1939, the German army attacked Poland, and World War II broke out. After Britain and France declared war on Germany, they did not launch a military attack immediately. maintained a "sitting war" on the French-German border for 8 months, which became a strange phenomenon of "no war on the Western Front". However, if you carefully analyze various reasons, you will find that "no war on the Western Front" is not surprising.
In the early stage of the outbreak of World War II, "No war on the Western Front"
In the early morning of September 1, 1939, Germany launched a lightning attack on Poland, and World War II broke out. Germany dispatched 54 divisions of troops to invade Poland at an extremely fast speed, and Poland fell into destruction in less than a month. Under heavy German troops' blitzkrieg attacks, more than 500 Polish aircraft were blown up before they took off, the command system and traffic communication were quickly paralyzed, and the army was divided and surrounded.
The Polish government fled from Warsaw to Lublin on September 6, and fled to Romania in a hurry on the 17th. At this time, the main force of the Polish army had been defeated, and the military and civilians in Warsaw struggled tenaciously until September 28, which was extremely heroic.
After receiving the news of the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France demanded that the German troops withdraw from Poland within 48 hours. The long-term appeasement policy of Britain and France has long strengthened Hitler's courage, and of course he would not take such a warning to heart.
The United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939, but were always in a state of declaration of war. this time was not the plot of a movie or a novel, but became the true "no war on the Western Front". On the French-German border, both sides each defended their positions for 8 months.
British and France declared war on Germany, but declared no war and refused to save the death, which became the reason for Poland's rapid demise. German war criminal General Alfred Yodel confessed, "If we did not collapse in 1939, it was just because nearly 110 divisions from Britain and France were completely unmoved against 23 German divisions in the West during the Battle of Poland." Then, why did Britain and France declare no war?
2. Germany paralyzes Britain and France and deceives world public opinion
In Germany, Hitler clearly issued an order when invading Poland, "On the Western Front, it is important to try to completely push the responsibility for the war to Britain and France. At present, for insignificant border violation activities, only local actions should be dealt with" . The purpose is to learn from the lessons of Germany's military failure in World War I and avoid fighting on both sides.
When the blitzkrieg strike against Poland succeeded, Hitler launched a large-scale "peaceful" offensive. He repeatedly expressed his desire to eliminate the feud between Germany and France forever and strive for understanding between Germany and Britain. He claimed that he had no other requests from Britain and France than to recognize Germany's fait accompli in Central Europe and to return the former colonies of Germany. The peace smoke screen of
was launched until October 10 and 12th, with the purpose of reconciliation of France and Britain, with the aim of paralyzing Britain and France and deceiving world public opinion. In fact, as early as September 27, Hitler decided to launch an attack on the Western Front as soon as possible, and the date was originally scheduled for November 12.
On October 9, he officially issued the "Memorandum and Policy Instructions for the Battle of the Western Front", pointing out that "time is an ally of the Western powers, not our friendly countries." After
After that, due to the military difficulties raised by the German generals, the unfavorable seasonal climate, the Western Front combat plan was leaked due to the plane's forced landing in Belgium, and considering the first move in Northern Europe, the opening time of the Western Front was finally set to May 10, 1940 after 29 delays. has been delayed for so long to take action against Britain and France, which is actually contrary to Hitler's original intention, but this seems to leave a lot of fantasy for peace to Britain .
3. Appeasement of Britain and France, internal contradictions, and dreams of the same bed and different dreams
In terms of Britain and France, as early as April-May 1939, the General Staff of the two countries reached a consensus on strategic policies: Given that Germany has advantages in the army and air force, it should first adopt a defensive stance and launch a counterattack after its military strength has fully grown. On the 12th day after the outbreak of the German-Polish war, the Supreme Military Conference of the Allies held its first meeting, but it still decided not to take an offensive on the Western Front. When France mobilized for the end, it would be symbolically advanced with the goal of soothing Poland.
But until Poland was destroyed, France did not mobilize.In fact, except for the several clashes between the patrols on the border between Saar and Lorraine, gunfire was almost impossible to hear on the entire Western Front. France and Britain lost the opportunity to attack Germany with Poland. After Poland's demise, the German army transferred to the West, and France and Britain were in a more passive situation.
On October 28, 1939, the strategic policy approved by the British wartime cabinet stipulates that the first thing is to defend the British maritime transportation line, and the basic air force forces are used to defend the British mainland. French Army Commander-in-Chief Ganmo also believed that the offensive must not be taken until 1941 or 1942. In order to ensure the success of the defense strategy, Britain and France advocated an economic blockade on Germany and a sit-in battle. The main reasons are as follows:
1. Before the war between Britain and France, they implemented appeasement and failed to prepare for war.
Originally, Britain and France, together with their overseas colonies, were far better than Germany, and the large warships of Britain and France were 10 times that of Germany. However, the British and French have been immersed in peace fantasy for a long time and turned a blind eye to Germany's vigorous development of submarines. The aircraft that Britain and France can use are only half of that of Germany, and the French armored division is only 1/6 of that of Germany. The United Kingdom established the Military Forces Department in April 1939 and did not play a role until August; on April 26, the recruitment method was adopted, and was not seen in the European continent until the outbreak of the European war.
