Blitzkrieg - Myth, Reality and Hitler’s Lighting War - France, 1940

Authored by Lloyd Clark and published by Atlantic Books, the book is a study of the German lightening campaign into France, that saw that nation fall in just six and a half weeks.

From the outset, we are left in no doubt that this is a revisionist approach and that far from Germany’s new Blitzkrieg style of warfare being the guarantor of success - this invasion was not a foregone conclusion.

In the introduction, we are told that there will be three main areas of exploration.

1) what preparations did the belligerents make for war and why?

2) What were the belligerents’ fighting capabilities in 1940?

3) How well did the belligerents conduct operations during the campaign.

I was a little disappointed by his Kursk book, as a good chunk of the first part was set aside to discuss the background as to how the Kursk situation itself came about and I didn’t really see that the campaign needed that.

This book opens with the fact that the invasion of Poland having already happened and full of confidence, Hitler is ‘compelling’ his generals to draw up plans for the invasion of France and we see the early signs of dissatisfaction from the Generals of this new ‘Supreme Commander’ as he presses for action, while the Generals feel the war machine is not yet ready for such an undertaking …. and might not be for a few years!

We get to page 100 before the attack into France begins, but these 100 pages are a valuable read as they set the tone of the campaign and give good insight into the personalities, realities and misjudgements that framed the campaign and its planning by both sides.

By this point the author has soundly impressed the notion that the outcome was not a foregone conclusion and that it was the force of personality and associated authority of a relatively small group of individuals that sowed the seeds of fate - one way or another.

The commentary of the campaign itself is detailed and interesting. Without constantly needing to reinforce the notion that ‘this was not a foregone conclusion’, the conduct of the campaign itself impresses this. In some cases, the fickle finger of luck dictates important moments on the battlefield ….. but that old saying ‘you make your own luck’ does apply here as German preparation and decisiveness, generally carries the day …. but it needn’t have!

There are nine nicely presented maps at the front of the book, so the reader can dip in and out of them as needed. We also get two sections of period photographs.

’By the fourth day of a seven-day exercise, the attackers had secured victory. Hitler made a personal visit with Mussolini to watch proceedings, moving from site to site by car and cheered by troops. A new era was dawning.’

’Panzer divisions were big, hungry, thirsty organizations which occupied seventy miles of road space or eighty trains of fifty-five wagons on rail and if they were moving fast, supply was of the essence’.

‘In short, the French Supreme Commander failed to provide the leadershio and direction that was central to his role and which his army desperately needed.’

’von Bock noted on 13th March 1940 - I could not characterize 4th Panzer Division as fully attack capable as it did not have a single serviceable command vehicle and all requests for additional vehicles and spare parts had come to nothing.’

‘When during the course of the battle some Stukas did turn up, the division was horrified to watch as the dive-bombers mistakenly attacked their own troops.’

‘The first two attempts to get across the Meuse ended up in a bloody mess, but the third crossing was a success after a key French machine-gun position in a cafe was spotted and destroyed by accurate tank fire.’

’The French too were apprehensive at dawn on 13 May, although they had no idea that the Germans intended an assault crossing that day’.

Austerlitz - Napoleon and the Eagles of Europe by Ian Castle and published by Pen & Sword.

Having recently played the boardgame Austerlitz by Hexasim and planning on playing the Jours de Gloire version of Austerlitz, I wanted to dig deeper and do a bit of reading on the subject..

I don’t have anything on my physical book shelf, but some time ago I added this title to my Kindle e-reader collection.

As a text heavy book, it reads well on the Kindle, though the downside of Kindle is that it doesn’t do maps particularly well. This is not a real problem as I have the Kindle App on my iPad and so use that when I want a better look at maps and illustrations. Overall though, I wish there were more maps in the book.

The text is very readable and draws the reader in. We can imagine the book in three parts. Firstly all of the pre-manoeuvring,  followed by the battle of Ulm, followed by the battle of Austerlitz.

I love all the information how armies traverse the countryside to eventually clash and the fog of war that goes with that. Today, I read this as someone who, as we all do, has instant access to information and messaging and that sits in sharp contrast to what our 1805 characters had. 

As an example, while in Prussia, it would have taken around three days for Napoleon to receive news of such things as a potential British landing on the Dutch coast and by the time a response is made, that information is already several days out of date. Even locally, there can be 24 - 36 hours delay in information flowing into the army headquarters and so the Generals are heavily reliant on second guessing what their opponent might be doing and the intrigue around this and feeling one’s way through the enemy countryside, trying to second guess the enemy …. not to mention spies! Is quite captivating for the reader.

Another dynamic that is having an impact on the ‘unfolding’ of the campaign is the issue of personalities and rivalries, not so much for the French, because Napoleon was the de facto authority, but in the Austrian army, personality and connections alone is having a major impact on outcome. 

It is not just personalities that have an impact, but the nature and culture of armies themselves. With three major armies here, French, Austrian and Russian, the differences are notable.

With a combination of the French model of foraging from the land, rather than being slowed by baggage trains and the varying levels of discipline within forces, the local population suffered dreadfully as their winter supplies of food were pillaged, anything burnable was taken for fires and anything of value or use was just stolen!

Something that I was not aware of was the degree of ‘on battlefield’ deals done and local treaties made between opposing forces on a gentlemanly basis. Such as one side would agree to surrender in one week if they were not relieved and a side giving the other 4 hours notice if circumstances changed and they wanted to attack etc.

