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The Breaking Point: Sedan and the Fall of France, 1940
Colonel Doughty (US Army and West Point) examines the German victory at Sedan, which has generally been viewed as testament to an innovative and invincible German war machine. Through detailed analysis of both French and German battle records, he reconstructs the battle and reveals, not a new and superior weaponry or war machine, but efficient technical and procedural use of the German infantry. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.
382 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1990
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About the author
Robert A. Doughty
21 books9 followersBrigadier General Robert Allan Doughty, USA (Ret.), is an American military historian, educator and retired career military officer.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
February 3, 2018
If you are going to do a terrain walk or in-depth study of the 1940 attack through the Ardennes, then this is the book for you. If you are looking for an engaging, entertaining book on a key turning point in the Battle of France, you will have to look elsewhere. The start of the book is strong but after the initial discussion of the German progress through the Ardennes, the narrative breaks down into a lengthy and, frankly, boring accounting of who moved where and when. Except for some accounts from German soldiers on specific actions crossing the Meuse and taking objectives, there are no vignettes of interest despite a heavy focus on small unit action. There are good discussions of the clash of wills between Guderian and Von Kleist, very interesting.
The short and clear explanation of French and German strategy and doctrine is excellent. The French "methodical battle" with step-by-step centralized control is contrasted with the German emphasis on decentralized control and initiative. German "Auftragstaktik" or mission-oriented tactics is explained. The author gives a good explanation of how difficult a problem the Germans had in attacking through the Ardennes. He also gives a decent account of the greatly outnumbered Belgian Chasseurs Ardennais fight at Bodange which held up the 1st Panzer Division for about 10 hours on the first day (view spoiler) I learned about the airlanding of commandos and a 400-man battalion (2-3 men at a time) by Fieseler Storch airplanes at key bridges and crossing on the first day-did not know that before.
Where the book falls down is maps. He started out with a good one but he gets deep down into the moves of all the formations in the Ardennes and does not include any maps that guide you. The lack of maps only gets worse as the books progresses. Here is one online map that would help: http://totallyhistory.com/wp-content/...
The operations order for the main thrust is precise and clear:
I can only give 2 Stars for a book that started out promising but did not carry through. This one does not make the permanent shelf.
The short and clear explanation of French and German strategy and doctrine is excellent. The French "methodical battle" with step-by-step centralized control is contrasted with the German emphasis on decentralized control and initiative. German "Auftragstaktik" or mission-oriented tactics is explained. The author gives a good explanation of how difficult a problem the Germans had in attacking through the Ardennes. He also gives a decent account of the greatly outnumbered Belgian Chasseurs Ardennais fight at Bodange which held up the 1st Panzer Division for about 10 hours on the first day (view spoiler) I learned about the airlanding of commandos and a 400-man battalion (2-3 men at a time) by Fieseler Storch airplanes at key bridges and crossing on the first day-did not know that before.
Where the book falls down is maps. He started out with a good one but he gets deep down into the moves of all the formations in the Ardennes and does not include any maps that guide you. The lack of maps only gets worse as the books progresses. Here is one online map that would help: http://totallyhistory.com/wp-content/...
The operations order for the main thrust is precise and clear:
I can only give 2 Stars for a book that started out promising but did not carry through. This one does not make the permanent shelf.
April 26, 2018
An in-depth narrative and analysis of the defeat of France in 1940 by the Germans. Specifically, Colonel Doughty concentrates on the campaign as executed by Guderian's XIX Corps and its opponents in the corps' approach march across the Ardennes, its crossing of the Meuse at Sedan, and its defeat of the various French units as Guderian's troops carved out their bridgehead and consequently broke out on their way to the channel behind the main allied armies that had charged forward into Belgium. The emphasis is overwhelmingly on the operations and tactics used by the opposing armies, and their contrasting leadership styles and doctrines. Doughty makes it abundantly clear why the Germans were victorious in this particular battle, especially giving credit to the well-lead infantry and combat engineers who were instrumental to their accomplishments but who, in most narratives, play second fiddle to the panzers. The maps are barely adequate but are just good enough. A key work in understanding the collapse of France in the summer of 1940.
July 23, 2017
Why, in 1940, did Christopher Nolan have to come to the rescue of 340,000 Allied troops on a beach in northern France? Or, to put it with less snark, why had the Allies (principally, France) performed so badly that, less than a month into the German invasion, they found themselves cornered against the sea?
