France destroyed 50% of the luftwaffe by itself, while communists sabotaged their own factories and country for the sake of the german-russian peace treaty
There were several pioneers of a new kind of warefare similar to the Blitzkrieg tactics. But they were sidelined by their supreme commanders. De Gaulle had similar ideas as Guderian and Manstein. He was given a larger tank unit only when it was all to late. In Britain it was Percy Hobart. In 1940 this poor officer ended up in the home guard. And most astonishing of all is the fact that the german Blitzkrieg pioneer, General Guderian, published a book about his revolutionary ideas it 1937. It was also translated in English and was available in irish bookshops. Why didn't a member of the British Ambassy in Dublin bought such a book and handed it over to the army commanders? Guderian had invented nearly all structures and techniques which are today's standard in most armies.
@@tabo01 hence why they still had telephone lines and not radios. “Never fight the last war” - is a war strategy/ principle. It’s better to be fluid and adapt.
@@brucewayne2238 My knowledge of the French military is limited, but the British finally achieved their system to defeat the Germans in 1918 with combined arms warfare. This depended on observers being able to communicate to artillery batteries, and was a catalyst for advancement of communications technology. Aircraft went from trying to communicate to the ground by use of flags or by rocking their wings. This transitioned to pilots using short range radio sets to talk to other aircraft, HQ or directly to artillery batteries. There was a lot of work done on communications equipment to keep advancing forces in contact with HQ, and how to do this without the Germans intercepting signals. The British and Commonwealth forces made great use of wire to connect units in the field, including troops carrying spools of wire with them into no man's land. Radio communication continued to be used for expediency, even with the risk of interception. I understand the French had a mistrust of radio communications. They had the tech and had special units intercepting German wireless communications from the beginning of the war, which probably fueled such a mistrust for their own use. Going into WW II, I see the British reliance on Fullerphones going with a massive deployment of such units and wire. This helped the British excel at positional warfare. Given the poor coordination of infantry with tank forces early in the war, I suspect the reliance on such units kept armor out of the loop.
@@tabo01 To be fair, the Germans were not as good at positional warfare with their doctrine - and depended on being able to punch through static defenses and then exploit the breach with mobile forces. This worked better against the French as the French were short of AA guns and were later in expanding their air force. The French did fight well, but not as coordinated as the Germans and the German ability to concentrate forces, exploit breakthroughs and keep the French off balance kept the French from being able to form an enduring defensive line. A lot of the German success came from having a better trained and experienced officer corps and troops. They introduced conscription earlier and had years of training invested in their troops. The British were catching up with their Army from 1939 (fortunately, the RAF and Navy ramped up earlier, while the Americans shifted from peacetime spending in 1941.Also, Germany got to try out their doctrine and fix some weaknesses with lessons in Poland. While the Germans had much but not complete success against the Americans at Kasserine Pass in 1943, they had much less success in the Ardennes in 1944 despite having weather neutralizing Allied air cover, a superiority in # of troops and particularly armor, and going up against a combination of tired units rotated off to rest and inexperienced units that weren't supposed to be going into combat. The Allied doctrines and deployed tech had developed to play to the Allied forces strengths. You don't need to beat the enemy at their game if you can force the enemy to fight your game. This described the Germans early in the war, and the British and Americans later in the war. As much as we point out the British and French armies' unpreparedness for the war they needed to fight, we can point out how German forces and plans were unsuited for knocking Britain out of the war, which kept Germany struggling under a blockade that limited the supply of vital war materials including oil and food. Ramping up the u-boat numbers meant a limited time where the increased number of u-boats could exploit their early advantages - before Allied tech advanced to largely neutralize the U-boat threat from March 1943. The Germans had their own problems of being unprepared to fight the war they ultimately needed to fight. In some ways we can equate the Germans back to something said about the Italians - about fighting well but not being led well. The Germans had better and more equipment issued and had better officers out in the field, but you get high enough and you are left without a realistic strategy for winning the war. They held on well losing the war from 1943, but lacked the means to turn this around. It is simplistic and controversial, but there is some point to a statement I heard that the Germans were great at surprise attacks but otherwise weren't very good at war. Clearly not true at a tactical level, but seems that the higher level you get in terms of strategy the more the German plans involved wishful thinking.
Blitzkrieg worked because the Germans used the latest radio communication technology so they could give their commanders live reports of troop movement. The British and French were still using dispatch riders and out of date radio and telegraph equipement that meant messages could be hours or even days old. So by the time British and French troops recieved a message, the Germans had already taken a position and have advance forward to their next objective. Also the British and French Generals still thought like their WW1 counterparts and didn't adopt modern combat tactics. The French had put their faith in the Maginot line to defend themselves. But the defence line ended at the Ardenes forest, so the Germans just went around the defences. The french stupidly have mounted fixed position guns that only pointed towards Germany. The British government at the time had a policy of only bombing military targets and not towns or factories, because they didn't want to damage businesses. The French army was joke, with Generals being appointed and sacked every month. The French soldiers were poorly trained and equiped and often mutinied when they were poorly treated. The Dutch had no stomach for war and surrendered in a week. Belgium was no better. It's not surprising that the Germans captured the low countries so easily.
Not to mention the Polish were still using horses for military combat when the Nazi's invaded. I'm no General but to me its pretty obvious, Panzers > horses.
@@sayedabbas5987 well not really. Germany lost the first world war. And that manifested in resentment and a NEED to make the allies pay for their frankly shitty treatment of the german people post ww1. The common person in Germany suffered a lot under "reparation taxes". So basically the entirety of Germany felt unfairly treated. Thus they actually looked at WHY they lost from every angle they could
@@sayedabbas5987 Which is also why they innovated. A whole slew of things you use every day (or they used to at least) was invented by Nazi Germany to regain the massive disadvantage of lesser numbers. One such invention was TANKS that was invented during ww1, but no one really used. Ww1 tanks were more troop carriers than canons on tracks. Germany changed that. They created cheap automobiles, roads and everything they needed. All of this with the thought in the back of their minds. NEXT TIME we won't surrender, next time they don't get to treat us like this
The Blitzkrieg Is More effective if they March through A gap and trap the armies and took them on separately like Napoleon’s Strategy excellent maneuvering, flanking and isolating the enemy
@@NoOne-rf4fc Both of them were confident that Russia would be easy to navigate and that Russians would surrender like the European countries once the capitals are captured. “Scorched Earth“ tactic and guerilla warfare weren't whay they expected - Russians basically were willing to destroy their houses, cities and manufacturing plants to stop the conqueror from finding anything useful. They went as far as burning Moscow when Napoleon was close to the city with overwhelming forces - Napoleon entered the dead city with no Russian people with only smoldering ruins all around and no food to be found. No chance against that kind of resolve.
We had total air superiority . And superiority in everything. Our training and weapons systems were vastly superior… It was nowhere near to a fair fight. Pretty much prime Tyson or Lennox beating some amateur. Not so with ww2 Nazi Germany . French & British were actually stronger and should have won . Nazis actually had quite a few inferior weapons, due to Versailles treaty they had perpetual trouble with trained reservists. Their line officers were in lot of cases people way over 40+. And 40+ back in 1930s, 40s is not same as in 21st century…If French Army & British Army had generals that were not dinosaurs , braindead relics , Germany would have been crushed in 1939. If they went east , If mass murderer Stalin didn’t purge Tuhachevsky & most of officer core, they would have been crushed at frontiers ….
Yeah Hitler was embarrassed to say the least by how country signed the treaty during WW1 so he wanted to embarassed France in the same way......as for Britain he actually didn't want to go to war against them....he didn't have a problem with them existing he hated France, and he hated the Soviet Union.
