until 17 May, when Germany completed its occupation of the whole country.
The invasion of the Netherlands saw some of the earliest mass
paratroop drops, to occupy tactical points and assist the advance of ground troops. The German Luftwaffe used paratroopers in the capture of several airfields in the vicinity of Rotterdam and The Hague
, helping to quickly overrun the country and immobilise Dutch forces.
The United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany in 1939, following the
Ruhr Area.[9] A joint Dutch-Belgian peace offer between the two sides was rejected on 7 November.[10]
The Netherlands Armed Forces were ill-prepared to resist such an invasion. When Hitler came to power, the Dutch had begun to re-arm, but more slowly than France or Belgium; only in 1936 did the defence budget start to be gradually increased.[11] Successive Dutch governments tended to avoid openly identifying Germany as an acute military threat. Partly this was caused by a wish not to antagonise a vital trade partner,[12] even to the point of repressing criticism of Nazi policies;[13] partly it was made inevitable by a policy of strict budgetary limits with which the conservative Dutch governments tried in vain to fight the Great Depression, which hit Dutch society particularly hard.[14]Hendrikus Colijn, Prime Minister of the Netherlands between 1933 and 1939, was personally convinced that Germany would not violate Dutch neutrality;[15] senior officers made no effort to mobilise public opinion in favour of improving military defence.[16]
International tensions grew in the late 1930s. Crises were caused by the German
occupation of the Rhineland in 1936; the Anschluss and Sudeten crisis of 1938; and the German occupation of Bohemia and Moravia and the Italian invasion of Albania in the spring of 1939. These events forced the Dutch government to exercise greater vigilance, but they limited their reaction as much as they could. The most important measure was a partial mobilisation of 100,000 men in April 1939.[17]
After the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 and the ensuing outbreak of the Second World War, the Netherlands hoped to remain neutral, as it had done during World War I 25 years earlier. To ensure this neutrality, the Dutch army was mobilised from 24 August and entrenched.[18] Large sums (almost 900 million guilders) were spent on defence.[19] It proved very difficult to obtain new matériel in wartime, however, especially as the Dutch had ordered some of their new equipment from Germany, which deliberately delayed deliveries.[20] Moreover, a considerable part of the funds were intended for the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), much of it related to a plan to build three battlecruisers.[21]
The strategic position of the Low Countries, located between France and Germany on the uncovered flanks of their fortification lines, made the area a logical route for an offensive by either side. In a 20 January 1940 radio speech,
The French supreme command considered violating the neutrality of the Low Countries if they had not joined the Anglo-French coalition before the planned large Entente offensive in the summer of 1941, but the French Cabinet, fearing a negative public reaction, vetoed the idea. Kept in consideration was a plan to invade if Germany attacked the Netherlands alone, necessitating an Entente advance through Belgium, or if the Netherlands assisted the enemy by tolerating a German advance into Belgium through the southern part of their territory, both possibilities discussed as part of the hypothèse Hollande.[24] The Dutch government never officially formulated a policy on how to act in case of either contingency; the majority of ministers preferred to resist an attack, while a minority and Queen Wilhelmina refused to become a German ally whatever the circumstances.[25] The Dutch tried on several occasions to act as an intermediary to reach a negotiated peace settlement between the Entente and Germany.[26]
After the German invasion of Norway and Denmark, followed by a warning by the new Japanese naval attaché Captain Tadashi Maeda that a German attack on the Netherlands was certain,[27] it became clear to the Dutch military that staying out of the conflict might prove impossible. They started to fully prepare for war, both mentally and physically. Dutch border troops were put on greater alert.[28] Reports of the presumed actions of a fifth column in Scandinavia caused widespread fears that the Netherlands too had been infiltrated by German agents assisted by traitors.[29] Countermeasures were taken against a possible assault on airfields and ports.[30] A state of emergency was declared on 19 April.[31] However, most civilians still cherished the illusion that their country might be spared,[32] an attitude that has since been described as a state of denial.[33] The Dutch hoped that the restrained policy of the Entente and Central Powers during the First World War might be repeated and tried to avoid the attention of the Great Powers and a war in which they feared a loss of human life comparable to that of the previous conflict. On 10 April, Britain and France repeated their request that the Dutch enter the war on their side, but were again refused.[34]
Dutch forces
Royal Netherlands Army
In the Netherlands, all the objective conditions were present for a successful defence: a dense population, wealthy, young, disciplined and well-educated; a geography favouring the defender; and a strong technological and industrial base including an armaments industry. However, these had not been exploited: while the
biplanes. The Dutch government's attitude towards war was reflected in the state of the country's armed forces, which had not significantly expanded their equipment since before the First World War,[36] and were inadequately armed even by the standards of 1918.[37] An economic recession lasting from 1920 until 1927 and the general détente in international relations caused a limitation of the defence budget.[14] In that decade, only 1.5 million guilders per annum was spent on equipment.[38] Both in 1931 and 1933, commissions appointed to economise even further failed, because they concluded that the acceptable minimum had been reached and advised that a spending increase was urgently needed.[39] Only in February 1936 was a bill passed creating a special 53.4 million guilder defence fund.[11]
The lack of a trained manpower base, a large professional organisation, or sufficient matériel reserves precluded a swift expansion of Dutch forces.
