Blitzkrieg

The key to Germany's success over Poland and the string of victories that followed over Belgium and France was Blitzkrieg. 'Blitzkrieg' is German for lightning war, which describes the idea of surprise and speed which was essential to the success of this new military strategy. The Germans had learned one lesson from the Great War of 1914-18: the tank was a war winning weapon. The tank's speed (up to 40kph) and power could make rapid advances possible.

Blitzkrieg took place in three stages. First, enemy headquarters and communication centres would be bombed by aircraft. Parachutists would be dropped behind enemy lines to cut telephone wires and destroy bridges. Secondly, the main attack would be carried out by tanks and infantry in trucks. This armoured spearhead would attack at the enemy's weakest point. The strongest points of the enemy lines would be encircled in the third stage by other troops following up behind the armoured spearhead. In the meantime, the main thrust of the attack, the tanks and motorised infantry, would continue driving their way through the surprised and demoralised enemy troops.

The Allied strategy

The British and French High Commands, with a few exceptions, had failed to appreciate how devastating the combination of tank and air attack could be. They both preferred to use the tank as a weapon which supported the infantry. This meant spreading their tanks thinly across a wide area while the Germans chose to concentrate their tanks in large numbers in a few places. The technology of tank design had improved in several key areas since the First World War. They were four times as fast, much more reliable and had three or four times the thickness of steel armour-plating.

Neil Demarco: The era of the Second World War; Oxford University Press, 1993/2000, page 26