Was the German attack on the Netherlands in 1939 a strategic mistake?

The French did not really help the Dutch in any way. The 7th Army just went a few miles into Brabant and only helped defending Zeeland after the rest of the Netherlands already capitulated. Zeeland was not included in the capitulation beceause the DUtch forces in Zeeland were already before May 14th placed under French command. The French and Dutch finally withdrew to Vlissingen (Flushing) where the Dutch capitulated when Middelburg was burning after an artillery bombardment of which today is still not certain if the artillery was German or actually French.
The going north by the French was only done to give their own forces more space to build the defences in Belgium. It were only delaying actions.

 

The main objectives of the German Airlandings were the Dutch airfields Waalhaven (Rotterdam), Ypenburg, Ockenburg and Valkenburg (near the Hague). The defences were to be softened up by parachute landings. The problem was that the Dutch airfields were not made to received the kind of aircraft as the Ju 52/3m. Also the air defences on the fields were stronger than the Germans expected. Beceause in now time the designated airfields were littered with wrecked Ju 52/3m's, many others diverted to landings on highwats, especially the one between the Hague and Delft/Rotterdam. Actually the German airlandings around the Hague and Rotterdam were a major fiasco. The Hague operation failed and in Rotterdam the Dutch managed to hold the Germans pinned down. Only around Dordrecht the airlandings had some more result. The intention in the Hague was to capture the Dutch Military High Command, the Dutch Government and the Dutch Royal Family. In Rotterdam and Dordracht they had to take the bridges to enable the German Panzers to enter Fortress Holland.
1600 para's were captured of who 1350 were transported to England before the capitulation. Of the about 400 Ju 52/3m's used, 250 were demaged beyond repair and had to be scrapped. This ment that the Luftwaffe would not have had enough airborne troops and transport aircraft for the upcoming invasion of England and the losses were still not completely dealt with when the airbornes were put into action again on Crete.
In Rotterdam as said the Germans did not succeed in capturing the bridges. Near Dordrecht they were still figting when the Panzers arrived.

 

No that is what you get when you take one centense out of a whole. If Hitler would not heave thought about the need to invade, he would have used other means of bringing the British to their knees. Actually Göring gave him the answer, He argued he could defeat the British by only using the Luftwaffe. In stead of that, Hitler used Görings idea to gain air superiority over England before the planned invasion. Hitler expected the British would surrender, but that doesn not imply he did not keep in his mind the possibility of an invasion. So in stead of trying to catch someone with soneones words, better is to try and come up with historical arguments we could agree on.
I just hate it when people are trying to win discussions with wordgames. Not my line of work. I will also never quote only a part of someones reaction, always the full quotation.

 

But remember - as of the date given - November 1939 - the Luftwaffe was STILL very often flying unescorted bombing missions It continued with unescorted missions during the invasion of France and the Low Countries...AND the Battle of Britain! It was only the bad experiences during the first few weeks of this that fighter escort became the necessary "norm"...but there are at least two recorded examples of RAF losses caused by intruding on box formations of Dorniers contrary to Fighter Command standing orders.

The Luftwaffe did NOT expect Fighter Command's monoplane fighter defences to be effective in the North-East and North of England...not only the most practical targets for German bombers flying from North Germany, but ALSO the heart of Britain's pre-war armaments industry ...

Hence the terrible shock (for them) of the "Black Thursday of the Luftwaffe" when the Luftwaffe flying from Norway across the North Sea suffered such great casualties from fighter aircraft they simply didn't expect to be there.

Actually - Raeder and Schniewind were working on invasion plans since April...and Halder's diaries record him charing meetings and assigning planning staff within three days of the Fall of France. IIRC the "wide front" first versions of the Sealion plans were indeed ready before Directive No. 16 was issued....

Because -

A researcher called David Pounder several years ago now turned up significant information regarding a planning COUP in London on the 28th of June 1940! The diary of Ralph Edwards, Director of Naval Operations at the Admiralty, and now kept on public view at the Bodliean Library record his various meetings with the disaffect Capt. Bill Tennant (of Dunkirk fame) and Ernie Spooner of the Renown; all three were VERY disaffected with Churchill's conduct of the war since may...Tennant had dashed out a hellfire-and-damnation pamphlet slating Winston since his return from Dunkirk...and Edwards' diary records the "conspirators" were to meet with Walter Monckton, a relative of Queen Elizabeth and IIRC a Royal Equerry - who along with Leo Amery and Max Beaverbrook were going to try to persuade the Quwwen to persuade George VI to order Churchill to stand down as PM...to be replaced by Lord Halifax, who would immediate sue for peace!