Eben Emael were nonexistent; the only modern fortification complex was that at Kornwerderzand, guarding the Afsluitdijk
. Total Dutch forces equalled 48 regiments of infantry as well as 22 infantry battalions for strategic border defence. In comparison, Belgium, despite a smaller and more aged male population, fielded 22 full divisions and the equivalent of 30 divisions when smaller units were included.
After September 1939, desperate efforts were made to improve the situation, but with very little result. Germany, for obvious reasons, delayed its deliveries; France was hesitant to equip an army that would not unequivocally take its side. The one abundant source of readily available weaponry, the Soviet Union, was inaccessible because the Dutch, contrary to most other nations, did not recognise the communist regime. An attempt in 1940 to procure Soviet armour captured by Finland failed.[43]
On 10 May, the most conspicuous deficiency of the Dutch Army lay in its shortage of
DAF M39 cars were in the process of being taken into service, some still having to be fitted with their main armament.[48] A single platoon of five Carden-Loyd Mark VI tankettes used by the Artillery completed the list of Dutch armour
.
The Dutch Artillery had available a total of 676 howitzers and field guns: 310 Krupp 75 mm field guns, partly produced in licence; 52 105 mm Bofors howitzers, the only really modern pieces; 144 obsolete[49] Krupp 125 mm guns; 40 150 mm sFH13's; 72 Krupp 150 mm L/24 howitzers and 28 Vickers 152 mm L/15 howitzers. As antitank-guns 386 Böhler 47 mm L/39s were available, which were effective weapons but too few in number, being only at a third of the planned strength;[50] another three hundred antiquated[51]6 Veld (57 mm) and 8 cm staal (84 mm) field guns performed the same role for the covering forces. Only eight of the 120 modern 105 mm pieces ordered from Germany had been delivered at the time of the invasion. Most artillery was horse-drawn.[52]
The Dutch Infantry used about 2,200 7.92 mm
Geweer M.95 rifle, adopted in 1895.[53] There were but six 80 mm mortars for each regiment. This lack of firepower seriously impaired the fighting performance of the Dutch infantry.[54]
Despite the Netherlands being the seat of Philips, one of Europe's largest producers of radio equipment, the Dutch army mostly used telephone connections; only the Artillery had been equipped with the modest number of 225 radio sets.[52]
Dutch Air Forces
The
Koolhoven, was not fully exploited due to budget limitations.[58]
Training and readiness
Not only was the Royal Netherlands Army poorly equipped, it was also poorly trained. There had especially been little experience gained in the handling of larger units above the battalion level. From 1932 until 1936, the Dutch Army did not hold summer field manoeuvres in order to conserve military funding.[59] Also, the individual soldier lacked many necessary skills. Before the war only a minority of young men eligible to serve in the military had actually been conscripted. Until 1938, those who were enlisted only served for 24 weeks, just enough to receive basic infantry training.[60] That same year, service time was increased to eleven months.[11] The low quality of conscripts was not compensated by a large body of professional military personnel. In 1940, there were only 1206 professional officers present.[61] It had been hoped that when war threatened, these deficiencies could be quickly remedied but following the mobilisation of all Dutch forces on 28 August 1939 (bringing Army strength to about 280,000 men)[62] readiness only slowly improved: most available time was spent constructing defences.[63] During this period, munition shortages limited live fire training,[64] while unit cohesion remained low.[65] By its own standards the Dutch Army in May 1940 was unfit for battle. It was incapable of staging an offensive, even at division level, while executing manoeuvre warfare was far beyond its capacities.[66]
German generals and tacticians (along with
Hitler himself) had an equally low opinion of the Dutch military and expected that the core region of Holland proper could be conquered in about three to five days.[67]
Dutch defensive strategy
In the 17th century, the
