103-620: Asia-Pacific Mediterranean and Middle East Other campaigns Coups The Manstein plan or Case Yellow ( German : Fall Gelb ; also known after the war as Unternehmen Sichelschnitt a transliteration of the English Operation Sickle Cut ), was the war plan of the German armed forces ( Wehrmacht ) for the Battle of France in 1940. The original invasion plan was an awkward compromise devised by General Franz Halder ,
206-462: A Europe first stance, giving first priority to defeating Nazi Germany. The Japanese had great difficulty replacing their losses in ships and aircraft, while American factories and shipyards produced ever increasing numbers of both. Fighting included some of the largest naval battles in history and massive Allied air raids over Japan , as well as the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki . Japan surrendered unconditionally on 15 August 1945 and
309-707: A bombing of the city of Darwin on 19 February, which killed at least 243 people. At the Battle of the Java Sea in late February and early March, the IJN defeated the main ABDA naval force, under Admiral Karel Doorman . The Dutch East Indies campaign ended with the surrender of Allied forces on Java and Sumatra. In March and April, an IJN carrier force launched a raid into the Indian Ocean . British Royal Navy bases in Ceylon were hit and
412-599: A Soldier 1950, published in English as Panzer Leader ) according to the second hypothesis, posing as a lone voice against the reactionary German officer corps. In 2006, Adam Tooze wrote that the quick victory in France was not the consequence of a logical strategic synthesis but a "risky improvisation" to cope with strategic dilemmas that Hitler and the German military leaders had been unable to overcome before February 1940. Tooze wrote that
515-494: A defensive perimeter to absorb and defeat Allied counterattacks; Japanese decisonmakers believed such a military situation would lead to a negotiated peace that would preserve Japanese territorial gains. Japanese planning divided the early war into two operational phases. The First Operational Phase was further divided into three separate parts in which the major objectives of the Philippines, British Malaya, Borneo, Burma, Rabaul and
618-659: A diversion. In the final version of the plan, the main effort of the German invasion was made against the Ardennes, the weakest part of the Allied line, where the defence was left to second-rate French divisions in the Second Army and the Ninth Army , on the assumption that the difficulty of moving masses of men and equipment would give the French plenty of time to send reinforcements if the area
721-721: A four-month campaign. The Japanese achieved major military victories, but world opinion—in particular in the US—was hostile to Japan's invasion, especially after the Panay incident . In addition, the Japanese had failed to destroy the Chinese army, which continued to resist from the new Nationalist capital in Chongqing , or in the case of the Communists, Yan'an . In 1939, Japanese forces tried to push into
824-409: A gradual adoption during the thirties of technologically-advanced military equipment and integration into existing Bewegungskrieg thought, familiar to all the great powers prior to 1940, differences being variations on a theme. The invasion of Poland was not "Blitzkrieg but an annihilation battle fought according to Vernichtungsgedanke " (annihilation theory). The lack of Blitzkrieg elements in
927-546: A halt. The Japanese media, influenced by military propagandists, began to refer to the embargoes as the " ABCD line " ("American-British-Chinese-Dutch"). The Japanese Imperial General Headquarters (GHQ) began planning for a war with the Western powers in April or May 1941. Japan increased its naval budget and placed large formations of the Army, along with their attached air components, under
1030-449: A longer campaign. The Luftwaffe gained air superiority but suffered far greater losses than the army. Operations on 10 May cost the Luftwaffe 347 aircraft and by the end of the month 30 per cent of its aircraft had been written off and 13 per cent badly damaged. The concentration of units in the Ardennes was an extraordinary gamble and had the Allied air forces bombed the columns,
1133-470: A major armed clash in January 1941 , effectively ending their co-operation. Japanese strategic bombing efforts mostly targeted large Chinese cities such as Shanghai, Wuhan , and Chongqing , with around 5,000 raids from February 1938 to August 1943. Japan's strategic bombing campaigns killed between 260,000 and 350,934 non-combatants . As early as 1935, Japanese military strategists had concluded that
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#17328454982401236-686: A military alliance with Germany and Italy, becoming one of the three main Axis Powers . The war entered a new phase with Japanese defeats at the Battle of Suixian–Zaoyang , the 1st Battle of Changsha , the Battle of Kunlun Pass and the Battle of Zaoyi . After these victories, Chinese nationalist forces launched a large-scale counter-offensive in early 1940; however, due to a lack of military-industrial capacity, they were repulsed in late March 1940. In August 1940, Chinese communists launched an offensive in Central China ; in retaliation, Japan instituted
1339-410: A quick victory, there is little evidence to support Fuller and that if the military theory later labelled Blitzkrieg was influential in the German officer corps, only those like Manstein and Guderian had fully accepted it. The disagreement between Kleist and Guderian that led Guderian to resign on 17 May, showed the apprehensions of the German high command about the speed of movement and vulnerability of