Another significant factor in the blitzkrieg attack on the Low Countries and France was the extensive use throughout the Wehrmacht of Pervitin a trademarked brand of over the counter methamphetamine, this was how the German troops could stay awake and alert ( and with fewer breaks for meals ) for days on end.
This was actually far less important than Ohler would have you believe. This myth came from his terrible book. Yes, Pervitin was used - however by less than 10% of all frontline troops. Allied soldiers were taking the same stuff, at least where it was needed most (pilots). Methamphetamine provides limited benefit to an infantry soldier - it might give a straight 24 hours of high performance but they’re going to be crippled for several days following that. Had what Ohler suggested been true the Germans would’ve lost on day three, as they’d have had a million men tweaking talking to shadow people and starving. Methamphetamine isn’t useful to infantry. The Luftwaffe were the main users - and their allied counterparts used Amphetamine, which is shorter acting and less harmful than methamphetamine and would be my choice if I had to fly a plane for eight hours. Crediting Pervitin with the success is in a irate - in reality it played a very small role and offered limited benefit. You just can’t artificially stop sleep and secrete dopamine and adrenaline indefinitely. The human body has limits. I would much prefer a well rested squad of ten soldiers then twenty who’d stayed up the whole night tweaking for two days prior. They would be useless.
@@BryanJohnson4891 you make some good points, but this is asuming they didnt sleep at all, they may have been taking a low enough dose, where there came a time where they need sleep for a few hours then wake up and take another tablet, they would have still been getting enough sleep to not be seeing shadow people, and taking just enough so they never start withdrawing, low doses of ampethamine based tablets are going to enhance anyones performance at anything, ive tried certain prescription ones myself and still ate slept and performed better at my job if i happened to take one that day, so yes it played a big role.
Allies did take benzos, but pervitin use was rampant in the German military, especially in tank crews (probably the most important part of blitzkrieg) and air crews (second most important part if not a 1B). Was it the most important part? No, but it did help.
Even though yes the Germans used blitzkreig against the soviets, it was never going to be the same as what happened in France. The sheer amount of land that needed to be covered in that front was something that doomed them from the start.
That's why the Germans succeeded at first when attacking Russia because of blitzkrieg on a small part of Russia. after that because of the large amount of land the element of suprise was gone. And that's where the russians had more troops and quantity.
@@Worldwartwohorrors They were successful at first because the Soviets weren't prepared at all. It's not until later in the invasion, when the Soviets moved all production far east, they won due to attrition. The Soviets had more men and resources both, and were more effective at producing weaponry than the Germans were.
And they don't really had the resources to wage war into the gigantic vast ussr.(not only oil but nearly everything) so they relied on suprise attacks and mass murders to hope that the soviet's morale will eventually fall but unfortunately for them the russians were willing to be killed by a longer bearded lunatic man than being conquered by some territories
It works great in call of duty domination. Full charge for B...no setting up layered flank defense for base. It's just like what the German army did but even harder because of spawn points and numbers tubing/lasers. Those guys wouldn't last a second against us
They were the first ones to use „mission command“ and a concept similar to NCO‘s. They didn’t have to report back to HQ all the time but could choose their own best tactics to accomplish the main strategy and mission. Macro-managing > micro-managing
Unfortunately they lost And now slowly victors are removing Positive things about 3rd Reich and brainwashing childrens that adolf was absolute evil monster
@@Kingx90 yes that's what am saying My country is far from europe but almost everyone knows about hitler even childrens I Asked questions to them : who was he? his profession? Country atleast? We don't know Was he good or bad? He was most Evil person How do you know that he was most evil person? we heard Peoples say he was evil here peoples are so uneducated and uninterested in history that they don't even know name of founder of our country but they know hitler was evil monster
A critical point on WW2 often ignored, as here, was French obsession with fortifications ie the infamous “Maginot Line” along Franco/ German border. Germany simply ignored the Maginot Line invaded through Belgium outflanking the massed French defences which were useless at this point and pressed home their attack. Once again a static fortification failed.
The maginot line had extended up through Belgium also, but they pulled out of the deal in 37(?) instead choosing neutrality as their course of action. Also the bulk of the allied army was in Belgium, expecting this exact strategy to take place. They met the German force head on, to mixed success but certainly not disaster. It was the German spearhead through the Ardennes (north france, south Belgium) that cut the bulk of the army off from mainland france and the maginot, this is how they won. Just think, the allied army retreated to dunkirk / Lille, these are in northern france. If the army was being pushed from the north, surely they’d retreat south. Instead they were attacked from the south east, and pushed north west.
@@finndaniels9139 This is why European arrogance and complacency was so incredibly stupid for up to 20 years since the end of World War One, and of course, the first three years of World War II.
This is a brilliant analysis, clear explanation and a very powerful story line method for explaining the idea. I'll be using elements of this approach in an upcoming video I plan to publish in the next few weeks. Thanks very, very much!
I once got absolutely plastered at a mates 18th and I explained blitzkrieg to about 15 people who sat in a circle and listened to me for about 45 mins 😂
Many warship countries joined together hit one country they easily won but for Germany it takes 4 to 5 years to defeat . So they have good Army and strategy .
Reminds me of the Buffalo Bills in the early 90s when they started winning well by using the "hurry-up" offense. Levy and Marchibroda worked out a strategy of the offensive line keeping huddling to a minimum and moving fast down the field. Won them a lot of games and gave them a couple of great seasonal records before the playoffs BUT somehow the rest of the NFL were able to figure out how to defend against it.
@@abdihassan7208 The Bills' "no-huddle" offense strategy worked on the less-talented defenses of the AFC, but when the Bills met the NFC East superior defenses in the Super Bowl, their offense was always dominated.
Very cool explanatory video. I've always wondered why Hitler wanted to wage a war on two fronts and this video helps explain that. Was he just overconfident? I think he even stated at one point in his life that his intentions were to avoid a war on two fronts? Why not wait until the West/Britain was conquered before heading East?
Hitler didn't have the ships/subs/aircraft to invade England, he thought that after France fell that England would surrender or seek a non-aggression treaty, some British parliamentarians were still arguing for peace until the war cabinet crisis in May 1940. Hitler was still hopeful of a diplomatic resolution even in July, after Operation Barbarossa kicked off. England blockaded Germany by sea so they couldn't import resources by sea. Germany was reliant on oil from Russia and they didn't expect their pact with Russia to hold out, and their ability to fight would have been compromised when it ceased, and it did. Rather than wait for Russia to switch sides when they had prepared for it, they thought a quick invasion would catch them off guard and they would have a similar success like they had in France. The major weakness of the Axis is that they didn't co-ordinate major campaigns well, had Japan hit Russia at the same time as they did the result probably would have been different. Russia barely hung on and threw everything on the front, if they were hit from two fronts and had to split their forces then history probably would be very different. England really wasn't much of a threat to Germany during the period of Operation Barbarossa, Operation Sea Lion (the invasion of England) had pretty much been put on hold while England largely fought a defensive campaign at that time via Battle of Britain where Hitler was trying to gain air superiority. England had naval superiority and they couldn't effectively invade England until that was addressed and it takes time to build ships, subs and planes. The vast majority of their military would have been idle had they not invaded Russia.
@@cuchuoi12 Actually no. Territorial ambitions of the Japanese varied among their military, the army wanted to attack the USSR while the navy wanted to focus on southeast asia and the Pacific. The Japanese themselves thought of the Soviets as their biggest enemy, not the Americans or the British so it's surprising that they refused to aid Germany when doing so would've most probably resulted in a decisive victory for the axis.
@@phatlewt2932 IJA (strike north) and IJN (strike south) were in constant power struggle and never cooperated until the end of war. IJA lost momentum and political support after defeats to the Soviets in Khalkin Gol, handing IJN the initiative abd support to execute its strike south plan. It's not that the Japanese didn't want to attack Siberia, it's the internal infighting in Japan that prevented it from helping Germany in any meaningful way.
