of the battalions were at full strength and commanders and soldiers alike were exhausted.

The French plan was nothing special. The idea was simply to arrive in the area and engage the Germans where found. There was a growing sense that the Meuse was becoming a danger area and it was felt that the British commitment to the Belgians would serve to turn the Louvain/Wavre front into a defensive one, especially as the German tank force was not present there in strength. Prioux had seen his command double with the Cavalry Corps taking in 1e DLM and 2e DCR; however the corps was split. 2e DCR had reached and held Rocroi, its presence as much to do with a lack of fuel as a sense of turning the town into a defensive position, as the 38e Inf A had done at Charleville-Mezieres. 1e DLM was driving south from Givet via Fumay while 2e and 3e DLM were moving east from Hirson via Mon Idee. In spite of their preference to the contrary the Battle of Rocroi would be an encounter battle.

The first shots were fired when Reinhardt approached Rocroi and his reconnaissance units failed to observe the presence of 2e DCR that by that time was well dug in. The defensive capabilities of the DCR, with its strong core of Char B1 and complement of the H39, had been demonstrated at Sedan where the 3e DCR had been ground down with great difficulty, and at Givet where the Germans could find little answer to the arrival of 1e DCR. The advance guard ran straight into heavy French fire and withdrew with losses. Two more attempts at a direct entry were thrown back and Reinhardt was forced to settle down to envelop the town and enlist the assistance of the Luftwaffe to blast the DCR out of the way. This had barely been achieved when 1e DLM arrived from the north in the afternoon and immediately engaged 6 Pz, which had been kept back for the breakthrough. Furious fighting erupted here and very soon both units were sorely handled by the other, the decision only being forced by the commitment of the remainder of 8 Pz. By nightfall 1e DLM had been pushed back with heavy loss and 2e DCR destroyed but, crucially, Reinhardt had been held up.

Guderian had driven hard along his line of advance and without trouble until he arrived at Mon Idee to find a cautious Prioux shepherding 2e and 3e DLM towards the fighting at Rocroi. The French had taken a long pause for refuelling following their making good time and had news from Rocroi that the fight was in hand but that other German tank units were somewhere in the area. At Mon Idee Guderian repeated Reinhardts error and drove straight into the village, though his surprise was matched by that of the French, who had not taken up substantial defensive positions. Guderian recovered first and threw his main weight into the attack but the crucial difference between himself and Prioux was that the latter had met and handled German panzers at the Gembloux Gap and had taken measures to improve his command’s chances in the event of a second go at the panzers. By the end of the day Guderian found himself outmatched and retreated down the road, primarily in an effort to maintain his strength which had been slowly bled since the opening of the campaign. The French tanks were encouraged by their success and Prioux detached the 2e DLM up the road towards Rocroi. However nightfall brought the movement to a halt.

The battle was notable for its sharpness and shortness: the fighting in both Rocroi and Mon Idee had been the heaviest of the war to date and by the end of the day neither side was particularly able to exploit its local success or launch counterattacks to overcome the other. It was also important for the first successes of the Anglo-French change in fighter tactics which, although insufficient for 2e DCR, was important in the success of Prioux at Mon Idee. The battle meant that the Manstein plan had run its course; although the road to Rethel in the south lay open the conventional German tactical thinking was beginning to reassert itself. For the result of the battle of Rocroi that they could in the first instance see was the potential to pinch off the Ninth Army in Namur-Dinant-Givet and fight a traditional battle of encirclement and destruction. This reversion to form was greatly resisted by Manstein but his main support from von Rundstedt had ceased as the latter came to ponder the implications of the changing fortunes of war.

Croesus · Feb 21, 2008

Both sides took some important lessons from the battle of Rocroi that would result in far reaching implications for tank design, their employment in battle and the relative performance of the armoured forces within each opposing army. Of all the vehicles involved, two had particularly important effects on future development.

Some legendary stories had emerged from the performance of the Char 1 bis fielded by 3e DCR at Sedan and 2e DCR at Rocroi. They had taken huge amounts of punishment and the majority of their battlefield losses had been due to problems with refuelling, or by large amounts of artillery or air support. The French recognised that the Char was an excellent tank for their conception of the role performed by the DCR, but felt that the tank was not well suited to open field warfare where manoeuvre was paramount. In the confines of Rocroi and the Bois de la Marfee the Char had outperformed all other tanks, but when caught in the open had demonstrated weaknesses. The Germans had quickly learnt to respect the Char and were quick off the mark to send captured examples back to Germany. Analysis of the tank led to planning for a German heavy battle tank that, it was hoped, would anticipate future advances by their opponents.