Edwards' diary records that the date set for the "transition of power" was the 28th of June...

As we know...nothing happened. This COULD all be poppycock of course...

 

...except for a very interesting set of coincidences and conformations!

1/ There's one box of Monckton's private corresponence that has remained sealed...and it is "known" to contain material and documents that demonstrate Queen Elizabeth's opposition to the war!

2/ Halifax told the Swedes that he was hoping to be in a position to avail of their services as a conduit to Hitler...as they had done coming the OTHER way FROM Hitler during Dynamo...on or around the 28th of June! In the early 1960s (1964 IIRC) the Swedes made THEIR end of this limited diplomatic exchange public despite huge pressure from the British government of the day!

And finally - we have confirmation via Peter Fleming in his classic Operation Sealion...AND from someone called Adolf Hitler!

3/ Fleming in great detail recounts Hitler's behaviour in the weeks following the fall of France and his breif three-hour sightseeing excursion to Paris; he "hung around" the Low Countries, touring his old WWI battlefield haunts with his old trenches comrade Max Amman, for a full three weeks - despite considerable pressure from those around him to return to berlin to deal with urgent business that was piling up!

He refused on several occasions - and on one of those Fleming recounts that he specifically stated that he was waiting for word from the Swedes about a possible revolution in London at the end of June and he wanted to remain close at hand for any subsequent political/diplomatic moves!

You have to remember that above all, Adolf Hitler was a sneaky little shit; he was quite open about war being always his LAST resort...if there was a way of obtaining what he wanted by exerting pressure or blackmail, or lying, or giving false promises, he VASTLY preferred doing things that way than actually fighting!

He at least firmly believed, contrary to all the advice around him, that there was a coup in the offing in London and the outcome of that would be someone in a position to reach a peace settlement with him on his terms. And remember just how long ago Fleming put all this in print!

DECADES before David Pounder turned up the information in Ralph Edwards' diary in the Bodliean...

 

Nearly forgot...

There was to be some 405 Ju52s available for Sealion; remember, of the 250 or so "struck off" as a result of either total destruction or too-severe to repair damage in Holland...a suprising number were put back in the air again! On TWO occcasions...just after Holland and again just after Crete...Junkers established a temporary "reproduction line" to strip damaged Ju52s into major assemblies and reconstruct viable aircraft from these recovered wings, fuselages etc.....

Ju52s "struck off" at Maleme in 1941 for example were stripped into major assemblies at Maleme, brought back to Greece by barge, and trained back to Germany for re-use. In 1940, IIRC Fokker was employed to both strip down damaged aircraft AND they rebuilt a number from major subassemblies under contract, as well as Junkers reconstructing some.

And while production of new Ju52s was actually quite slow...only some 23-25 aircraft per month...nearly a hundred new builds were available by mid-September.

By the time of Crete, therefore, there were 493 Ju52/3ms available for MERKUR. The Luftwaffe didn't ever keep all these in designated transport units; the "full" Ju52 strength always included dozens...on occasion hundreds...of aircraft used for multiengine crew flight training, communications aircraft etc. that if necessary - for Poland, Holland, Norway, Crete, Tunisia etc. - could be combed out of the training units on a temporary basis for large operations

Any shortage of Ju52s for particular elements of the Sealion operations was to be covered by using them in two waves; a first wave dropping spoiling forces behind Folkestone, the second dropping forces just north of Lympne airfield; these were to be the troops that would assault the airfield's defences in conjunction with a glider landing on the flightline at Lympne itself...thus countering the perceived (by the Germans) lessons of Norway and Holland that really quite small defensive forces on the airfields themselves could seriously jeaporise the success of landing operations on airfields.

 

I know we are going off the subject somewhat but there does seem to be a lot of "smoke" concerning the Swedes and peace\surrender of the British via Lord Halifax - into the mix is Nordling (the Ambassador in Paris), Dahlerus (Swedish business man and Goring's friend) who met Goring in early May 1940 and again in July.

Nobody has mentioned the Panzer Halt Order by Hitler\Runstedt of 24 May. And Halifax's attempt on 26 May to involve Mussolini in a peace process. But it all seems to me like a plan (but a rather naive one) by Hitler to achieve a British Surrender without Invasion. Can any one recommend any reliable books which deal with this?