1442-621: A swing from Sedan to the north, rapidly to destroy the Allied armies in a cauldron battle ( Kesselschlacht ). When discussing his intentions with Generalleutnant (Lieutenant-General) Heinz Guderian , the commander of the XIX Panzer Corps , Guderian proposed to avoid the main body of the Allied armies and swiftly advance with the armoured divisions to the English Channel , taking the Allies by surprise and cutting their supply routes from
1545-529: Is a commune in the Ardennes department and Grand Est region of north-eastern France . It is also the chef-lieu (administrative centre) of the arrondissement of the same name. Sedan is notable as the site of two major battles between the armed forces of France and Germany, both of which were won by Germany. The First Battle of Sedan in 1870 sealed the fate of the Second French Empire and paved
1648-869: Is also used, referring to the period from the Mukden Incident of 1931 through 1945. The major Allied participants were China , the United States and the British Empire . China had already been engaged in a war against Japan since 1937 . The US and its territories, including the Philippine Commonwealth , entered the war after being attacked by Japan . The British Empire was also a major belligerent consisting of British troops along with colonial troops from India as well as from Burma , Malaya , Fiji , Tonga ; in addition to troops from Australia , New Zealand and Canada . The Dutch government-in-exile (as
1751-647: The Wehrmacht should attack through the Ardennes , followed by an advance to the coast. Manstein, chief of staff of Army Group A , had originally formulated his plan in October 1939 in Koblenz on the instigation of his commander, General Gerd von Rundstedt , who rejected Halder's plan, partly through professional rivalry and part because it could not inflict a decisive victory over France. Manstein first thought to follow annihilation theory ( Vernichtungsgedanke ), envisaging
1854-507: The Blitzkrieg elements provided and executed by Guderian. The influence of Fuller and Liddell Hart in Germany was limited and exaggerated by them after the war; no explicit Blitzkrieg doctrine can be found in pre-war German army records. German tank production had no priority and plans for the German war economy were based on the premise of a long war, not a swift victory. The hypothesis allows for
1957-611: The 13th Infantry Division over the course of " d'Alsace-Lorraine ". From May 12 to 15, 1940, during World War II , German troops invaded neutral Belgium and crossed the river Meuse by winning the Second Battle of Sedan . The battle allowed them to win the Battle of France by bypassing the Maginot Line , which was the French fortification system, and entrapping the Allied Forces that were advancing east into Belgium, as part of
2060-636: The Battle of Boulogne and the Siege of Calais , only temporarily being halted by orders from Hitler on 17, 22 and 24 May. After the halt orders the panzer forces advanced to the North Sea coast and fought the Battle of Dunkirk . The Manstein plan devastated the Allies , whose armies were cut in two, those in the north being encircled by Army Groups A and B, leading to the surrender of the Belgian Army and Operation Dynamo ,
2163-550: The Battle of France . Lieutenant General Erich von Manstein dissented from the 1939 versions of Fall Gelb (Case Yellow), a plan for an invasion of France and the Low Countries, devised by Franz Halder . The original Aufmarschanweisung N°1, Fall Gelb (Campaign Instruction No 1, Case Yellow), was a plan to push the Allied forces back through central Belgium to the Somme river in northern France , with similarities to
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#17328454982402266-712: The Declaration by United Nations on 1 January 1942, the Allied governments appointed the British General Archibald Wavell to the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDACOM), a supreme command for Allied forces in Southeast Asia. This gave Wavell nominal control of a huge force, albeit one that was thinly spread across a vast area, from Burma to the Philippines to northern Australia. Other regions, including India, Hawaii, and
2369-663: The Empire of Japan and the Republic of China had been in progress since 7 July 1937, with hostilities dating back to 1931 with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria . However, it is more widely accepted that the Pacific War itself began on 7 December (8 December Japanese time) 1941, when the Japanese simultaneously attacked American military bases in Hawaii , Wake Island , Guam , and the Philippines ,
2472-687: The Khmer Issarak , and the Hukbalahap . The Soviet Union fought two short, undeclared border conflicts with Japan in 1938 and again in 1939 , then remained neutral through the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact of April 1941, until August 1945 when it (and Mongolia ) joined the rest of the Allies and invaded the territory of Manchukuo , China, Inner Mongolia , the Japanese protectorate of Korea and Japanese-claimed territory such as South Sakhalin . Mexico provided air support in
2575-957: The Kwantung Army to oversee its occupation of Manchukuo and the China Expeditionary Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War, created the Southern Expeditionary Army Group at the outset of its conquests of South East Asia. This headquarters controlled the bulk of the Japanese Army formations which opposed the Western Allies in the Pacific and South East Asia. In 1931, without declaring war, Japan invaded Manchuria , seeking raw materials to fuel its growing industrial economy. By 1937, Japan controlled Manchuria and
2678-549: The La Tour d'Auvergne family. It was at that time a sovereign principality. Their representative, Marshal Turenne , was born at Sedan on 11 September 1611. With help from the Holy Roman Empire , it defeated France at the Battle of La Marfée . Immediately after its victory, Sedan was besieged and its prince, Frédéric Maurice de La Tour d'Auvergne, duc de Bouillon , submitted to France. It was annexed to France in return for sparing
