The Manstein Plan was the primary war

War

War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...

 plan

Plan

A plan is typically any diagram or list of steps with timing and resources, used to achieve an objective. See also strategy. It is commonly understood as a temporal set of intended actions, through which one expects to achieve a goal...

 of the German Army during the Battle of France

Battle of France

In the Second World War, the Battle of France was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries, beginning on 10 May 1940, which ended the Phoney War. The battle consisted of two main operations. In the first, Fall Gelb , German armoured units pushed through the Ardennes, to cut off and...

 in 1940.

Overview of the Plan

Developed by German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 Generalleutnant Erich von Manstein

Erich von Manstein

Erich von Manstein was a field marshal in World War II. He became one of the most prominent commanders of Germany's World War II armed forces...

, the plan greatly modified the original 1939 versions by Franz Halder

Franz Halder

Franz Halder was a German General and the head of the Army General Staff from 1938 until September, 1942, when he was dismissed after frequent disagreements with Adolf Hitler.-Early life:...

 of the invasion

Invasion

An invasion is a military offensive consisting of all, or large parts of the armed forces of one geopolitical entity aggressively entering territory controlled by another such entity, generally with the objective of either conquering, liberating or re-establishing control or authority over a...

 plan known as Fall Gelb. One way to look at the Manstein Plan was that it was the German Army's answer to the French Army

French Army

The French Army, officially the Armée de Terre , is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces.As of 2010, the army employs 123,100 regulars, 18,350 part-time reservists and 7,700 Legionnaires. All soldiers are professionals, following the suspension of conscription, voted in...

's Dyle Plan

Dyle Plan

The Dyle Plan or D Plan was the primary war plan of the French Army to stave off the expected German attack during Fall Gelb. It was conceived by French General Maurice Gamelin in 1940...

. Originally, in Aufmarschanweisung N°1, Fall Gelb, the German Army planned to push the Allied forces back through central Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 to the Somme

Somme

Somme is a department of France, located in the north of the country and named after the Somme river. It is part of the Picardy region of France....

 river, in northern France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, not unlike the first phase of the famous Schlieffen Plan

Schlieffen Plan

The Schlieffen Plan was the German General Staff's early 20th century overall strategic plan for victory in a possible future war in which the German Empire might find itself fighting on two fronts: France to the west and Russia to the east...

 of the First World War. However, on 10 January 1940, the Mechelen Incident

Mechelen Incident

The Mechelen Incident of 10 January 1940, also known as the Mechelen affair, was an event during the Phoney War. A German aircraft with an officer on-board carrying the plans for Fall Gelb , a German attack on the Low Countries, crash-landed in neutral Belgium near Vucht, in the modern-day...

 took place: a German aircraft carrying documents containing parts of the operational plans of Fall Gelb crashed in Belgium, thus prompting another review of the invasion plan. While Fall Gelb was revised by Halder, not fundamentally changing it in Aufmarschanweisung N°3, Fall Gelb, Von Manstein was able to convince Hitler in a personal meeting on 17 February that the Wehrmacht

Wehrmacht

The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...

should attack through the Ardennes

Ardennes

The Ardennes is a region of extensive forests, rolling hills and ridges formed within the Givetian Ardennes mountain range, primarily in Belgium and Luxembourg, but stretching into France , and geologically into the Eifel...

 forest, followed by a strategic drive to the coast.

Details of the Plan

Von Manstein, chief of staff of Army Group A

Army Group A

Army Group A was the name of a number of German Army Groups during World War II.-Western Front, 1940:During the German invasion of the Low Countries and France Army Group A was under the command of General Gerd von Rundstedt, and was responsible for the break-out through the Ardennes...

, had originally formulated his plan in October 1939 in Koblenz

Koblenz

Koblenz is a German city situated on both banks of the Rhine at its confluence with the Moselle, where the Deutsches Eck and its monument are situated.As Koblenz was one of the military posts established by Drusus about 8 BC, the...

 on instigation of his superior General Gerd von Rundstedt

Gerd von Rundstedt

Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt was a Generalfeldmarschall of the German Army during World War II. He held some of the highest field commands in all phases of the war....

, who rejected Halder's plan, both because of professional jealousy and because it wouldn't lead to a decisive victory over France. Von Manstein's first thoughts were rather traditional, envisaging a swing from Sedan

Sedan, France

Sedan is a commune in France, a sub-prefecture of the Ardennes department in northern France.-Geography:The historic centre is built on a peninsula formed by an arc of the Meuse River. It is around from the Belgian border.-History:...

 to the north to obliterate the Allied armies in a classical Kesselschlacht or annihilation battle. When discussing his intentions with Lieutenant-General Heinz Guderian

Heinz Guderian

Heinz Wilhelm Guderian was a German general during World War II. He was a pioneer in the development of armored warfare, and was the leading proponent of tanks and mechanization in the Wehrmacht . Germany's panzer forces were raised and organized under his direction as Chief of Mobile Forces...

