France Attacks...Sept 1939

What if, on Sept 2, 1939 (the day after the German invasion of Poland)......The French deside to attack Germany from its western border. Could such an attack have been launched (assuming the French developed a stomach for real fighting), and could it have worked to the point, where the Nazis pull out of Poland to defend their homeland.......and stopping World War II at thatpoint?

The War that Wasn't...

Given how much the German army at the time still relied on improvisation, bluff, and making do I guess a strong French attackinto the Rhineland or the Wurttemberg would have collapsed the German war effort. They can not afford to lweave the frontier undefended, leaving the French to savage their induistrial heartland, but they can not leave the Polish front alone as the Polish army was certainly an opponent to take seriously. If it happens early enough, Stalin may well choose to stay out of the partition agreement, leaving Hitler hanging in mid-air.

The French had no Blitzkrieg doctrine, so they very likely wouldn't be able to make deep inroads into Germany with the kind of speed their tank force was theoretically dapable of. Given the imbalance of forces, though, any push that is carried with more force than a probe will yield gains, and if confidence feeds on victory and victory on confidence (as it did for the Wehrmacht), Hitler is in deep doodoo. Realistically, I'd say a push east and north that ends at the Rhine, maybe a Rhine crossing along the southern frontier with an advance into Baden, French troops getting as far as Trier or Koblenz, maybe Stuttgart... then the divisions hastily drawn out of Poland arrive and stabilise the front. Germany is now in for a long, hard slogging match without the resources of a conquered Europe, with a draining second front in the East, and with a possible problem as the USSR seeks to profit from the ground shift (OTL Stalin digested his bit of Poland after German troops had shattered the OPilish forces, thenm continued supplying Hitler with raw materials while watching in trepidation as the Nazis rolled up Europe. Here, he may well choose to stay out of Poland intially and, without the fear factor of Hitler's vast territorial gains, may have second thoughts about those raw materials. That is assuming the Germans hold on to the Danzig corridor and the deliveries actually take place along the rail lines. If they have to go by sea along the Baltic, I can see a whole new opportunity for the Kriegsmarine to learn about ASW in a hurry.)

It is a serious misunderstanding that the French in 1939 didn’t have any stomach for real fighting. But they based their doctrines on WWI (which involved extremely tough fighting) – i.e. a very systematic approach where both attack and defence was based on tight and comprehensive schedules involving first of all a lot of firepower. A WWI army would be smashed if trying to attack, as the French could get their big numbers of artillery in place faster than a WWI style army could advance. It is true that the experience of WWI had taught the WWII French that you should not simply attack at first opportunity (which pretty much was the approach in WWI French Army), but it is not true that they didn’t have doctrines for attack. In OTL they planned for a major offensive in 1941, but by 1939 the French rearmament programme was very incomplete. The 1941 offensive would have involved countless guns, planes and tanks (incl. heavies with 90mm HV guns), but not in blitzkrieg fashion, but in a slow moving “meat grinder” way (WWI warfare under armour).

In 1939 the French Army and Air Force could best be described as incomplete, both in materiel and training, and I guess that explains why the French didn’t carry through any major offensives in 1939. The Germans forces deployed in the west until the Poland Campaign was concluded were quite few and of inferior quality however, and it can certainly not be excluded that even the incomplete French forces in 1939 could have been successful in a westward offensive in 1939. It appears like the French grossly overrated the German defensive line at the French border (Siegfried Line). It later showed to have been mainly a creation of fantasy (created by German propaganda), but nobody knew then, and even in 1944 the allies were very concerned about how to deal with the Siegfried Line.

After the Germans had returned from Poland it probably was too late for the French to attack until they had finished their re-armament programme, but I also think that the Germans were close to being too late when they attacked in May 1940. By that time French industry was fast gaining momentum, but time was still needed to make all the new materiel operational. Had Fall Gelb started at 22nd of June 1940 (another big offensive started that time of year) the Germans might very well been met by a French Air Force of more than double strength and a French Army with much more cohesion and bristling with AT guns. But by 10th of May they still could catch the French on the wrong leg, and the French found out that the Germans in general advanced faster than they couldn’t build up their formidable firepower.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard

J.F.C Fuller

I recall reading a hypothetical speculation in 1 of J.F.C. Fuller's most decisivie battles in hist series (published in the 1950s), which on this topic claimed that the French, had they launched a major offensive into Germany while Hitler was still preoccupied with Poland, could well have penetrated the Siegfried Line against the understrength German garrison units which didn't have all the tools of blitzkrieg which were being deployed against the Poles, and ended the war.

Britain would have undoubtedly joined in, adding its air power and armoured divisions to the French forces...

I'm just wondering whether, upon the defeat of Germany in 1939 and the inevitable collapse of National Socialism, Stalin might still think about going for it, if not immediately in 1939, maybe 1940-41? Maybe we would have had an early Cold War...