2781-764: The Pacific Theater , was the theater of World War II that was fought in eastern Asia, the Pacific Ocean , the Indian Ocean , and Oceania . It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the Pacific Ocean theater , the South West Pacific theater , the Second Sino-Japanese War , and the Soviet–Japanese War in the last few months of the war. The Second Sino-Japanese War between
2884-637: The South West Pacific . US sources refer to two theaters within the Pacific War: the Pacific theater and the China Burma India Theater (CBI). However, these were not operational commands. In the Pacific, the Allies divided operational control of their forces between two supreme commands, known as Pacific Ocean Areas and Southwest Pacific Area . The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) did not integrate its units into permanent theater commands. The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA), which had already created
2987-661: The Soviet Far East . They were defeated in the Battle of Khalkhin Gol by a mixed Soviet and Mongolian force led by Georgy Zhukov . This caused the Japanese to abandon attempts to expand to the north , while Soviet aid to China ceased as a result of the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact. In September 1940, Japan decided to invade French Indochina , which was controlled at the time by Vichy France . On 27 September Japan signed
3090-757: The Thai government signed an armistice and entered an alliance with Japan. Although Japan declared war on the United States and the British Empire , the declaration was not delivered until after Japanese forces had already struck British and American targets. In the early hours of 7 December (Hawaiian time), carrier-based Japanese aircraft launched a surprise, large-scale air strike on the U.S. Pacific Fleet's anchorage at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, which knocked eight American battleships out of action, destroyed 188 American aircraft, and killed 2,403 Americans. The Japanese believed that
3193-477: The geostrategic position of Germany seemed so hopeless. Two of the most prominent were Hitler and Halder; Hitler had not liked Halder's original plans and had suggested many alternatives, some of them bearing a resemblance to the Manstein plan, the closest being 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 said, Of all
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3296-571: The " Three Alls Policy " ("Kill all, Burn all, Loot all") in occupied areas, killing at least 2.7 million civilians. By 1941 the conflict had become a stalemate. Although Japan had occupied much of northern, central, and coastal China, the Nationalist Government had retreated to the interior and set up a provisional capital at Chongqing , while the Chinese communists remained in control of base areas in Shaanxi . Japanese offensive action against
3399-629: The 1914 campaign of the First World War . On 10 January 1940, a German aircraft carrying documents with parts of the plan for Fall Gelb crashed in Belgium (the Mechelen Incident ) prompting another review of the invasion plan. Halder revised Fall Gelb to an extent in Aufmarschanweisung N°3, Fall Gelb and Manstein was able to convince Hitler in a meeting on 17 February, that
3502-553: The Allied Dyle Plan strategy. Today Sedan is known for its castle , which is claimed to be the largest fortified medieval castle in Europe with a total area of 30,000 square metres (7.4 acres) on seven levels. Construction started in 1424 and the castle's defences were constantly improved over the ages. It is the only remaining part of the once enormous fortifications in and around the town. A centre of cloth production, begun under
3605-537: The Allied embargo. This was known as the Southern Plan . It was decided—because of the close relationship between the U.K. and the U.S., and the belief that the U.S. would inevitably become involved in the ongoing war in Europe—that Japan would also seize the Philippines, Wake Island and Guam . Japan had initially planned for a limited war, where Japanese forces would seize key objectives and then establish
3708-419: The Allies and the Germans had no interest in acknowledging the importance of improvisation and chance in the sensational victory of 1940. The fabrication of a Blitzkrieg Myth was convenient for the Allies to hide the incompetence that had led to their defeat. Rather than resort to technological determinism , German propaganda emphasised the machinery of the German army and that of the Allies, juxtaposing it with
3811-414: The Allies staging areas from which to mount a counteroffensive. By November 1941 these plans were mostly complete, and were modified only slightly over the next month. Japanese military planners' expectation of success rested on the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union being unable to effectively respond to a Japanese attack because of the threat posed to each by Nazi Germany; in particular, the Soviet Union
3914-417: The Americans, faced with such a sudden and massive blow to their naval power in the Pacific, would agree to a negotiated settlement. However, American losses were less serious than initially thought: the three American aircraft carriers were at sea during the attack, and vital naval infrastructure, Honolulu's submarine base, and signals intelligence units were unscathed. The fact that the bombing happened while
4017-406: The British colonies of Malaya , Singapore , and Hong Kong , and invaded Thailand . The Pacific War saw the Allies pitted against Japan, the latter aided by Thailand and to a lesser extent by the Axis powers , Germany and Italy . The Japanese achieved great success in the initial phase of the campaign, but were gradually driven back using an island hopping strategy. The Allies adopted
