The wargames that had been conducted by Manstein on 7 February 1940, at the headquarters of Army Group A, and then subsequently other wargames by other people, were all about getting through the Ardennes and then over the Meuse River. I can’t imagine that Manstein would have left his plans up in the air after that point, but Halder had gotten rid of him to command a new Corp that didn’t yet exist and no more forward planning happened.

On 13th May Guderian got across the Meuse, and then everyone at the various Army, Army Group and the Führer’s headquarters scratched their heads. What now? Incredible! The most respected General Staff in the world and they had no idea what to do once they were over the Meuse. The only two people that had the exact plan were Manstein and Guderian – and now Manstein was gone from where he could have helped everything to run smoothly.

So we now have Panzer Corp Guderian and Panzer Corp Reinhardt charging off to the Channel as Manstein wanted, and we have the higher echelons of the German field armies all the way up to the Führer himself all in a flap about this.

Soon the greatest military genius of all times (größte Feldherr aller Zeiten), and I mean Adolf  Hitler of course, was going to go into meltdown.

Tag words: Blitzkrieg; Adolf Hitler; Erich von Manstein; Ardennes; Meuse River; Franz Halder; Heinz Guderian; Kleist; Panzer Leader; Winston Churchill; Gerd von Runstedt; Col-Gen. von Brauchitsch; Major Henning von Tresckow; Karl-Heinz Frieser; Blitzkrieg Legend; Dunkirk; Operation Sickle Cut;miracle on the Marne; Benito Mussolini