The Germans lacked the oil (fuel) to wage their war of movement. They attacked the Caucuses region in the Soviet Union in order to obtain the oil there, but failed to penetrate deep enough.
In retrospect, it is clear that Germany had been violating the terms of the Versailles Treaty long before Hitler seized power. This included training in the USSR. This is an important political aspect of the German development of the cadre of professional soldiers prior to the Nazi seizure of power.
Excellent, precise presentation! Can you please do a video on the Tukhachevsky affair? Was it Reinhard Heydrich's master stroke that led to the decimation of ranking Red Army officers following that affair, or was it a suspicious Stalin's machination against Tukhachevsky's rising star to which Heydrich had unwittingly fallen prey?
A helpful source was an essay called the Tukhachevsky affair by Grover Furr. Furr has some Stalin apologist tendencies in his public appearances but his books and essays stick closely to translated primary sources. The impression I got was that he tries to stretch the implications of some evidence, but his arguments and sources are valuable and interesting in the broader context of the mainstream historical narrative. Its been a few years since I last read his work, so I may be misremembering a little bit.
General Hans Guderian read the works of the British Captain Liddel Hart who repeatedly wrote of the theory of mobile tank warfare. His theories were disgarded by the War Department whose thinking still lay in the old cavalry doctrine. Guderian realised that Hart's ideas were a way of breaking the impasse of set piece battles.
"The whole point of the Blitzkrieg is to keep moving." Von Rundstedt: I suggest we call a halt order even though we have the momentum and upper hand. Goering: Yeah, I got this. Hitler: Ok.
As someone with a slight hearing problem, I would prefer these films to have either no, or lower level background music. That would increase my understanding as well as my enjoyment of the presentation. Thankyou.
The fundamental principles on which blitzkrieg was based were derived from the 1926 book by Basil Liddell Hart. The German military attaché ( Erich Von Manstein) bought over a hundred copies to be shipped back to the German general staff.Similarly, after the Royal Navy's successful surprise attack on the Italian navy at Taranto, the Japanese naval attaché ( Minoru Genda) sent back copies of the British newspapers that carried full details of the raid.
The core principles of Blitzkrieg (actually Bewegungskrieg) go back to how Prussia had to fight its wars, out of necessity (in an inferior position for war of attrition, so forced to take and keep the initiative and force a quick, decisive, strategic victory. Through superior organisation and faster movement.)
At the end of the day, the German strategy was based on a short quick punch to knock out your opponents and force peace, when that didn’t happen, the writing was already on the wall because they knew they didn’t have the power to out produce their enemies.
2:48 "All junior officers were trained as staff officers." Staff officers are not the "next step up in rank" from junior officers. This appears to be a howler. I will add that no video on the Blitzkrieg should omit stating that it's a term that the Wehrmacht didn't use. And it needs to be contrasted somehow with the Soviet "Deep Battle" theory, tank-heavy Brit & French formations, etc.
Excellent content thank you. However the overlaid music is distracting particularly where you have experts talking. If you can't lose it completely, please turn it down.
Blitzkrieg was still used massively effectively during the invasion of Russia. Yes at some point it didn't work anymore in the vast russian territory but in the first months the russian army lost more soldiers than the allies combined by alot
The simple fact is that Blitzkrieg is an offensive tool most effective against a static enemy. It requires a certain collection of weapons and training. But, once Germany needed to defend, they had the wrong weapons and the wrong training. Once the Allies had absorbed the shock of the Blitzkrieg the Germans failed to adapt, probably could never fully adapt as eventually the industrial might of the Allies (USA) would overwhelm what the Axis could muster. Note, the same thing played out in Ukraine. Only real difference is Ukraine defended critical infrastructure (e.g., Hostomel/Antonov Airport), allowed the Russians to overextend supply, cut the supply and created the war of attrition. Meanwhile, the arsenals of democracy in Europe and Americas backed Ukraine and cut off Russia. Russia's pre-war economy was no bigger than Spain's, and now smaller. Over time, Russia will become exhausted. Unified patience and determination will drive Russia back the same as Germany was driven back.
They almost defeated USSR with it, but after defeating a million they would get another million after million and million which is ridiculous. And they simply couldn't make it in time while they were really overpowering enemy before winters. And then it became despair for them realizing they couldn't advance forward anymore after all this effort.
Dislocation, not destruction - nicely sums up blitzkrieg. (although that is perfectly what Dunkirk was all about and the Germans failed to switch gears)
Excellent video - would be good if the IWM experts could do a video on the difference between Blitzkrieg and Soviet Deep Battle - I know there is a difference but I do not know what it is - superficially they are the same!
One major weakness of Blitzkrieg is that the troops overrun the supply lines and that means the advance has to be halted so the tanks can get petrol and the men can get food. Thats why the British Expeditionary Force escaped from Dunkirk along with many other allied soldiers. Though i rather suspect the Germans let the allies escape(to some extent) so a future surrender deal from Britain would be easier to negotiate.
Nothing at all. France as a country was demoralized after the major loss of life during the first world war. And no-one in France wanted to repeat WW1.
Honestly the whole defeating your enemy with dislocation and not sheer destruction kind reminds me about what Sun Tzu said about the greatest victories have no battles. Meaning that victory is not just winning the battle. Killing is not the most important thing. Destabilizing your opponent is. Hence making it the greatest victory.
-You get tanks -You prepare Logistics and Support unit -Motivate your commandant -Make the panzer go first with their Armor and Kanone -Get the logistic and support team to cover the Back and sides -and win
Since it is all about by passing the heavily guarded front and encircling the enemies from backside, can we conclude that Blitzkrieg is just a more effective Schlieffen plan?
Blitzkrieg isn’t a specific tactic, it’s a sort of catch all term for the various tactics and strategies that encompass the sort of ‘mobile warfare’ area specifically relating to German early war tactics Had the schlieffen plan worked, I suppose you could describe it as a sort of blitzkrieg, but it is missing the mechanisation and combined arms aspects that characterised the tactics of Nazis in ww2. That being said, mobile warfare designed around bypassing strong points is hardly new, it has existed for hundreds of years
Straight up get behind enemy lines cut off supplies and overwhelming their opposition but the way they did it was ineffective after doing it for long periods of time without thinking about maintence and having parts.... burning fuel way to much. Then the arms industries werent up to par they weren't making enough weapons and armoured units and planes and also the most imporantan human life
Germany didn't stood a chance because not only they're fighting on all fronts but they're fighting all countries the biggest flex is they held all fronts for 5 years and never surrendered
Because those countries did everything they could to lose. Stalin purged 80% of his officers and replaced them with communist commissars. On top of that he refused to let the army prepare for the invasion until the invasion actually started despite the fact that KGB spies warned him more than 6 months early about the German attack.
Basically, what they are doing is creating a diversion by taking the enemies last objective point rather than the first objective, which is at the front line.
Germans used blitzkreig well but you can’t use same technique for the entirety of the war and at the same time allies adapt and counterattack perfectly well.
Said that it is fighting without fighting but in the explanation he mentioned the use of tanks and planes. How then is it not fighting when you are already using them?
I’m intrigued that you don’t refer to Plan 1919, created by the British Army. I have seen this referred to as the genesis of blitzkrieg warfare, a way to break the stalemate of trench warfare which wasn’t needed but the details of which were released after the war ended. Somebody in the German army (perhaps Guderein?] recognised the value of the plan and the tactical advantage of blitzkrieg warfare which was used to great advantage in 1940.
I think the credit due should be to general Hans Guderian who taught and adopted the blitzkrieg principle to practical use in German military school who incidentally was the mentor of the desert fox.