4120-637: The British retreated to Imphal in Manipur, abandoning most of their transportation and equipment. They reached Imphal in May just as the monsoon descended, which halted the operations of both sides in the area. Within China, cooperation between the Chinese Nationalists and the Communists had waned from its zenith at the Battle of Wuhan, and the relationship between the two had soured as both attempted to expand their areas of operation and influence. The Japanese exploited this lack of unity to press their offensive operations in China. Sedan, France Sedan ( French pronunciation: [sədɑ̃] )
4223-449: The Chinese 38th Division, led by Sun Li-jen . Meanwhile, in the Battle of Yunnan-Burma Road , the Japanese captured Toungoo after hard fighting and sent motorized units to capture Lashio . This cut the Burma Road , which was the western Allies' supply line to Chinese Nationalist troops. Many of Chinese troops were forced either to retreat to India, or withdraw in small parties to Yunnan . Accompanied by large numbers of civilian refugees,
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4326-429: The Dutch East Indies were, due to their abundant oil reserves, crucially important for further expansion by the Japanese Empire. By 1940 the Japanese also included Indochina, Malaya, and the Philippines within their concept of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Japanese troop build-ups in Hainan, Taiwan, and Haiphong were noted in foreign media, Japanese military officers were increasingly and openly talking about
4429-428: The Dutch East Indies would be occupied. The Second Operational Phase called for further expansion into the South Pacific by seizing eastern New Guinea, New Britain, Fiji, Samoa, and strategic points in around Australia. In the Central Pacific, Midway Island was targeted, as were the Aleutian Islands in the North Pacific. Japanese strategists believed that the seizure of these key areas would provide defensive depth and deny
4532-513: The French Ninth Army (General André Corap ). XV Corps moved through the upper Ardennes towards Dinant, with two panzer divisions, as a flank guard against a counter-attack from the north. From 10 to 11 May, XIX Panzer Corps engaged the two cavalry divisions of the Second Army, surprised them with a far larger force than expected and forced them back. The Ninth Army, to the north, had also sent its two cavalry divisions forward, which were withdrawn on 12 May, before they met German troops. Corap needed
4635-410: The French failure was caused by an inadequate military system and that this had much to do with the success of the German invasion. The French had prepared to fight a methodical battle based on massed firepower, against an opponent that emphasised surprise and speed. French training for a centralised and slow-moving battle left the army incapable of hasty counter-attacks or bold moves. The French army lost
4738-441: The French with a simultaneous attack to the south to occupy the assembly areas that the French would use for a counter-offensive. Five panzer divisions of Panzergruppe von Kleist advanced through the Ardennes; XIX Panzer Corps with three panzer divisions on the southern flank towards Sedan, against the French Second Army. The XLI Panzer Corps with two panzer divisions on the northern flank, advanced towards Monthermé, against
4841-409: The German advance, while the First Army moved up but attacks on the bridges at Maastricht had been costly failures (the 135 day bombers of the RAF Advanced Air Striking Force were reduced to 72 operational aircraft by 12 May). Against the plan, Guderian and the other panzer generals disobeyed their orders and quickly advanced to the Channel. The panzer forces captured Abbeville and then fought
4944-500: The IJN and IJA launched simultaneous surprise attacks on the United States and the British Empire on 7 December (8 December in Asia/West Pacific time zones). The locations of this first wave of Japanese attacks included the American territories of Hawaii, the Philippines , Guam , and Wake Island and the British territories of Malaya , Singapore , and Hong Kong . Concurrently, Japanese forces invaded southern and eastern Thailand and were resisted for several hours, before
5047-459: The Japanese puppet states of Manchukuo (consisting of most of Manchuria ), and the collaborationist Wang Jingwei regime (which controlled the coastal regions of China), respectively. Japan conscripted many soldiers from its colonies of Korea and Taiwan . Collaborationist security units were also formed in Hong Kong , Singapore , the Philippines , the Dutch East Indies , British Malaya , British Borneo , former French Indochina (after
5150-563: The Japanese on 15 February 1942. About 130,000 Indian, British, Australian and Dutch personnel became Japanese prisoners of war. Bali and Timor fell in February. The rapid collapse of Allied resistance left the "ABDA area" split in two. Wavell resigned from ABDACOM on 25 February, handing control of the ABDA Area to local commanders and returning to the post of Commander-in-Chief, India . Meanwhile, Japanese aircraft had all but eliminated Allied air power in Southeast Asia and were carrying out air attacks on northern Australia , beginning with
5253-399: The Napoleonic principle of the concentration of superior force at the decisive point was impossible for the Germans to achieve. In the 2014 edition of Breaking Point , Doughty described how in a 1956 publication, Fuller wrote that the Battle of Sedan was an "attack by paralyzation" that he had devised in 1918 and incorporated into Plan 1919 . Doughty wrote that although the Germans hoped for