"Thank God for the French Army," said Winston Churchill in 1933; and as late as 1940, France was seen as Europe's preeminent military power. Twenty years before it had repelled an invasion by a country a third larger in population and twice as large in industry, at the human cost of 4 percent (!!) of its citizenry. For two decades it had prepared for invasion, building forts and husbanding its strength, such that in 1940 the French army had more guns than the Germans, and more tanks. And still it lost. Why?
Robert Doughty (a retired US brigadier) points the finger at the Battle of Sedan. With the infamous Maginot Line defending the Franco-German border, the Allies had sent their best units north into central Belgium, anticipating a strike along the same lines as the German invasion of 1914. But they had dismissed the possibility that the enemy might try something different. The Germans launched a feint through central Belgium, to confirm Allied preconceptions; but the real attack came through the Ardennes forest, the critical hinge between the mobile Allied units in the north and the Maginot Line in the south. That area (which included the town of Sedan) was lightly defended, on account of it being deemed poor terrain for tanks; and through a combination of bad luck, French incompetence, and German derring-do, the Germans broke through. In five days, German tanks were at the sea, and the fate of the main Allied army was sealed.
All that said, this isn't a great book. Only the most ardent grognard could get past the awkward writing and the fussy preoccupation with military detail -- with so few maps, the many pages of after-action description feel flighty, weightless. I found myself flipping through these sections. But the two chapters on strategic concerns are quite good, and neatly summarize the key reasons why Sedan was allowed to happen.
The French in 1940 were preoccupied with the idea of "methodical battle": a top-down, centralized approach to warfare. Artillery was responsible for most of the battlefield casualties in First World War, and the difficulties of coordinating massed firepower lent itself to a top-down approach to command. With 1.3m French soldiers killed in La Grande Guerre, an attachment to the ideas had won the last war is understandable. But faced with a new German doctrine that emphasized mobility and seizing the initiative, this doctrine was a disaster. This book could be flippantly subtitled Leadership Secrets of the Wehrmacht: French units at Sedan were repeatedly outmaneuvered and outfought by fast-moving German units, led by junior commanders who knew how to seize the initiative. But Doughty is careful not to descend into the German weeabooism. The German victories at Sedan were won primarily by infantry, not by tanks; "Blitzkrieg" was not a codified doctrine, but an ex-post invention of the Allied press to describe the rapid string of German victories; and there was a great deal of bad luck on the Allied side that made collapse possible.
I left this book with a sense of just how contingent history can be. There was nothing inevitable about France's defeat in 1940; all claims about moral decay or French cowardice are hogwash. France had the materiel and the will to win. What it lacked was the correct ideas about how to wage war, and it was unfortunate enough to be paired with adversary with new ideas that countered the old ones. If France had stood in 1940, 70,000 French Jews might have lived. More than that, facing a determined enemy to its west, Germany might not have invaded the Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe might have been spared the horrors of the Eastern Front, including the Holocaust. Military matters matter. Sedan was not just the hinge of the French Army; it was at the hinge of history. Had things swung differently, the world might be a happier place.
"Thank God for the French Army," said Winston Churchill in 1933; and as late as 1940, France was seen as Europe's preeminent military power. Twenty years before it had repelled an invasion by a country a third larger in population and twice as large in industry, at the human cost of 4 percent (!!) of its citizenry. For two decades it had prepared for invasion, building forts and husbanding its strength, such that in 1940 the French army had more guns than the Germans, and more tanks. And still it lost. Why?
Robert Doughty (a retired US brigadier) points the finger at the Battle of Sedan. With the infamous Maginot Line defending the Franco-German border, the Allies had sent their best units north into central Belgium, anticipating a strike along the same lines as the German invasion of 1914. But they had dismissed the possibility that the enemy might try something different. The Germans launched a feint through central Belgium, to confirm Allied preconceptions; but the real attack came through the Ardennes forest, the critical hinge between the mobile Allied units in the north and the Maginot Line in the south. That area (which included the town of Sedan) was lightly defended, on account of it being deemed poor terrain for tanks; and through a combination of bad luck, French incompetence, and German derring-do, the Germans broke through. In five days, German tanks were at the sea, and the fate of the main Allied army was sealed.