By the way, thanks to Wilco and Phylo for demonstrating the German strategic requirement to take-over the Netherlands. I admit I had thought that the Germans would have been better advised to repeat the WW1 situation where Holland was Neutral but favoured Germany - times had changed and the military advantage of owning Rotterdam and the airfields was clearly more important (hope I have got that right!)

 

Thing is - there was at least THREE times in the summer of 1940 when Halifax was involved in serious peace aproaches to and from the Germans - at least TWO of which were totally against Churchill's specific orders!

1/ is the during-DYNAMO incident, when Halifax brought up the Swedish-routed offer from Mussolini to "facilitate" talks (as he ahd done at Munich) The War Cabinet ended up distracted for two vital days during DYNAMO while Halifax championed this proposal, and Churchill wavered...but finally, coming to his senses, his famous speech/appeal to the FULL Cabinet saw them officially reject the approach and Halifax was ordered to have no further contact...

2/ is this proposed "coup" in June; it's clear that Halifax at the very least KNEW he'd be in power as of the 28th of June whether or not he knew HOW he was going to get there! But it's clear from the diplomatic contact with the Swedes that he was planning both to be Prime Minister AND effect a peace settlement with Hitler!

3/...is indeed a JULY 1940 incident, when the State Department informed Churchill that acting on instructions from Halifax, Lord Lothian the British Ambassador in Washington was meeting the GERMAN Ambassador to "feel out" what the Germans would want to agree to peace breaking out! Note - once again this was VERY specifically against the orders that Winston had given Halifax during DYNAMO!

Churchill summoned Halifax to No.10, tore a strip off him, and ordered him to order Lothian to have no further contact with the Germans in the U.S.....and to make sure this order reached Lothian (how could Churchill now trust Halifax to order him thus???) Winston sent an order to Lothian DIRECT from the Cabinet Office - and the same diplomatic letter ordered Lothian to have all diplomatic correspondence from the U.S. routed via the Cabinet Office - an indicator of how much Churchill now realised he COULDN'T trust Halifax!!! - as well as a calculated insult to Halifax

...and by the end of the year Halifax was out of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and "exiled" to Washington - demoted to being Lothian's successor!

There are plenty of studies of Halifax as arch Appeaser...but I'm not aware of any studies of him as disobedient w*nker at the very least giving the nod to treason!!!

 

How much power Halifax had for these peace negotiations? I mean, for Germans Ribbentrop was in contact through Stockholm with the Soviets several times and he sure did not work under Hitler´s orders or had any power to make deals. If Halifax was making contacts for hiw own good like looking forward to being a PM when peace with Hitler was agreed, that does make him look a bit like a "betrayal" in the eyes of the fellow country men, like Pétain, even if the idea was "some good".

 

Just in case anyone is interested here is a link to the British War Cabinet Papers and its free of charge.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/cabinet-gov/cab65-second-world-war-conclusions.htm

The various personalities are referred to by their title eg Lord President of the Council is in fact Chamberlain - so you will need to look this up but its on the same webpage.

I find them fascinating reading (but not everyone is as boring as me) - you need to choose CAB65/7 download for the period in question. Phylo is absolutely correct that the Halifax\Mussolini offer dominates discussions from 26 to 28 May.

Not sure that Churchill ever "wavered" - I agree with Roy Jenkins (book - Churchill) that Churchill simply backtracked to keep Halifax from resigning and precipitating a potential government crisis..

(PS also amazing how 50% of their time was spent discussing NORWAY - clearly was a very dominant distracting factor).

 

I too am surprised at the extent of Halifax's unauthorized activity. It seems even more ironic since as recently as May 10 he had turned down the chance of becoming Prime Minister and accepted a post in Churchill's government. That is, he was willing to usurp the PM's authority, but he did not want the ultimate responsibility - not very respectable to say the least.

 

This is the old version, the one maintained for posterity courtesy of The World At War....but it's not correct!

There's an almost-forgotten now book called 1940 by Laurence Thompson, for thirty years the Daily Telegraph's parliamentary correspondent. Thompson was on first name terms with a lot of the players in the Spring of 1940, and was in several cases given access to their private diaries, as well as having access to Hansard and the Commons Library - not common many decades ago!

Basically - the legendary "Norway Debate" demonstrated that it was impossible to "do" war alongside normal parliamentary government It illustrated to ALL parties (sic) that a proper National Government for the duration was necessary...

