The deception measures that the Germans put in place for their surprise attack out of the Ardennes forests, and then heading to Sedan, were remarkable and they never get much attention.

The German high command, and many officers, were worried that Manstein’s plans was a repeat of the massive gamble of the Schlieffen Plan that had been badly executed in World War I and had lost Germany the war.

In the Schlieffen Plan the German Army attacked through Belgium and then wheeled to the south. At the same time the French attacked into Alsace-Lorraine. The original Schlieffen Plans were to defend that Alsace-Lorraine area with weak German forces that the French would be able to drive back. It was, broadly, a repetition of the tactics used by Hannibal’s great victory over the Romans at Cannae in 216 BC. where the Roman Army, commanded by Gaius Terentius Varro, was lured into attacking the deliberately weak Carthaginian centre. As his legions plunged deeper into the centre, the Carthaginian cavalry enveloped both flanks and encircled and totally destroyed the Roman Army.

By the time the Schlieffen Plan was launched in 1914, over the years since it had first been planned, important aspects of the plan had changed. The Germans kept adding more forces to their southern wing. For reasons of German nationalistic pride, they couldn’t bear the French to succeed – which was the whole point of the Schlieffen Plan. The result was that the Germans defeated the French attack in the south which defeated their whole concept of luring the French armies forward there so that the German armies in the north could then wheel to the left, trapping all of the French armies.

In 1940 the German high command worried that Manstein’s plan involved the same sort of gamble that the Germans had made in 1914 which had failed. Everything staked on one throw of the dice. How could they be sure that the French, British and Belgians would advance forward into Belgium. The whole of Manstein’s plan depended on them doing just that. But then, remember the two German officers, one Major Helmuth Reinberger, who bungled their flight in appalling weather and bungled their way over the border of Belgium where they crash landed in January 1940, carrying some of the German plans to repeat the Schlieffen Plan.

The Germans weren’t happy about this situation. They didn’t know whether the enemy had captured all, some or none of their plans. But they didn’t scrap their plans. They just changed the way that they were going to execute them, that is until that fateful meeting between Hitler and Manstein in February 1940.

But that crash landing accident almost guaranteed that if the German Army went with Manstein’s Sichelschnitt (Sickle Cut), they knew for sure and certain that the French were going to walk into his trap. How was revealed in a book published in 1941 by a French man, André Maurois, during the war, called The Tragedy of France. He wrote this:

The Germans knew exactly what movements we would make in case of an invasion of Belgium because we were kind enough to stage a "dress rehearsal" for that, before their very eyes. Here is how that happened. One fine day, a German aircraft landed in Belgium. Its passengers were general staff officers who carried with them a. . . plan for the invasion of Belgium ...

....

This the Germans did magnificently as the campaign opened and before their hand had finally been shown and understood by the enemy – to their total horror.

Tag words: Blitzkrieg Legend; Karl-Heinz Frieser; Von Kielmansegg; Operation Sichelschnitt; Operation Sickle Cut; Erich von Manstein; Heinz Guderian; Schlieffen Plan; Cannae; Hannibal; Gaius Terentius Varro; Roman Army; Carthaginian cavalry; Major Helmuth Reinberger; Adolf Hitler; André Maurois; The Tragedy of France; the Dyle Line; Bernhard von Loßberg; Admiral Canaris; Abwehr; Army Group A; Army Group B; Maginot Line; Wehrmacht; Fort Eben Emael; Schwerpunkt; Gamelin; General Pierre Jacomet; Ardennes; Sedan