Blitzkrieg = success
By Isabella Ponce de León &
Brenda Pedreschi
When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Western journalists
adopted the term blitzkrieg to describe this form of modern warfare of the
German army, they had all-motorized force concentration of tanks, infantry, artillery, combat engineers
and air power, using overwhelming force at high speed to break through enemy
lines, and, once the lines are broken, proceeding without regard to its flank.
Thanks to Blitzkrieg strategy, German army was very feared at the beginning of
the war and many of its operations were successful. Blitzkrieg operations
were very effective during the campaigns of 1939 until 1941. All successful
Blitzkrieg operations depended on surprise attacks and penetrations in enemy
territory; in general, enemies were unprepared and had an inability to react effectively
enough to the German's offensive operations. This situation happened in Poland,
and in the Battle of France, were, the French, who made attempts to position
defensive lines along rivers, were constantly frustrated when German forces
arrived there first and started fire.
Blitzkrieg was a unique
idea of warfare that most of the Allied forces could not effectively understand
and counterattack until they gained reasonable experience under decent
leadership.
Surprise was the main
characteristic that gave so many victories to Germany, as the other countries
were not prepared and didn’t expect that way of attack.
We can consider as cause
of success the experience Germans had to make Blitzkrieg effective. Most of the
German troops were in heavy training in Russian soil (Training in German soil
was difficult due to the Treaty of Versailles) and Germans improved their armor
units significantly, thanks to brilliant Russian tank prototypes. Many of the
German generals were experienced and brilliant, thanks to their wealth of
experience and education from WWI and battles in Russian soils. This gave an
extra advantage over other countries because it is not useful to have a great
strategy if there are no soldiers prepare to develop this strategy, preparation
has the same or more impact in the success of a battle or war.
In Britain and France,
the cavalry regiments ruled supreme and they believed that the tanks would not
get any influence in their armies. The old traditional cavalry regiments
dominated the High Commands of both countries and their political pull was
great.
An important fact for
the success of blitzkrieg was the incredulity of the allies of underestimating
the German power because they could have prevent themselves better, and prepare
their forces, even though Germany was not able to defeat Great Britain this
occur because they realize before being attacked, but France suffered a
different luck.
In 1940, Britain
and France still had a World War I mentality.
What tanks and
armament they had, were poor compared to the German’s. British and French
tactics were outdated and Britain still had the mentality that as an island
they were safe, because they thought their strong and powerful navy would
protect them.