Though even here, a new breed of general can be found that uses this code to their own advantage and then breaks it with little regard. There is an incident of a general telling the other side that an Armistice had been announced, a clear lie, to encourage the defenders to cede a bridge crossing and not destroy the bridge.

One aspect that really does stand out is the problem of the chaos that falls from units / formations becoming mixed up as corps / divisions and even brigades become intermingled, something that plenty of our wargame rules seem too forgiving in allowing without due penalty.

Ian Castle writes with a confidence of knowing his subject and for us the wargamer, the naming of regiments and their dispositions in battle is the language we revel in, as well as being good source material for scenario building.

The book gives us a nicely detailed order of battle, down to battalions and squadrons.

Overall the book gives a very good account of the battle. It also illustrates well what complete collapse of an enemy looks like. Compelling reading.

’By this authority Mack became the de facto commander of the army on the Danube. It was a fatal decision.’

’Kutuzov insisted on maintaining one days rest for every four spent marching to prevent exhaustion totally destroying his army.’

’Although the reserve division received its orders at around 11 AM to Noon, with his division spread over a wide area, it was not before 3 PM that the commander could begin to march in support of Dupont.’

’In this way, Sokolnitz was taken and became the theatre of a horrible massacre of Russians that had held firm in the barns and in the housed only death stopped them firing.’

Sherman tanks of the Red Army, authored by Peter Samsonov and published by Gallantry Books. Softback with 113 pages, it is priced at £12.99, but I picked up this copy in a Book Remainder store.

More than 4000 examples of the famous diesel-fuelled M4A2 Sherman tank were sent to the Soviet Union during WWII under the Lend-Lease programme.

The book describes the development and specification of the tank, including statistics on gun / armour performance, then describes a number of actions that involved the tank in various battle situations on the eastern front.

For those that know the Osprey Publishing books, it is in a similar format, a sort of cross between the Vanguard series, Combat series and Duel series.

It looks to be a very good example of its type and chock full of stuff that the wargamer can pull from it for rule and scenario design.

I will be taking some notes for a possible Rapid Fire scenario.

Page 35 - Trials showed that firing 100 rounds at a 2 x 2m target from 100m resulted in 86 hits from the bow machine gun and 85 hits from the coaxial machine gun.

Page 38 - its 75mm gun proved effective against the side armour of the Tiger. At a distance of 400m an APCBC shell penetrated the 82mm thick side, breaking off a 300 x 300mm chunk of armour from the inside.

Considering the problem that post war relations with the west meant that information and the value of lend lease was not regarded and understated, the author has done an excellent job in bringing a lot of detail to the book.

However, for this reader, I reached the 2/3 point of the book and felt that it had stopped bringing me any new insight and that there was a repeat recipe of how many vehicles a unit had through an action, how many were lost, how many were recovered etc, rather than some real stories of the action of the sort that you get in the Osprey Duel series.

Having said that, I was looking more for things that I might bring to the wargames table.

Military Blunders by Saul David, published by Constable, first published in 1997 by Robinson, revised in 2012. £9.99 paperback.

Saul is Professor of War Studies at Buckingham University.

‘Hurrah, boys, we’ve got them!’ General Custer at Little Bighorn.

The book looks at 5 categories of identifiers linked to blunders on the battlefield. These being Unfit to command, Planning for trouble, Meddling ministers, Misplaced confidence and Failure to perform.

Within each category, we are given six accounts of battles subject of ‘blunder’. For example for Unfit to Command, one of the six discussions concerns McClellan at Antietam.

Actions vary in scope from Teutoburger Wald AD 9 to the Gulf War 1991.

Each action is give around 10 to 15 pages and this is one of the strengths of the book, for people short on time, this can be picked up for a 20 - 30 minute read, to cover one action and then the book can be rested for as long as the reader needs, as the presentations of the next action is independent of whatever has gone before.

Each section gives sufficient detail for the reader to fully comprehend the situation and so even if any of the actions are not of the readers prime interest, we settle on a nice compromise of familiarity without needing an in depth study or knowledge or indeed any prior knowledge of the subject.

In the first two ‘case studies’ we get Elphey Bey and the retreat from Kabul, followed by Lord Raglan and the Charge of the Light Brigade. The pair cover 24 pages and by the end of them, the tone of the book is set.

The book gives fascinating insight into blunder, but also leaves the reader with a feeling of despair and annoyance or anger at the incompetence within command that so easily dispenses with the lives of so many people who either trust them or are obliged to do ‘their duty’, but this is also edged by the intrigue of how in each case, there were moments in which the disaster in question might have been averted, whether by potential intervention of individuals or occurrence.

In the end, responsibility and blame generally finds its way to one pair of shoulders, such is life, but the reality is that decision often sits within a wider canvas of the circumstances.  Some of these incidental and coincidental moments, just add a sense of compunded bad luck for one side.

page 43 ‘Every member of the assault column should have been carrying an empty sandbag, to be filled with the spoil from the trenches and used to make a defensive parapet, but someone had forgotten to distribute them.

page 63 ‘ Such a catastrophe could only be the result of a catalogue of political and military blunders. Nevertheless, one man stands supremely responsible’.

page 85 ‘But Colenso stands alone as the classic example of a battle that could not be won, a battle that should never have been fought.