The SOMUA had gained more respect from the Germans than the Char in that it had been identified as the type of tank the Germans would themselves have fielded, if given the choice from the French arsenal. The SOMUA fought well in the attack and defence, in open and close field combat; it was regarded as the best tank fielded by both sides. For the French the challenge was to make the SOMUA cheaper and more reliable and efforts were made to simplify the tanks construction while examining the possibility of replacing the suspension system with that of the Christie design. The Germans recognised that the sloped armour, strong armament and general capabilities made for a very good medium tank and, as with the Char, sought to adapt features of the SOMUA to their own tank designs.

In spite of superiority in these two designs, it was clear to both sides that the German conception of tank deployment in the open field was superior. Rocroi did not lead to a breakthrough because both Reinhardt and Guderian sought to drive through urban areas without sufficient reconnaissance. Prioux made some adjustments to his handling of tanks in the open field and scored some successes against Guderian at Mon Idee, but on the whole the German tactic was superior to the French. Following Rocroi French tactics were slowly adjusted but it would be some time before they felt comfortable challenging the Germans in open country. The French also recognised that their command and control systems were deficient and increased priority was given to providing more tanks with radio communications.

Rocroi gave a strong signal that the conception of the DCR was flawed and while the structure persisted, the organisation of the more German-like DLM received growing emphasis in French military circles. One adjustment saw the faster H39 shifted from the slower, heavier and more defensive DCR to the manoeuvre oriented DLM in exchange for the H35. Both sides recognised the value of effective air support for tank warfare, and both understood that here too the Germans had the advantage.

So it was that following Rocroi the French did not seek open field battle with the Germans until they could improve their organisation and that the Germans did not seek battle unless they could dictate terms such that their deficiencies in tank quality could be sufficiently mitigated so as to give victory. And these lessons were not lost on the Italians either.

Croesus · Feb 23, 2008

At the commencement of hostilities in October 1939 Italy fielded a total of 25 divisions across five classes (infantry, mobile infantry, mountain infantry, alpine and armoured). Four more divisions were added in March 1940 and six in August 1940 for a total of 35 divisions. Great improvements had been wrought since the March expansion, primarily on the back of increasing oil revenues from Libya and a change in attitude towards Italy by the Anglo-French from May 1940.

The Balkan-Danube region had the largest concentration of the Italian army, not surprising considering the increasingly important role Italy was taking in the region and given the growing tensions between Greece and Bulgaria, and the uncertainty Romania had with regards to Russia. Seventh Army in Albania had been stripped down to only two mountain infantry divisions, indicative of the warming change in Italo-Greek relations. Second Army in Montenegro fielded two alpine and two mountain infantry divisions and was increasingly tied up with operations against Yugoslav Royalist partisans, as well as maintaining a watch on the Bulgarian border. Eighth Army in Serbia had two infantry divisions centred on Belgrade involved in re-training a Serbian Republican division and two alpine and one mountain infantry division on the Romanian-Bulgarian border which were also engaged in anti-partisan warfare. Third Army in Croatia-Slovenia maintained an armoured division and two motorised Libyan divisions around Zagreb that were involved in training the Croatian army, and an alpine and mountain infantry division in Ljubljana which kept a watchful eye on the Austrian border. Three Croatian divisions had also been formed, making the region the centre of Italian power. First Army in Piedmont had been reinforced back up to three infantry divisions and one mountain infantry division as had Fourth Army in Veneto. The Sixth Army in Lazio comprised the strategic reserve of the newly formed parachute division, three mobile infantry divisions and one armoured division.

The equipment of the divisions had greatly improved, although there was a noticeable and widespread decrease in quality items such as uniform and barracks equipment. All the mobile units were approaching their full complement of vehicles and the artillery refit had largely been completed. Additional machine gun battalions had been raised and each army finally received their own anti-aircraft regiment. Most importantly each tank division was at full complement of both the light M15/38 and medium M20/39. The benefits were beginning to be reaped by establishing a low skill base in the manufacturing of the tanks; where the finishing was often poor and the vehicles very plain and without many of the refinements common to the French and German machines, the capacity to build large numbers had paid off. Furthermore standardisation of design and plant allowed a quick retool of the assembly lines designated to produce the heavy M30/40 that had begun to arrive at the armoured divisions in September.

The doctrine and tactics had continued to evolve in light of the lessons learnt first in the Vittoria Iugoslavia and recently in the Guerra Partigiana, as well as some observations of the fighting in Finland and of course most recently in France. The emphasis was on placing artillery well forward, of sufficient time taken in reconnaissance and in making an attack in depth and in coordination with armour and air support. While officers were not encouraged to hurl their men forward regardless it was still held axiomatic that an attack pressed aggressively and with impetus was a decisive attack. Given the nature of the Italian war so far little thought was given to the defence, although interest had been taken in the performance of the French colmatage and the planning problems encountered during the staff liaison with the Romanian army had also helped prevent the Regio Esercito from slipping back into the habits of Grandmaison.

