In Blitzkrieg Myth the author argues that post WW II historians (and many commanders from that time) have misread the nature of combats that took place between 1939 and 1945 and drew wrong conclusions from them. What are these wrong conclusions? That blitzkrieg warfare as we understand it today (and even as it was understood back then) never existed, or at most was an exception to the rule. Blitzkrieg warfare is usually imagined to mean armies moving at lightning speed with tanks and airplanes blazing away any and all opposition. Well, as the author argues, if you go over the actual accounts of WW II battles, that did happen sometimes, but very rarely.
The author treats the topic of air war and tank war separately, but he spends most of the time talking about land warfare. He did convince me about the air war, but not so much about tank warfare. I will get to that in a moment, but first about the air war.
When the war started, Germans began with massive air attacks on civilian targets. Soon the Allies started copying them and they too resorted to bombing civilian targets. This was caused in part by technological limitations. This was long before laser-guided bombs or missiles directed by GPS. The bombers of that time era were horribly inaccurate. Only dive bombers could hit a small target with any measure of reliability, but they had short operational range and they were very vulnerable.
But the policy of indiscriminate civilian bombing was also dictated by theories developed in post WW I era. The author quotes here an Italian aviator named Douhet who wrote about massive fleets of bombers reducing cities to ruble in hours, or days at most, and creating such panic that the enemy populations will surrender.
In practice that did not work out for two reasons. The bombers (on all sides) were suffering horrendous casualties, which limited their deployment and effectiveness. But there is no question that the bombing raids in WW II had killed hundreds of thousands of people and caused massive property damage. If you include the bombings in the Pacific and add them to those in Europe, probably more than a million people have been killed from the air.
And yet, the bombed populations did not fell into panic and hysteria. While they were of course afraid of the bombs and they cried after lost loved ones and destroyed homes, nobody thought about surrendering. If anything, the bombings only increased the hate and the determination to keep on fighting. There can be no doubt that Douhet’s theories about wars being won from the air proved to be completely wrong.
But, as I said already, most of the book is about tanks. Here the author talks about a British tank officer named Fuller who was one of the pioneers of tank use in WW I. Fuller was somewhat similar to Douhet in that he believed that wars can be entirely won by a single weapon. Unlike Douhet, he thought that this weapon was not the airplane but the tank. He advocated assembling a huge force of tanks, at least few hundred, concentrating them on a very narrow front and sending them to attack. The tank then, in Fuller’s theory, were going to quickly destroy all opposition in front of them and keep advancing into enemy territory, spreading and destroying tens, even hundreds, of miles behind enemy lines.
Well, if you look at the history of combat in WW II, you do not find any examples of it. Tanks were used both successfully and unsuccessfully, but even when successful, they did not penetrate far behind enemy lines. When they did penetrate the front, they usually had to stop very quickly because they risked running out of fuel or because the enemy stopped them in some way.
To author this is a proof that Fuller was wrong, but was he? There is no doubt that Douhet was wrong. The air force commanders on all sides had tried to do precisely what Douhet was advocating and it didn’t work. But when it comes to Fuller, I could not find an example of someone assembling a force of tanks and nothing but tanks (thousands of them) and unleashing them against a very narrow front. Even the Allies and the Russians, who had enough tanks to try such a thing, never attempted it. Their tanks were sometimes grouped into powerful combat groups, but never large enough to attempts a truly “Fullerian” kind of penetration.
Does it mean that had someone tried to do precisely what Fullet suggested, would that work? Probably not. The author spends a lot of time discussing how tanks were being stopped and destroyed by the new generation of anti-tank weapons. Without infantry protection, tanks were quite vulnerable. On top of that, tanks of that time era did not perform well off-road and they had huge fuel requirements. A tank offensive on a large scale would have to take place in solid, hard, open terrain and it would need excellent logistical support.
But had all these conditions been met, could it work? We will never know. No one had attempted it.
Well then, if blitzkrieg was largely a myth, then how come German armies steamrolled through all these countries? The answer is twofold. One, they didn’t actually steamroll through them. For example, in September 1939 the advance into Poland, although rapid, was not phenomenal. The Germans lost a high number of airplanes and tanks and there were no spectacular tank charges. They won because of superior strategic situation (they had Poland surrounded on three sides) and larger and better skilled military. The fact that Russia invaded Poland on September 17th also helped.
In France in 1940, generally speaking, German tanks and airplanes were worse than the Allied machines. Not only that, but the Allies had more tanks and airplanes. But due to initial reversals the French government panicked, and then in turn the British panicked and ordered the BEF to pull out of Europe, which in turn opened a huge hole in the French front which the French generals didn’t know how to plug. The French army was more than a match for the German army, but it was poorly led.
In Africa large stretches of territory were regularly lost and gained, but they were empty. There were very few rivers or cities to stop the victors, or to serve as rallying point for the defeated. When one army lost, they got on trucks and drove and drove until they found a position where they could reorganize and form a defense. The victors pursued them until they met resistance, but all armies will advance fast until they meet resistance.
In France 1944, following the D-Day, the Germans were slowing down the Allies considerably and inflicting very heavy casualties until Hitler ordered a stupid, hopeless offensive that not only failed, but it also dangerously weakened his defenses and allowed the Allies to break through. Just as in Africa, while the Germans were fleeing, the Allies advanced quickly. But the moment the Germans stopped and organized a good defense, the Allied blitzkrieg slowed to snail’s pace, even though they had overwhelming advantage in numbers and resources.
I think that this is what makes this book so interesting. The author’s discussion of realities of WW II battlefields is so fascinating not because he ponders whether Douhet and Fuller were right or wrong, but because in doing so he demolishes many established myths. I realize that his views might appear controversial, but my readings of other modern historians and soldier memoirs largely confirms what he is saying.
This is a book to read not only for those interested in WW II, but anyone who pays attention to more modern conflicts. The idea of blitzkrieg had not disappeared. For example, the Americans have not drew lessons from the their failed air war in WW II. Years later they did try to subdue North Korea and Vietnam by bombing them. They failed. Massive armored thrusts have been attempted in other conflicts by many different countries. The results were, at best, mixed. Perhaps blitzkrieg was not only a myth back then, but still is today?
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Top reviews from other countries
Acosori
Excellent, the usual thoroughly researched information from John Mosier
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 27, 2016bendel boy
The book is good at challenging opinions
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 17, 2016