Did the Mechelen Incident cause Adolf Hitler to adopt the Manstein Plan?
Did the Mechelen Incident cause Adolf Hitler to adopt the Manstein Plan?
Any thoughts on this?
After all, I am certainly interested in seeing where exactly the evidence leads to in regards to this.
After all, I am certainly interested in seeing where exactly the evidence leads to in regards to this.
Re: Did the Mechelen Incident cause Adolf Hitler to adopt the Manstein Plan?
Yes and no : there was no causal relation .
1)The immediate reaction of Hitler after the incident was to order the attack (after all the officer concerned had only a small part of the plans in his possession and the French were convinced that the Germans would attack north of the Meuse),but the attack was postponed because of the bad weather.
2)it is improbable that at this moment Hitler was aware of the proposal of Manstein,which was only a rough,non detailed and non examined blueprint .
As what happened with other things in WWII,the Mechelen incident has been given an importance it never had :the Germans would have won using the old plan,and the new plan did not differ that much from the old one .
1)The immediate reaction of Hitler after the incident was to order the attack (after all the officer concerned had only a small part of the plans in his possession and the French were convinced that the Germans would attack north of the Meuse),but the attack was postponed because of the bad weather.
2)it is improbable that at this moment Hitler was aware of the proposal of Manstein,which was only a rough,non detailed and non examined blueprint .
As what happened with other things in WWII,the Mechelen incident has been given an importance it never had :the Germans would have won using the old plan,and the new plan did not differ that much from the old one .
Re: Did the Mechelen Incident cause Adolf Hitler to adopt the Manstein Plan?
Now there's an interesting assertion, care to elaborate?the Mechelen incident has been given an importance it never had :the Germans would have won using the old plan,and the new plan did not differ that much from the old one.
I can see the argument that they might have won anyway with Fall Gelb, and I also agree that the Mechelen incident didn't really give away much, but do you really think the eventual plan did not differ significantly?
Re: Did the Mechelen Incident cause Adolf Hitler to adopt the Manstein Plan?
In the old plans (2 before the incident) the main part of the German forces would attack north of the Ardennes,invade Belgium and than go to the north of France ,while small forces would go through the Ardennes.
The variants after the incidents contained that bigger forces would go through the Ardennes (5 pzD) but that still the main part would go north of the Ardennes .
Opposite to popular belief, the main part of AGA (Rundstedt) was moving north of the Ardennes (PzG Kleist was only a small part of the forces of Rundstedt) and opposite to popular belief (or better the intoxication by the Pz and Manstein lobby) the main reason for the success of Fall Gelb was not the breakthrough from PzG Kleist but the success of AGB and AGA: if Bock and Rundstedt had failed,= if at the end of may,the Belgians were still at the Albercanal or the Allies still at the Dyle line, the success of von Kleist would have been a shot in the dark :the encirclment of the Allied forces was made posible by the advance of Bock and Rundstedt .
There was essentially not much difference between the pré and after Mechelen plans .
The variants after the incidents contained that bigger forces would go through the Ardennes (5 pzD) but that still the main part would go north of the Ardennes .
Opposite to popular belief, the main part of AGA (Rundstedt) was moving north of the Ardennes (PzG Kleist was only a small part of the forces of Rundstedt) and opposite to popular belief (or better the intoxication by the Pz and Manstein lobby) the main reason for the success of Fall Gelb was not the breakthrough from PzG Kleist but the success of AGB and AGA: if Bock and Rundstedt had failed,= if at the end of may,the Belgians were still at the Albercanal or the Allies still at the Dyle line, the success of von Kleist would have been a shot in the dark :the encirclment of the Allied forces was made posible by the advance of Bock and Rundstedt .
There was essentially not much difference between the pré and after Mechelen plans .
Re: Did the Mechelen Incident cause Adolf Hitler to adopt the Manstein Plan?
Very interesting view.
Re: Did the Mechelen Incident cause Adolf Hitler to adopt the Manstein Plan?
French were certain that the area was effectively impassible and any crossing would take a minimum of 9 days. Germans did not have to surprise the French completely just beat their expectations. No one at the time knew what a brutal effect an armor breakthrough could do either, so from their point of view there was simply nothing to worry about.
Re: Did the Mechelen Incident cause Adolf Hitler to adopt the Manstein Plan?
Decisions are rarely the product of a single person or single incident.ljadw wrote:Yes and no : there was no causal relation .
1)The immediate reaction of Hitler after the incident was to order the attack (after all the officer concerned had only a small part of the plans in his possession and the French were convinced that the Germans would attack north of the Meuse),but the attack was postponed because of the bad weather.
2)it is improbable that at this moment Hitler was aware of the proposal of Manstein,which was only a rough,non detailed and non examined blueprint .
As what happened with other things in WWII,the Mechelen incident has been given an importance it never had :the Germans would have won using the old plan,and the new plan did not differ that much from the old one .
