had deserted, or had simply passed into dissolution. As early as the end of May a British general called the French army a rabble without the slightest discipline.6 Millions of refugees aimlessly tramped the roads, dragging carts heaped high with possessions, blocking the movements of their own troops, carrying them along into the confusion, overtaken by German tanks, driven into panic by the bombs and the screams of the Stukas. Every step toward organized military resistance was submerged in the indescribable chaos. The country had been prepared for defeat but not for collapse. From the French headquarters in Briare there was only a single telephone link to the troops and to the outside world, and that was not in operation between twelve and two o’clock in the afternoon because the postmistress went to lunch at this time. When General Brooke, commander in chief of the British Expeditionary Force, asked about the divisions assigned for the defense of “Fortress Brittany,” General Weygand, the newly appointed supreme commander, shrugged resignedly: “I know they’re a pure figment of the imagination.” Many commanding generals stared at their maps as if these were a blank wall. It was in fact as if the sky were falling down upon France.
Although the German planning for the Battle of France had provided for scarcely any reactions on the enemy’s part, and although the directives seemed to suggest extensive marching drills rather than a campaign, Hitler was nevertheless surprised by the speed of the advance. On June 14 his troops marched through the Porte Maillot into Paris and lowered the tricolor from the Eiffel Tower. Three days later Rommel covered 150 miles in a single day. And when Guderian on the same day reported that he had reached Pontarlier with his tanks, Hitler wired back to ask whether it was not a mistake: “You probably mean Pontailler-sur-Saone.” But Guderian reported back: “No mistake. I am myself in Pontarlier on the Swiss border.” From there he advanced northeast and broke into the Maginot Line from the rear. The defensive line that had dominated France’s strategy and all her thinking fell almost without a fight.
With the German victory now tangible, Italy rushed in to help. Mussolini hated, as he was wont to say, the reputation of unreliability that clung to his country, and he wanted to banish it by “a policy as straight as a sword blade.” But the matter was not so simple. His decision to stay out of the war for the present had started to waver in October, in view of the German triumphs in Poland. In November he had regarded the idea that Hitler might win the war as “utterly intolerable.” In December he had said to Ciano that he “openly wished for a German defeat.” He had informed the Dutch and the Belgians of the date set for the German attack. Early in January, 1940, he wrote to Hitler, advising him against his present course. As the “dean of dictators” Mussolini tried to turn Hitler’s momentum toward the East:7
Nobody knows better than I, who possess nearly forty years of political experience, that politics makes its own tactical demands. This also applies to revolutionary politics…. Therefore I understand your… having avoided the second front. In Poland and the Baltic region, therefore, Russia has become the great gainer from the war, without risking anything. But I, who am a revolutionary by birth and have never changed my views, tell you that you cannot constantly sacrifice the principles of your revolution in favor of the tactical requirements of a momentary political situation. I am convinced that you may not lower the anti-Semitic and anti-Bolshevistic banner that you held high for twenty years… and I am only doing my absolute duty when I add that a single further step to extend your relations with Moscow would have devastating consequences in Italy….
But at a conference at the Brenner Pass on March 18, 1940, Hitler succeeded without any special effort in dispelling Mussolini’s disgruntlement and in rekindling his partner’s old admiration and lust for loot. “Neither can it be denied that the Duce is fascinated by Hitler,” Ciano wrote, “a fascination which involves something deeply rooted in his makeup.”