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#17328454982405356-422: The US was not officially at war caused a wave of outrage across the country. Japan's fallback strategy, relying on a war of attrition against the United States, was beyond the Imperial Japanese Navy's capabilities. Opposition to war in the United States vanished after the attack. On 8 December, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, and the Netherlands declared war on Japan, followed by Australia
5459-503: The Western powers through armed forces of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere . Japanese officials integrated what they called the Japan–China Incident ( 日支事変 , Nisshi Jihen ) into the Greater East Asia War. During the Occupation of Japan (1945–52), these terms were prohibited in official documents (although their informal usage continued). The war became officially known as the Pacific War ( 太平洋戦争 , Taiheiyō Sensō ) . The Fifteen Years' War ( 十五年戦争 , Jūgonen Sensō )
5562-556: The XIX Panzer Corps. Doughty suggested that the development of the Manstein plan showed that the force sent through the Ardennes was intended to follow a familiar strategy of Vernichtungsgedanke intended to encircle and annihilate the Allied armies in Kesselschlachten (cauldron battles). Twentieth-century weapons were different but the methods were little changed from those of Ulm (1805), Sedan (1870) and Tannenberg (1914). When German forces broke through on 16 May, they did not attack French headquarters but advanced westwards in
5665-424: The advance could have been reduced to chaos. The "audacious" manoeuvre of Army Group A comprised only about twelve armoured and motorised divisions; most of the rest of the German army invaded on foot, supplied from railheads. The Channel coast was a natural obstacle, only a few hundred kilometres from the German border and over such a distance, motorised supply from railheads over the dense west European road network
5768-403: The aircraft carrier HMS Hermes was sunk, along with other Allied ships. The attack forced the Royal Navy to withdraw to the western part of the Indian Ocean, paving the way for a Japanese assault on Burma and India. In Burma, the Japanese captured Moulmein on 31 January 1942, and then drove outnumbered British and Indian troops towards the Sittang River . On 23 February, a bridge over
5871-580: The army attaché of Adolf Hitler, when he was visiting Koblenz, who informed Hitler of the affair on 2 February. Having found the Halder plan unsatisfactory from the start, Hitler ordered a change of strategy on 13 February in accordance with Manstein's thinking, after having heard only a rough outline. Manstein was invited to the Reich Chancellery in Berlin to meet Hitler on 17 February, in the presence of Alfred Jodl and Erwin Rommel . Though Hitler felt an immediate antipathy against Manstein for being arrogant and aloof, he listened silently to his exposition and
5974-444: The attack to the north the main effort, with a few armoured divisions protecting the left flank of the manoeuvre. The changes were included because the original conception was too bold to be acceptable to many generals, who also considered Guderian too radical; Halder and Walther von Brauchitsch rejected the Manstein concept. Reformulating it in a more radical sense did not help. Manstein and Halder were rivals; in 1938 Manstein had been
6077-447: The basis of the plan for the Invasion of Poland ; the Manstein plan would have been its most spectacular implementation. Blitzkrieg theory would have been reflected in the organisation and equipment of the army and Luftwaffe and would have been radically different from those of France, Britain and the Soviet Union, except for the contributions of individuals like Mikhail Tukhachevsky , Charles de Gaulle , Fuller and Liddell Hart. That
6180-433: The border with Belgium . The historic centre occupies a peninsula formed by a bend in the river Meuse . Sedan station has rail connections to Charleville-Mézières, Reims and Longwy. The A34 autoroute links Sedan with Charleville-Mézières and Reims. Sedan was founded in 1424. In the 16th century Sédan was an asylum for Protestant refugees from the Wars of Religion . Until 1651, the Principality of Sedan belonged to
6283-538: The breakthrough of massed panzer forces. Tactically, the Germans were often able to overcome French defences that usually were inadequate. French military intelligence failed to predict the main German attack, expecting it in central Belgium as late as 13 May. Military intelligence had made the elementary mistake of noting information that fitted with their assumptions of German intentions and paid insufficient attention to German capability or information suggesting that they were not conforming to expectations. Doughty wrote that
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#17328454982406386-405: The cavalry divisions to reinforce the defences on the Meuse, because some of the Ninth Army infantry had not arrived. The most advanced German units reached the Meuse in the afternoon; local French commanders thought that the German parties were far ahead of the main body and would wait for it before trying to cross the river. From 10 May, Allied bombers had been sent to raid northern Belgium to delay
6489-421: The chief of staff of Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH, Army High Command) 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
6592-496: The city, which fell to Japan after three months of fighting. The Japanese continued to push deeper into China, capturing the capital Nanjing in mid-December 1937 and committing atrocities in the Nanjing Massacre , including rape, murder and torture. In March 1938, Nationalist forces won their first victory at Taierzhuang , but the city of Xuzhou was taken by the Japanese in May. In June 1938, Japan deployed about 350,000 troops to invade Wuhan and captured it in October after
