During February war games were staged to test Manstein’s ideas. One game used aerial photographs and went into exacting detail about road capacities, parking, refueling, and air defense during the approach march. Vigorous air attacks by the Allies were programmed into the game. Haider, Brauchitsch’s chief of staff, was impressed with the results.
He concluded that such an attack could succeed if far more weight of armor was given to Army Group A. But he was concerned about the effect of enemy air attacks and worried lest the panzer divisions of the spearhead should outrun the motorized infantry behind them. He was worried, too, about the difficulties of getting tanks across the river Meuse in the face of enemy fire. All in all, Haider was beginning to believe that Manstein could be right, although he was convinced that the armored forces must halt at the Meuse and wait for infantry and artillery to arrive. He suggested a crossing on the ninth or tenth day of the campaign.
Both Guderian and General Gustav von Wietersheim, commander of the XIV Motorized Corps following the armored divisions, were horrified. They explained that the loss of momentum would be fatal to such an operation and expressed a lack of confidence in the leadership. Haider argued. Manstein was not present; having already departed to his new job. Rundstedt, until now a strong supporter of all Manstein’s ideas, equivocated. The meeting ended with bad feeling on all sides.
It was on Saturday, 17 February 1940, that Manstein lunched with Hitler. It was a practice of the Fiihrer to have informal meetings with newly appointed generals, and three other such corps commanders were fellow guests. Also present was Erwin Rommel, who had taken command of T. Pz. Div just one week previously. It was a mark of special favor that Rommel should be at the table with officers so senior to him. After the lunch Manstein was taken into Hitler’s study and encouraged to elaborate on his ideas for the coming battle in the West.
Four days previously Hitler had criticized the OKH plan with such fury that two colonels had been assigned to prepare a detailed study based on the Fuhrer’s complaints. Now Hitler listened to Manstein with evident approval. This plan was bold and “miraculous,” and such projects always appealed to him. Manstein’s cool professional reasoning endorsed intuitions that Hitler had long felt about the chances of an advance through the Ardennes Forest and an assault on Sedan. It also promised the blitzkrieg he needed rather than the war of attrition that he dreaded.
The generals at OKH had been shortsighted about the Manstein plan, but they recognized quickly enough the turn of the wind. The following morning, Haider presented himself before Hitler with a new plan. It was a complete reversal of everything the OKH had been offering. Not only was it in accord with Manstein’s ideas, it was even more drastic than anything he had dared to propose. No credit, however, was given to its true author. Instead, it was claimed that this was all their own work. “Now we have reverted to the original scheme,” claimed Haider vaguely. The army did not recall Manstein from his infantry corps in far-off Liegnitz.
German cryptologists had broken the French military codes in October 1939, and the radio traffic confirmed that Sedan was the weak joint of two second-class divisions. To strike at this junction. Army Group A was given what was actually a small armored army called Panzergruppe Kleist. (It consisted of five panzer divisions: Panzer-korps Guderian plus Panzerkorps Reinhardt. They were followed by
Armeekorps Wietersheim, comprising three divisions of motorized infantry: l. Div, 29.Div, and 13.Div.)
In addition to Panzergruppe Kleist, two panzer divisions (Panzer-korps Hoth) had been assigned to the command of the Fourth Army (Kluge), which was also in Army Group A. Only three panzer divisions remained in Army Group B, under Bock.
The uncertain weather of that 1939-1940 winter had played a part in the planning as it would have played a part in a battle. For had the attack been made according to the earliest Plan Yellow, it would almost certainly have come to a stalemate in mud. Now the offensive was to be launched in the fine spring weather of May. The actual day was the tenth of that month, and here again luck was on the side of the attacker. By May the action in Norway was obviously an Allied disaster of some magnitude. In France Paul Reynaud, a clear-sighted and energetic man who had been calling for reform of the army for several years, had been Prime Minister for only six weeks. Reynaud had never had much faith in General Gamelin, the French Commander in Chief, and the Norwegian fiasco prompted a furious row in the War Cabinet, which Reynaud interpreted as resignation on the part of his entire Cabinet. He said that he would announce it as such the following day, 10 May.
For Britain, the timing of the German invasion was just as fateful. On 9 May, Chamberlain, still at that time Prime Minister, was suffering widespread unpopularity, not only for the Norwegian defeats but also for the inappropriate complacency shown concerning them. After a revolt of backbenchers on the day before, he was now forced to ask the Opposition leaders for support. They declined, leaving him politically bankrupt. On the morning of 10 May, as news of the German attacks in the West came over the radio, Chamberlain faced open rebellion in his Cabinet and, a sick and broken man, offered his resignation. That evening Winston Churchill was asked to form a government, comprising both Socialists and Conservatives. Prime Minister Churchill declared himself Minister of Defence, without defining the role of that new office.
World History
