attack. In addition, the German military discovered much about their forces’ performance
in Poland which a process of ruthless self-criticism indicated was in urgent need of
improvement. Poland in 1939 had been the first combat outing for the new-model
Wehrmacht.
But if the somewhat ragged German military triumph demonstrated the need to
improve combat effectiveness, especially against a foe more formidable than the Poles,
the Soviet Red Army seemed determined to show just how poorly a great power could
perform strategically. On 30 November 1939, Soviet forces invaded Finland, but to the
embarrassment of Moscow those forces were humiliated and repulsed. In fact, diminutive
Finland managed to resist Soviet aggression all through the winter of 1939–40, only
surrendering on 12 March 1940. What was strategically significant about Stalin’s war on
Finland was not its eventual outcome, which was certain to favour Moscow, but rather
the negative conclusion that all interested observers drew about the competence of the
Red Army.
1940: Germany’s ‘happy time’
The year 1940 registered the indecisive end of the first phase of what plainly had the
potential to become a long war. Hitler occupied Denmark and Norway in April, and
launched his great offensive in the West on 10 May with 123 divisions (10 panzer). What
the Kaiser’s army could not accomplish in over four years from 1914 to 191 8 , Hitler’s
new Wehrmacht achieved in six weeks. France and Germany signed an armistice on 22
June. Demonstrating a modern, highly mobile version of their long-standing combined-
arms doctrine, the Germans outflanked the Maginot Line and cut in behind the Anglo-
French mobile forces which had advanced conveniently, if incautiously, into Belgium, as
their standard plan required. The stunning German operational success was hardly the
product of military genius, let alone of some miraculous new formula for victory known
as Blitzkrieg. Rather, it was primarily the result of enemy operational mistakes and vastly
superior German training. The deadly surprise thrust through the Ardennes was not the
brainchild of Erich von Manstein or Adolf Hitler, though both claimed the credit. Instead,
the principal author of the bold move was none other than Germany’s Army Chief of
Staff, the compliant Franz Halder. Both Manstein and Hitler had a more limited vision
of the scope for operational victory in this instance than did Halder.
Some 226,000 men of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and 112,000 French and
Belgian soldiers were able to escape from the only port open to them, Dunkirk, in what
was close to a strategic miracle effected between 26 May and 4 June. The panzers could
have closed the port of Dunkirk to the retreating Allied forces, but they were restrained
by the famous ‘halt’ order until 2 8 May. Typically, Hitler is blamed for the order, but
the truth is that it was issued by the Commander-in-Chief, West, Field Marshal Gerd
von Rundstedt, and was only endorsed by the Führer. There is little doubt that it saved
the BEF. The British Army lost all of its heavy equipment, but it saved itself to fight
again. Almost as much to the point, the British escape prevented a military catastrophe
of a character that Winston Churchill most probably could not have survived as Prime
Minister. That is not a trivial point. Had the British Army gone into the POW bag,
Germany could well have found itself in the strategically attractive position of being able
to dictate the terms of a favourable armistice to London. Not all of Churchill’s cabinet
130 War, peace and international relations