All that said, this isn't a great book. Only the most ardent grognard could get past the awkward writing and the fussy preoccupation with military detail -- with so few maps, the many pages of after-action description feel flighty, weightless. I found myself flipping through these sections. But the two chapters on strategic concerns are quite good, and neatly summarize the key reasons why Sedan was allowed to happen.
The French in 1940 were preoccupied with the idea of "methodical battle": a top-down, centralized approach to warfare. Artillery was responsible for most of the battlefield casualties in First World War, and the difficulties of coordinating massed firepower lent itself to a top-down approach to command. With 1.3m French soldiers killed in La Grande Guerre, an attachment to the ideas had won the last war is understandable. But faced with a new German doctrine that emphasized mobility and seizing the initiative, this doctrine was a disaster. This book could be flippantly subtitled Leadership Secrets of the Wehrmacht: French units at Sedan were repeatedly outmaneuvered and outfought by fast-moving German units, led by junior commanders who knew how to seize the initiative. But Doughty is careful not to descend into the German weeabooism. The German victories at Sedan were won primarily by infantry, not by tanks; "Blitzkrieg" was not a codified doctrine, but an ex-post invention of the Allied press to describe the rapid string of German victories; and there was a great deal of bad luck on the Allied side that made collapse possible.
I left this book with a sense of just how contingent history can be. There was nothing inevitable about France's defeat in 1940; all claims about moral decay or French cowardice are hogwash. France had the materiel and the will to win. What it lacked was the correct ideas about how to wage war, and it was unfortunate enough to be paired with adversary with new ideas that countered the old ones. If France had stood in 1940, 70,000 French Jews might have lived. More than that, facing a determined enemy to its west, Germany might not have invaded the Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe might have been spared the horrors of the Eastern Front, including the Holocaust. Military matters matter. Sedan was not just the hinge of the French Army; it was at the hinge of history. Had things swung differently, the world might be a happier place.
September 23, 2022
What this book is, is a very detailed account of the Guderian’s 19th Panzer Corps advance through Luxembourg, Belgium and the Meuse crossing near Sedan France. It’s also about the French and Belgian response to this attack. It’s not about all the details of the battle of France, and it doesn’t go into any political discussions.
So, this is in fact a micro history of a portion of the great campaign that brought France and the Low Countries down, although a very important part of that campaign.
I’ve walked on much of this ground so for me I really enjoyed the discussion of how the Germans took out the numerous bunkers, which are mostly still in place. I found the discussion lively, detailed, and well reasoned.
If your looking for an overall history of the 1940 French Campaign, this isn’t the book for you. Once you have understood that campaign to some extent, then check this book out as it will open your eyes to see the real rot in French military capability in 1940.
So, this is in fact a micro history of a portion of the great campaign that brought France and the Low Countries down, although a very important part of that campaign.
I’ve walked on much of this ground so for me I really enjoyed the discussion of how the Germans took out the numerous bunkers, which are mostly still in place. I found the discussion lively, detailed, and well reasoned.
If your looking for an overall history of the 1940 French Campaign, this isn’t the book for you. Once you have understood that campaign to some extent, then check this book out as it will open your eyes to see the real rot in French military capability in 1940.
August 2, 2024
Eye opening
Really forced me to reevaluate the blitzkrieg myth. It was the infantrys excellence that opened the way for the panzers to exploit. Really informative i liked it as much the Blitzkrieg Legend.
Really forced me to reevaluate the blitzkrieg myth. It was the infantrys excellence that opened the way for the panzers to exploit. Really informative i liked it as much the Blitzkrieg Legend.
December 12, 2021
The French really deserved the reputation they earned in WW2.
October 20, 2023
Quick read on the battle of Sedan. Ok read, learned nothing new, depicted the actual events of the battle from both the German and French perspectives.
August 12, 2024
military history
It is a thoroughly researched and accurate recitation of what happened in the spring of 1940. It would be helped by the more frequent display of maps.
It is a thoroughly researched and accurate recitation of what happened in the spring of 1940. It would be helped by the more frequent display of maps.
November 9, 2021
One of the gems I got off Kindle Unlimited. A very good book on the battle, detailed, well written. I recommend this if you like the history of the Fall of France. He looks at some detailed reasons why the battle unfolded the way it id due to doctrine, training and other circumstance of both armies in the fight. I would have given the 5 stars but it, like many of these books, needs better maps.
April 25, 2017
Good but not as good the "The Blitzkrieg Legend." Very inadequate maps.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews