WATCH VIDEO: The Battle of Britain Uses in World War II After Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933 and made clear his intention to rearm the nation, he encouraged younger commanders like Heinz Guderian, who argued for the importance of both tanks and aircraft in this mobile approach to warfare. This focus on mobile warfare was partly a response to Germany’s relatively limited military resources and manpower, following the strictures imposed on it by the Treaty of Versailles. In the wake of their defeat in World War I, German military leaders determined that a lack of mobile, maneuverable forces and flexible tactics had led that conflict to bog down in the deadly attrition of trench warfare.Īs a result, while France focused its efforts between the wars on building up its defensive border, known as the Maginot Line, the Germans decided to prepare for a shorter conflict won through military maneuvers, rather than in the trenches. Clausewitz proposed the “concentration principle,” the idea that concentrating forces against an enemy, and making a single blow against a carefully chosen target (the Schwerpunkt, or “center of gravity”) was more effective than dispersing those forces. Blitzkrieg-which means “lightning war” in German-had its roots in earlier military strategy, including the influential work of the 19th-century Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz.
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