The tactics are sound but the French still outnumbered them and had the far heavier tanks compared to panzer 1 and 2 I just never got the French capitulation so quickly , I suppose moral and the bef evacuation didn't help , neather the less the allies won .
The French had lost too many tanks during the time leading up to Dunkirk. And they had already committed their strategic reserve. Blitzkrieg tactics kept them too disorganized.
@@royfernley3153 They saw the tank as an infantry support weapon...their tanks also lacked radios which since the German tanks had these, gave the attacker a big advantage...
The French 3rd, 4th, and 5th Armies faced the German 1st Army in Saars in September, 1939. Commanded by General Maurice Gamelin, the French Forces consisted of 40 Divisions, 4,700 Artillery, and 2,400 Tanks. Commanded by General Fritz von Witzleben, the German Forces consisted of 22 Divisions, less than 100 Artillery, no Tanks. Preemptive Mobilisation began on 28th August 1939, which meant the French Forces were theoretically ready for Full Mobilisation and active Offensive from 1st September 1939. Poland was invaded on 1st September 1939, and planned on the arrival of a large French Army. On 7th September, the French General Staff launched “Operation Saars”, and they crossed into territory of the Third Reich on 9th September, 1939. The French Forces took 12 villages with no opposition, but one village is reported as having blocked the advance by use of a single machine gun. The French Forces advanced along a 20 mile (32 km) Front, and invaded Third Reich territory to a depth of 5 miles (8km). General Gamelin ordered his Forces to approach no closer than One Km to the Siegfried Line - they did get within several Km of the Siegfried Line. Everyone had expected a major French Attack on the Western Front. But after the collapse of Poland, General Maurice Gamelin on 21 September ordered French units to return to their starting positions on the Maginot Line. The French had suffered 2,000 Casualties (including 4 Tanks damaged by mines); the Germans had 640 Casualties, and lost 11 Aircraft. Without informing his Polish allies, General Gamelin withdrew from Third Reich territory; and by 17th October 1939 all French Forces had returned to France. Some French generals, such as Henri Giraud, saw the withdrawal as a wasted opportunity and made known their disagreement with it. General Louis Faury informed the Polish chief of staff, General Wacław Stachiewicz, that the planned major offensive on the western front had to be postponed. Polish resistance collapsed by the beginning of October, 1939. At the Nuremberg Trials, German military commander Alfred Jodl said that "if we did not collapse already in the year 1939 that was due only to the fact that during the Polish campaign, the approximately 110 French and British divisions in the West were held completely inactive against the 23 German divisions." General Siegfried Westphal stated that if the French had attacked in full force in September 1939 the German army "could only have held out for one or two weeks."
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Interesting Video. Of course it cant cover everything in and all nuances in 8 Minuites I also love when english speaking peopel talk of "Panzer-Tanks" which translated means "Tank-Tanks" :)
Hans Von Seeckt not mentioned. In the First World War Germany had significant experience on the Eastern Front of a much more mobile form of warfare than that on the Western Front. Also, the French Army created the world's first armoured division (DLM). Problem was they only had three of them, two were pre-committed to the Gembloux gap in Belgium, and the other was sent to Holland for political rather than purely military reasons.
Soldiers of the Empire in which sun never sets were on the run to save their lives. In Singapore, they surrendered to the Japanese. Interesting to watch the tactics of the Germans & the Japanese at that time. The subsequent defeat of the Germans & the Japanese also is interesting.
As someone whose country had been invaded by France in 1600's, I got a sense of relief to learn that it had to shamefully surrender to Germany. "What goes around, comes around"😊
that’s an awful way of thinking. my country was invaded by japan but does that mean i wish harm to japan? no way. what someone’s ancestors have done a long time ago doesn’t define the country or its people in the present.
thank you for this tutorial on how to invade france! i needed it
Need it now more than ever!
Yes same,
Sickness! On how to invade France...this age? Never...gone are yester years.
Call of war?😂
Bitteschön
"Quantity has a quality of it's own" Joseph Stalin.
I think Lenin said it.
and winter
@@fuadahmed5501 no it was stalin
Yes it is quantity beats quality in times like that
@@fuadahmed5501 no is stalin
Fantastic, not a history buff, but I really enjoyed this.
Glad you enjoyed it
Yes it’s pacing and graphic illustrations kept my attention and was easy to follow and comprehend..
You should bro. Many great and interesting documentaries.
The Luftwaffe was probably the most important part of Blitzkreig they just had absolute control over the air while pushing France back
France destroyed 50% of the luftwaffe by itself, while communists sabotaged their own factories and country for the sake of the german-russian peace treaty
The French communists were committing acts of sabotage against France’s Air Force btw
@@aa6dcc source?
@@shagger-dz2dycommies bad
@@smtandearthboundsuck8400 im waiting for a source.
There were several pioneers of a new kind of warefare similar to the Blitzkrieg tactics. But they were sidelined by their supreme commanders. De Gaulle had similar ideas as Guderian and Manstein. He was given a larger tank unit only when it was all to late. In Britain it was Percy Hobart. In 1940 this poor officer ended up in the home guard. And most astonishing of all is the fact that the german Blitzkrieg pioneer, General Guderian, published a book about his revolutionary ideas it 1937. It was also translated in English and was available in irish bookshops. Why didn't a member of the British Ambassy in Dublin bought such a book and handed it over to the army commanders? Guderian had invented nearly all structures and techniques which are today's standard in most armies.
If you want to believe Guderian’s version of the facts.
Armies prepare for the last war. France was ready for more trench warfare.
@@tabo01 hence why they still had telephone lines and not radios. “Never fight the last war” - is a war strategy/ principle. It’s better to be fluid and adapt.
@@brucewayne2238 My knowledge of the French military is limited, but the British finally achieved their system to defeat the Germans in 1918 with combined arms warfare. This depended on observers being able to communicate to artillery batteries, and was a catalyst for advancement of communications technology. Aircraft went from trying to communicate to the ground by use of flags or by rocking their wings. This transitioned to pilots using short range radio sets to talk to other aircraft, HQ or directly to artillery batteries. There was a lot of work done on communications equipment to keep advancing forces in contact with HQ, and how to do this without the Germans intercepting signals. The British and Commonwealth forces made great use of wire to connect units in the field, including troops carrying spools of wire with them into no man's land. Radio communication continued to be used for expediency, even with the risk of interception.
I understand the French had a mistrust of radio communications. They had the tech and had special units intercepting German wireless communications from the beginning of the war, which probably fueled such a mistrust for their own use.
Going into WW II, I see the British reliance on Fullerphones going with a massive deployment of such units and wire. This helped the British excel at positional warfare. Given the poor coordination of infantry with tank forces early in the war, I suspect the reliance on such units kept armor out of the loop.
@@tabo01 To be fair, the Germans were not as good at positional warfare with their doctrine - and depended on being able to punch through static defenses and then exploit the breach with mobile forces. This worked better against the French as the French were short of AA guns and were later in expanding their air force. The French did fight well, but not as coordinated as the Germans and the German ability to concentrate forces, exploit breakthroughs and keep the French off balance kept the French from being able to form an enduring defensive line.
A lot of the German success came from having a better trained and experienced officer corps and troops. They introduced conscription earlier and had years of training invested in their troops. The British were catching up with their Army from 1939 (fortunately, the RAF and Navy ramped up earlier, while the Americans shifted from peacetime spending in 1941.Also, Germany got to try out their doctrine and fix some weaknesses with lessons in Poland.
While the Germans had much but not complete success against the Americans at Kasserine Pass in 1943, they had much less success in the Ardennes in 1944 despite having weather neutralizing Allied air cover, a superiority in # of troops and particularly armor, and going up against a combination of tired units rotated off to rest and inexperienced units that weren't supposed to be going into combat. The Allied doctrines and deployed tech had developed to play to the Allied forces strengths. You don't need to beat the enemy at their game if you can force the enemy to fight your game. This described the Germans early in the war, and the British and Americans later in the war.