, commander of Germany's elite armoured corps, the latter proposed to turn it into a more "Fullerite

J.F.C. Fuller

Major-General John Frederick Charles Fuller, CB, CBE, DSO was a British Army officer, military historian and strategist, notable as an early theorist of modern armoured warfare, including categorising principles of warfare...

" strategy by avoiding the main body of the Allied armies and swiftly advancing with the armoured divisions to The Channel instead, to cause a collapse of the enemy by catching him off guard and cutting off his supply lines. It was thus Guderian who introduced the true "Blitzkrieg

Blitzkrieg

For other uses of the word, see: Blitzkrieg Blitzkrieg is an anglicized word describing all-motorised force concentration of tanks, infantry, artillery, combat engineers and air power, concentrating overwhelming force at high speed to break through enemy lines, and, once the lines are broken,...

" elements to the plan, while Von Manstein had at first many objections against this aspect, especially fearing the long open flank created by such an advance. Guderian managed to convince him that the danger of a French counterattack from the south could be averted by a simultaneous secondary spoiling offensive to the south, in the direction of Reims

Reims

Reims , a city in the Champagne-Ardenne region of France, lies east-northeast of Paris. Founded by the Gauls, it became a major city during the period of the Roman Empire....

. Guderian before the war had generated much interest for the theories of John Fuller, though never fully endorsing them.

When Von Manstein first presented his ideas to the OKH, he didn't mention Guderian's name and made his classical swing to the north the main effort, while a limited number of armoured divisions protected the left flank of this movement, acting in a classical cavalry strategic reconnaissance rôle. These changes didn't reflect a change of mind on his part, but were thought necessary by him because the original conception was too radical to be acceptable and many conservative generals considered Guderian himself as too radical also. His views were flatly rejected by Halder and Walther von Brauchitsch

Walther von Brauchitsch

Heinrich Alfred Hermann Walther von Brauchitsch was a German field marshal and the Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres in the early years of World War II.-Biography:...

 however. Reformulating them in a more radical sense didn't help and late January Halder managed to remove Von Manstein to the east by having him promoted commander of XXXVIII Army Corps. Von Manstein and Halder were old rivals: in 1938 Von Manstein had been the successor of chief of staff Ludwig Beck

Ludwig Beck

Generaloberst Ludwig August Theodor Beck was a German general and Chief of the German General Staff during the early years of the Nazi regime in Germany before World War II....

 but had been removed from this position when the latter fell into disgrace with Hitler because of the Blomberg-Fritsch Affair

Blomberg-Fritsch Affair

The Blomberg–Fritsch Affair were two related scandals in early 1938 that resulted in the subjugation of the German Armed Forces to dictator Adolf Hitler...

. On 1 September 1938, Halder, not Von Manstein, had replaced Beck.

However two officers of Von Manstein's staff, Lieutenant-Colonel Günther Blumentritt

Günther Blumentritt

Günther Blumentritt was a German officer in World War I, who became a Staff Officer under the Weimar Republic and went on to serve as a general for Nazi Germany during World War II...

 and Major Henning von Tresckow

Henning von Tresckow

Generalmajor Herrmann Karl Robert "Henning" von Tresckow was a Major General in the German Wehrmacht who organized German resistance against Adolf Hitler. He attempted to assassinate Hitler in March 1943 and drafted the Valkyrie plan for a coup against the German government...

, were outraged by Halder's behavior. Late January they contacted Hitler's personal Army attaché, Lieutenant Colonel Rudolf Schmundt

Rudolf Schmundt

Rudolf Schmundt was an officer in the German Army during World War II.-Biography:Schmundt was born in Metz and served as a Lieutenant during the World War I...

 (an old acquaintance of von Tresckow) when he was visiting Koblenz, who informed Hitler of the affair on 2 February. Hitler, having found Halder's plans unsatisfactory from the very beginning, ordered on 13 February a change of strategy in accordance with Von Manstein's ideas, even after having only heard a rough outline of them. The general was invited to the Reichskanzlei in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 to explain his plans in person to Hitler on 17 February, during a working lunch in the presence of Alfred Jodl

Alfred Jodl

Alfred Josef Ferdinand Jodl was a German military commander, attaining the position of Chief of the Operations Staff of the Armed Forces High Command during World War II, acting as deputy to Wilhelm Keitel...

 and Erwin Rommel

Erwin Rommel

Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel , popularly known as the Desert Fox , was a German Field Marshal of World War II. He won the respect of both his own troops and the enemies he fought....