Croesus · Feb 24, 2008

The Regia Aeronautica had grown significantly in the year since the opening of the Yugoslav invasion. The decisions to discontinue air-cooled engines and rejection of biplane and trimotor designs (with some notable exceptions) were confirmed in their wisdom and the officers that championed these innovations had since risen to high command. However, the RA had also maintained its traditional Fascist orientation but as the general influence of the party waned there emerged a schism within the service that had led to a splintering of command unity. In particular the squadrons based in Libya and to a lesser extent the Territori Protetti were known to be bastions of political fascism and the movement was even undergoing a further political evolution. The links between the RA and Luftwaffe developed in the pre-war years began to subtly develop.

Further fallout from the splintering of command would only become apparent in the future and for the moment there was enough for all to do without concern about questions of a politicised military. Foremost on the agenda was the continued development of the Ba.65. This aircraft was approaching the end of its operational life and construction was winding down in light of this, but the design was sufficiently versatile to permit a series of upgrades. Most important was a liquid-cooled 1,250 HP engine and redesigned cowling and cockpit, the direct result of which was a substantial increase in payload (3,800 kg). These changes brought it up to par with the German Ju 87 and following extensive work in Croatia practising ground-air cooperation the skills of the Italian ground attack pilots began to become quite impressive. The replacement aircraft for the Ba.65 was the Ba.88 Lince that unlike its predecessor enjoyed all the design additions: it was powerful with good speed and climb, it was well armed and could carry a strong payload. One unforeseen implication of its development was its greater speed meant that in some trials the Ba.65 outperformed it, and particularly in the Guerra Partigiana the older slower plane was performed.

The fighter Stormo were well served with the MA.200 Saetta, G.55 Freccia and RE.200 Falco, all of which began to evolve into complementary roles. The Freccia by virtue of its higher operational ceiling specialised towards the interception of enemy main force heavy bombers; the Saetta focused on taking on opposing fighters where its range and duration of flight time was valued; and the Falco developed into an all purpose fighter taking on a variety of roles including that of night fighter. All told the RE fighter pilots were happy with their planes and felt that they had sufficiently modern planes to complement what they viewed as their technically superior flying skills. As the glamour units of the RE it was perhaps expected that they were the most Fascist, a fact not lost in Rome but considering the importance they had, their politics were tolerated.

The RE bomber fleet was still dominated by the BR.20 Cicogna, which, like the BA.65, was approaching the end of its life. It was of sufficiently sturdy design to handle the increased load requirements following on from two engine replacements and a steady increase of its defensive armament such that it was a popular plane to fly. However its production was being scaled down in favour of the more modern and altogether superior Z.1018 Leone, which was as good as anything being flown by any of the major combatant airforces. Its numbers were small and there were still some teething problems, but together with the Cicogna, the RE was well served in this class. The heavy bomber P.108 Bombardiere was having trouble finding its place in the RE or even its optimum variation within its design but at least there was a heavy bomber in place and it was expected that over time its promise would be delivered in the form of an effective aircraft.

Croesus · Feb 25, 2008

It was quite clear that the Regia Marina was the poor cousin of the Italian military. Without recourse to a substantial budget the RM was limited to six battleships by October 1940; four re-conditioned WWI vessels (the Giulio Cesare, Conte di Cavour, Andrea Doria and Caio Duilio) and two modern vessels (the Vittorio Veneto and Littorio). However the political direction of Rome had changed such that the RM had no one to sail against. Under no circumstances was the RM to make any threatening moves towards France and operations involving the Royal Navy were limited to shadowing those few destroyers still enforcing the blockade. The base of the British fleet had been moved to Alexandria and most of the vessels taken into the Atlantic upon the commencement of hostilities. There was simply no one to fight a battleship engagement with, even if Rome was willing to risk the vessels; additionally it was clear that there would be no budget available to develop an aircraft carrier.

This left the RM little room to develop and there was an initial outflow of officers and men into the Regio Esercito and Regia Aeronautica as these arms were clearly both receiving budget and enjoying action. This resulted in the nature of the RM changing; it became both a bastion of royalism in the Italian military, as well as throwing off the suffocating weight of tradition that had hitherto bound its growth and, as importantly, becoming a focus for anti-British sentiment within the Italian military. With its capital ships in port or skulking after British blockade ships, the energies of the service began to be concentrated into three specialist areas: torpedo bombers, submersibles and radar.