Churchill believes that the British army's combat readiness in September 1939 was far less than that at the outbreak of World War I 25 years ago. France established the Ministry of Arms 10 days after declaring war, and the economic restructuring was very slow. Even Charles de Gaulle believed: "Another war policy could not be proposed loudly at that time, because there was no conditions at all."
2. After the outbreak of the war, the ghost of appeasement was not dispersed, and Britain and France were full of contradictions over Germany.
On the one hand, in response to the peaceful offensive after Hitler destroyed Poland, Britain and France were determined to defend peace with force. French Prime Minister Daladi said on October 10: "France has taken up weapons to resist aggression. Until it obtains absolute security guarantees (not the kind of security that happens once every six months), it will not put down its weapons."
Chamberlain also replied on October 12: "The peace we are determined to obtain must be a truly stable peace, not a truce of dangers overnight." On the other hand, Britain and France have fantasies about Hitler.
As Aiden said: "In October, some senior officials in the government believed that Hitler seemed to have room for negotiation, and believed that if the conditions were not too stingy, the possibility of solving the problem with Germany was greater. This was clearly the ghost of the past tolerant policy."
Chamberlain said his heart to Bernard Montgomery on December 16: "I don't believe that the Germans would really have any intention to attack us." Britain, France, especially France, took advantage of the outbreak of the Soviet-Finnish War and the defeat of the Soviet army in the early stages, and launched a fierce anti-Soviet movement, and attempted to create a large-scale "anti-Soviet Crusader" war to reverse the direction of the German offensive.
French commander-in-chief Maurice Ganmolin wrote in his memoir: "The plan to attack the Soviet Union from both sides of the north and south is ready, and this attack will definitely reverse the direction of Germany." On March 12, 1940, Finland ignored Britain and France's obstruction to sign a peace treaty with the Soviet Union, which hit the British and French appeasement forces. The Daraday government collapsed, and Chamberlain's life was not easy. Faced with the upcoming attack by Germany, Britain and France had to decide to fight, but it was too late.
3. Britain and France have the same bed and different dreams, and there are many contradictions in their strategy.
English and French strives to take the dominance in the alliance. After Britain and France declared war on Germany, there was still no unified command organization in . The military committee of allied countries, composed of commanders of the two countries' military branches, is only an advisory body to study the strategic issues of the campaign and has no right to issue orders. The commander-in-chief of each theater can only command its own troops.
When formulating local offensive plans, Britain and France have long restricted each other. France is keen on flanking attacks and pulling the war away from its own country. Britain refuses it on grounds that it cannot offend neutral countries.The only substantial content reached by Britain and France after the declaration of war was that the new French Prime Minister Paul Renault attended the sixth meeting of the Allied Supreme Military Conference on March 28, 1939, and planned to lay mines in Norwegian waters with British Navy Minister Churchill, and obtained Chamberlain's consent.
Renault also signed a common declaration with Chamberlain with military alliance characteristics, but it is worth noting that , which did not emphasize the issue of military cooperation that was urgently needed at the time, but only emphasized that no negotiations, armistice or peace with Germany alone should be made with . This still reflects the different mentality of Britain and France towards the alliance.
Renault was worried that Chamberlain's government, which had gone further on the Suiduan road, tried to make Britain bear a clearer responsibility in the war against Germany: Britain started from its own interests and also needed to tie France to fight, but the support troops sent were based on the principle that it did not affect Britain's local defense.
4. Conclusion
From the strategic policies of the two major warring camps of Germany-British and France, it was easy to understand in the early stage of World War II. The phenomenon of "no war on the Western Front" in the early stages of World War II accelerated the demise of Poland. Poland placed its key hope for life and death on the selfish and cowardly Britain and France, and completely abandoned the possible alliance, which was really no innocent.
The outbreak of World War II, the former Soviet Union requested Poland to allow the Soviet army to transit through Poland to fight the German army when Germany launched a military attack. But Marshal Rez Smigwi, commander-in-chief of the Polish army, said: "When the Germans come, we are in danger of losing our freedom, and when the Russians come, we are in danger of losing our souls." , he did not realize that the arrival of the Germans will not only make the Poles lose their freedom, but also make them lose their lives.
References:
"Focused Reading of the Masterpieces" Editorial Board: "Focused Reading of the Masterpieces German Literature", Beijing: China Pictorial Press, 2017 edition.
by Liu Feng, Li Zhenyu, Zhao Bo: "Analysis of Classic Chinese and Foreign Films", Beijing: China Radio and Film Publishing House, 2018 edition.
[US] Hayes, [US] Moon, [US] Weilan: "General History of the World (Part 2)", translated by Wu Wenzao, et al., Tianjin: Tianjin People's Publishing House, 2018 edition.
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