How was Hitler able to defeat France so easily in 1940? Why was the air war against Britain a failure?

Answer 1

Germany was able to defeat France quickly due to Germany's lightning war "Blitzkrieg". Germany went around France's defense and invaded Belguim. France, and Britain soon gave up, and Germany setup a puppet government. .

Germany lost the air war in Britain due to their change of tactics. Germany stopped attacking military targets, and started going after civilian targets. This gave the RAF time to rebuild and win.

Answer 2

France was easily defeated because its armed forces still practiced a military tactic that haven't changed since World War 1. The applied doctrine is that of static warfare and defenses. Long trenches are dug out at the front-lines and large concentration of troops are massed on these trenches. The French also believed that the best defense against an enemy's attack is the building up of a continuous stretch of impenetrable and well-defended concrete fortifications well behind the front-lines (the Maginot Line).

The Germans on the other hand, believed on the principles of fast mobilization and mobility in warfare as opposed to static warfare. They believed on the advantages of fast moving mechanized armor in precise coordination with air power and troop movements. This became the basis for Blitzkrieg or Lightning War. They have proven the effectiveness of such tactic against previous attack on Poland, which surrendered after only three weeks of fighting. However, the Germans knew well that the advantages offered by Blitzkrieg will be nullified if they engaged in a frontal assault on the Maginot Line's defenses. Thus they avoided the Maginot Line by circumventing it, attacking and overruning much weaker defenses through Belgium instead. Then they used Blitzkrieg against the flanks of the French defenses, far behind the Maginot Line. The French were defeated after only a month.

Great Britain was a totally different case owing to its geographical location. It is a separate land-mass than the rest of Western Europe. The invasion of Great Britain can be carried out only by sending masses of troops and war materiel across the English Channel to the British mainland (similar in extent to the Allied landing at Normandy's beaches on D-Day four years later). This is an undertaking that require a huge resource on the part of Germany. Furthermore, Germany is not a naval power. It has far fewer warships than the English navy. Thus the English Channel is dominated by the British navy, which will make German invasion of Great Britain by channel crossing not feasible and a risky business. Therefore, the war between Great Britain and Germany was fought mainly from the air (air war), with the German air force mostly on the offensive and the British air force defending the British air-space. The air-war against Britain was not really a failure for Germany, although German casualties in the air-war were considerably higher than the British. In fact, during the subsequent German invasion of Russia, the German air force still dominated the Russian skies. Hitler ordered a halt in the air campaign against the British simply because he became impatient with the air-war. German losses in planes and pilots continue to mount without any gain of British territory. Hitler knew that the air-war alone was not enough to defeat Great Britain.

Answer 3

Instead of attacking France through the Maginot Line as the French expected, the Germans went north and entered France along its northern border. Germany, first, had to fight its way through Luxembourg and Belgium to get there, but it worked. The Germans had taken the French by surprise. All of the French army was waiting for a battle with Germany on the eastern boarder, which would never occur. This choice would prove fatal.

Answer 4

Britain was willing to fight, and France was not.