National Redoubt, which was expected to hold out a prolonged period of time,[68] in the most optimistic predictions as much as three months without any allied assistance,[69] even though the size of the attacking German force was strongly overestimated.[70] Before the war the intention was to fall back to this position almost immediately, after a concentration phase (the so-called Case Blue) in the Gelderse Valley [fy; li; nds-nl; nl; zea],[71] inspired by the hope that Germany would only travel through the southern provinces on its way to Belgium and leave Holland proper untouched. In 1939 it was understood such an attitude posed an invitation to invade and made it impossible to negotiate with the Entente about a common defence. Proposals by German diplomats that the Dutch government would secretly assent to an advance into the country were rejected.[72]
From September 1939 a more easterly Main Defence Line (MDL) was constructed. This second main defensive position had a northern part formed by the Grebbelinie (
Izaak H. Reijnders. In the south the intention was to delay the Germans as much as possible to cover a French advance. Fourth and Second Army Corps were positioned at the Grebbe Line; Third Army Corps were stationed at the Peel-Raam Position with the Light Division behind it to cover its southern flank. Brigade A and B were positioned between the Lower Rhine and the Maas. First Army Corps was a strategic reserve in the Fortress Holland, the southern perimeter of which was manned by another ten battalions and the eastern by six battalions.[74] All these lines were reinforced by pillboxes.[68]
Positioning of troops
In front of this Main Defence Line was the IJssel-Maaslinie, a covering line along the rivers
counteroffensive if the conditions were favourable.[81]
However, he took no comparable decision regarding the Peel-Raam Position.
During the Phoney War the Netherlands officially adhered to a policy of strict neutrality. In secret, the Dutch military command, partly acting on its own accord,[82] negotiated with both Belgium and France via the Dutch military attaché in Paris, Lieutenant-Colonel David van Voorst Evekink to co-ordinate a common defence to a German invasion.[83] This failed because of insurmountable differences of opinion about the question of which strategy to follow.
Coordinating with Belgium
Given its obvious strategic importance, Belgium, though in principle neutral, had already made quite detailed arrangements for co-ordination with Entente troops. This made it difficult for the Dutch to have these plans changed again to suit their wishes. The Dutch desired the Belgians to connect their defences to the Peel-Raam Position, that Reijnders refused to abandon without a fight.[84] He did not approve of a plan by Van Voorst tot Voorst to occupy a so-called "Orange Position" on the much shorter line 's-Hertogenbosch – Tilburg,[85] to form a continuous front with the Belgian lines near Turnhout as proposed by Belgian General Raoul Van Overstraeten.[86]
When Winkelman took over command, he intensified the negotiations, proposing on 21 February that Belgium would man a connecting line with the Peel-Raam Position along the Belgian part of the
Westwall when the Entente launched its planned 1941 offensive. But he did not dare to stretch his supply lines that far unless the Belgians and Dutch would take the allied side before the German attack. When both nations refused, Gamelin made it clear that he would occupy a connecting position near Breda.[24] The Dutch did not fortify this area. In secret, Winkelman decided on 30 March[90] to abandon the Peel-Raam Position immediately at the onset of a German attack and withdraw his Third Army Corps to the Linge to cover the southern flank of the Grebbe Line, leaving only a covering force behind.[91] This Waal-Linge Position was to be reinforced with pillboxes; the budget for such structures was increased with a hundred million guilders.[92]
After the German attack on Denmark and Norway in April 1940, when the Germans used large numbers of
Ypenburg and the Rotterdam airfield of Waalhaven.[93] These were reinforced by additional AA-guns, two tankettes and twelve of the 24 operational armoured cars.[67] These specially directed measures were accompanied by more general ones: the Dutch had posted no less than 32 hospital ships
throughout the country and fifteen trains to help make troop movements easier.
French strategy
In addition to the Dutch Army and the
Thames
estuary, so their capture would pose a special menace to the safety of England.
