Strategy and Operations in Europe and Africa WWII

Hitler sought Lebensraum

Space in the east into which the German population could expand. This was Poland. His calculation had been that the Allies would not intervene in Poland and that it could be taken quickly.

German strategy from 1942 on

Dominated by the search for resources, particularly oil, and securing her previous conquests.

Blitzkrieg

German tactics, especially early in the war, were dominated by Blitzkrieg, so-called “Lightning War”. This operational doctrine integrated precision dive-bombing - flying artillery - and other air support with very mobile massed armour.

Blitzkrieg required open spaces and a definitive and attainable end point. Both of these conditions existed in France and Poland.

ABC 1 Plan (Allied Powers)

According to the plan:

• Italy was to be eliminated as quickly as possible

• Allied Powers would concentrate on the defeat of Germany before the defeat of Japan

• Strategic bombing would become a key component of the overall strategy

• British and US holdings in the Pacifc would be defended.

Lend-Lease policy

The Lend-Lease Act set up a scheme through which the US sent aid to the Allies during the Second World War. Immediate payment was not required as the US was “lending” the materials to the Allies.

Poland

Poland would be the first trial of Blitzkrieg. On the surface, Poland seemed the ideal terrain for the innovative tactics.

Air raids also targeted those infrastructure elements essential for a modern army to function: roads, rail lines and communication centres.

The siege of Warsaw began on 17 September. The Luftwaffe pounded the city for ten days.

True to their pledge, the British and French declared war on Germany on 3 September.

Schutzstafel (SS)

Originally Hitler’s personal bodyguard, the SS grew into a massive organization within the Nazi Party.

Broadly tasked with party and state security, the SS managed domestic and foreign intelligence gathering, the Gestapo, policing and racial policies including the concentration camp system.

The Wafen SS was the military branch of the SS, which fought throughout Europe alongside and in coordination with the German army, the Wehrmacht.

Battle for western Europe

Hitler had hoped that his army could be quickly turned west to conquer what he believed to be a hesitant and weak France. His generals were far more cautious.

The war in the west did not open with a German drive into western Europe, but rather with an attack on Norway. Although officially neutral, Norway would provide the German navy with an important base of operation. Its occupation would also help secure the resources Germany obtained from Sweden.

The French plan was to rely on the Maginot Line and deploy their mobile troops, including their reserves in the north.

On 10 May, Germany launched Operation Sickle Stroke. Paratroopers seized bridges, canals and forts in the Netherlands and Belgium. The Dutch surrendered on 19 May.

The panzer divisions were outstripping their infantry support and Hitler worried about his tanks getting mired in the wet lowland areas of coastal Belgium and France.

“Miracle of Dunkirk”

First, the halt of the panzers bought the British time. Second, the RAF was able to keep the skies over the exposed beaches of Dunkirk and its approaches relatively clear of German aircraft.

Was proclaimed by the British media and preserved the fighting ability of the British army, it had come at a cost.

The French government, under Marshal Pétain from 17 June, signed the terms of surrender. The terms included:

• 60% of France, including Paris, the Atlantic coast and the industrial north, would be a zone of German occupation

• 40% of France and her colonies would be controlled by Pétain’s puppet government with its capital at Vichy

• the French army would be reduced to 100 000 men

• French prisoners of war, over 1.5 million men, would be kept in captivity with no guarantee of their release

• the French would have to pay “occupation costs”

• the French navy was to be turned over to Germany

Barbarossa to Stalingrad

Hitler’s attention was increasingly focused on the east - Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union. Hitler had long envisioned the destruction of the communist edifice and the enslavement of the people who lived under it.

To outfit such a formidable invasion, the Germans were forced to use tanks and equipment from all over Europe, including tanks from Czechoslovakia, artillery from Norway and trucks from France.

More than Stalin’s purge handicapped the Red Army. The Soviet leader’s willful blindness to the coming invasion ensured that no proper military preparation had been made.

The Blitzkrieg blueprint was to be used again.

The advance was slowing for a variety of reasons: high casualties, high amounts of prisoners, fuel use, inoperable railways, poor quality roads, exhausted infantry and panzer.

Operation Typhoon = the advance on Moscow. After two weeks of vicious fighting, the Red Army had recaptured the territory lost since the beginning of Operation Typhoon.

Stalingrad

The assault on the city was heralded by a massive bombing raid on 23 August that left much of the city a pile of rubble. As the streets became ever more impassable, the Germans found it hard to use its great advantage in armour.

It essentially turned the Battle of Stalingrad into a series of small unit actions in which the tenacity and growing expertise of the Red Army would tell, evening the odds somewhat.

The Germans referred to it as Rattenkrieg - War of the Rats.

The Soviets mobilized every aspect of Stalingrad society in defense of the city that bore their leader’s name.

Stalingrad was the furthest point to the east the German army would reach during the war.

North Africa

The absence of obstacles, except for impassible features such as the Qattara Depression, on the surface seems a perfect environment for the mechanization of the Second World War.

