Blitzkrieg Weather (part 1)

By: Dale R. Cozort  

 

What actually happened: On May 10, 1940, Germany launched a complex, carefully synchronized attack on the Western Allies. A fairly substantial force, including airborne forces and two panzer divisions, attacked the Netherlands and Belgium. That lured the British Expeditionary Force and the most mobile part of the French Army deep into Belgium. The bulk of the German panzer divisions then attacked further south, broke through weak French defenses in an area that the French thought was unsuitable for tanks, then raced to the sea, cutting off the British and the best of the French army. That doomed France, which surrendered to the Germans in less than two months. A quick German victory was not inevitable.

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       The first drops of rain began falling around 7 in the morning on May 11, 1940. Wehrmacht Private Herman Scharre kept marching on the shoulder of the road as long convoys of trucks and other vehicles continued to stream by. Herman was vaguely aware that his march was taking him toward a battlefront in Southern Belgium. He didn't know and wouldn't have cared that he was part of a daring plan to win the war against the formidable French army at one stroke. He was only aware of fatigue from nearly two days of marching, and of the cold rain coming down, first in individual, widely spaced drops, then in buckets. For him, that was all that mattered. 

********* 

        The rain was just one more annoyance for French sergeant Jean Bourdes. He looked down at the Meuse river. Through binoculars, he could see the splashes as the raindrops hit the water. He heard a voice behind him. “Think the Boche will come here?” 

        Sergeant Bourdes looked at the infantryman behind him and snorted. “If anyone upstairs knows what they're doing, then no, this is the last place they'll attack. My friend, you and I and the entire 55th division have spent the coldest winter in my memory engaged in what the generals call an 'economy of force operation'. That means that we sat out here, and poured concrete and trained once in a very great while because the people upstairs had to have someone here, even though they're almost certain the Germans aren't going to attack here. Meanwhile the real army, the part that isn't a bunch of over-aged, out of shape people like you and me, goes off to the places where the Germans are likely to attack.”

         “They're coming right down our throats with every panzer division and plane they have, aren't they?"

         Bourdes looked out at the water. “Probably. We'll know in about three days.” 

******* 

      An ocean and more away, Henry Lodge sighed. “We won't really know what's happening for weeks, maybe months. We know the Germans and French are both moving toward a collision in Belgium. We know that Hitler is trying his air invasion and fifth column stunts in Holland. Beyond that, we'll be printing what the French and Germans want us to print.” 

      His wife Kathy put her arms around him. “We know that it will probably last for years, just like the Great War. We know that thousands of boys are going to die to gain less ground than it will take to bury them. We know that those countries have so many hatreds that they'll keep fighting until they grind themselves down to savagery. We know that we are fortunate enough to have an ocean between us and that madness. Isn't that enough?”

       Henry pulled away. “This isn't the Great War. Hitler is something new, something evil, something dangerous to all of us. Poland fell in a month. If France falls, everyone on earth should be afraid.” 

      Kathy said, “Hitler is a madman. He's been lucky so far, but his luck will run out someday. It may have already. The French aren't the Poles. They have a good army.” 

******** 

      Somewhere in Germany, a famous voice shouted angrily in the distance. The door closed, shutting it out, then Captain Herman Berry shook his head. “I wouldn't want to be the weather forecaster who predicted at least five days of clear weather. Now they're saying that we'll have rain until at least late tomorrow. The Fuhrer is not amused.” 

     Berry's old friend, Captain Schrader shook his head. “What's a little rain? We have a modern, mechanized army. Just drive through it.”

       “A day of rain could lose us the war. Do you realize how tight our timetable is for the southern push? Every inch of road has a tire assigned to it every second for the next three days. If that tire isn't where it's supposed to be, the plan starts breaking down. If it breaks down enough, our armies will get to the Meuse river in little clumps, and give the French time to bring up reserves. Then we get the Great War again, instead of a clean quick ending. Then there are the airborne landings in Holland. How do we support them if the rain keeps the Luftwaffe on the ground?” 

******* 

      French Commander in Chief General Maurice Gamelin glanced at the latest reports, nodded, and said to no one in particular. “The rains are slowing us down a little, but we should be on the Dyle Line not far behind schedule. The rain seems to have almost grounded the Luftwaffe. Our deployment into Belgium has been virtually unopposed from the air.” 

      A staff officer raised his eyebrows. Gamelin noticed the gesture and went on. “Yes, it is almost suspiciously easy, isn't it? If they plan to trap us in Belgium by going through the Ardennes, we will simply move the appropriate forces back into position to block that move. They can't possibly move fast enough to make that work.” 

      Gamelin got up and paced as his mind integrated the latest reports into the big picture forming in his head. The broad outline of that picture was already set—a German thrust through Holland and Belgium, met by a strong, mobile French response that should be able to establish a strong, continuous line gathering in most of Holland and most of Belgium as allies. The daring German assault on the Belgian fort of Eben Emuel illustrated how dangerous the Germans could be, but Belgian troops were still holding out in the interior of the fort, and Belgium was gathering forces to reverse that situation. 