6695-407: The command of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Historically, the IJA consumed the majority of the state's military budget (with a 73% - 27% split in 1940), but from 1942 to 1945 the IJA would account for 60% of Japan's military spending, while the IJN would account for 40%. Japan's key initial objective was to seize economic resources in the Dutch East Indies and Malaya, in order to alleviate the effects of
6798-412: The decisive point, a synthesis of "materialism and military art". The German army committed all its armoured units to the offensive and had it failed, would have had none left to resist an Allied counter-offensive. Casualties were high but the swift end to the campaign made them bearable. The Luftwaffe was also fully committed but the Allied air forces held back a substantial reserve, in anticipation of
6901-450: The earliest plans by Halder or Manstein and the final plan by Halder did not conform to this doctrine is an anomaly, to be explained by circumstances. In the latter hypothesis, favoured by Robert A. Doughty and Karl-Heinz Frieser , the Manstein plan was a return to the principles of 19th century Bewegungskrieg (war of manoeuvre), adapted to modern technology by a sudden and unexpected departure from established German thinking, through
7004-478: The evacuation of the BEF and French forces from Dunkirk. Defeat in the north and the lack of mobile reserves led to the defeat of the remaining French and British forces in Fall Rot and the Armistice of 22 June 1940 . The success of the German invasion surprised everyone; the Germans had hardly dared hope for such a result. Most generals had vehemently opposed the plan as being much too risky; even those supporting it had mainly done so out of desperation because
7107-445: The familiar principles of Bewegungskrieg . The German army managed to concentrate a hugely powerful force at the decisive point but took a gamble of great magnitude that could not be repeated if the attack failed. When the Germans attempted to emulate the success of 1940 against the Soviet Union in 1941, little was left in reserve. The Red Army had a greater margin of numerical superiority, better leadership and more room for manoeuvre;
7210-474: The fields of northern France; the toughness and training of the German infantry should be recognised, along with the efforts of the engineers and artillery, which got the XIX Panzer Corps across the Meuse. Doughty also wrote that the success of the German army could not adequately be explained without reference to French mistakes. French strategy was unusually vulnerable to an attack through the Ardennes; operationally, French commanders failed adequately to react to
7313-402: The form of the 201st Fighter Squadron and Free France sent naval support in the form of Le Triomphant and later the Richelieu . The Axis -aligned states which assisted Japan included the authoritarian government of Thailand . Also involved were members of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, which included the Manchukuo Imperial Army and Collaborationist Chinese Army of
7416-461: The generals with whom I spoke about the new attack plan in the West, Manstein was the only one who understood me! After the war, Halder claimed he was the main instigator of the German plan, supporting this with the fact that he had begun to consider changing the main axis to Sedan as early as September 1939 and that Manstein's original proposal was too traditional. The Manstein plan is often seen as either
7519-490: The heroic individualism of German soldiers, notably in the film Sieg im Westen (1941). OKW explained the victory as a consequence of the "...revolutionary dynamic of the Third Reich and its National socialist leadership". Tooze wrote that a debunking of the technological interpretation of the German victory should not lead to the conclusion that it was the genius of Manstein or the superiority of German soldiers that caused
7622-471: The initiative, was overrun at important points and then deep German penetrations made the disruption of French command arrangements worse. Pacific War Allied occupation of Japan Second Sino-Japanese War Taishō period Shōwa period Asia-Pacific Mediterranean and Middle East Other campaigns Coups The Pacific War , sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War or
7725-485: The main thrust of the invasion through the Ardennes in southern Belgium. After crossing the Meuse River between Namur and Sedan, Army Group A would turn north-west towards Amiens , as Army Group B executed a feint attack in the north, to lure the Allied armies forward into Belgium and pin them down. The revision was a substantial change in emphasis, in which Halder no longer envisaged a simultaneous secondary attack to
7828-407: The manner of a cavalry raid. Doughty wrote that Fuller had called the advanced forces of the German army an armoured battering-ram, covered by Luftwaffe fighters and dive-bombers acting as flying field artillery, to break through a continuous front at several points. The XIX, XLI and XV panzer corps had operated as the leading force through the Ardennes but the most effective Allied resistance to
7931-595: The next day. Thailand, with its territory already serving as a springboard for Japan's Malayan Campaign , surrendered within hours of the Japanese invasion. The government of Thailand formally allied with Japan on 21 December. To the south, the IJA seized the British colony of Penang on 19 December, encountering little resistance. Hong Kong was attacked on 8 December and fell to Japanese forces on 25 December 1941. American bases on Guam and Wake Island were seized by Japan at around