The lack of roads, harsh climate and interminable sand and dust, however, made waging war here its own particular hell.

In September 1940 Italy launched an attack on Egypt after which it tried to consolidate its gains. The expedition into Egypt was short-lived and a British counter-attack in December 1 940 sent the Italians retreating.

Another attempt, Operation Crusader, eventually succeeded in pushing the German-Italian force back to where they had started, relieving the siege of Tobruk in the process.

El Alamein

Rather than the fight and dash nature of the war in the desert up to this point, Montgomery would rely on his numeric superiority to fight a more plodding battle of attrition.

Montgomery’s plan was a massed infantry attack supported by massive bombardment.

He wanted to infict such losses on Rommel that he was compelled to withdraw and would thus be too weak to establish a strong position in the rear.

The British plan worked. Forbidden by Hitler to retreat, Rommel committed to defend his northern position, weakening his southern position, where the British eventually broke through.

Sicily and Italy

The invasion of Sicily was aimed at what the British viewed as the “soft underbelly of Europe”. It was designed to divert German forces from the eastern front and to foment a revolt against Mussolini’s increasingly unpopular regime.

The capture of Sicily was the preliminary stroke in the invasion of the Italian peninsula in September.

The US command was hesitant about the Sicilian and Italian operations, viewing them as a distraction from the invasion of western Europe into which they would have to commit valuable men and resources.

Although it achieved strategic surprise, the US commander failed to exploit this success and another Allied advance became bogged down.

Normandy

Although the Allied operations in Italy did divert troops and material from the force pressing the Soviets, it was not enough to satisfy Stalin or to make a difference on the battlefeld. Regardless, the main second front was not to be Italy, but rather in France - Operation Overlord.

An operation the size of Overlord would take unprecedented logistical planning and material build-up.

Contact and coordination with the French resistance was necessary as was the inclusion of the Free French leadership (those who escaped occupied France).

The defences were formidable, but troubled. Rommel had been placed in command of the Atlantic Wall (as the German positions were known). Rommel ordered the coastal defences strengthened

The Road to Berlin

From the surrender of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad, the Red Army continued to grow in both men and material.

The Germans, however, were not finished and planned a massive advance around the Soviet city of Kursk. The Soviets, forewarned of the attack, pounded the German forces with artillery as they mustered for the advance.

Berlin itself would fall to the Red Army in early May after a methodical advance through the city from all directions. On 2 May the city was in their hands.

The war at sea - Battle of the Atlantic

The Battle of the Atlantic refers to the ongoing effort to bring supplies - food, munitions and men - across the Atlantic from the factories and fields of North America to Britain.

The Kriegsmarine as it was known saw a concentration on large surface vessels during the rearmament period, a strategy that continued in the early years of the war.

Rather than lone boats hunting and attacking on their own, the U-boat fleet adopted a “Wolf Pack” strategy in which the fleet would stretch out across established shipping lines.

Over time the Allies defeated the U-boat threat through a combination of production and technology. Anti-submarine aircraft steadily increased their range, reaching far out into the Atlantic to give effective air cover to Allied convoys.

The air war - Battle of Britian

The fact that Britain would not negotiate meant that a military solution to her resistance would have to be found; that solution became known as Operation Sealion.

Sealion planned Germany’s amphibious invasion of Britain. The Luftwaffe was given the mammoth task of destroying Britain’s coastal defenses, eliminating the RAF’s ability to operate, and preventing the ability of ground forces to operate once the invasion was underway.

Daylight bombing raids continued into October, causing damage that was far outweighed by the cost to the Luftwaffe. Germany’s air war against Britain would now focus on a terror bombing campaign of urban centres.

The Blitz

The Blitz refers to the sustained bombing on urban centres and industrial targets between September 1940 and May 1941.

The first goal was to crush civilian morale such that Churchill and his government would have to negotiate an end to the war. Failing that, the raids were designed to impede British war production. On both counts, the campaign was a failure, but at a terrible cost.

The fate of Warsaw had given ample warning to British civilians of what high explosive aerial bombing could do; made preparations.

British propagandists turned the suffering into a rallying point.

More than 40 000 civilians were killed during the Blitz.

Strategic bombing

Refers to the aerial bombing of targets of strategic importance to the enemy’s war effort.

In general, this fell into two categories.

• Area bombing was the indiscriminant bombing of all the structures in an area, regardless of strategic value.

• Precision bombing was designed to limit the damage, and thereby concentrate it, on smaller target areas such as industrial sectors, railway lines and ports.

The Luftwaffe, designed to support ground force action, never developed the machines to carry out heavy bombing deep into enemy territory.

British operational doctrine advocated night bombing missions deep into enemy territory. The cover of night was partially to overcome the fact that the British had no long-distance fighters that could offer protection to its bomber fleets.

The US bombers were fitted with an excellent daylight bombsight that allowed for more targeting precision. The US daylight precision bombing was seen as complementing the British night-time area bombing.