Reich by James Lucas

Author:James Lucas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Osprey Publishing
Published: 2013-11-19T16:00:00+00:00

PART THREE

Military Perspectives

In a game of chess, a logical, intellectual game, there comes a point where one player will cry ‘checkmate’. That player has manoeuvred his opponent into a situation from which there is no escape. The opponent has been defeated. The game ends.

In warfare, too, a point is reached where logic dictates that the armies of one nation, having been defeated, must surrender. The war has ended. What happens, however, if the losing side refuses to accept that it has been beaten; where the loser, defying logic, continues to resist? In the game of chess it cannot happen. In warfare it should not, but frequently does occur.

The German General Staff which fought the Second World War was the most professional military network of any army. Through its trained, collective consciousness ran what was to them the inescapable logic of the military equation, that defeat results in a surrender which, in turn, equals the war’s end. Those logical German minds were confounded when challenged in a ‘checkmate’ situation by opponents who acted illogically and did not capitulate.

The history of the Second World War affords a number of examples of the German perspective in a military context; I have selected two major and three minor examples. The two principal topics are Operation Sealion, the proposed invasion of Great Britain, and Operation Barbarossa, the attack upon the Soviet Union. The first minor one is the Balkan campaign of 1941, which links the two principal themes. The other choices are the battle of Bastogne in December 1944 and the politico-military delusion in 1945 that the British and Americans would ally themselves with Germany against Russia.

The rationale for my selection of the two principal themes is that the failure to appreciate the determination of Britain to resist led to a situation where an invasion operation could not be undertaken. That failure to invade led to the attack upon Russia, whose resources had been underestimated and whose determination to fight back had not been appreciated. In both cases logic had determined what the outcome must be. In both cases the logic was not followed and the outcome was different from that projected.

Between the two operations lies the Balkan campaign of 1941. The German High Command saw the Balkans as a flank open to British assault, and entered upon a war which had little purpose, given Britain’s military weakness both at home and overseas. It is a widely held belief that the Balkan campaign so reduced the German military build-up that the timetable for Barbarossa was irreparably compromised. This is not altogether true but it is accepted that the spring campaign during which Yugoslavia, Greece and Crete were subdued must have had some effect upon German plans. With hindsight and seeing the situation from the German point of view, it would have been a better solution to have merely contained, until a more suitable time, the unrest in the Balkans and the British expedition which was sent to aid Greece. That containment would not have been

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.