Eighty Years Ago This Week

The Franco-Britishstrategy to counter a German land attack crumbled at its first contact with reality. Its key element was its fatal flaw. It had long been planned to push the British army into  Belgium but this was a strategy of default. The allies had never truly addressed the implications of having an unfortified frontier with Belgium in contrast to the defences of the Maginot Line. It was little better than pious hope that a worthwhile line of defence could be established along the Dyle. Occupying Belgium was also supposed to deprive the Luftwaffe of bases from which to attack Britain.
The move into Belgium played perfectly into German hands, leaving the allied armies split as the Wehrmacht broke through the supposedly difficult terrain of the Ardennes. After only ten days the Germans reached the sea near Abbeville, cutting off the British army and large French forces in a pocket on the north coast of France. The German advance was temporarily held back by a large British counter-a…

The Germans had given good warning that they were bored of the phony war with the invasion of Denmark and Norway. They proceeded to deliver a brutal lesson in what real war was like to the British and the French, and to neutrals whose territory lay in the path of what the German general staff felt was the best route to invade France. As Holland and Belgium began to learn to their cost, there was no point in not giving offence to Hitler. Whether you cringed to him or held your head high was indifferent. It was a lesson that Chamberlain’s Britain had not taken fully on board either. 

The German army attacked Holland on 10th May but was temporarily held up at the city of Rotterdam which resisted for three days. To break the stalemate on the ground the Luftwaffe bombed the city heavily. About one thousand civilians were killed and most of the centre was flattened. It was by any standards a war crime but it was fearfully effective. When the Germans threatened to launch a similar attack on U…