. Though Hitler felt an immediate antipathy against Von Manstein, for being too arrogant and aloof, he speechlessly listened to his argumentation, becoming very impressed by Von Manstein's logic. "Certainly an exceptionally clever fellow, with great operational gifts, but I don't trust him", Hitler remarked after Von Manstein had left.

Halder now had to make a fourth main version of the attack plan, Aufmarschanweisung N°4, Fall Gelb. Von Manstein would not be further involved in the planning process, returning to his command of the Army Corps. This new plan conformed to Von Manstein's proposal in this respect that Army Group A

Army Group A

Army Group A was the name of a number of German Army Groups during World War II.-Western Front, 1940:During the German invasion of the Low Countries and France Army Group A was under the command of General Gerd von Rundstedt, and was responsible for the break-out through the Ardennes...

 would provide the central thrust of the invasion through the Ardennes in southern Belgium. After crossing the Meuse River

Meuse River

The Maas or Meuse is a major European river, rising in France and flowing through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea...

 between Namur

Namur (city)

Namur is a city and municipality in Wallonia, in southern Belgium. It is both the capital of the province of Namur and of Wallonia....

 and Sedan

Sedan, France

Sedan is a commune in France, a sub-prefecture of the Ardennes department in northern France.-Geography:The historic centre is built on a peninsula formed by an arc of the Meuse River. It is around from the Belgian border.-History:...

, Army Group A would then swing northwest towards Amiens

Amiens

Amiens is a city and commune in northern France, north of Paris and south-west of Lille. It is the capital of the Somme department in Picardy...

, while Army Group B

Army Group B

Army Group B was the name of three different German Army Groups that saw action during World War II.-Battle for France:The first was involved in the Western Campaign in 1940 in Belgium and the Netherlands which was to be aimed to conquer the Maas bridges after the German airborne actions in Rotterdam...

 executed a feint attack in the north to lure the Allied armies into the trap. However in many ways the plan was fundamentally changed by Halder. It no longer envisaged a simultaneous secondary attack to the south. Also, the "Blitzkrieg" elements were largely removed. The river crossings were to be forced by infantry

Infantry

Infantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of combat arms, they are the backbone of armies...

 and there would be a long consolidation phase during which a large number of infantry divisions would be built-up in the bridgeheads. The armoured divisions should then advance in a coherent mass together with the infantry divisions. There would thus not be an independent deep strategic penetration by the German armor.

Executing the Plan

In reality however, Guderian and the other panzer

Panzer

A Panzer is a German language word that, when used as a noun, means "tank". When it is used as an adjective, it means either tank or "armoured" .- Etymology :...

 generals, Rommel among them, would simply disobey orders and advance to The Channel and further to the coastal French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 towns of Calais

Calais

Calais is a town in Northern France in the department of Pas-de-Calais, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's capital is its third-largest city of Arras....

 and Dunkirk as fast as they could without waiting for the infantry, only temporarily halted by Hitler's orders on 17, 22 and 24 May. The effects of the Manstein Plan were devastating for the Allied armies, as they were effectively encircled by Army Groups A and B, thus sparking a desperate evacuation from Dunkirk

Operation Dynamo

The Dunkirk evacuation, commonly known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, code-named Operation Dynamo by the British, was the evacuation of Allied soldiers from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, France, between 26 May and the early hours of 3 June 1940, because the British, French and Belgian troops were...

. The losses in the north and resulting lack of mobile reserves led to the defeat of the remaining French forces and Germany's complete victory over France.
This resounding success came as a complete surprise even to the Germans, who hardly had dared to hope for such an outcome. Most generals had vehemently opposed the plan as being much too risky; even those supporting it had mainly done so out of desperation, because Germany's geostrategic

Geostrategy

Geostrategy, a subfield of geopolitics, is a type of foreign policy guided principally by geographical factors as they inform, constrain, or affect political and military planning...

 position seemed so hopeless. Count Ciano

Galeazzo Ciano

Gian Galeazzo Ciano, 2nd Count of Cortellazzo and Buccari was an Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Benito Mussolini's son-in-law. In early 1944 Count Ciano was shot by firing squad at the behest of his father-in-law, Mussolini under pressure from Nazi Germany.-Early life:Ciano was born in...

 later in the war observed that "victory has a hundred fathers, but defeat is an orphan", and Fall Gelb would have no lack of sires. The two most prominent among them would be Hitler himself and Halder. Because Hitler hadn't liked Halder's original plans, he had suggested many alternatives, some of them bearing some resemblance to the Manstein Plan, the closest a proposal made by him on 25 October 1939. Soon Nazi propaganda began to claim that the victory was a result of Hitler's military genius; Hitler praised Von Manstein with the words "Of all the generals, with whom I spoke about the new attack plan in the West, Manstein was the only one who understood me!". Halder after the war claimed he was the main inventor, supporting this with the fact that he had begun considering to change the main axis to Sedan even before 13 February — indeed as early as September 1939 — and that Von Manstein's original proposal was too traditional.

