💥 Tanks
Panzers attacked in a concentrated mass at one narrow point, broke through, and then drove deep behind the enemy instead of stopping to fight the front line.
Changing Methods of Warfare by Land, Air and Sea, 1939-45 » Blitzkrieg in Europe
What you'll learn this session
Study time: 30 minutes
Edexcel spec: Paper 2 Section B, Breadth study B6, Key topic 2
- What Blitzkrieg was and how tanks, dive-bombers, motorised infantry and radio worked together
- How it won quick victories in Poland (1939) and France (1940)
- Why it struggled in the Soviet Union in 1941
- What changed and what stayed the same in land warfare since 1917
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Unlock This CourseWhat was Blitzkrieg?
The Changing Nature of Warfare and International Conflict, 1919-2011, is one of eight Paper 2 Section B breadth studies. You study only one of them. This lesson is about the first years of the Second World War, when German armies won a string of fast victories in Europe.
Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. Over the next two years German forces overran Poland, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium and France. The style of fighting that made much of this possible was called Blitzkrieg.
Key terms:
- Blitzkrieg: German for "lightning war". A method of fighting that used speed, surprise and several types of weapon together to smash an enemy before it could react.
- Dive-bomber: an aircraft that dives steeply at a target to drop its bomb accurately. The German Junkers Ju 87, the Stuka, was the best known.
- Motorised infantry: foot soldiers carried in lorries and half-tracks, so that they could keep up with the tanks.
- Encircle: to surround an enemy force so that it is cut off from supplies and cannot retreat.
How the parts worked together
None of these weapons was new. Tanks, aircraft and radios all existed in 1918. What was new was how the Germans combined them. Their panzer divisions (armoured divisions that fought as fast, independent forces) were the heart of the method.
✈️ Dive-bombers
Stukas acted like "flying artillery". They bombed strongpoints, roads and headquarters just ahead of the tanks, and attacked enemy aircraft on the ground.
🚚 Motorised infantry
Lorry-borne soldiers followed the tanks to hold the ground they won and to deal with enemy troops who were bypassed.
📻 Radio
German tanks and aircraft had radios. Commanders could change orders at once and call in aircraft, so the attack kept moving.
The aim was not to capture ground slowly. It was to break through, race past the strongest defences and encircle the enemy's armies. A force that was cut off and confused could not fight well.
Poland and France
Poland, September 1939. The Luftwaffe (the German air force) bombed Polish airfields, railways and roads. Panzers broke through the Polish lines and encircled armies. On 17 September the Soviet Union also invaded Poland from the east. Warsaw surrendered on 27 September, and the last Polish forces gave in in early October. Poland was beaten in about five weeks.
France, May-June 1940. The Germans invaded on 10 May. Attacks on the Netherlands and Belgium drew the best British and French forces north into Belgium. The main German thrust came through the Ardennes, a hilly, wooded region that the French had thought difficult for tanks. The panzers crossed the River Meuse at Sedan on 13 May, then raced west and reached the English Channel coast on 20 May. This cut off the British Expeditionary Force and large French and Belgian armies. Many of the British and French troops were taken off the beaches at Dunkirk between 26 May and 4 June. Paris fell on 14 June and France signed an armistice on 22 June 1940, only six weeks after the invasion began.
It is often said that the Allies lost because they had fewer tanks. In fact French tanks were numerous and some were good. The difference was in how they were used. Many were spread out to support infantry, and French commanders reacted slowly to the speed of the attack. The Maginot Line, the fortified wall on the French border with Germany, was simply bypassed.
The limits of Blitzkrieg: the Soviet Union, 1941
On 22 June 1941 Germany invaded the Soviet Union. This was called Operation Barbarossa. At first the same methods worked. Panzers and the Luftwaffe encircled huge Soviet armies, and German forces advanced hundreds of miles. But Blitzkrieg ran into limits.
- Distance. The Soviet Union was enormous. Supplies had to travel far over poor roads, and tanks wore out and ran short of fuel.
- Not a fully motorised army. Only part of the German army was motorised. Most of it still marched on foot and used horses to pull supplies, so it could not keep up with the panzers.
- Weather. Autumn rain turned roads to mud. Then came the Russian winter, and German soldiers did not have proper winter clothing.
- Soviet resistance. The Soviet Union had a very large population and could keep replacing its losses. Its armies kept fighting after being encircled, and factories were moved east.
By December 1941 the Germans were close to Moscow but exhausted. On 5 December the Red Army counter-attacked and pushed them back. The quick victory had not happened, and Germany now faced a long war. Blitzkrieg worked against opponents who could be beaten fast. It worked far less well against a huge country that could survive a first defeat. (Britain, across the sea, was also not defeated; that story is in the lesson The Battle of Britain and the Blitz.)
Change and continuity
What changed: in 1917 at Cambrai tanks were slow and used to help infantry. By 1940 they were fast and used in masses, with aircraft and radios, to break through and surround whole armies. Campaigns could now be decided in weeks.
What stayed the same: armies still needed fuel, food and ammunition, and the side with greater resources and numbers was hard to beat in the long run.
Common mistakes
- Saying that Germany had far more or better tanks than France. The key was how they were used, together with aircraft, infantry and radio.
- Thinking Blitzkrieg was a new invention. The weapons already existed; the new part was combining them.
- Writing that Blitzkrieg failed everywhere. It won in Poland and France; it reached its limits in the Soviet Union.
Exam-style question
Explain TWO ways in which the use of tanks in the German invasion of France in 1940 was different from their use at the Battle of Cambrai in 1917. (At Cambrai, in November 1917, the British used nearly 400 tanks to help infantry break the German line.) [6 marks]
Model answer
One difference was the speed and purpose of the tanks. At Cambrai in 1917 the tanks were slow machines whose job was to crush barbed wire and help the infantry cross the German trenches. In 1940 German panzers were fast, and once they had crossed the Meuse at Sedan they drove on to the Channel coast by 20 May, aiming to get behind the Allied armies rather than just support infantry.
A second difference was the result. At Cambrai the tanks were used with infantry and artillery, and a German counter-attack on 30 November 1917 won back much of the lost ground. In 1940 the panzers worked with Stuka dive-bombers, motorised infantry and radio, so commanders could change orders at once. This helped the Germans encircle the Allied armies and win a decisive victory in about six weeks.
What lifts it to the top level: each way makes a direct comparison, with a precise fact about both 1917 and 1940.
Exam tip
Build each way as "At Cambrai in 1917 ... whereas in 1940 ...". A way with facts about only one date cannot score more than 3 out of 6.
Recap
- Blitzkrieg ("lightning war") combined tanks, dive-bombers, motorised infantry and radio to break through and encircle the enemy.
- It beat Poland in September 1939 and France in May-June 1940.
- In the Soviet Union from June 1941 it was limited by distance, an army still reliant on foot and horse, weather and strong Soviet resistance.
- Land warfare had changed since 1917, but supplies and resources still mattered.