The first, like the parachute division Folgore, had been stripped from the RA but, unlike the Folgore, the RA was not unhappy to see the back of what they saw as an unnecessary distraction. This was largely because the RA was only too glad to be rid of the SM.79 Sparviero, which embodied all that was old, and wrong, in the pre-war Italian air force. An aircooled trimotor, phasing out the ‘damn hunchback’ was an expedient way of making the bomber stocks look thin and so attract funding for newer planes. The RM took up the SM.79’s eventually and with it found a new lease of life. It was not designed as such, but it made an excellent torpedo bomber and its capacity in this area was demonstrated at the expense of a series of old hulks by the Reparto Sperimentale Aerosiluranti (experimental torpedo bomber group), utilising the excellent torpedo produced by the Whitehead works at Fiume.

The submersibles were a study in two extremes; the conventional submarines were large, unwieldy and lacked sophisticated breathing apparatus making their use potentially fatal to their crews, while the special underwater units could boast both excellent equipment and highly motivated units. Faced with an embargo on capital ships the RM commenced a review of submarine design and began producing a series of useful prototypes that were smaller, faster and employed various designs of snorkel. These vessels were still in development by October 1940 and there were mixed results in their development, but at least there was a sense that there would evolve an effective platform for the magnetically activated torpedo, which held the hopes of many in the service as a cost effective means of countering the Royal Navy’s dominance in the region. In the Decima Flottiglia MAS the RM had a potent weapon and, in the atmosphere of capital ship constraint and surface restriction, this unit that would otherwise have been starved of funding gradually began to grow in both size and capability to the extent that it began making ‘training voyages’ that would see them enter into Malta and even Alexandria. In the Xe MAS the spirit of the RM was unbowed.

Finally there was the development of radar. It was still seen as a toy and yet awaited its time; but it had its hobby adherents, a small group of officers of scientific backgrounds. It wasn’t revolutionising warfare but it was being dallied with and a series of experiments were proving encouraging. Perhaps something would come of it after all.

Croesus · Feb 25, 2008

It was quite clear that the Regia Marina was the poor cousin of the Italian military. Without recourse to a substantial budget the RM was limited to six battleships by October 1940; four re-conditioned WWI vessels (the Giulio Cesare, Conte di Cavour, Andrea Doria and Caio Duilio) and two modern vessels (the Vittorio Veneto and Littorio). However the political direction of Rome had changed such that the RM had no one to sail against. Under no circumstances was the RM to make any threatening moves towards France and operations involving the Royal Navy were limited to shadowing those few destroyers still enforcing the blockade. The base of the British fleet had been moved to Alexandria and most of the vessels taken into the Atlantic upon the commencement of hostilities. There was simply no one to fight a battleship engagement with, even if Rome was willing to risk the vessels; additionally it was clear that there would be no budget available to develop an aircraft carrier.

This left the RM little room to develop and there was an initial outflow of officers and men into the Regio Esercito and Regia Aeronautica as these arms were clearly both receiving budget and enjoying action. This resulted in the nature of the RM changing; it became both a bastion of royalism in the Italian military, as well as throwing off the suffocating weight of tradition that had hitherto bound its growth and, as importantly, becoming a focus for anti-British sentiment within the Italian military. With its capital ships in port or skulking after British blockade ships, the energies of the service began to be concentrated into three specialist areas: torpedo bombers, submersibles and radar.

The first, like the parachute division Folgore, had been stripped from the RA but, unlike the Folgore, the RA was not unhappy to see the back of what they saw as an unnecessary distraction. This was largely because the RA was only too glad to be rid of the SM.79 Sparviero, which embodied all that was old, and wrong, in the pre-war Italian air force. An aircooled trimotor, phasing out the ‘damn hunchback’ was an expedient way of making the bomber stocks look thin and so attract funding for newer planes. The RM took up the SM.79’s eventually and with it found a new lease of life. It was not designed as such, but it made an excellent torpedo bomber and its capacity in this area was demonstrated at the expense of a series of old hulks by the Reparto Sperimentale Aerosiluranti (experimental torpedo bomber group), utilising the excellent torpedo produced by the Whitehead works at Fiume.