As much as we point out the British and French armies' unpreparedness for the war they needed to fight, we can point out how German forces and plans were unsuited for knocking Britain out of the war, which kept Germany struggling under a blockade that limited the supply of vital war materials including oil and food. Ramping up the u-boat numbers meant a limited time where the increased number of u-boats could exploit their early advantages - before Allied tech advanced to largely neutralize the U-boat threat from March 1943. The Germans had their own problems of being unprepared to fight the war they ultimately needed to fight.
In some ways we can equate the Germans back to something said about the Italians - about fighting well but not being led well. The Germans had better and more equipment issued and had better officers out in the field, but you get high enough and you are left without a realistic strategy for winning the war. They held on well losing the war from 1943, but lacked the means to turn this around. It is simplistic and controversial, but there is some point to a statement I heard that the Germans were great at surprise attacks but otherwise weren't very good at war. Clearly not true at a tactical level, but seems that the higher level you get in terms of strategy the more the German plans involved wishful thinking.
Blitzkrieg worked because the Germans used the latest radio communication technology so they could give their commanders live reports of troop movement. The British and French were still using dispatch riders and out of date radio and telegraph equipement that meant messages could be hours or even days old. So by the time British and French troops recieved a message, the Germans had already taken a position and have advance forward to their next objective. Also the British and French Generals still thought like their WW1 counterparts and didn't adopt modern combat tactics. The French had put their faith in the Maginot line to defend themselves. But the defence line ended at the Ardenes forest, so the Germans just went around the defences. The french stupidly have mounted fixed position guns that only pointed towards Germany. The British government at the time had a policy of only bombing military targets and not towns or factories, because they didn't want to damage businesses. The French army was joke, with Generals being appointed and sacked every month. The French soldiers were poorly trained and equiped and often mutinied when they were poorly treated. The Dutch had no stomach for war and surrendered in a week. Belgium was no better. It's not surprising that the Germans captured the low countries so easily.
Not to mention the Polish were still using horses for military combat when the Nazi's invaded. I'm no General but to me its pretty obvious, Panzers > horses.
Also meth, lots of meth...
@@lukejennings5714 so they conquered half europe because it was weak??
@@sayedabbas5987 well not really. Germany lost the first world war. And that manifested in resentment and a NEED to make the allies pay for their frankly shitty treatment of the german people post ww1. The common person in Germany suffered a lot under "reparation taxes". So basically the entirety of Germany felt unfairly treated. Thus they actually looked at WHY they lost from every angle they could
@@sayedabbas5987 Which is also why they innovated. A whole slew of things you use every day (or they used to at least) was invented by Nazi Germany to regain the massive disadvantage of lesser numbers.
One such invention was TANKS that was invented during ww1, but no one really used.
Ww1 tanks were more troop carriers than canons on tracks. Germany changed that.
They created cheap automobiles, roads and everything they needed. All of this with the thought in the back of their minds.
NEXT TIME we won't surrender, next time they don't get to treat us like this
"keep moving don't stop" sound similar to "keep moving forward until i destroy my enemies"
The Blitzkrieg Is More effective if they March through A gap and trap the armies and took them on separately like Napoleon’s Strategy excellent maneuvering, flanking and isolating the enemy
Tbh I'm not a history expert or any kind but the way i see it Napoleon and Hitler did the most fatal mistake by attacking their ally, Russia.
@@NoOne-rf4fc Both of them were confident that Russia would be easy to navigate and that Russians would surrender like the European countries once the capitals are captured. “Scorched Earth“ tactic and guerilla warfare weren't whay they expected - Russians basically were willing to destroy their houses, cities and manufacturing plants to stop the conqueror from finding anything useful. They went as far as burning Moscow when Napoleon was close to the city with overwhelming forces - Napoleon entered the dead city with no Russian people with only smoldering ruins all around and no food to be found. No chance against that kind of resolve.
Napoleon: “The ablest Army cannot defeat a nation of people who have decided to win or die.”
That's exactly what they did. Also blitzkrieg doesn't exist.
@@NoOne-rf4fc Napoleon was already at war with Russia when they attacked Prussia.
Made me better at Chess!
comrade why are you using german tactics
@@derpvogel4637 because its usefulll friend
@@derpvogel4637 *our tactics
Wait aobuow did you use a military tactic in chess, I am very interested.
Seriously?
Great analysis gents. The US employed blitzkrieg in Desert Storm and Operation Iraq Freedom. Would you proved some analysis for those events?
Schwarzkopf was a beast you could tell he had learned a lot from history
We had total air superiority . And superiority in everything. Our training and weapons systems were vastly superior… It was nowhere near to a fair fight. Pretty much prime Tyson or Lennox beating some amateur.
Not so with ww2 Nazi Germany . French & British were actually stronger and should have won . Nazis actually had quite a few inferior weapons, due to Versailles treaty they had perpetual trouble with trained reservists. Their line officers were in lot of cases people way over 40+. And 40+ back in 1930s, 40s is not same as in 21st century…If French Army & British Army had generals that were not dinosaurs , braindead relics , Germany would have been crushed in 1939. If they went east , If mass murderer Stalin didn’t purge Tuhachevsky & most of officer core, they would have been crushed at frontiers ….
@@digitalcommunist6335 you do know the Iraq army was the 4th strongest army at the time of the gulf war right?
@@skylerspringsteen5730 lmao. sure . and sadam was hitler , according to then discovery channel fairy tales ..
@@skylerspringsteen5730 No way the Iraq army was 4th strongest, they lacked way too much thing, they didn't even produce their own tanks and planes.
Damn, I didn’t know about the signing of a surrender in the same railway carriage.
Yeah Hitler was embarrassed to say the least by how country signed the treaty during WW1 so he wanted to embarassed France in the same way......as for Britain he actually didn't want to go to war against them....he didn't have a problem with them existing he hated France, and he hated the Soviet Union.
thanks now i can invade france in hoi4
Well? How is it going?
Try this th-cam.com/video/PQr8J-7QZxA/w-d-xo.html
And after that you get pegged by your girlfriend
@@0o0lolwat bruh
@@0o0lolwat Fallacy. Hoi4 players dont have girlfriends
Very interesting. Especailly the part that described the 3 reasons Blitzkrieg worked. I've always wondered about that. Now I know.
Another significant factor in the blitzkrieg attack on the Low Countries and France was the extensive use throughout the Wehrmacht of Pervitin a trademarked brand of over the counter methamphetamine, this was how the German troops could stay awake and alert ( and with fewer breaks for meals ) for days on end.
And the Germans deployed units of zombies so they didn’t need food or water
No fuckin way
germans hopped on meth?
This was actually far less important than Ohler would have you believe. This myth came from his terrible book. Yes, Pervitin was used - however by less than 10% of all frontline troops. Allied soldiers were taking the same stuff, at least where it was needed most (pilots). Methamphetamine provides limited benefit to an infantry soldier - it might give a straight 24 hours of high performance but they’re going to be crippled for several days following that. Had what Ohler suggested been true the Germans would’ve lost on day three, as they’d have had a million men tweaking talking to shadow people and starving. Methamphetamine isn’t useful to infantry. The Luftwaffe were the main users - and their allied counterparts used Amphetamine, which is shorter acting and less harmful than methamphetamine and would be my choice if I had to fly a plane for eight hours. Crediting Pervitin with the success is in a irate - in reality it played a very small role and offered limited benefit. You just can’t artificially stop sleep and secrete dopamine and adrenaline indefinitely. The human body has limits. I would much prefer a well rested squad of ten soldiers then twenty who’d stayed up the whole night tweaking for two days prior. They would be useless.
