![]() ![]() Therefore, the Second World War’s lessons are of no interest unless they are put into perspective with this: victory comes from a combination of mass, space, and time in which a military, sanctioned by society and led by politicians, maintains its will to to hold longer than its adversary. ![]() But that is precisely the point: German tactical genius could only delay the overwhelming force of a mass even larger than their own. Yes, quantity more than quality crushed the Germans. And in this respect, it is notable that France’s military defeat of 1940 did not prevent her from standing among the victors of 1945, while Germany, however innovative her forces were, ultimately capitulated. Yet, the purpose of the military is not to win battles but wars. German tactical genius could only delay the overwhelming force of a mass even larger than their own. Today, Western armies see the blitzkrieg as the quintessence of military art because it splendidly combined technological innovation with the culture of mission command. Hence, the concept of lightning war was really nothing new in 1940, especially to the French. But that does not erase the fact that, in the dialectic of the cannonball and the cuirass, the advantage goes successively from one to the other. The latter was much criticized later for having inspired the bloody and failed offensives of 1914-1916. Indeed, before 1914 they were the strongest advocates of the offensive, which had been taught for years at the Ecole de Guerre by future Marshal Ferdinand Foch, and theorized by the influential Colonel Louis de Grandmaison to the point of the offensive à outrance (attack with no limit). Surprisingly, it is seldom emphasized that the French could quite possibly have imagined something close to the Blitz if they had been not just one but two wars behind in 1939.
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