The submersibles were a study in two extremes; the conventional submarines were large, unwieldy and lacked sophisticated breathing apparatus making their use potentially fatal to their crews, while the special underwater units could boast both excellent equipment and highly motivated units. Faced with an embargo on capital ships the RM commenced a review of submarine design and began producing a series of useful prototypes that were smaller, faster and employed various designs of snorkel. These vessels were still in development by October 1940 and there were mixed results in their development, but at least there was a sense that there would evolve an effective platform for the magnetically activated torpedo, which held the hopes of many in the service as a cost effective means of countering the Royal Navy’s dominance in the region. In the Decima Flottiglia MAS the RM had a potent weapon and, in the atmosphere of capital ship constraint and surface restriction, this unit that would otherwise have been starved of funding gradually began to grow in both size and capability to the extent that it began making ‘training voyages’ that would see them enter into Malta and even Alexandria. In the Xe MAS the spirit of the RM was unbowed.

Finally there was the development of radar. It was still seen as a toy and yet awaited its time; but it had its hobby adherents, a small group of officers of scientific backgrounds. It wasn’t revolutionising warfare but it was being dallied with and a series of experiments were proving encouraging. Perhaps something would come of it after all.

Croesus · Feb 28, 2008

The fourth week of May 1940 was a time of pause and deliberation for the opposing general staffs. The German advance had been held but not thwarted, the Anglo-French defence had bent but not broken. The Dyle-Meuse line had been breached in three places, Louvain-Wavre, Revin-Charleville and Sedan; but in each case there had been sufficient blocking positions in place to stave off disaster. The fighting had been severe. Losses during the first three weeks counted some of the best divisions of both sides; some destroyed, some as good as. The British had lost the 2nd and 3rd Infantry divisions; the French 3e Mot Inf, 43e Inf Act, 53e Inf B, 55e Inf B, 71e Inf B, 102e Fortress, 3e Nth Afr, 2e DCR and 3e DCR; and the Germans 1 Pz, 2 Pz, 10 Pz, 2 Mot Inf, 13 Mot Inf and 29 Mot Inf. The German losses were less, but were the more decisive units. In its failure, the Manstein Plan had sacrificed its Queen.

Clearly, however, there was more to come. The German advance had three possible axes of advance: on Reims, St Quentin or Brussels. This was an army that was willing to take casualties, and one that recognised static warfare on the model of the Great War was not sustainable. This was an army that would attack again, and hard. Accordingly the first action of OKH upon news of the setback at Rocroi was to pull all panzer divisions back, regroup and prepare for the second attempt at the channel. The forces available were 5, 6, 7 and 8 Pz with a loose KG of motorised infantry available after scavenging vehicles and troops from other areas. Still it was four armoured divisions and this time lessons learnt such as the avoidance of urban areas and French tank formations would be maintained.

The essence of the Manstein Plan was squarely within the German tradition of arms; to cut off a large section of the opposing army and destroy it. In attempting to resume the advance, and keep the strategic initiative, the first thought on the German side was to seek to redeem the plan and trap as much as was possible of the Anglo-French armies. The situation in the last week of May showed three main strategic areas the combination of which might provide the means to do so. In the north was the Brussels redoubt, well and strongly defended by British and Belgian divisions and with vigorous air cover; in the centre was the Namur salient, full of confident French divisions that had so far seen off everything the Germans had thrown at it; and to the south was the Meuse bulge, where the Germans had broken through but not broken out and in which was contained the bulk of the reinforcing German army.

The German plan that emerged from the following two weeks, while the opposing armies settled down into a relatively quiet period following the frenzy of activity of the previous weeks, was a typically bold one. It aimed at separating the Brussels redoubt from the Namur salient by offering up von Reichenau’s Sixth Army’s left flank and then hitting the resulting French advance hard with von Kluge’s Fourth Army, while the reconstituted Panzer Group Kleist would seek to slice in on the left flank of von Kluges turning movement. The aim was to lengthen the Namur salient, fill it with as many French divisions as possible, close it and destroy it.

The Anglo-French plan was nowhere near as insightful. The British wanted to hold Brussels and so maintain the Belgian armies in the field while ensuring there was no disaster at Narvik. The French wanted to hold the Namur salient to prepare for an eventual counterattack while ensuring there was no disaster at Reims. The strategic thinking remained the same as it was at the start of the war: to hold in the west, buy time, attack Germany economically while growing their own resources and divert conflict to the northern and eastern flanks. By the end of the first week of June, while the respective armies drew breath, the two sides remained in the same dispositions as they had in the first week of May: the Anglo-French defending and the Germans attacking.

Croesus · Mar 2, 2008

From the first week of June Britain and France began to militarily pull apart. London’s strategic priorities began to be dominated by the twin considerations of maintaining Narvik and Brussels. Just as the French had found their honour at Sedan and the Bar, so the British had found theirs in the person of Winston Churchill. Past inglories and imperfections aside, Churchill was a man who had found his time and was in tempo with the mood of the nation. Defending Narvik and Brussels was, on the ground, as much about maintaining troops in strong positions on the field as it was about political sensibilities. But it was the political sensibilities that began to stir the nation and defending Norwegian and Belgian independence against what was increasingly portrayed as Nazi tyranny soon came to embody the whole point of the war the British found themselves mired in.