@@BryanJohnson4891 you make some good points, but this is asuming they didnt sleep at all, they may have been taking a low enough dose, where there came a time where they need sleep for a few hours then wake up and take another tablet, they would have still been getting enough sleep to not be seeing shadow people, and taking just enough so they never start withdrawing, low doses of ampethamine based tablets are going to enhance anyones performance at anything, ive tried certain prescription ones myself and still ate slept and performed better at my job if i happened to take one that day, so yes it played a big role.
Allies did take benzos, but pervitin use was rampant in the German military, especially in tank crews (probably the most important part of blitzkrieg) and air crews (second most important part if not a 1B). Was it the most important part? No, but it did help.
Even though yes the Germans used blitzkreig against the soviets, it was never going to be the same as what happened in France. The sheer amount of land that needed to be covered in that front was something that doomed them from the start.
That's why the Germans succeeded at first when attacking Russia because of blitzkrieg on a small part of Russia. after that because of the large amount of land the element of suprise was gone. And that's where the russians had more troops and quantity.
effective at first russian wave, millions of russian soldier surrender, but they where axhausted when russian reinforcement arrive
@@Worldwartwohorrors They were successful at first because the Soviets weren't prepared at all. It's not until later in the invasion, when the Soviets moved all production far east, they won due to attrition. The Soviets had more men and resources both, and were more effective at producing weaponry than the Germans were.
@@Dennis19901 yup.
And they don't really had the resources to wage war into the gigantic vast ussr.(not only oil but nearly everything) so they relied on suprise attacks and mass murders to hope that the soviet's morale will eventually fall but unfortunately for them the russians were willing to be killed by a longer bearded lunatic man than being conquered by some territories
It works great in call of duty domination. Full charge for B...no setting up layered flank defense for base. It's just like what the German army did but even harder because of spawn points and numbers tubing/lasers. Those guys wouldn't last a second against us
They were the first ones to use „mission command“ and a concept similar to NCO‘s.
They didn’t have to report back to HQ all the time but could choose their own best tactics to accomplish the main strategy and mission.
Macro-managing > micro-managing
Very exiting to see how smart and effective this strategy was. The scary thing is that it kind of makes me root for the germans...
Don’t be silly
Unfortunately they lost
And now slowly victors are removing
Positive things about 3rd Reich and brainwashing childrens that adolf was absolute evil monster
@@Alexander..69 “It’s the winning side that writes the history books” -Adolf Hitler
@@Kingx90 yes that's what am saying
My country is far from europe but almost everyone knows about hitler even childrens
I Asked questions to them : who was he? his profession? Country atleast? We don't know
Was he good or bad? He was most Evil person
How do you know that he was most evil person?
we heard Peoples say he was evil
here peoples are so uneducated and uninterested in history that they don't even know name of founder of our country but they know hitler was evil monster
@@Kingx90 Love to see the Nazis justify the Holocaust and unprovoked invasion of Europe + 60 million dead in the History books….
That was amazing, to concisely explain this complex topic in such a short time.
A critical point on WW2 often ignored, as here, was French obsession with fortifications ie the infamous “Maginot Line” along Franco/ German border. Germany simply ignored the Maginot Line invaded through Belgium outflanking the massed French defences which were useless at this point and pressed home their attack. Once again a static fortification failed.
The maginot line had extended up through Belgium also, but they pulled out of the deal in 37(?) instead choosing neutrality as their course of action.
Also the bulk of the allied army was in Belgium, expecting this exact strategy to take place. They met the German force head on, to mixed success but certainly not disaster. It was the German spearhead through the Ardennes (north france, south Belgium) that cut the bulk of the army off from mainland france and the maginot, this is how they won. Just think, the allied army retreated to dunkirk / Lille, these are in northern france. If the army was being pushed from the north, surely they’d retreat south. Instead they were attacked from the south east, and pushed north west.
@@finndaniels9139 This is why European arrogance and complacency was so incredibly stupid for up to 20 years since the end of World War One, and of course, the first three years of World War II.
This is a brilliant analysis, clear explanation and a very powerful story line method for explaining the idea. I'll be using elements of this approach in an upcoming video I plan to publish in the next few weeks. Thanks very, very much!
I once got absolutely plastered at a mates 18th and I explained blitzkrieg to about 15 people who sat in a circle and listened to me for about 45 mins 😂
This will help with my future conquests thank you
Many warship countries joined together hit one country they easily won but for Germany it takes 4 to 5 years to defeat . So they have good Army and strategy .
Reminds me of the Buffalo Bills in the early 90s when they started winning well by using the "hurry-up" offense. Levy and Marchibroda worked out a strategy of the offensive line keeping huddling to a minimum and moving fast down the field. Won them a lot of games and gave them a couple of great seasonal records before the playoffs BUT somehow the rest of the NFL were able to figure out how to defend against it.
how did the rest of the nfl catch on?????
@@abdihassan7208 The Bills' "no-huddle" offense strategy worked on the less-talented defenses of the AFC, but when the Bills met the NFC East superior defenses in the Super Bowl, their offense was always dominated.
@@tommyt1971 ironically, the “blitz” in football, is a term originating from the blitzkrieg.
The speed from ww1 to ww2 makes me REALLY worry about ww3
Very cool explanatory video. I've always wondered why Hitler wanted to wage a war on two fronts and this video helps explain that. Was he just overconfident? I think he even stated at one point in his life that his intentions were to avoid a war on two fronts? Why not wait until the West/Britain was conquered before heading East?
Hitler didn't have the ships/subs/aircraft to invade England, he thought that after France fell that England would surrender or seek a non-aggression treaty, some British parliamentarians were still arguing for peace until the war cabinet crisis in May 1940. Hitler was still hopeful of a diplomatic resolution even in July, after Operation Barbarossa kicked off.
England blockaded Germany by sea so they couldn't import resources by sea. Germany was reliant on oil from Russia and they didn't expect their pact with Russia to hold out, and their ability to fight would have been compromised when it ceased, and it did. Rather than wait for Russia to switch sides when they had prepared for it, they thought a quick invasion would catch them off guard and they would have a similar success like they had in France.
The major weakness of the Axis is that they didn't co-ordinate major campaigns well, had Japan hit Russia at the same time as they did the result probably would have been different. Russia barely hung on and threw everything on the front, if they were hit from two fronts and had to split their forces then history probably would be very different.
England really wasn't much of a threat to Germany during the period of Operation Barbarossa, Operation Sea Lion (the invasion of England) had pretty much been put on hold while England largely fought a defensive campaign at that time via Battle of Britain where Hitler was trying to gain air superiority. England had naval superiority and they couldn't effectively invade England until that was addressed and it takes time to build ships, subs and planes. The vast majority of their military would have been idle had they not invaded Russia.
@@vimzim8576 There was no reason for the Japanese to attack Russia at all. They would never have done it. The Germans was doomed from the start
@@cuchuoi12 Actually no. Territorial ambitions of the Japanese varied among their military, the army wanted to attack the USSR while the navy wanted to focus on southeast asia and the Pacific. The Japanese themselves thought of the Soviets as their biggest enemy, not the Americans or the British so it's surprising that they refused to aid Germany when doing so would've most probably resulted in a decisive victory for the axis.
@@phatlewt2932 IJA (strike north) and IJN (strike south) were in constant power struggle and never cooperated until the end of war. IJA lost momentum and political support after defeats to the Soviets in Khalkin Gol, handing IJN the initiative abd support to execute its strike south plan. It's not that the Japanese didn't want to attack Siberia, it's the internal infighting in Japan that prevented it from helping Germany in any meaningful way.
The Germans lacked the oil (fuel) to wage their war of movement. They attacked the Caucuses region in the Soviet Union in order to obtain the oil there, but failed to penetrate deep enough.