Now - that time window was also the 1940 party conference season! And the Labour Party went to conference with the pressing question of them joining a National Government ....or not...hanging over them. IIRC Chamberlain received a call from the Labour Conference making it clear that they would indeed join a National Government...but NOT under his premiership NOR Halifax's! In fact - Clement Attlee made it quite clear to Chamberlain that Labour would only join a National Government if Churchill was made Prime Minister! The Labour Party WANTED a "fighting prime minister"...not an appeasing one.

It's not clear if Chamberlain actually TOLD Halifax what was happening - but if he didn't, THIS could account for Chamberlain's "not answering" when Halifax asked him at that famous meeting if there was any reason that a government couln't be led from the House of Lords in that day and age This was, when the crunch came, Chamberlain's way of acting on Attlee's demand and blocking Halifax's ambitions ...

Amd thus in effect, handing the leadership of the Party and the Premiership to Winston. It APPEARS to posterity as if it was a clear "either/or" decision that evening...but it wasn't, not really. The Labour Party had already made Chamberlain's decision for him.

 

I think Chamberlain comes out of this episode in May\June very well and while being critical of accepting anything to do with Mussolini's offer of mediation, shows a flexiblility to keep the Italians from declaring war and at the same time not alienating the French.

What you seeing missing in the Cabinet Papers is any recognition that the Haltbefehl of the Panzers had been issued on the 24th May. There is absolutely no discussion or even mention of it.

I would have thought that if this had been a genuine attempt by Hitler to obtain an honourable agreement with Britain, then Halifax would have been appraised by some backdoor means (eg the Swedes or the Swiss) and would have started his Campaign in the Cabinet for Peace on 24th May.

 

THAT might of course be because HITLER didn't order it - von Runstedt did IIRC, with Adolf rubberstamping it very soon after.

It's not impossible that the "plot" was already on At least Monckton's end of it. Something like this doesn't quite get put together overnight...but it does seem to have gained momentum through June as it dragged the three RN officers in!

If it was - and Hitler was aware of it this early - it would have appealed to his sensitivities FAR more than a simple peace treaty! See under "sneaky little shit"...

 

This seems a bit unfair on the French, Wilco.

Holland was neutral and stood a good chance of avoiding the conflict as it had in WW1. As mentioned earlier in this topic, the Germans did not seem to be able to make up their minds about the desirability attacking Holland except for entering Maastricht - sometimes Holland was left out of the various version of Plan Yellow.

The French had no treaty of assistance to Holland and most writers dismiss the Breda Variant of the Dyle Plan as a step too far.

From your comments and that of Phylo, it seems to me that the British had most to gain by linking up with the Dutch (if it had been successful) and thereby preventing the use of Dutch Airfields and the Port of Rotterdam for offensive action against British Targets.

The French did what they promised as the map below shows but of course the debacle in the Ardennes ended any hope of supporting the Dutch Armed Forces.

 

The French defeat was assured when Gamelin decided to send his reserve army the 7th, one of the best, north to reach the south part of Holland.

 

If Halifax did not turn down the chance to be PM in May 1940 then all this is a lie in the books?

"May 1940 when, following the fall of Norway, a large number of Conservatives failed to support the government on a confidence vote. A national government was imperative but the Labour party would not serve under Chamberlain. If, as was likely, Lord Halifax was called upon to form a government, Churchill felt that he would have to agree to serve under him. Chamberlain and David Margesson, the chief whip, called Halifax and Churchill to a meeting. Before this took place Bracken exacted from Churchill a promise that he would remain silent if it was proposed that Halifax should succeed. This he did when Chamberlain and Margesson put forward the name of Halifax. After two minutes Halifax broke the silence and said that he did not think that he, as a member of the House of Lords, was in the best position to form a government. It was, claimed Lord Beaverbrook who was closely involved, the great silence that saved England."

Interesting...would it then mean that Germany would get peace if Halifax took the job?

 

I am always a bit surprised that the books always refer to the French 7th Army as "one of the best".

The 60th (for defence of the French Coast) and 68th Division were category B - older reservists with the overwhelming majority of Officers also reservists.

On;y 21st Division was composed of Regulars.

Also it only had the 1st DLM attached.

Even in the right place in Reserve it might have had difficulty stopping the Panzers ???

 

I always thought so!

I must say all the books I have read agree with Kai's version. This is the first time I have heard of Chamberlain (see Phylo's posts) taking any negative role in persuading Halifax that he was not the man for the PM's job.

 

Well, they only had the one plan where the Germans would attack in north. Just like Calais in 1944 to Hitler. Anything else is just deception.