The Manstein Plan is often seen as either the result of, or the cause of a mid-twentieth century Revolution in military affairs

Revolution in Military Affairs

The military concept of Revolution in Military Affairs is a theory about the future of warfare, often connected to technological and organizational recommendations for change in the United States military and others....

. In the former hypothesis, expounded by Fuller and Basil Liddell Hart

Basil Liddell Hart

Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart , usually known before his knighthood as Captain B. H. Liddell Hart, was an English soldier, military historian and leading inter-war theorist.-Life and career:...

 immediately after the events, the Manstein Plan is presented as a natural outcome of deliberate changes in the German military doctrine during the twenties and thirties by men as Guderian or Hans von Seeckt

Hans von Seeckt

Johannes Friedrich "Hans" von Seeckt was a German military officer noted for his organization of the German Army during the Weimar Republic.-Early life:...

 implementing Fuller's or Liddell Hart's ideas. Thus an explicit "Blitzkrieg-doctrine" would have been fully established by 1939 of which the Manstein Plan was but the most spectacular implementation and the Invasion of Poland an earlier application. The doctrine would have been reflected in the organisation and equipment of the German Army and Airforce and would have been radically different from the obsolete doctrines of France, Britain and the Soviet-Union — except for the contributions of some farsighted individuals in these countries such as Mikhail Tukhachevsky

Mikhail Tukhachevsky

Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky was a Marshal of the Soviet Union, commander in chief of the Red Army , and one of the most prominent victims of Joseph Stalin's Great Purge.-Early life:...

 and Charles de Gaulle

Charles de Gaulle

Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....

 and of course Fuller and Liddell Hart themselves. That the earliest plans by Halder or Von Manstein and the final plan by Halder did not conform to this doctrine is then seen as an anomaly, to be explained by special circumstances.

In the latter hypothesis, promoted by Robert Allan Doughty and Karl-Heinz Frieser, the Manstein Plan is instead a return to the classic principles of the 19th century Bewegungskrieg but now radically adapted to the full potential of modern technology by a sudden and unexpected departure from established German doctrine through the Blitzkrieg-elements provided and executed by Guderian. It claims that the influence of Fuller and Liddell Hart in Germany was limited and much exaggerated by the two writers and that no explicit true Blitzkrieg-doctrine can be found anywhere in the official pre-war German army documentation. It finds further support in the fact that German tank production had no priority and that the plans of the German war economy were at first based on the premise of a long protracted war, not on the expectation of swift victories. The hypothesis allows for a gradual implementation during the thirties of technological advances in a shared moderated Bewegungskrieg doctrine used in all major powers prior to 1940, with more subtle differences between the nations. The Invasion of Poland would then not yet be a true Blitzkrieg campaign, but a classic annihilation battle instead. The lack of Blitzkrieg elements in the official German plans for Fall Gelb is seen as the normal and expected outcome of this situation. Only after the sudden success of the radical execution of the Manstein Plan by Guderian would Blitzkrieg have been adopted as an explicit doctrine, in this view making Operation Barbarossa

Operation Barbarossa

Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...

 the first deliberate Blitzkrieg campaign.

Guderian himself, who in both hypotheses plays a key rôle, presented the situation in his postwar book Erinnerungen eines Soldaten

Erinnerungen eines Soldaten (book)

Panzer Leader is an autobiography by Heinz Guderian. The book, written during his imprisonment by the Allies after the war, describes Guderian's service in the Panzer arm of the Heer before and during World War II....

(literally "Memories of a Soldier" but translated under the title Panzer Leader) as basically conforming to the second hypothesis, with him being a lone voice struggling against the resistance by a reactionary majority of the German officer corps.

Summarizing the Plan

It is not uncommon in the literature to call the Manstein Plan Operation Sichelschnitt and this had led to the misunderstanding that this was the official name of the entire plan or at least of the attack by Army Group A. The official name however was Aufmarschanweisung N°4, Fall Gelb as issued on 24 February 1940 and the suboperation through the Ardennes had no special designation. Sichelschnitt is nothing but a literal German translation of "Sickle Cut", a catchy expression used after the events by Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

. After the war it would be adopted in the writings of the German generals.