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Old 03-20-2015, 09:01 PM
 
725 posts, read 802,584 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by catdad7x View Post
They assumed that Hitler would honor another county's neutrality, which he didn't. That, and the fact that fixed fortifications were becoming rather obsolete with the development of mechanized warfare, led to it's failure.

France and Britain were actually the countries that declared war on Germany first because germany tried to secure its eastern front by taking over Poland before the communists could. France sided with the communists which eventually enslaved half of Europe and the U.S. aftermath in Western Europe was no better with the ridiculous gun control, ban on free speech, high taxation and loose borders which let in hoards of third worlders, another moorish invasion.
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Old 03-21-2015, 08:23 AM
 
Location: On the Great South Bay
9,154 posts, read 13,184,404 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by john620 View Post
France and Britain were actually the countries that declared war on Germany first because germany tried to secure its eastern front by taking over Poland before the communists could. France sided with the communists which eventually enslaved half of Europe and the U.S. aftermath in Western Europe was no better with the ridiculous gun control, ban on free speech, high taxation and loose borders which let in hoards of third worlders, another moorish invasion.
That is NOT why the Germans attacked Poland. In fact, because of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the Germans actually gave more then half of Poland to the Communists.

In the early 1930s, the Germans and the Poles signed the German-Polish Non Aggression Pact. This could have easily been turned into a de facto Alliance if the Soviets had been threatening Poland. After all, Poland could have been a useful anti-Soviet ally and buffer state for Germany.

Plus as we know in history, Britain and France also guaranteed Poland. Italy was anti-communist. There could have been a German-French-British-Italian guarantee of Poland against Soviet communist aggression.

But Hitler threw that all away by first violating the Munich agreement and then invading Poland and starting WW2.

German (German-Polish Non-Agression Pact)
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Old 03-21-2015, 09:06 AM
 
Location: Type 0.73 Kardashev
11,110 posts, read 9,770,079 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PeaceAndLove42 View Post
They spend lots of time and money building these fortifications....only NO ONE happened to think "Hmm...This is a pretty good defense but what if someone were to, you know, GO AROUND IT? Then what?". Seems like one of the worst strategic failures in all of human history.
Quote:
Originally Posted by catdad7x View Post
They assumed that Hitler would honor another county's neutrality, which he didn't. That, and the fact that fixed fortifications were becoming rather obsolete with the development of mechanized warfare, led to it's failure.
Since the Maginot Line was planned in the 1920s, and since construction began in 1930 - well before Hitler was in power and even longer before he began overtly re-militarizing Germany, the Maginot Line was not planned/construction with any assumptions about Adolf Hitler in mind.

Further, the Maginot Line extended all along the border with Belgium to the Channel. Germany violated Belgian neutrality in World War I - the French were under no illusions that Germany would necessarily honor that neutrality in a future conflict. Though not as extensive along the frontiers with Luxembourg and Belgium, it did exist. It was believed that the time it took for Germany to transit these powers (in the face of local resistance) would allow the French time to fortify the Line in these locations with sufficient forces to meet the Germany threat.

That was clearly an incorrect calculus. However, the French can be forgiven for not foreseeing the advent and astonishing success of Blitzkrieg. In fact, a great many Germany strategists were doubtful of it as well. Further, much of the failure in 1940 was the result of tactical errors and defeatism in the leadership (though much less so with the rank and file) and not due to any particular issue with the Line itself.

Quote:
Originally Posted by john620 View Post
France and Britain were actually the countries that declared war on Germany first because germany tried to secure its eastern front by taking over Poland before the communists could. France sided with the communists which eventually enslaved half of Europe and the U.S. aftermath in Western Europe was no better with the ridiculous gun control, ban on free speech, high taxation and loose borders which let in hoards of third worlders, another moorish invasion.


Germany's east was not a flank - it was the primary focus of Adolf Hitler's agenda. This was spelled out in writing in explicit detail in Mein Kampf, as well as in countless speeches by Hitler. The focus of the East was not Poland itself but lands in Russia - lebensraum - but the move into Poland itself was both a physical means of eventually accessing those lands as well as a strategic positioning to that eventual end. The West was the side-show, the flank.

