Were the Germans expecting a long drawn out war in France 1939?

by teutonicnight99
Manofthedecade

Not really. The invasion of Poland was prefaced with months of jockeying over Danzig between Poland, Germany, and the UK.

So some background, look at a map of Germany in 1939, there's a German exclave in the east, seperate by a little bit of Poland. That little bit of Poland is Danzig. Danzig historically has been an important city on the Baltic and had been in German hands until World War 1. Hitler didn't really care about Danzig so much, but it was a good pretense for war with Poland and lebensraum.

Poland had an alliance with France and the UK. Hitler's original planned invasion of Poland was set to be August 26. However on August 25, the UK announces that it'll defend Polish sovereignty which gives Hitler pause - literally hours before the invasion. Talks resumed and UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain continued to discuss appeasement - and frankly had Hitler held off the invasion a little longer, likely would have gotten Poland to concede Danzig and the Polish corridor (though again, remember that wasn't really the goal). The negotiations however made Hitler believe that the UK and France wouldn't actually declare war since they were ostensibly willing to agree to cede territory to Germany. And Hitler felt even if France and or the UK did declare, that they weren't going to be in for a drawn out war.

Hitler was actually really confident of this fact - some 90% of the Luftwaffe's front line planes and the majority of the Germany army were all in Poland. 23 divisons were left on the western front. Despite the French and UK War declarations, the Western front remained mostly quiet between September 1939 and May 1940. Small skirmishes, a few small air fighters engaging, but nothing at all "major" occurred - it's referred to as the "phoney war."

In fact, the German army command was heavily reliant on the belief that France and the UK wouldn't invade. German general Siegfried Westphal believed that the German army would have only been able to hold out for a couple of weeks had France invaded in 1939.

The French had an opportunity, a few days after declaring war, they launched the Saar offensive where a large French offensive penetrated about 5 miles into Germany before stopping and eventually withdrawing. The French-British military command felt that it would be better to fight a defensive war.

As a bit of an aside, the Saar offensive was almost laughably bad. Germans had evacuated much of the area, and very small token forces remained. The French were approaching what became known as the Siegfreid line, a line of fortifications built by Germany between 1936 and 1939. It was a less elaborate half baked version of the the famed French, Maginot line. The Germans, lacking forces in the west, attempted to scare the shit out of the French, and basically succeeded. They laid minefields, they booby trapped doors in villages. At one point the offensive stopped because French General Gamelin had a herd of pigs brought into a suspected minefield which resulted in numerous rapid succession explosions. At another, a single machine gun in a village caused the entire offensive to stop for a day. The flip side of it was that the French were getting the reports of what was happening in Poland and feared that the German counterattack was "just around the corner" so to speak. So basically the French army was matching into Germany where things were earily quiet and there were traps everywhere. The fearful French combined with the British and French disagreement on how aggressively to engage the war. The British on the one hand suggested laying mines in the Rhine - which the French feared German retaliation on the Seine. The British also toyed with the idea of fire bombing the Black Forest which the British House of Commons stated would be a violation of private property. The appetite for actual war wasn't there yet and hence the decision to make it a defensive war and have the Germans come to them.

Hitler offered peace to the British and French on October 6, 1939, which was rejected. There's much to be made from this and whether Hitler's offer was genuine or simply an empty gesture. On the one hand (and in my opinion) it was a genuine offer and suggests that his belief was that the British and French weren't going to wage war over Poland. Chamberlain had practically agreed to give over Danzig and the French clearly weren't able to stomach an invasion. However, on the other hand, some see it as an empty gesture he knew wouldn't be accepted which then gave him justification for continuing the invasion of France against the unreasonable war mongers.

Regardless, obviously peace wasn't accepted. Germany begins to put together its plan for France. The initial plan, similar to WW1's Schliefen plan was to make a quick offensive through Belgium, hold the allies at the Somme river, and then spend about a year to build up the force necessary to make the invasion. Hitler rejected the idea and instead calculated that the French and British weren't prepared for war given the lack of military action on their end and giving them time only made them stronger. He instead ordered plans for a much faster invasion. Throughout October and November Hitler would keep pushing for the invasion to begin, only to be talked out of it by his generals. Eventually, around January 1940, German General Manstein, was on his way to a post in Eastern Prussia having been removed from his post as Chief of Staff of Army Group A on the western front. Manstein had formulated a plan that walked the line between being brilliant and insane. His plan was to use the speed of mobilized armor divisions to cut a path straight through the French, Belgians, and Dutch to the English Channel. He believed the fast moving forces would shatter enemy lines and allow a large encirclsment of enemy forces. Other generals thought this plan was insane - if the enemy didn't react that way, they risked cutting off supply lines and risking the main Panzer divisons being encircled themselves. This is part of the reason Manstein was being moved. However, in January, his idea found its way to Hitler himself who absolutely loved it. The plan offered a quick and decisive victory versus a drawn out war. By April 1940, Hitler was quoted as saying the war in France would last "six weeks."

The plan caught the allies by surprise - while they expected the attack would come through Belgium, it moved so much faster than they expected. They couldn't react in time and as a result, Manheim was proved correct. The attack was so successful that even Hitler got nervous and ordered them to slow down, suddenly thinking this was going to end in a disaster. Generals Rommel and Guderian would notably ignore those orders, or rather interpret them differently, seeing that they had the advantage and pushed. Wild success made all forgiven. Rommel claimed to have taken 10,000 prisoners of war whole only suffering 36 casualties. It was exactly what Hitler wanted.

So to summarize in answer to the question, were Germans expecting a long drawn out war with France in 1939. First, they expected no actual war. Then for a brief period it looked like it would be a long drawn out war. And then finally, Manheim's plan turned it into 46 day affair, just 4 days longer than Hitler's "six week" prediction.