The Battle of France, also known as the Western Campaign, the French Campaign and the Fall of France, was the German invasion of France during the Second World War. France and the Low Countries were conquered, ending land operations on the Western Front until the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944.
Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist was a German field marshal of the Wehrmacht during World War II. Born into the Prussian noble family von Kleist, Kleist entered the Prussian Army in 1900 and commanded a cavalry squadron during World War I. Kleist joined the Reichswehr of inter-war Germany before being discharged in 1938.
The 1st Panzer-Division was an armoured division in the German Army during World War II.
The 10th Panzer Division was an armoured division in the German Army, the Heer, during World War II, established in March 1939.
The 8th Panzer Division was a formation of the WehrmachtHeer. The division was formed by reorganising the 3rd Light Division in October 1939. It was transferred to the west and fought in the Battle of France, in May 1940, and the German invasion of the Balkans in April 1941. Soon after the division advanced towards Leningrad under Army Group North in Operation Barbarossa, and would remain on the eastern front for the remainder of the war. Staying on defensive fronts, it saw action in the relief of Kholm in 1942, Orel and the withdrawals of Army Group Centre in 1943, until transferred to Army group South. The division then fought in a series of retrograde movements, back through Ukraine, into Hungary and finally into Silesia and surrender in May 1945.
The Dyle Plan or Plan D was the plan of the Commander-in-Chief of the French Army, Général d'armée Maurice Gamelin, to defeat a German attempt to invade France through Belgium. The Dyle (Dijle) river is 86 km (53 mi) long, from Houtain-le-Val through Flemish Brabant and Antwerp; Gamelin intended French, British and Belgian troops to halt a German invasion force along the line of the river. The Franco-Belgian Accord of 1920 had co-ordinated communication and fortification efforts of both armies. After the German Remilitarization of the Rhineland on 7 March 1936, the Belgian government abrogated the accord and substituted a policy of strict neutrality, now that the German Army was on the German–Belgian border.
The Manstein Plan or Case Yellow also known as Operation Sichelschnitt, was the war plan of the German armed forces during the Battle of France in 1940. The original invasion plan was an awkward compromise devised by General Franz Halder, the chief of staff of Oberkommando des Heeres that satisfied no one. Documents with details of the plan fell into Belgian hands during the Mechelen incident on 10 January 1940 and the plan was revised several times, each giving more emphasis to an attack by Army Group A through the Ardennes, which progressively reduced the offensive by Army Group B through the Low Countries to a diversion.
The 24th Panzer Division was formed in late 1941 from the 1st Cavalry Division based at Königsberg.
Horses in World War II were used by the belligerent nations for transportation of troops, artillery, materiel, and, to a lesser extent, in mobile cavalry troops. The role of horses for each nation depended on its military strategy and state of economy and was most pronounced in the German and Soviet Armies. Over the course of the war, both Germany and the Soviet Union employed more than six million horses.
General Friedrich Kühn was a General der Panzertruppe in the Wehrmacht during World War II. He was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross of Nazi Germany.
Ernst Feßmann was a German general of the Heer who led the 267th Infantry Division in the early stages of World War II. Prior to the war, he was also notable for commanding one of the first Panzer Divisions.
Wolfgang Fischer was an officer in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany during World War II. He was killed on 1 February 1943 near Mareth in Tunisia when his staff car drove into a poorly marked Italian minefield and hit a land mine. He lost his left arm and both of his legs in the blast. He bled to death while writing a farewell letter to his wife.
The Battle of Sedan or Second Battle of Sedan took place in the Second World War during the Battle of France in 1940. It was part of the German Wehrmacht's operational plan codenamed Fall Gelb for an offensive through the hilly and forested Ardennes, to encircle the Allied armies in Belgium and north-eastern France. German Army Group A crossed the Meuse with the intention of capturing Sedan and pushing westwards towards the Channel coast, to trap the Allied forces that were advancing east into Belgium, as part of the Allied Dyle Plan.
The Cavalry Corps was a French mechanized army corps established in 1939 and inactivated in 1940 after the defeat of France by Germany. Commanded by General René Prioux, the Cavalry Corps advanced into Belgium in May 1940 and imposed significant delay on the advance of the German XVI (motorized) Corps. Cut off by German forces from the bulk of the French Army, the corps was evacuated to England and then shipped back to France in late May and early June 1940. Further combat resulted in significant losses of armored vehicles and a steady deterioration of the corps' combat power. The Cavalry Corps ceased fighting as the Second Armistice at Compiègne took effect, and the corps was demobilized on July 11, 1940.
The historiography of the Battle of France describes how the German victory over French and British forces in the Battle of France had been explained by historians and others. Many people in 1940 found the fall of France unexpected and earth shaking. Alexander notes that Belgium and the Netherlands fell to the German army in a matter of days and the British were soon driven back to the British Isles,
But it was France's downfall that stunned the watching world. The shock was all the greater because the trauma was not limited to a catastrophic and deeply embarrassing defeat of her military forces – it also involved the unleashing of a conservative political revolution that, on 10 July 1940, interred the Third Republic and replaced it with the authoritarian, collaborationist Etat Français of Vichy. All this was so deeply disorienting because France had been regarded as a great power....The collapse of France, however, was a different case.
The 462nd Volksgrenadier Division was a Volksgrenadier division of the German Army during the Second World War, active from 1942 to 1944.
The 335th Infantry Division was an infantry division of the German Army during the Second World War, active from 1940 to 1944. It saw active service in France and on the Eastern Front and was destroyed in fighting in Romania in August 1944.
Heinrich von Prittwitz und Gaffron was a general officer in the Heer (Army) branch of the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany during World War II. He was commander of the 14th and 15th Panzer Divisions and was killed in action in the early stages of the Siege of Tobruk.
Maurice-Arthur-Alphonse Wemaere (1879-1956) was a French colonel who commanded the French 1st Cavalry Brigade during the Battle of Belgium and the Battle of France.
Robert Allan Doughty is an American military historian and retired United States Army officer.
