Blitzkrieg = success

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.

The German Blitzkrieg was an enigma for the allies and a militar advantage and weapon to win battles for the Germans, their army was feared at the beginning of World War II, a strong and prepared army with secret tactics can be the key to winning battles, but not always to win wars, as was the case with Germany in World War II.