Fall Gelb is what OKH came up with as the plan for an autumn or early offensive in the West. The main effort - Schwerpunkt was in the Northern of the two army groups. There was a debate during jan and Feb 1940, proviked by Manstein lobbying for the main effortto be with the centre army group - his. The Mechelen incident gave the Germans another reason chance to have another look at the thinking.
No one will know whether the Germans would have won with Fall Gelb - a re run of the Schlieffen-Plan. What we do know is that the allied deployment anticipated Fall Gelb, and the Germans would not have had the benefit of surprise from wrong footing the allies. in his biograhy of Manstein, Mungo Melvin observes that the 7th Feb wargame demonstrated the weakness of an attack on Sedan with purely one Panzer-Korps. This suggests that a secondary assault from the Ardennnes would not have been decisive - except in frittering away German armoured strength!"
Re: Did the Mechelen Incident cause Adolf Hitler to adopt the Manstein Plan?
You are contradicting yourself :if the area was impassible, there would be no crossing .Lil Pepe wrote:French were certain that the area was effectively impassible and any crossing would take a minimum of 9 days. .
Besides, if the French thought that the area was impassible, why had they built fortifications on the Meuse and why were there French divisions defending these fortifications ?
The truth is that the French were ,rightly, convinced that the Ardennes would delay the German asvance and the transport of heavy artilley needed to destroy the fortifications, what would make it possible to send the needed reinforcements .
The Germans knew this and knew that they could not transport fast enough heavy artillery to the Meuse , but someone had the solution : they would use flying artillery (Stuka ) who would not be hindered by the Ardennes .
Re: Did the Mechelen Incident cause Adolf Hitler to adopt the Manstein Plan?
1)The original plan was not a re run of the Schlieffen plan .Sheldrake wrote:Decisions are rarely the product of a single person or single incident.ljadw wrote:Yes and no : there was no causal relation .
1)The immediate reaction of Hitler after the incident was to order the attack (after all the officer concerned had only a small part of the plans in his possession and the French were convinced that the Germans would attack north of the Meuse),but the attack was postponed because of the bad weather.
2)it is improbable that at this moment Hitler was aware of the proposal of Manstein,which was only a rough,non detailed and non examined blueprint .
As what happened with other things in WWII,the Mechelen incident has been given an importance it never had :the Germans would have won using the old plan,and the new plan did not differ that much from the old one .
Fall Gelb is what OKH came up with as the plan for an autumn or early offensive in the West. The main effort - Schwerpunkt was in the Northern of the two army groups. There was a debate during jan and Feb 1940, proviked by Manstein lobbying for the main effortto be with the centre army group - his. The Mechelen incident gave the Germans another reason chance to have another look at the thinking.
No one will know whether the Germans would have won with Fall Gelb - a re run of the Schlieffen-Plan. What we do know is that the allied deployment anticipated Fall Gelb, and the Germans would not have had the benefit of surprise from wrong footing the allies. in his biograhy of Manstein, Mungo Melvin observes that the 7th Feb wargame demonstrated the weakness of an attack on Sedan with purely one Panzer-Korps. This suggests that a secondary assault from the Ardennnes would not have been decisive - except in frittering away German armoured strength!"
2 ) Hitler's immediate reaction after the Mechelen incident (the importance of which has been very much inflated ) was to order an attack for the next day, but this was excluded by the weather .
3) Already BEFORE the incident there was an evolution on German side :
October 19 1939 : ONE PzD south of the Meuse
October 29 1939 : FOUR PzD south of the Meuse
January 30 1940 : THREE PzD bordering the Meuse, TWO in Luxemburg
February 24 1940 : SEVEN PzD south of the Meuse,two of them north of the Ardennes .
Source : the Blitzkrieg Legend .
Re: Did the Mechelen Incident cause Adolf Hitler to adopt the Manstein Plan?
Their words not mine, and it is not a contradiction you are being overliteral. Does it sound like I make up some times for the fun of it?ljadw wrote:You are contradicting yourself :if the area was impassible, there would be no crossing .Lil Pepe wrote:French were certain that the area was effectively impassible and any crossing would take a minimum of 9 days. .
Besides, if the French thought that the area was impassible, why had they built fortifications on the Meuse and why were there French divisions defending these fortifications ?
The truth is that the French were ,rightly, convinced that the Ardennes would delay the German asvance and the transport of heavy artilley needed to destroy the fortifications, what would make it possible to send the needed reinforcements .
The Germans knew this and knew that they could not transport fast enough heavy artillery to the Meuse , but someone had the solution : they would use flying artillery (Stuka ) who would not be hindered by the Ardennes .
Read Manstein:Hitler's master strategist the chapter on The Manstein Plan. All the details are there if you don't believe my paraphrasing.
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Re: Did the Mechelen Incident cause Adolf Hitler to adopt the Manstein Plan?
Lil Pepe -- Please give the page numbers of the book which support your point.
Re: Did the Mechelen Incident cause Adolf Hitler to adopt the Manstein Plan?
I already gave you rhte precise chapter, shit for brains. Illiterate much?