The Negligence of the Ardennes Forest

By: Lorena Solari & Antonella Chichizola

It was 1939 and the Marginot Line was amazing, it seemed indestructible. It was carefully planned to defeat the German army. This fortified line of defense surrounded the limits between France and Germany, blocking the access to the German forces. The British and French were waiting for a German attack to defeat, but when Hitler reached this line on May 12, France turned to be under the control of Germany, and just one city stayed on the French side: Vichy. If the Marginot Line was thought to defeat a German attack and was supported by the British, how could France lose under Germany then? The main reason might be that France didn’t expect the tactic Germans applied: passing through Belgium and the Ardennes.

In World War I Germany invaded France by Belgium and the Ardennes through the Schlieffen plan. To avoid this happening again, the League of Nations declared that in Rhineland, an area located in the frontier with Belgium, it was forbidden to have an army. But when Hitler rose up to power, German forces were sent there, so it was “evident” that he was planning to reach France through Belgium.

It is also another cause of the neglect of the Ardennes that the French thought that the swamps, forests, and hills of that area were a strong barrier; sufficient for defeating a German attack. A German bout through this region was considered an extremely risky move.

Pitifully for the French, this underestimation of the German army caused an important and consequent in the future flaw: in the Margot line, they left a 50 mile (80 km) unprotected gap in the region of Ardennes.

On May 10^th, Hitler launched attacks on Holland and Belgium and two days after he entered French territory broking through the Ardennes Forest. Despite the months that had been available for preparation, the defending forces were easily destroyed by the Germans because of the strategy they used. As the Allies at first though that the Germans would attack through Belgium as they did in the First World War, they took charge of this place and protected it with their forces. As an addition, the other possible way for broking into France was blocked by the Maginot Line. However, the German General von Manstein was aware of the lightly protection they have given to the Ardennes Forest so he proposed a change in the plans – which at first did involve Belgium – to broke through this weakest sector of the allied line by attacking across the river Meuse.

It was a massive armored force lead by General von Kleist which broke through the Ardennes and breached the French line near Sedan. This breakthrough was marked the outcome of the Battle of France. British forces decided to retreat to the Channel at Dunkirk. There were about 10 000 French troops that escaped and saved along them.

If Marshal Pétain, French general, wouldn’t have been so fresh about the Ardennes forest and would have protected that area the story would have been very different, don’t you think so?