8034-701: The overthrow of the French regime in 1945 ), as well as Timorese militia . Germany and Italy both had limited involvement in the Pacific War. The German and the Italian navies operated submarines and raiding ships in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, notably the Monsun Gruppe . Between 1942 and 1945, there were four main areas of conflict in the Pacific War: China, the Central Pacific , South-East Asia and
8137-571: The plans for Fall Gelb is seen as unremarkable; only after the crossings of the Meuse, the sudden success of the break-out and the insubordination of Guderian and other tank commanders during the rush down the Somme valley, would "Blitzkrieg" have been adopted as an explicit theory, in this view making Operation Barbarossa the first and only Blitzkrieg campaign. Guderian presented the situation in his postwar book Erinnerungen eines Soldaten ( Memories of
8240-854: The possessor of the Dutch East Indies ) was also involved. All of these were members of the Pacific War Council . From 1944 the French commando group Corps Léger d'Intervention also took part in resistance operations in Indochina. Some active pro-allied guerrillas in Asia included the Malayan Peoples' Anti-Japanese Army , the Korean Liberation Army , the Free Thai Movement , the Việt Minh ,
8343-606: The prince's life after he became involved in a conspiracy against France. Sedan was the birthplace of Jacques MacDonald , a general who served in the Napoleonic Wars. In the 1840s, American composer-pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk got his start in Europe with a successful concert in Sedan, including the original piece "Souvenir des Ardennes." During the Franco-Prussian War , on 2 September 1870, French emperor Napoleon III
8446-706: The prospect of war, and Admiral Sankichi Takahashi was reported as stating that a showdown with the US was necessary. In an effort to discourage Japanese militarism, Western powers including Australia, the US, Britain, and the Dutch government in exile , which controlled the Dutch East Indies, stopped selling oil , iron ore, and steel to Japan. In Japan, the government and Japanese nationalists viewed these embargoes as acts of aggression; imported oil made up about 80% of domestic consumption, without which Japan's economy would grind to
8549-599: The rest of Australia, remained under local commands. On 15 January, Wavell moved to Bandung in Java to assume control of ABDACOM. In January, Japan invaded British Burma, the Dutch East Indies, New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands, and captured Manila, Kuala Lumpur and Rabaul . After being driven out of Malaya, Allied forces in Singapore attempted to resist the Japanese during the Battle of Singapore, but were forced to surrender to
8652-533: The result of or the cause of a mid-20th century Revolution in military affairs . In the former hypothesis, expounded by J. F. C. Fuller and Basil Liddell Hart immediately after the events, the Manstein plan is presented as a result of the evolution of German military thinking since the First World War by Hans von Seeckt and Guderian, adopting the ideas of Fuller or Liddell Hart. If true, an explicit Blitzkrieg doctrine would have been established by 1939 and been
8755-470: The retreating and regrouping Chinese forces was largely stalled by the mountainous terrain in southwestern China, while the Communists organized widespread guerrilla and saboteur activities in northern and eastern China behind the Japanese front line. Japan sponsored several puppet governments , one of which was headed by Wang Jingwei . Conflicts between Chinese Communist and Nationalist forces vying for territorial control behind enemy lines culminated in
8858-624: The river was demolished prematurely, stranding most of an Indian division. On 8 March, the Japanese occupied Rangoon . The Allies attempted to defend Central Burma, with Indian and Burmese divisions holding the Irrawaddy River valley and the Chinese Expeditionary Force in Burma defending Toungoo . On 16 April, 7,000 British soldiers were encircled by the Japanese 33rd Division during the Battle of Yenangyaung , but subsequently rescued by
8961-509: The same time. British, Australian, and Dutch forces, already drained of personnel and matériel by two years of war with Germany, and heavily committed in the Middle East, North Africa, and elsewhere, were unable to provide more than token resistance. Two major British warships, the battlecruiser HMS Repulse and the battleship HMS Prince of Wales , were sunk by a Japanese air attack off Malaya on 10 December 1941. Following
9064-401: The skill and determination of German infantry, sometimes helped by anti-tank guns, accompanying guns and a few tanks. Fuller's writing was in the vein of much of the early reports of the Battle of France but since then new studies had added nuance, dwelling on the complications and chaos of the military operations. The Manstein plan led to much more than a simple tank rush through the Ardennes and
9167-422: The south and south-west of Sedan was reduced by the combined operations of infantry, tanks and artillery, a fact overlooked for long after 1940. Luftwaffe bombers had not acted as flying artillery and their main effect occurred on 13 May, when bombing collapsed the morale of the French 55th Division . Air attacks helped the ground forces to advance but destroyed few tanks and bunkers, most of which were taken by
9270-442: The south. Manstein had many reservations about the proposal, fearing the long open flank to the south that would be created by such a bold advance. Guderian managed to convince him that the danger of a French counter-offensive from the south could be averted by a simultaneous secondary spoiling offensive southwards, in the general direction of Reims . When Manstein first presented his ideas to OKH, he did not mention Guderian and made