From that point on, Mussolini’s determination to take part in the war grew steadily. It would be humiliating, he said, “to remain with our hands folded while others write history. It matters little who wins. To make a people great it is necessary to send them to battle even if you have to kick them in the pants.”8 Against the will of the King, of industry, of the army, even against the will of some of his influential fellow Fascists in the Grand Council, he began working toward Italy’s entry into the war. Early in June, 1940, Marshal Badoglio opposed the order to begin offensive operations. His soldiers, he said, “did not even have a sufficient number of shirts.” Mussolini dismissed the argument: “I assure you that it will all be over with by September. I need several thousand casualties to be able to take my place at the peace table as a belligerent.” On June 10 the Italian army launched its attack but quickly ground to a halt on the outskirts of the border town of Menton. Indignantly, the Italian dictator declared: “It is the material I lack. Even Michelangelo had need of marble to make statues. If he had had only clay, he would have become a potter.”9 Only a week later events overtook his ambitions, when President Lebrun entrusted Marshal Petain with the formation of a new French government. As his first official act, Petain transmitted to the German High Command, through the Spanish government, his request for an armistice.
Hitler received the news in the small Belgian village of Bruly-le-Peche, near the French border, where he had set up his headquarters. A famous photograph has preserved his reaction: his right foot raised as he danced a joyful jig, laughing, slapping his thigh. And it was here, in the context of an exuberant toast, that Keitel for the first time hailed him as the “greatest generalissimo of all times.”
There is no denying that the successes were unprecedented. In three weeks the Wehrmacht had overrun Poland; in something more than two months it had overwhelmed Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France, driven the British back to their island, and effectively challenged the British fleet. And all this was accomplished with comparatively small casualties. The campaign in the West had cost the German side 27,000 lives, compared with 135,000 dead on the enemy side.
The successes of the campaign cannot be attributed solely to Hitler’s personal merits as a commander; but they were also not entirely the product of luck, shrewd counsel, or the enemy’s failures. The importance of armored formations had been recognized in. France and elsewhere during the thirties, but only Hitler had drawn the necessary conclusion and equipped the Wehrmacht with ten armored divisions—against some resistance. He had recognized France’s weakness and demoralized impotence far more acutely than his generals, who were still caught up in outmoded notions. And no matter how small his personal contribution to Manstein’s plan of campaign may have been, he immediately grasped its importance and changed the whole concept of German operations accordingly. He showed that he had an eye for unconventional possibilities, all the keener because of his lack of background and hence of bias. He had studied military literature long and intensively; his bedside reading throughout almost the whole of the war consisted of naval records and manuals of military science. He used his stupendous memory of matters military for purposes of self-display. The almost lunatic sureness with which he could rattle off tonnages, calibers, ranges, or specifications of various weapons systems frequently staggered and irritated his entourage.
At the same time, he was also able to apply such knowledge imaginatively. He had a keen sense of the potentialities of modern weapons, he knew where to commit them and where they would be most effective. This was coupled with remarkable insight into the psychology of the enemy. All these qualities found expression in the accurately placed surprise strokes, in the correct predictions of tactical countermeasures, and in the lightning grasp of favorable opportunities. The plan for the coup against Fort Eben Emael came from Hitler, as did the idea of equipping dive bombers with sirens whose scream was devastating.10 Similarly, in defiance of the views of many experts, he insisted on providing tanks with long cannon. With some justice he has been called the “most informed and versatile specialist in military technology of his age.”11 Unquestionably, he was not just the “commanding corporal” that some of the haughty apologists for the German generals have depicted.
Ultimately his weaknesses began to cancel out his strengths, when operative boldness became absurd self- inflation, energy became rigidity, and courage the gambler’s love of risks. But that time was still some distance in the future. In the meantime, he had conquered his own generals. In the light of his brilliant success over the feared enemy, France, even the reluctant generals acknowledged his “genius” and admitted that he had analyzed the situation far better than they. He had obviously considered not only the military factor but also matters beyond the limited horizon of their expertise. This was one of the reasons for the sometimes almost incomprehensible trust, the misguided confidence in victory, of the later years. Those early victories encouraged the repeated rebuilding of new houses of cards, the cherishing of ever-new deceptive hopes. For Hitler himself the triumphant conclusion of the campaign in France brought a magnification of his already unbridled arrogance. It provided the maximum corroboration of his sense that he was a man of destiny.