In retrospect, it is clear that Germany had been violating the terms of the Versailles Treaty long before Hitler seized power. This included training in the USSR. This is an important political aspect of the German development of the cadre of professional soldiers prior to the Nazi seizure of power.
Excellent, precise presentation! Can you please do a video on the Tukhachevsky affair? Was it Reinhard Heydrich's master stroke that led to the decimation of ranking Red Army officers following that affair, or was it a suspicious Stalin's machination against Tukhachevsky's rising star to which Heydrich had unwittingly fallen prey?
A helpful source was an essay called the Tukhachevsky affair by Grover Furr. Furr has some Stalin apologist tendencies in his public appearances but his books and essays stick closely to translated primary sources. The impression I got was that he tries to stretch the implications of some evidence, but his arguments and sources are valuable and interesting in the broader context of the mainstream historical narrative. Its been a few years since I last read his work, so I may be misremembering a little bit.
Who’s watching this after Russia advances into Ukraine?
Yes!
Yep
They probably would have taken Ukraine by now if they had used these tactics.
@@mikesmyth6576 They're not trying to take all of Ukraine.
@@gracialonignasiver6302 If russia uses Blitzkrieg on Ukraine they might have taken all of Ukraine in 6 weeks
General Hans Guderian read the works of the British Captain Liddel Hart who repeatedly wrote of the theory of mobile tank warfare. His theories were disgarded by the War Department whose thinking still lay in the old cavalry doctrine. Guderian realised that Hart's ideas were a way of breaking the impasse of set piece battles.
De Gaulle wrote something akin to blitzkrieg too. Basically anyone who wasn't stuck in their old ways could see something like that coming.
Ironic. The ‘never stop moving part’ was definitely the strat in any wolfeinstein/doom/quake game
So all war is ultimately a war of attrition. Blitzkreig is an initial knockout punch.
An initial KnockDOWN punch.
It's just catching the other country off guard. Surprise attacks are sneaky.
thanks this helps a lot in my homework
Amazing animation and informative✅🙏
Great video. This is the first time that I understood how Germany was fighting and the reason behind their strategy.
"The whole point of the Blitzkrieg is to keep moving." Von Rundstedt: I suggest we call a halt order even though we have the momentum and upper hand. Goering: Yeah, I got this. Hitler: Ok.
As someone with a slight hearing problem, I would prefer these films to have either no, or lower level background music. That would increase my understanding as well as my enjoyment of the presentation. Thankyou.
Sorry about that David, we'll bear that in mind for future episodes!
Use the captions to help you
Hi David. Try using the closed captions. Cheers.
The fundamental principles on which blitzkrieg was based were derived from the 1926 book by Basil Liddell Hart. The German military attaché ( Erich Von Manstein) bought over a hundred copies to be shipped back to the German general staff.Similarly, after the Royal Navy's successful surprise attack on the Italian navy at Taranto, the Japanese naval attaché ( Minoru Genda) sent back copies of the British newspapers that carried full details of the raid.
The core principles of Blitzkrieg (actually Bewegungskrieg) go back to how Prussia had to fight its wars, out of necessity (in an inferior position for war of attrition, so forced to take and keep the initiative and force a quick, decisive, strategic victory. Through superior organisation and faster movement.)
Thank you so much I mean seriously.
At the end of the day, the German strategy was based on a short quick punch to knock out your opponents and force peace, when that didn’t happen, the writing was already on the wall because they knew they didn’t have the power to out produce their enemies.
2:48 "All junior officers were trained as staff officers."
Staff officers are not the "next step up in rank" from junior officers. This appears to be a howler.
I will add that no video on the Blitzkrieg should omit stating that it's a term that the Wehrmacht didn't use.
And it needs to be contrasted somehow with the Soviet "Deep Battle" theory, tank-heavy Brit & French formations, etc.
Excellent content thank you. However the overlaid music is distracting particularly where you have experts talking. If you can't lose it completely, please turn it down.
Blitzkrieg failed after France. The element of surprise and betrayal was lost.
Blitzkrieg was still used massively effectively during the invasion of Russia. Yes at some point it didn't work anymore in the vast russian territory but in the first months the russian army lost more soldiers than the allies combined by alot
Nah I still use it to this day. Highly effective
@@Nachomoney7q LOL! FOX News actually used the word blitzkrieg on the first day of the Iraq invasion. I never heard them do it again after that.
@@kevinsysyn4487 You watch Faux "News"? Oh dear.
@@chrisigoeb Was it effective? All the Nazis won was empty space and 5 million POWs.
The simple fact is that Blitzkrieg is an offensive tool most effective against a static enemy. It requires a certain collection of weapons and training. But, once Germany needed to defend, they had the wrong weapons and the wrong training. Once the Allies had absorbed the shock of the Blitzkrieg the Germans failed to adapt, probably could never fully adapt as eventually the industrial might of the Allies (USA) would overwhelm what the Axis could muster.
Note, the same thing played out in Ukraine. Only real difference is Ukraine defended critical infrastructure (e.g., Hostomel/Antonov Airport), allowed the Russians to overextend supply, cut the supply and created the war of attrition. Meanwhile, the arsenals of democracy in Europe and Americas backed Ukraine and cut off Russia. Russia's pre-war economy was no bigger than Spain's, and now smaller. Over time, Russia will become exhausted. Unified patience and determination will drive Russia back the same as Germany was driven back.
They almost defeated USSR with it, but after defeating a million they would get another million after million and million which is ridiculous. And they simply couldn't make it in time while they were really overpowering enemy before winters. And then it became despair for them realizing they couldn't advance forward anymore after all this effort.
imagine if they had done that, world will be better
Dislocation, not destruction - nicely sums up blitzkrieg. (although that is perfectly what Dunkirk was all about and the Germans failed to switch gears)
Great video, music? 0:35
The use of Pervitin tablets was a game changer. They were literally the definition of super soldier back in the day.
Incredibly overrated aspect of WW2. Less than a tenth of German frontline soldiers used the stuff
Excellent video - would be good if the IWM experts could do a video on the difference between Blitzkrieg and Soviet Deep Battle - I know there is a difference but I do not know what it is - superficially they are the same!
They are very very different also blitzkrieg does not exist.
Good Video!
The original name of this strategy is “Angriffskrieg”. Hitler never used “Blitzkrieg”
Bewegungskrieg
One major weakness of Blitzkrieg is that the troops overrun the supply lines and that means the advance has to be halted so the tanks can get petrol and the men can get food. Thats why the British Expeditionary Force escaped from Dunkirk along with many other allied soldiers. Though i rather suspect the Germans let the allies escape(to some extent) so a future surrender deal from Britain would be easier to negotiate.
Germany would never learn it if it weren't for me.
One of the BIGGEST mistake of Hitler is that he left all that British and France soldier....more than 500 000 soldier survive !!!
I wonder how differently WW2 would've went for France if Napoleon was the commander of the armed forces at the time
the same thing that happened during his time, capture and destroy germany in 19 days
Nothing at all. France as a country was demoralized after the major loss of life during the first world war. And no-one in France wanted to repeat WW1.
@@Dennis19901 I believe he would've had them better prepared, at least defensively
Honestly the whole defeating your enemy with dislocation and not sheer destruction kind reminds me about what Sun Tzu said about the greatest victories have no battles. Meaning that victory is not just winning the battle. Killing is not the most important thing. Destabilizing your opponent is. Hence making it the greatest victory.
Thank you!! I will use this tutorial for my war thunder game
a good bit into the choclatebar also helped keeping up the pase
2:36 my army
0:38 I like how he say Biliztkrieg Lighting war
-You get tanks
-You prepare Logistics and Support unit
-Motivate your commandant
-Make the panzer go first with their Armor and Kanone
-Get the logistic and support team to cover the Back and sides
-and win
Since it is all about by passing the heavily guarded front and encircling the enemies from backside, can we conclude that Blitzkrieg is just a more effective Schlieffen plan?