Besides, the Admiralty simply weren’t going to let the Royal Navy be cowed by a couple of German battle cruisers and motley band of destroyers and U-Boats. The shocks of Scapa Flow, Bergen Leads and the loss of the Glorious was too much to bear, and this Churchill well understood. The senior service would have its day and for the moment that meant maintaining Narvik. The situation had steadily worsened since the rebuff of the French chasseurs at the hands of the Germans at Ostersund until the second week of June where the Luftwaffe operated with impunity and the first German patrols reached the Norwegian border and took control of the rail link leading into Narvik.

The foolish French advance on Gallivare had to a large degree had forced the Swedes’ hands; in spite of controlled sabotage they had little choice but to accept the German securing of Lulea. The inevitable request of a corridor of passage across Sweden to Norway followed soon after and in spite of much debate and several resignations permission was granted. The Soviet ultimatum to the Baltic republics and subsequent occupation, both with the tacit approval of Berlin, indicated to Stockholm the seriousness of the situation and it was felt best to trust in relative geographical isolation and protests of neutrality rather than armed resistance. Passage was provided and soon the chasseurs were skirmishing with German regulars on the Swedish-Norwegian border.

Once Narvik was closed off a series of battles were fought for the approaches that saw, in spite of some excellent defence, German artillery brought up within range of the town and the siege proper commenced on June 24. The British response was not lacking in vigour. It was plain that unless Narvik could receive air cover it would be lost and, while a battle raged on land around a small strip the British were attempting to open up, it was clear that it would be the Fleet Air Arm which would have to provide the air cover so sorely needed. It was the provision of such air cover that saw the loss of the Glorious. Taken with the loss of the Courageous on anti-submarine duty and the awareness that Narvik would fall unless sufficient air cover could be brought to be, the Admiralty recognised it had to protect what it had. The carriers designated to the support of Narvik, Operation Sinew, consisted of the Furious (35 aircraft) and the Ark Royal (60 aircraft). With the Eagle at Alexandria and the Hermes at Dakar, the two carriers were all the Royal Navy could bring to bear.

The Anglo-French had managed to concentrate a fairly large force in Narvik; as other operations in Norway foundered it was natural that the troops thus assigned would find themselves transferred to the increasingly crowded beachhead, and what they had was a miscellany. The British had Guardsmen, Territorials and Canadians; the French Foreign Legionnaires, Chasseurs Alpin and the Polish Brigade. As a general rule the town and its approaches was controlled by the British, while the defence of the railway was the responsibility of the French. Once the Germans closed up to the border they had conceived that the push down the railway line would be fairly straightforward: unfortunately for them they would be encountering some of the toughest and more motivated of the Anglo-French troops. Confronting the Anglo-French were a similar mixed bag of regular and mountain troops, together with Fallschirmjager and a handful of tanks. While the ground forces secured the ring around Narvik, the main battle would be fought by the Luftwaffe both against the town and against the Royal Navy.

The concerns around the defence of Brussels were more straightforward. Following Churchill’s promise to the Belgians once there grew a sense of confidence around the French holding on the Meuse, and the subsequent loss of 3rd Division at Louvain, the British resolve to hold the Germans where they were was considerable. Gort brought up his reserve divisions and leaving only a skeleton force on the Escaut fallback line and, taken with the Belgian divisions on his left flank, gave a very stiff frontage indeed to any German thought of further advance. That the German’s weren’t considering an advance wasn’t an obvious consideration at the time. The British plan was to hold in place, thence concentrate troops for a two pronged push on Louvain and Wavre following the establishment of air superiority by the Royal Air Force. This latter issue was regarded as decisive. The impact of the Luftwaffe so far in contrast to the failures of the Anglo-French airforces could not be ignored and the British sought to capitalise on the transfer of the new fighter squadrons from Britain. On the German’s part, while von Reichenau had switched over to the defensive, it was not at any point considered that the Luftwaffe should equally become passive. On the contrary it was felt that a stiff air battle would serve to encourage further Anglo-French concentration of resources and so contribute to their incentive to place their neck in the noose.