Rapid forces, whether for an offensive or defensive purpose, were needed to deny vital locations to the enemy. Long before the Germans did, the French had contemplated using airborne troops to achieve speedy attacks. As early as 1936 the French had commissioned the design of light airborne tanks, but these plans had been abandoned in 1940, as they possessed no cargo planes large enough to carry them. A naval division and an infantry division were earmarked to depart for Zealand to block the Western Scheldt against a German crossing. These would send forward forces over the Scheldt estuary into the Isles, supplied by overseas shipping.
French Commander in Chief General Maurice Gamelin feared the Dutch would be tempted into a quick capitulation or even an acceptance of German protection. He therefore reassigned the former French strategic reserve, the 7th Army, to operate in front of Antwerp to cover the river's eastern approaches in order to maintain a connection with the Fortress Holland further to the north and preserve an allied left flank beyond the Rhine. The force assigned to this task consisted of the 16th Army Corps, comprising the 9th Motorised Infantry Division (also possessing some tracked armoured vehicles) and the 4th Infantry Division; and the 1st Army Corps, consisting of the 25th Motorised Infantry Division and the 21st Infantry Division. This army was later reinforced by the 1st Mechanised Light Division, an armoured division of the French Cavalry and a first-class powerful unit. Together with the two divisions in Zealand, seven French divisions were dedicated to the operation.[94]
Although the French troops would have a higher proportion of motorised units than their German adversaries, in view of the respective distances to be covered, they could not hope to reach their assigned sector advancing in battle deployment before the enemy did. Their only prospect of beating the Germans to it lay in employing rail transport. This implied they would be vulnerable in the concentration phase, building up their forces near Breda. They needed the Dutch troops in the Peel-Raam Position to delay the Germans for a few extra days to allow a French deployment and entrenchment, but French rapid forces also would provide a security screen. These consisted of the reconnaissance units of the armoured and motorised divisions, equipped with the relatively well-armed Panhard 178 armoured car. These would be concentrated into two task forces named after their commander: the Groupe Beauchesne and the Groupe Lestoquoi.
German strategy and forces
During the many changes in the operational plans for Fall Gelb the idea of leaving the Fortress Holland alone, just as the Dutch hoped for, was at times considered.[95] The first version of 19 October 1939 suggested the possibility of a full occupation if conditions were favourable.[96] In the version of 29 October it was proposed to limit the transgression to a line south of Venlo.[97] In the Holland-Weisung (Holland Directive) of 15 November it was decided to conquer the entire south, but in the north to advance no further than the Grebbe Line, and to occupy the Frisian Islands.[98]Hermann Göring insisted on a full conquest, for he needed the Dutch airfields against Britain; also, he was afraid that the Entente might reinforce Fortress Holland after a partial defeat and use the airfields to bomb German cities and troops.[98] Another rationale for complete conquest was that, as the fall of France itself could hardly be taken for granted, it was for political reasons seen as desirable to obtain a Dutch capitulation, because a defeat might well bring less hostile governments to power in Britain and France. A swift defeat would also free troops for other front sectors.[99]
Though it was thus on 17 January 1940
256th Infantry Division), assisted by three reserve divisions (208th, 225th, and 526th Infantry Division) that would not take part in the fighting. Six of these divisions were "Third Wave" units only raised in August 1939 from territorial Landwehr
units. They had few professional officers and little fighting experience apart from those who were World War I veterans. Like the Dutch Army, most soldiers (88%) were insufficiently trained. The seventh division was the 526th Infantry Division, a pure security unit without serious combat training. The German divisions, with a nominal strength of 17,807 men, were fifty percent larger than their Dutch counterparts and possessed twice their effective firepower, but even so the necessary numerical superiority for a successful offensive was simply lacking.
To remedy this, assorted odds and ends were used to reinforce 18th Army. The first of these was the only German cavalry division, the aptly named
Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, which would serve as assault infantry to breach the Dutch fortified positions.[102]
Still this added only 11⁄3 division to the equation.