Hitler, abetted by the obsequious Ribbentrop, who was always quick to confirm what he knew the Fuhrer wanted to hear, was surprised when Britain and France declared war on September 3 (Ian Kershaw, Hitler: 1936-1945, Nemesis, pp.223,226,228-230). It was Hitler's desire to move East without a second Western Front. The moves to the West - the invasions of Denmark and Norway, the combined move into the Netherlands/Belgium/Luxembourg/France, and attempts to break the UK in the Battle of Britain and the fantasy of Sea Lion - were all elements to secure Germany's rear before it moved in full force to the East. They were but means to the Eastern end.

Your claim that Poland was Germany's flank is either rank ignorance of history, or odious revisionism intended to rehabilitate the reputation of an absolutely unredeemable regime.
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Old 03-21-2015, 11:59 AM
 
3,804 posts, read 6,157,363 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by catdad7x View Post
They assumed that Hitler would honor another county's neutrality, which he didn't. That, and the fact that fixed fortifications were becoming rather obsolete with the development of mechanized warfare, led to it's failure.
That seems like a good excuse other than the fact that the Germans had violated the same nation's neutrality to invade France in their previous war.
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Old 03-21-2015, 12:03 PM
 
Location: Miami, FL
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Even if the line were extended as was shown at Eban Emael paratroopers/glider troops landed ontop of the fortification would have disrupted sections of the line permitting a breakthrough. Billy Mitchell wanted something similar for 1919 if the Great War extended another year on the Western Front.-Parachute an entire division behind the lines/fortifications.
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Old 03-22-2015, 08:37 PM
 
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The war plan was to force the Germans to go around the Maginot Line (which they did), at which point the combined British and French armies would spring forward along a defensive river line and turn back the invasion. There was a large gap between the end of the Maginot Line and the jumping off point. This was the Ardennes Forest and the Allied war planners felt that tanks could not attack through this mess. They had token forces stationed there to warn against in infantry advance, which they felt would be slow enough that they could move their armies forward in time.

The problem was that the Germans came through with tanks, where they were not expected, and quickly got behind the Allied armies and threatened to cut them off. This forced a panicked retreat all the way to Dunkirk, where Hitler inexplicably stopped Guderian and let 300,000 BEF soldiers escape with their lives. The Germans then took the Maginot Line from behind, at their leisure, and captured all of the guns, equipment and rations.
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Old 03-23-2015, 11:53 AM
 
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Re: the German high command and mechanized warfare

In hindsight, it was good that Patton stayed up at night to read certain German military books. Both saw 'offense' as a winner.
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Old 03-26-2015, 11:03 AM
 
2,362 posts, read 1,915,502 times
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France fought WWII with WWI tactics...that is why they were taken over so quickly and became, at best, a little resistance

they were the world power to emerge after WWI...it was surprising to them as well im sure
not to mention they were filled with Nazi sympaythizers...
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Old 03-28-2015, 09:35 PM
 
Location: Independent Republic of Ballard
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Germany had the loser's advantage of being able to start over from scratch, while France had the winner's disadvantage of seeing no reason to abandon out-dated static war doctrines.
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Old 03-29-2015, 09:32 PM
 
3,910 posts, read 9,448,086 times
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The Maginot Line worked exactly as expected. It was intended to force the Germans to go around it. In that regard it worked perfectly. The French erred by believing that the Ardennes Forest region was a natural barrier to tanks. Therefore the French placed most of their forces further north leaving a gap that was thinly defended with light infantry. This weak point is precisely where the Germans attacked.

The French also failed to anticipate the concept of large tank formations concentrated into spearheads supported overhead by thousands of aircraft smashing through a narrow sector of the front defended by infantry troops. This type of warfare didn't exist in WW1. The French had no defense for this. Once the Germans punched through, they quickly got behind French lines and encircled Allied forces cutting them off from the rest of France.

Another problem was the Allied "Dyle Plan". The French didn't want the battles fought on their own territory like in WW1 where immense damage was caused to land and property. So they planned to advance forward onto Belgian turf to "prepared defensive positions". The Belgians weren't too happy about this during pre-war planning, and they refused to cooperate by letting French troops onto their soil until war actually commenced. So the defenses were never prepared. The Germans actually reached them quicker than the French.
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