For their part the French were pursuing two main objectives: holding the Namur-Dinant positions with a view to using the salient as a springboard for the eventual, and now much anticipated, counterattack, while concentrating sufficient strength to hold Reims and St Quentin should the Germans develop these areas as their main axis of advance. The demands on manpower of these twin aims was considerable and by the second week of June the dispositions were still not complete. Priority had gone to Reims and St Quentin as Ninth Army at Namur- Dinant had become increasingly confident in its ability to continue to hold its positions; indeed it was, it felt, justifiably proud that to date it had taken everything thrown at it and managed the pressure well. Reinforcements were diverted to the area to help prepare for the counterattack but the timetable for the event was put back to the end of June when problems arose around bringing together the desired concentration of artillery that French offensive doctrine required. So it was that, with both the French and Germans gathering themselves for the exertions ahead, that June was a quiet month along the line of the Meuse. There was plenty of fighting along the Dyle line, but the Meuse was quiet. Unfortunately for the French the time they were taking with their preparations was playing into the hands of their opponents.

Croesus · Mar 3, 2008

The German plan for Operation Ausbruch involved four elements. Von Reichenau’s Sixth Army had the thankless task of being the bait and had two principal tasks. The first was to prepare substantial defences in Louvain and Wavre such that when the British Army came forward the lodgement on the Dyle could be maintained without having large forces trapped with the river to the backs and the second was to give evidence for a drawing up of force indicating an offensive towards Brussels such that the Gembloux Gap would again open up. These two tasks were fraught with risk but OKH felt that it had a fair estimate of the mettle of the Anglo-French and considered that both opposing armies would take their time to draw up strength in accordance with their Great War offensive doctrines rather than hurl forces into the breach as it opened. Nevertheless some precautions were taken to provide a defence in depth should the unthinkable happen.

The second element had von Kluge’s Fourth Army thin out its right wing such that it could both lengthen its line as well as encourage a sense of momentum in the French. Von Kluge’s main task was to capitalise on the sense of superiority the French had had undoubtedly obtained from their admittedly excellent defence of the Namur-Dinant sector. The emphasis on deception for Fourth Army was considerable as it was felt imperative to give the French sufficient evidence to coax them out of their defensive positions. The choice of the Gembloux Gap as lure was hoped to be decisive in this regard. To help cover the line and prevent an unforeseen breakthrough, units were taken from Sixth Armies left wing and placed in echelon on the right. Aside from these preparations von Kluge was to conduct weakening demonstrations along the Namur-Dinant line and establish blocking positions further back that would enable his retreating wing to obtain the abrupt strength necessary to trap the advancing French.

The third part of Ausbruch saw elements of Lists Twelfth Army advance slowly forward along the axes of advance towards Reims and St Quentin with the idea of masking the disposition of the remainder of the Army, as reinforced by units of Busch’s Sixteenth Army, which was to provide the bulk that would seal off the French as they advance towards the gap between the Fourth and Sixth Armies. The axis of advance for this movement was Phillipeville-Beaumont, and was the movement aimed at enveloping the entire French Ninth Army and, it was supposed, dislocating the reinforcing movement of the French offensive. As the Twelfth had all the marching and fighting to do it was given as many supporting units as possible which included, crucially, a reconstituted Panzer Group Kleist. To the existing units of 5, 6, 7 and 8 Pz were transferred 9 Pz, 1 Cav and the SS Adolf Hitler from von Kuechler’s Eighteenth Army. This was, once the vehicles began to assemble, an extremely impressive force and thought began to rekindle within the Manstein camp that a suitable target for such a force might be Lille rather than Charleroi or, as some hot-heads would have it, Dunkirk.

The final element of the offensive lay with in the air. The cracks were beginning to show and the impact of the British Home fighter squadrons was being appreciated, but for the moment the Luftwaffe remained supremely confident. They knew they had the measure of the Armee de Air, and that neither the French nor British AA defences were up to much. The fighters were the most overtasked, having to draw the RAF in over Louvain, chasing off Anglo-French reconnaissance flights and finally escorting the Stuka’s that were to escort the advance of the Twelfth Army. The medium bombers were to interdict selected targets in the Anglo-French rear while the spotter planes had heavy responsibilities for Fourth and Sixth armies to ensure firstly no breakout and secondly to avoid unnecessary losses for the unhappy soldiers whose task it was to just sit and take the Anglo-French punishment.

The timing of Ausbruch was necessarily predicated on the French taking the bait and there were some who felt that it might take a month of Sunday’s before such a thing occurred. In light of the doubts about the French offensive spirit it was decided that if they had not attacked by July then Ausbruch would commence with a greater emphasis on the offensive role of List’s Twelfth Army. They could not know this but the French estimation of when their artillery preparations would be complete for a counterattack in the Namur-Dinant area was for the last week of June. The stage was set for the biggest set piece battle of the war to date.

