This week, seventy years ago, the French Army invaded the German State of Saarland. This Offensive was the product of the Kasprzycki-Gamelin Convention which was executed on May 19, 1939 in Paris. This was a treaty which obliged France and Poland to provide military assistance to each other in case of war with the German Reich. It was named after the signatories, Polish Minister of War Affairs, General Tadeusz Kasprzycki and the French Army Commander-in-Chief, General Maurice Gamelin. At the signing ceremony, General Gamelin promised a, “bold relief offensive,” within three weeks of any attack on Poland by Germany.  
    True to his word, the French Army, on September 7th, launched an offensive against Germany, six days after the German Wehrmacht assaulted Poland, and four days after France declared war on Germany. However, the offensive was anything but “bold.” And it certainly brought no “relief” to the beleaguered Poles. At their meeting on September 5, 1939, General Gamelin had told General Sir Edmund Ironside, Chief of the British Imperial General Staff, that, “It’s a little test, you see. A little test.” It wasn’t even that!
    The timetable specified in the Convention was that the French would begin preparations for a major offensive three days after mobilization. A pre-emptive mobilization had begun August 26, with full mobilization declared September 1. France was mobilizing 102 divisions.                The French plan called for an assault against Germany by forty divisions, including one armored and three mechanized. Instead, eleven French Divisions, under the command of General André-Gaston Prételat advanced along a 32-kilometer line against week German opposition. About twenty villages, and three square miles of enemy territory, which had been evacuated by the German Army, were occupied. As units of the Third, Fourth and Fifth French Armies cautiously advanced into German territory, the German Army withdrew toward the Siegfried Line, which was eight miles from the Border.
    When asked, on September 10th, by the Polish Military Attaché, what the French were doing to help the Poles, General Gamelin replied:
    “More than half of our active divisions on the northeast front are engaged in combat. Beyond our frontier the Germans are opposing us with a vigorous resistance . . . Prisoners indicate the Germans are re-enforcing their battlefront with large new formations.
    Air action from the beginning has been underway in liaison with ground operations. We know we are holding down before us a considerable part of the German Air Force.  
    I have thus gone beyond my promise to take the offensive with the bulk of my forces by the fifteenth day after mobilization. It has been impossible for me to do more.”
    Of course, this was totally untrue. Of the eighty-five French Divisions in the area, no more than eleven were involved in these actions. There had been no action by the French Air Force. French and British Pilots had been forbidden to bomb German Territory for fear, “...of the heaviest consequences.” There had been absolutely no diversion of any German armor or air units from the attack on Poland. General Gamelin had told General Ironside that it was only to be a “sortie.” Colonel Charles DeGaulle described the Saar “Offensive” as “...HQ demonstrations.”  Captain (later General) André Beaufre said that, “...it was nothing. General Gamelin, true to character, decided to make no more than a gesture. That was our aid to Poland!” He would later write in his book, The Fall of France, that, “The collapse of the French Army was the most important event of the 20th Century.”
    On September 12th, the Anglo-French Supreme War Council met for the first time at Abbeville, France. General Gamelin informed the British that because of, “...military events in Poland, there is no more need of establishing a base for an eventual attack against the Siegfried Line,” and that he was halting all offensive actions  immediately. General Gamelin recalled that, “...my report brought a sense of relief to everyone.” By that time the French Army had advanced approximately eight kilometers into Germany on a twenty-four kilometer long strip.
    Facing the French were less than twenty German divisions, while the French could count on ninety divisions, with another dozen being mobilized. German air and armor were concentrated against Poland. Quite correctly, the Poles expected that the French offensive, if properly executed, as promised, would force the Germans to, at the very least, scale back their assault on Poland. However, the Poles were not notified of the September 12th decision to halt the offensive. Instead, they were informed, the next day, that the major French offensive, scheduled for September 17, would not begin until September 20. By then the Wehrmacht had surrounded the Polish capital of Warsaw and the Soviet Union had declared that Poland no longer existed and had sent the Red Army into eastern Poland to maintain order and protect the Ukrainians and Belorussians living there.
    The performance of the French Army did not surprise the Germans. On August 14th, General Franz Halder, Chief of the German Army General Staff, had prepared a Memorandum in which he opined that a French Offensive was, “...not very likely.”  He reasserted that belief at the end of September, when he told his officers, “I no longer believe in a French attack. They have missed their opportunity.”
    On September 21st General Gamelin renounced, “...any intention of continuing the offensive,” and ordered the French Army to withdraw to the Maginot Line in the event of a German counterattack. As German units were released from the Polish front and transferred to the Western Front, German artillery began shelling the Maginot Line and the Luftwaffe was more apparent in the skies.  
    On September 30th General Gamelin, having decided that, “...the hour had come to retreat,” ordered all remaining units of  the French Army to retreat to its homeland and the protection of the Maginot Line. He told his Deputy, General Alphonse-Joseph Georges, that he “...considered it urgent...” that the retreat begin at once, and then to move only at night so that no one would know. The withdrawal was completed by October 4. Second Army Group Commander, General Prételat, praised his troops for the, “...happy manner...” in which they had conducted their retreat!
     The German First Army under Colonel-General Erwin von Witzleben launched a counteroffensive on October 16th which chased the French across the border. By October 17th the last French soldiers had left German territory. The First Army units continued their advance and occupied a sliver of French territory.  German casualties were 198 killed.
    French losses in the Saar Offensive were twenty-eight killed in action, mostly from mines. After the war, the German Generals were unanimous in their amazement that the French Army had not launched a major assault, which they felt would have been very successful, given their lack of resources for that theater, at that time. General Siegfried Westphal, author of The German Army In The West, opined that the French could have reached the Rhine River in two weeks with a bit of effort.
    French Colonel Adolphe Goutard, author of The Battle of France, 1940, said that, “After the prologue of the ‘Phoney Offensive,’ we were ripe for the ‘Phoney War.’”
    Within a year, von Witzleben would receive the coveted Field Marshal’s baton, and within four, he would be hanged from a meat hook with piano wire, as a traitor, for his part in the conspiracy to kill Hitler.
    General Gamelin was relieved of his command on May18, 1940. The Vichy government charged, arrested and tried him for treason. After his acquittal, he was deported to Germany. He did survive the war.

Mr. Wimbrow writes from Ocean City, Maryland, where he practices law representing those persons accused of criminal and traffic offenses, and those persons who have suffered a personal injury through no fault of their own.