Blitzkrieg isn’t a specific tactic, it’s a sort of catch all term for the various tactics and strategies that encompass the sort of ‘mobile warfare’ area specifically relating to German early war tactics
Had the schlieffen plan worked, I suppose you could describe it as a sort of blitzkrieg, but it is missing the mechanisation and combined arms aspects that characterised the tactics of Nazis in ww2.
That being said, mobile warfare designed around bypassing strong points is hardly new, it has existed for hundreds of years
Beautiful video on Blitzkrieg
So can you use blitzkrieg in modern warfare ?
Straight up get behind enemy lines cut off supplies and overwhelming their opposition but the way they did it was ineffective after doing it for long periods of time without thinking about maintence and having parts.... burning fuel way to much.
Then the arms industries werent up to par they weren't making enough weapons and armoured units and planes and also the most imporantan human life
I play Hoi4, so you know I'm practically a expert. That being said I approve this video :).
Any Country: We are going to invade France
France: Everyone, welcome our new guest and be generous.
3:30 - 3:42 easy....
Germany didn't stood a chance because not only they're fighting on all fronts but they're fighting all countries the biggest flex is they held all fronts for 5 years and never surrendered
Because those countries did everything they could to lose. Stalin purged 80% of his officers and replaced them with communist commissars. On top of that he refused to let the army prepare for the invasion until the invasion actually started despite the fact that KGB spies warned him more than 6 months early about the German attack.
Basically, what they are doing is creating a diversion by taking the enemies last objective point rather than the first objective, which is at the front line.
Thanks for teaching me to take care of all the bullies
Excellent explanation!
Crazy. When things get real bad in countries it goes quickly
Excellent piece of information!
Germans used blitzkreig well but you can’t use same technique for the entirety of the war and at the same time allies adapt and counterattack perfectly well.
"Speed and productivity can be ceased by there own mentally."
Sun Tzu
A bit the same way in the Battle of Trafalgar , when Nelson's armada destroyed the French-Spanish armada
Super interesting, great animations
Call your bluff beyond.
One thing that must be mentioned is that Russia was a massive deciding factor and ultimately, supplies are what win battles
It wasn't Russia. It was the entirety of the Soviet Union which was many times more piwerful.
Thanks!
Can’t wait to use it!
Rush B dont stop
That was really cool. Thanks so much
Said that it is fighting without fighting but in the explanation he mentioned the use of tanks and planes. How then is it not fighting when you are already using them?
No battle strategy survives contact with the enemy.
Otto van bismarck
Ehm i dont think that Otto said it
Moltke said that
I’m intrigued that you don’t refer to Plan 1919, created by the British Army. I have seen this referred to as the genesis of blitzkrieg warfare, a way to break the stalemate of trench warfare which wasn’t needed but the details of which were released after the war ended. Somebody in the German army (perhaps Guderein?] recognised the value of the plan and the tactical advantage of blitzkrieg warfare which was used to great advantage in 1940.
I think the credit due should be to general Hans Guderian who taught and adopted the blitzkrieg principle to practical use in German military school who incidentally was the mentor of the desert fox.
The tactics are sound but the French still outnumbered them and had the far heavier tanks compared to panzer 1 and 2 I just never got the French capitulation so quickly , I suppose moral and the bef evacuation didn't help , neather the less the allies won .
The French had lost too many tanks during the time leading up to Dunkirk. And they had already committed their strategic reserve. Blitzkrieg tactics kept them too disorganized.
I believe the French superiority in tanks was thrown away by the French command using the tanks piecemeal rather than en masse.
@@royfernley3153 They saw the tank as an infantry support weapon...their tanks also lacked radios which since the German tanks had these, gave the attacker a big advantage...
Truth be told, if it weren't for the Soviets, it would've been extremely difficult to stop them.
great video.
THIS IS SO INTERNESTING OMFG
The French 3rd, 4th, and 5th Armies faced the German 1st Army in Saars in September, 1939.
Commanded by General Maurice Gamelin, the French Forces consisted of 40 Divisions, 4,700 Artillery, and 2,400 Tanks.
Commanded by General Fritz von Witzleben, the German Forces consisted of 22 Divisions, less than 100 Artillery, no Tanks.
Preemptive Mobilisation began on 28th August 1939, which meant the French Forces were theoretically ready for Full Mobilisation and active Offensive from 1st September 1939.
Poland was invaded on 1st September 1939, and planned on the arrival of a large French Army. On 7th September, the French General Staff launched “Operation Saars”, and they crossed into territory of the Third Reich on 9th September, 1939.
The French Forces took 12 villages with no opposition, but one village is reported as having blocked the advance by use of a single machine gun. The French Forces advanced along a 20 mile (32 km) Front, and invaded Third Reich territory to a depth of 5 miles (8km). General Gamelin ordered his Forces to approach no closer than One Km to the Siegfried Line - they did get within several Km of the Siegfried Line.
Everyone had expected a major French Attack on the Western Front.
But after the collapse of Poland, General Maurice Gamelin on 21 September ordered French units to return to their starting positions on the Maginot Line. The French had suffered 2,000 Casualties (including 4 Tanks damaged by mines); the Germans had 640 Casualties, and lost 11 Aircraft.
Without informing his Polish allies, General Gamelin withdrew from Third Reich territory; and by 17th October 1939 all French Forces had returned to France.
Some French generals, such as Henri Giraud, saw the withdrawal as a wasted opportunity and made known their disagreement with it. General Louis Faury informed the Polish chief of staff, General Wacław Stachiewicz, that the planned major offensive on the western front had to be postponed. Polish resistance collapsed by the beginning of October, 1939.
At the Nuremberg Trials, German military commander Alfred Jodl said that "if we did not collapse already in the year 1939 that was due only to the fact that during the Polish campaign, the approximately 110 French and British divisions in the West were held completely inactive against the 23 German divisions." General Siegfried Westphal stated that if the French had attacked in full force in September 1939 the German army "could only have held out for one or two weeks."
Interesting Video. Of course it cant cover everything in and all nuances in 8 Minuites
I also love when english speaking peopel talk of "Panzer-Tanks" which translated means "Tank-Tanks" :)
Great video, thanks
It always feels pathetic and dishonourable to win with quantity over quality. Rip Constantinople..
I'll take what you deem to be a "pathetic and dishonorable" win over Nazi genocide anyday and twice on Sunday.
@@kdmdlo I think he wasnt talking about ww2
Some non educated people might hate Germany for the sins of the past, but these guys knew how to warfare.
No, it was more like the Allies did everything in their power to lose. But still won.
Wow, nice video!
Hans Von Seeckt not mentioned. In the First World War Germany had significant experience on the Eastern Front of a much more mobile form of warfare than that on the Western Front. Also, the French Army created the world's first armoured division (DLM). Problem was they only had three of them, two were pre-committed to the Gembloux gap in Belgium, and the other was sent to Holland for political rather than purely military reasons.
Soldiers of the Empire in which sun never sets were on the run to save their lives. In Singapore, they surrendered to the Japanese. Interesting to watch the tactics of the Germans & the Japanese at that time. The subsequent defeat of the Germans & the Japanese also is interesting.
As someone whose country had been invaded by France in 1600's, I got a sense of relief to learn that it had to shamefully surrender to Germany. "What goes around, comes around"😊
Congo?
that’s an awful way of thinking. my country was invaded by japan but does that mean i wish harm to japan? no way. what someone’s ancestors have done a long time ago doesn’t define the country or its people in the present.
@@nazgulstew were are you from?
@@davemathew5236 singapore
@@nazgulstew at least not China, they had it the worst.