      Gamelin mentally added another piece to the picture. The German airborne assault on Holland threatened to knock Holland out of the war before aid could arrive. On the other hand, the Dutch were apparently fighting back well, and the German airborne troops were too lightly armed to hold their positions long against even a relatively poorly equipped conventional army. 

      Gamelin allowed himself a brief moment for if-only's. If-only he had enough high quality manpower available that he could afford to burn division-sized chunks of it off in airborne operations. If-only he had the kind of highly-trained manpower that could take on the Germans man-for-man in an encounter battle. If-only the French air force was stronger. If-only the British weren't keeping hundreds of their best, modern fighter planes sitting on runways in England while the French shuffled their undermanned air force to face too many threats. If-only …dozens of if-only's, all futile. 

      France had the army that the Third Republic deserved, whether that was good or bad. General Gamelin's role was to make the most of its strengths and keep the Germans from exploiting its weaknesses. Poorly trained French reserve infantry would not do well in the kind of fast-moving encounter battles that the Germans seemed to relish, but in static positions, protected by the very good French artillery, they should be able to hold up and eventually implement the methodical artillery-oriented crushing offensives that French doctrine called for. Meanwhile, the best French troops, those of the First Army, rushed forward into Belgium and even the Netherlands to do battle with the cream of the German army.

       The staff officer would had raised his eyebrows earlier said, “Sir, the German thrust through the Ardennes…”

       “Yes, it is stronger than we expected, but reports say that no tanks have been sighted. It isn't their main thrust.”

 ********* 

      The infantry column stopped and Herman Scharre took the opportunity to look at his watch. It was nine in the morning of May 12th and the rain kept falling. Up ahead, military police shouted and gestured, trying to untangle the aftermath of a traffic accident that seemed to have started with a truck and a lorry, then spread to encompass at least half a dozen other vehicles and blocked the road. Deep, muddy ruts on the shoulder of the road led to a truck that had overturned in the accident. At least a dozen German soldiers were trying to manhandle that truck back upright and onto the road. Until they succeeded, the infantry simply couldn't go on. 

      Herman looked back and saw trucks and other vehicles sitting motionless as far as he could see. A sergeant walked by and Herman heard the man say “…not a war. It's a traffic jam. If the French catch us like this…” The sergeant walked out of earshot before Herman could catch the rest of the sentence. The distant sound of artillery came, almost as if it were timed to emphasize the danger. Herman had been hearing that sound off and on most of the morning. Someone passed along the command to fall out, and Herman rested as best he could, shivering in the cold downpour.

 ********

     Captain Berry looked at his watch, as he downed the last of his lunch. Noon on May 12th. He sighed. The rain was still falling. He was smart enough to read a map and the reports that came through his desk and come to some conclusions. Those conclusions didn't make him happy. He looked around the lunchroom to make sure no one was within earshot, then said, “We're running almost a day behind in the Ardennes, and it's getting worse. Our columns are creeping along, and getting snarled up every way conceivable. The French still have cavalry and light armored scout units in the western Ardennes. We should have been able to push them most of the way out by now. We thought they were stupid to mate light armor and horsed cavalry. It slows the tanks down to cavalry speed and keeps the cavalry from using its off-road mobility. The rain bogs us all down, but it hurts the cavalry less than it does the armor.” 

      Captain Schrader nodded. “How long until we reach the Meuse?” 

      “At this rate, maybe by evening on May 14th.” 

      “How are things going in the north?” 

      “As far as I can tell, bad. The rain caught us in the middle of an airborne operation in Holland. We dropped people in by parachute to capture airports and bridges to make a path for the panzers. The Luftwaffe was supposed to be their artillery, and they were just supposed to have to hold out a short time. It can't do that sitting on the ground. The panzers aren't moving as fast as they should without air support and in this weather. We could lose almost all of those airborne troops.” 

      “What a waste.” 

      Berry nodded. “The best we have, but they can't win a set-piece battle against a regular army.”

       “What about northern and central Belgium?”

       “I don't know. Belgium has a line of very powerful forts sitting right in our way there. We're deployed as if we had some kind of magic key to roll them up.” 

       “I hear there was another airborne thing.” 

       Captain Berry shrugged. “They don't tell me things like that, and I'd advise you not to speculate about it.” 

       “Can we win?”

       “Yeah, but the odds get longer every hour it rains.” 

********** 

      The rain was still coming down at 1 in the afternoon as Sergeant Jean Bourdes used his binoculars to look out across the Meuse again. He heard what might have been thunder or might have been distant artillery. He muttered, “They're coming. Maybe not today, but they're coming.” He wished again that he had more confidence in his men, or at least that he knew them well enough to know which ones he could count on.