Battle of France

Battle of France (Case Yellow) Throughout all of World War I the German objective was to occupy the country of France. In the four years of fighting on the Western Front in World War I, Germany failed to break through the lines of the French and never captured Paris. In May of 1940 Germany would try again as they used very similar tactics to those of the Von Schlieffen plan used by the Germans twenty five years before. The French had built massive defenses along the eastern border of France called the Maginot Line. However, the Maginot Line only stretched from the Swiss border until the Belgian border. The Germans strategy was to send an army group through the Ardennes forest and surprise the French and British Forces. Another army group was to engage at the Maginot Line which was mainly a diversion but they did attempt to make it through. The French had prepared themselves for a repeat of what they had done in the first World War with trench fighting and static warfare. The Battle of France showed two completely different types of military thinking with the blitzkreig of Germany which was a quick strike warfare going against the static, dug in style of the French. Germany would start their invasion of France on May 10th, 1940 as the Luftwaffe would pound the towns and airfields of France. Immediately the French were on the run and it was hard to move around the French countryside because many civilians were piled along the streets making the already retreating French army in a bigger mess than they were already in. The Germans captured Paris within a month and swung their troops east as they went to take the Maginot line and eastern France. The Maginot Line was virtually useless because the German’s had attacked around the line and eventually would take the eastern border of France by coming from inland France making the line useless. The Germans would then focus on pushing the British Expeditionary Force and the remaining French armies completely out of