Croesus · Mar 4, 2008

June 1940 was a momentous month for international politics, but the greatest impact was made, not in the west, but in the east where Soviet Russia embarked on a series of political and military moves that would see its borders advance further west and complementing its gains in Poland and Finland. The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were next in line in terms of physical occupation, but had felt the weight of Soviet attention since the beginning of the war. Their fate had been decided in the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939 where Germany had surrendered its interests in the region. By the end of September 1939 Soviet warships were off the Estonian coast and flying reconnaissance missions over all three states. This was followed by an ultimatum to permit the stationing of Red Army troops and by 10 October Moscows request had been agreed to.

The war with obstinate Finland gave Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania a reprieve, but it was inevitable that Moscow would return its attention to them and accordingly, on 15 June Lithuania was invaded, and Estonia and Latvia the day after. Taken with the Swedish permission for Germany to establish a land corridor to sustain the siege of Narvik, not to mention the recent overrunning of Holland and the fate of Belgium hanging in the balance, the Soviet move was not viewed with approval in London or Paris. There was little they could do and certainly Berlin was doing nothing and, inevitably, the three republics were absorbed into the Soviet Union.
Stalin was however not satisfied. Another article in the secret protocols gave the Romanian province of Bessarabia over to Moscow and in accordance with this Moscow delivered a ‘Baltic ultimatum’ to Bucharest on 26 June, demanding the return of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union. The Russian ultimatum was followed by official advice from Berlin to accede to the request.

Berlin’s advice did not however recognise the shift in political fortunes in the Danube-Balkan region since the fall of Yugoslavia. There was a hint of desperation even in the official note; Germany had its hands full in the west and was relying on acquiescence on the part of Romania to prevent trouble in the region, which, in spite of the Italian conquest of Yugoslavia, was still firmly within the German economic hinterland. The problem was that Berlin’s ally of the moment was Russia and could hardly call upon its ally of yesterday, Italy, to keep the peace. Caught between two diplomatic fires Berlin was powerless to bring its influence to bear and this powerlessness did not go unnoticed.

Lost in the events of the first week of June, where Norway, the Baltic Republics and Belgium were suffering great ordeals, was the signature in Zagreb of a treaty aimed at promoting the political and stability of the Danube-Balkan region. It was not a universally popular treaty by any means: Bulgaria abstained as it had done from the Balkan Pact that this Zagreb Treaty replaced, and for the same reasons; Greece abstained in a similar vein to Bulgaria as, at the time of the fall of Yugoslavia, it was actively seeking to leave the Balkan Pact; and Turkey, with the recent drama’s surrounding the Anglo-French plans to bomb the Caucasus and the current change of relations with Moscow was not at all inclined to be drawn into anything that would see its neutrality compromised. This meant that the founding signatory nations consisted only of Romania, Hungary, Croatia and Italy. And it was to its fellow Zagreb Treaty members that Bucharest turned upon receiving the Soviet ultimatum.

The Romanian request for assistance was soon received positively and on 28 June Bucharest declined the Russian ultimatum, whereupon the war entered a wholly new and entirely unpredictable phase. Where the west was astounded, and impressed, by Romanian bravery, as it had with the Finn’s before it, the inner power structures in Italy and Hungary were not. This event had been anticipated since the announcement of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and subsequent partition of Poland. The secret Italo-Hungarian staff planners that had cooperated over Yugoslavia and Slovakia and worked through contingencies in light of possible German and/or Soviet moves into the region were able to supply their governments with existing plans. Following the conference at Campo Imperatore Italy had political and diplomatic contingencies, and the military-conservatives in Budapest also had strong ideas of how to react should there be a threat of a return of communism into their sphere of interest. The Italo-Romanian Non-Aggression Pact and subsequent military exercises had been part of this preparation ‘just in case’.

The stakes for Italy and Hungary were straightforward. Hungary wanted to add Transylvania to its gains from Slovakia and Serbia, and Italy wanted to add the oil fields of Ploesti to its oil interests in Libya and Iraq. This was the motivation for Rome and Budapest to promote the treaty of Zagreb and this was what they would fight for. The Russian ultimatum played into their hands and they happily went along.

On 1 July the Red Army crossed the Romanian frontier in force, advancing on the three main centres of Chisinau, Cernauti and Cetatea Alba. They were met by the Romanian army in prepared positions and overhead the Red Air Force had their first encounters with the Regia Aeronautica. While a Hungarian corps moved eastward into the Carpathians and Transylvania, two corps of the Regio Esercito moved into Romania. The first was charged with maintaining the integrity of the border with Bulgaria and the second, consisting of armoured, autotransportable and mountain infantry divisions, advanced towards Bessarabia. Within days they would engage the Red Army and the character and nature of the war changed completely.