Originally Posted by
dazza
Quotes from Nelville Chamberlain, appeasement, and the British road to war, by Frank McDonough.
Really, I don't think so.
Read Tooze who has upset a lot of WW2 history.
Adam Tooze, Wages of Destruction.
Page 371.
"The German army that invaded France in May 1940 was far from being a carefully honed weapon of modern armoured warfare. Of Germany's 93 combat ready divisions on May 10 1940, only 9 were Panzer divisions, with a total of 2.438 tanks between them. These units faced a French army that was more heavily motorised, with 3,254 tanks in total."
Dutch, Belgian, UK & French tanks in total was 4,200 tanks. The BEF was a fully motorised army, no horses were used to tow guns or supplies, unlike the German army, which mainly horse drawn.
"the majority of the German tanks sent into battle in 1940, were inferior to the their French, British and Belgian counterparts".
Tooze, page 371/372.
"Nor should one accept unquestioningly the popular idea that the
concentration of the Germans tanks in specialised tank divisions gave them a decisive advantage. Many French tanks were scattered amongst the infantry units, but with their ample stock of vehicles the French could afford to do this. The bulk of France's best tanks were concentrated in armoured units, that, on paper at least, were every bit a match for the Panzer divisions."
The British did introduce the Matilda 2 tank, although late in the Battle of France, which again the Germans could barely knock out.
The British and French alone should have stopped the Germans, irrespective of politics. Gross ineptitude on the British and French sides was the problem. How the French never knew of the massive German build up just across their own borders opposite the Belgian border is incredulous.
Tooze Page 454:
"Fundamentally the Wehrmacht was a "poor army". The fast striking motorised element of the Germans army in 1941 consisted of only 33 divisions of 130. Three-quarters of the German army continued to rely on more traditional means of traction: foot and horse. The German army in 1941 invaded the Soviet Union with somewhere between 600,000 and 740,000 horses. The horses were not for riding. They were for moving guns, ammunition and supplies."
"The vast majority of Germany's soldiers marched into Russia, as they had in France, on foot."
The BEF did not march. The first motorised army. After Normandy most troops went by motor - in theory, although many marched depending on the situation.
"But to imagine a fully motorised Wehrmacht, poised for an attack on the Soviet Union is a fantasy of the Cold War, not a realistic vision of the possibilities of 1941. To be more specific, it is an American fantasy. The Anglo-American invasion force of 1944 was the only military force in WW2 to fully conform to the modern model of a motorised army."
The reality was that the German Army so no super army with advanced equipment, as propaganda portrayed. The Allies attempted to cover their pitiful, inept defeat.
Tooze, page 373:
"In retrospect, it suited neither the Allies nor the Germans to expose the amazingly haphazard course through which the Wehrmacht had arrived at its most brilliant military success. The myth of the Blitzkrieg suited the British and French because it provided an explanation other than military incompetence for their pitiful defeat. But whereas it suited the Allies to stress the alleged superiority of German equipment, Germany's own propaganda viewed the Blitzkrieg in less materialistic terms."
From Keegan:
- Germany was third behind the USA, then the UK in GDP in 1939.
- Germany equals UK in capital goods production in 1939.
- UK economy grows 60% during WW2.
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