Blitzkrieg: Myth, Reality, and Hitler's Lightning War: France 1940

In the spring of 1940, the Germans launched a military offensive in France and the Low Countries that married superb intelligence, the latest military thinking, and new technology to achieve in just six weeks what their fathers had failed to achieve in all four years of the First World War. It was a stunning victory, altering the balance of power in Europe in one stroke, and convinced the entire world that the Nazi war machine was unstoppable. But as Lloyd Clark, a leading British military historian and academic, argues in Blitzkrieg, much of our understanding of this victory, and blitzkrieg itself, is based on myth. Far from being a foregone conclusion, Hitler's plan could easily have failed had the Allies been even slightly less inept or the Germans less fortunate. The Germans recognized that success depended not only on surprise, but on avoiding being drawn into a protracted struggle for which they were not prepared. And while speed was essential, 90% of Germany's ground forces were still reliant on horses, bicycles, and their own feet for transportation. There was a real fear of defeat. Their surprise victory proved the apex of their achievement; far from being undefeatable, Clark argues, the France 1940 campaign revealed Germany and its armed forces to be highly vulnerable--a fact dismissed by Hitler as he began to plan for his invasion of the Soviet Union.

About the Author :
Lloyd Clark is one of the UK's leading military historians. He is is Professor of Modern War Studies and Contemporary Military History at University of Buckingham, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a member of the British Commission for Military History, and historian to the Airborne Assault Normandy Trust. The author of several books, and he has lectured on military history all over the world and is a frequent guide to battlefields on four continents.

Review :
Praise for Blitzkrieg: "In Blitzkrieg, Clark . . . provides a good battlefield view of a crucial phase of World War II . . . More than earlier studies, like Alistair Horne's To Lose a Battle, Clark focuses not on generals and premiers but on the voices and experiences of the soldiers involved."--New York Times Book Review "Blitzkrieg is a particularly successful synergy of correspondence and interviews, archival material from four countries, and the massive body of published literature . . . Lloyd Clark--a prolific military historian and a master of sources--makes a strong case for an alternative perspective . . . Blitzkrieg emphasizes operational and tactical evidence to persuasively argue that the 1940 campaign was decided not by tanks and dive-bombers alone, but through an updating of German military experience infused, but not dominated, by technology."--World War II Magazine "A masterly account teeming with vivid personalities and the usual mixture of heroism, incompetence, and luck . . . Clark provides plenty of juicy details and a mildly controversial reinterpretation."--Kirkus Reviews "In this new volume, acclaimed historian Lloyd Clark . . . paints a very different look at the German victory . . . Clark does an excellent job of describing the first critical five days of the campaign . . . He highlights multiple opportunities the French and British had to stop the German advance at vulnerable moments . . . Lloyd presents a well-balanced narrative that highlights the knife-edge victory of the German forces."--New York Journal of Books "This genuinely revisionist account of the Battle of France in 1940 proves a deeply shocking fact--we are essentially still in thrall to the view of Blitzkrieg tactics that Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels wanted us to have, even over three-quarters of a century later. Lloyd Clark's brilliant analysis proves that Fall Gelb wasn't all about unstoppable, superior panzers and Stukas, but was in fact an audacious, highly risky infantry-based plan that could have gone badly wrong given a different Allied mindset."--Andrew Roberts, New York Times bestselling author of The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War and Napoleon: A Life "Lloyd Clark has written a lucid, intelligent and thought provoking re-appraisal . . . His ground breaking detailed research will make it the seminal work on the fall of France in 1940. The story of the break-through unfolds at a fascinating and cracking pace . . . Blitzkrieg is a remarkable book."--Robert Kershaw, author of 24 Hours at the Somme, 24 Hours at Waterloo, and It Never Snows in September "A breakthrough book, bringing the drama of Hitler's May 1940 offensive in France vividly to life--alongside a major re-appraisal of the campaign's significance. Excellent."--Michael Jones, author of After Hitler and Total War