9373-575: The successor of the chief of staff Ludwig Beck but had been ousted when the latter was disgraced over the Blomberg–Fritsch affair . On 1 September 1938, Halder rather than Manstein had replaced Beck. In late January, Halder got rid of Manstein by having him promoted to the command of XXXVIII Corps in east Germany. In late January, Lieutenant-Colonel Günther Blumentritt and Major Henning von Tresckow , on Manstein's staff, contacted Lieutenant-Colonel Rudolf Schmundt (an old acquaintance of Tresckow)
9476-416: The victory. There was no German grand-strategic synthesis; the course of the 1940 campaign depended on the economic mobilisation of 1939 and the geography of western Europe. During the winter of 1939–1940, the quality of German armoured forces was substantially improved. The plan attributed to Manstein was not a revolutionary departure from traditional military thinking but the concentration of superior force at
9579-470: The war, German generals adopted the term, which led to a misunderstanding that this was the official name of the plan or at least of the attack by Army Group A. The German name was Aufmarschanweisung Nr. 4, Fall Gelb (Campaign Instruction No. 4, Case Yellow) issued on 24 February 1940 and the manoeuvre through the Ardennes had no name. The Manstein plan was a counterpart to the French Dyle plan for
9682-539: The way to the foundation of the German Empire , leading to the subsequent annual celebration of " Sedan Day " in Germany. The Second Battle of Sedan in 1940 achieved a decisive breakthrough by Wehrmacht forces in the Battle of France and ultimately led to the collapse of the French Third Republic . The town is situated about 200 km from Paris, 85 km north-east of Reims , and 10 km south of
9785-419: The west but made it the main effort ( Schwerpunkt ). The dash for Abbeville was removed, river crossings were to be forced by infantry and there would be a long period of consolidation by a large number of infantry divisions crossing into the bridgeheads. The armoured divisions would then advance together with the infantry, not in an independent operational penetration. Halder rejected the idea of forestalling
9888-456: Was occupied by the Allies. Japan lost its former possessions in Asia and the Pacific and had its sovereignty limited to the four main home islands and other minor islands as determined by the Allies. In Allied countries during the war, the "Pacific War" was not usually distinguished from World War II , or was known simply as the War against Japan . In the United States, the term Pacific theater
9991-528: Was attacked. The Seventh Army , which had been the most powerful part of the French strategic reserve, had been committed to a rush through Belgium to join with the Dutch Army to the north, in the Breda variant of Plan D , the Allied deployment plan. The Manstein plan has often been called Operation Sichelschnitt, a transliteration of "sickle cut", a catchy expression used after the events by Winston Churchill . After
10094-429: Was impressed by Manstein's thinking. Hitler remarked after Manstein had left, "Certainly an exceptionally clever fellow, with great operational gifts, but I don't trust him". Manstein took no more part in the planning and returned to eastern Germany. Halder had to revise the plan again, which became Aufmarschanweisung N°4, Fall Gelb . The new plan conformed to Manstein's thinking in that Army Group A would provide
10197-607: Was possible. The Germans could live off the land, amidst the highly developed agriculture of western Europe, unlike in Poland where it had been much harder to maintain momentum. Tooze concluded that although the German victory of 1940 was not determined by brute force, the Wehrmacht did not rewrite the rules of war or succeed because of the ardour of German soldiers and French pacifism. The odds against Germany were not so extreme as to be insurmountable by better planning for an offensive based on
10300-642: Was prepared to move deeper into China. The Marco Polo Bridge Incident on 7 July 1937 provoked full-scale war between China and Japan. The Nationalist Party and the Chinese Communists suspended their civil war in order to form a nominal alliance against Japan, and the Soviet Union quickly lent support by providing large amounts of materiel to Chinese troops. In August 1937, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek deployed some of his best troops to defend Shanghai against some 300,000 Japanese troops attempting to seize
10403-476: Was seen as unlikely to commence hostilities. The Japanese leadership was aware that a total military victory in the traditional sense against the United States was impossible, and instead envisaged that rapid, aggressive and expansive conquest would force the U.S. to agree to a negotiated peace that would recognize Japanese hegemony in Asia. Following prolonged tensions between Japan and the Western powers , units of
10506-568: Was taken prisoner with 100,000 of his soldiers at the First Battle of Sedan . Due to this victory, which made the unification of Germany possible, 2 September was declared Sedan Day ( Sedantag ) and a national German holiday in 1871. It remained a holiday until 1919. Sedan was occupied by the Germans for four years during World War I . On 13 November 1917, the German Crown Prince paraded
10609-665: Was widely used. The US Armed Forces considered the China Burma India theater to be distinct from the Asiatic-Pacific theater during the conflict. Japan used the name Greater East Asia War ( 大東亜戦争 , Dai Tō-A Sensō ) , as chosen by a cabinet decision on 10 December 1941, to refer to both the war with the Western Allies and the ongoing war in China. This name was released to the public on 12 December, with an explanation that it involved Asian nations achieving their independence from
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