To ensure a victory the Germans resorted to unconventional means. The Germans had trained two airborne/airlanding assault divisions. The first of these, the
22nd Luftlande-Infanteriedivision, of airborne infantry. Initially the plan was that the main German assault was to take place in Flanders, and it was expected these troops would be used for a crossing attempt over the river Scheldt near Ghent. This operation was cancelled, so it was decided to use them to obtain an easy victory in the Netherlands.[103] The airborne troops would on the first day attempt to secure the airfields around the Dutch seat of government, The Hague, and then capture that government, together with the Dutch High Command and Queen Wilhelmina.[104] German officers actually took lessons on how to address royalty on such occasions. The plan, Fall Festung, had been developed by Hitler personally, embellishing an earlier idea to let an envoy offer "armed protection of the Dutch neutrality", that is, to become a German protectorate.[105]
In the event this did not bring forth the desired immediate collapse, the bridges at
Schwerpunkt (focal point) of the campaign in the Netherlands;[104]
18th Army saw the air landings as primarily subservient to the XXVI. Armeekorps advance.
Of all operations of Fall Gelb this one most strongly embodied the concept of a Blitzkrieg as the term was then understood: a Strategischer Überfall or strategic assault. Also, like Fall Gelb as a whole, it involved a high risk strategy.
The Oster affair
The German population and troops generally disliked the idea of violating Dutch neutrality. German propaganda therefore justified the invasion as a reaction to a supposed Entente attempt to occupy the Low Countries, similar to the justification used by the German Empire to invade Belgium in World War I.[109] Some German officers were averse to the Nazi regime and were also uneasy about the invasion.[110]
One of them, Colonel
Gijsbertus J. Sas.[111] This information included the attack date of Fall Gelb.[112] Sas informed the Allies via other military attachés.[113] However, several postponements while the Germans waited for favourable weather conditions led to a series of false alarms, which left the Dutch government and others somewhat sceptical of the information.[114] Sas' correct prediction of the date of the attack on Denmark and Norway went largely unheeded.[115] Though he indicated a German armoured division would try to attack Fortress Holland from North Brabant and that there was a plan to capture the Queen, Dutch defensive strategy was not adapted and it was not understood these were elements of a larger scheme.[116] On 4 May Sas again warned that an attack was imminent; this time it coincided with a warning from Pope Pius XII.[117] When on the evening of 9 May Oster again phoned his friend saying just "Tomorrow, at dawn", Dutch troops were put on alert.[118]
On the morning of 10 May 1940 the Dutch awoke to the sound of
Luxembourg
, in the case of the Low Countries without a declaration of war given before hostilities; France was already at war.
In the night the Luftwaffe violated Dutch airspace. One wing,
Schiphol, where the Dutch lost a third of their medium bombers, and The Hague airfields where I./KG 4 destroyed half of the 21 defending fighters to assist Kampfgeschwader 30 (KG 30) and Kampfgeschwader 54 (KG 54) in attacks upon ports and communications.[121] KG 4 lost 11 Heinkel He 111 bombers in total on 10 May and three Junkers Ju 88s; KG 30 and 54 another nine bombers.[122]Jagdgeschwader 26 (JG 26) and Zerstörergeschwader 26 (ZG 26) shot down 25 Dutch aircraft in aerial combat for a loss of nine fighters, with Albert Kesselring's Luftflotte 2 in total claiming 41. The Dutch were left with just 70 aircraft by the end of the day. They claimed most of the German aircraft destroyed on 10 May. Spread out over Dutch territory, they continued to engage the Luftwaffe where possible, claiming 13 victories over German fighter aircraft by 14 May.[121]
Immediately after the bombardments, between 04:30 and 05:00 local time, paratroopers were landed near the airfields. Dutch
transport planes of the Luftwaffe's Transportgruppen and even more were wrecked during or after landing. German Ju 52 total losses in the entire battle amounted to 224, compared to 430 Ju 52s deployed by the airborne troops.[123]
The
Valkenburg was likewise quickly occupied, the morale of the defenders shaken by the bombardment. However, the landing strip was still under construction and the ground water level had not yet been lowered: planes landing there sank away in the soft soil. None of the airfields were thus capable of receiving substantial reinforcements. In the end the paratroopers occupied Ypenburg but failed to advance into The Hague, their route blocked by hastily assembled Dutch troops. Early in the afternoon they were dispersed by fire from three Dutch artillery batteries.[125] Dutch batteries likewise drove away the German occupants from the other two fields, the remnant airborne troops taking refuge in nearby villages and mansions.[126]
The
Island of Dordrecht the Dordrecht bridge was captured but in the city itself the garrison held out.[130] The long Moerdijk bridges over the broad Hollands Diep estuary connecting the island to North Brabant province were captured and a bridgehead fortified on the southern side.[131]