writing, not in a specific sense, but to refer to the kind of quick, complete victory
that was at the heart of the army’s operational planning and a central feature of its
doctrine and training. 68 To say that blitzkrieg was anex post factoconstruction,
nevertheless, makes as much sense as to collect the components of a watch, shake
the pieces in a sack, and expect to pull out a functioning timepiece. Blitzkrieg is a
manifestation of the war of movement, that historical focus of Prussian–German
planning that Seeckt and his contemporaries sought to restore after the Great
War. Blitzkrieg also gives a technologically based literalness to an abstract con-
cept.Bewegungskrieghad always been more of an intellectual construction than a
physical reality. It involved forcing an enemy off balance through sophisticated
planning creatively implemented in a context of forces moving essentially at the
same pace. In blitzkrieg, the combination of radios and engines made it possible
for an army literally to run rings around its enemy—if, and it was a big if, its
moral and intellectual qualities were on par with its material.
The conclusion on 23 August 1939 of the German–Soviet Non-Aggression Pact
set a match to long-accumulating tinder. For Hitler, the agreement was a golden
opportunity to avert the two-front war of attrition that had brought about
Germany’s defeat a quarter-century earlier. On 1 September 1939, the German
army rolled into Poland: the first stage of a war for global hegemony.
The Polish campaign of 1939 invites comparisonwith Schlieffen’s vision of Cannae
on an operational level. One army group with two armies and five mobile divisions
drove south-east out of Pomerania and East Prussia; another, with three armies and
ten mobile divisions, came north-east out of Silesia. The objective was the Polish
army; the plan called for breaking through the Polish frontier positions and creating a
double envelopment, the spearheads meeting somewhere east of Warsaw.
Things did not go quite so smoothly on the ground. The envelopment took
longer to complete than expected; the Poles proved a less-obliging enemy than
hoped. The results were not perfect but better than good enough. Determined
resistance could not stop armoured spearheads that took full advantage of an
unexpectedly dry summer in a country with few paved roads. The Germans forced
small tactical breaches, expanded them into larger ones, and converted them to
springboards for exploitation at the operational level. In contrast to virtually every
muscle-powered campaign in modern European history, the Germans not only
sustained, but also increased, their momentum, throwing the Poles off balance,
and keeping them there. Close support by the Luftwaffe enhanced the ‘shock-and-
awe’ effect. An unexpected bonus was the flexibility of the mobile divisions:
panzer, light, and motorized. Their ability to change fronts and shift sectors
enabled the solving of tactical problems in a matter of days, sometimes hours. 69
As the Polish army began recovering from the initial shock, Soviet troops
crossed its eastern border.Rotarmistenshook hands withPanzerma ̈nneras the
extermination squads of their respective governments went to work on ‘subver-
sive elements’: anyone, Gentile or Jew, who might pose an objective threat to the
new orders.
After the fall of Poland, the Third Reich’s armoured force was reconfigured.
The four light divisions were converted to panzers; the motorized divisions were
52 The Evolution of Operational Art