Free History of the Second World War by Basil Henry Liddell Hart Page A

opposition to their plan. So it was decided to remove him from his post, and send him to command an infantry corps — where he would be out of the main channel and not so well placed to push his ideas. But following this transfer he was summoned to see Hitler, and thus had an opportunity to explain his idea in full. This interview was arranged on the initiative of General Schmundt, Hitler’s chief aide-de-camp, who was a fervent admirer of Manstein and felt he had been badly treated.
    After that, Hitler pressed the idea on Brauchitsch and Halder so hard that they gave way, and remodelled the plan on Manstein’s lines. While Halder was a reluctant convert, he was an extremely able staff officer and the detailed drafting of the plan was a remarkable piece of logistical planning.
    A characteristic sequel was that Hitler, once he had swung in favour of the new key-idea, was quick to assume that he had himself conceived it. All he gave Manstein was the credit of having agreed with him: ‘Among all the generals I talked to about the new plan in the West, Manstein was the only one who understood me.’
    If we analyse the course of events when the offensive was launched, in May, it becomes clear that the old plan would almost certainly have failed to produce the fall of France. Indeed, it might have done no more than push the Allied Armies back to the French frontier, even if it did that. For the main German advance would have run head-on into the strongest and best-equipped of the Franco-British forces, and would have had to fight its way forward through a stretch of country filled with obstacles — rivers, canals and large towns. The Ardennes might seem more difficult still, but if the Germans could race through that wooded hill-belt of southern Belgium before the French High Command awoke to the danger, the rolling plains of France would lie open to them — ideal country for a great tank drive.
    Had the old plan been maintained, and come to an impasse as was probable, the whole outlook of the war would have been very different. While it is unlikely that France and Britain could ever have defeated Germany on their own, a definite check to the German offensive would have given them time to develop their armaments, particularly in aircraft and tanks, and thus establish a balance of power in these new arms. The unconcealable failure of Hitler’s bid for victory would in time also have undermined the confidence of his troops and people. Thus a stalemate in the West would have given Hitler’s strong group of opponents at home a good chance to gain increasing support and develop their plans for overthrowing him, as a preliminary to peace. However things had turned out after the check, it is likely that Europe would have been saved much of the ruin and misery that befell her peoples as the result of the chain of events that ensued from the collapse of France.
    While Hitler benefited so much from the air accident that led him to change the plan, the Allies suffered much from it. One of the strangest features of the whole story is that they did so little to profit by the warning that had fallen into their lap. For the documents which the German staff officer was carrying were not badly burned, and copies of them were promptly passed on by the Belgians to the French and British Governments. But their military advisers were inclined to regard the documents as having been planted on them as a deception. That view hardly made sense, for it would have been a foolish kind of deception to risk putting the Belgians on their guard and driving them into closer collaboration with the French and British. They might easily have decided to open their frontier and let the Franco-British armies come in, to reinforce their defences, before the blow fell.
    Even stranger was that the Allied High Command made no change in its own plans, nor took any precautions to meet the probability that if the captured plan were genuine the German High Command would