Ryan Noppen

Austria-Hungary did not have an overseas empire; its empire lay within its own boundaries and the primary purpose of its navy until the beginning of the twentieth century was the defense of its coastline. As its merchant marine dramatically grew, admirals believed that the navy should take a more proactive policy of defense. The 1890s saw the beginning of a series of naval building programs that would create a well-balanced modern fleet. Cruisers were constructed for the protection of overseas trade and for “showing the flag” but the decisive projection of Austria-Hungary's commitment to control the Adriatic was the construction of a force of modern battleships. Despite the naval arms race throughout Europe at the time, the navy had difficulty obtaining funds for new ships.… (meer)

There is a saying: "History is written by the victors". This is especially true of the era of Blitzkrieg, Germany's policy of "lightning war" - fast-moving mechanised armour columns, supported by air power and the projection of force either by the use of paratroops or regular troops moved en masse to the front line or even beyond by air. The accepted wisdom is that the fall of France, Belgium and Holland was achieved via Blitzkrieg. This book sets out that too many writers and historians have accepted the German version of the invasion of the Netherlands in 1940; and that the five days of Fall Gelb ("Case Yellow", the invasion plan for the Netherlands) were not the success Hitler and the German High Command were expecting.

In the late 1930s, the Netherlands invested heavily in an integrated air defence system. Despite the absence of radar, a system of observation posts reported in to a control centre, which could then alert airfields to be prepared to repel attacks and launch interceptor aircraft. The Dutch had also invested in indigenous designs of modern fighter aircraft from the Fokker company. The Fokker D.XXI, a monoplane fighter aircraft with a fixed undercarriage proved to have greater manoeuvrability than the Messerschmitt Bf.109s of the Luftwaffe; the Fokker G.I was a twin-engined fighter with considerable firepower. Both types acquitted themselves well when put to the test. The Dutch also flew the Fokker T.V, perhaps the original of the "Flying Fortress" concept. Not only was it a bomber, but it was well-defended with machine gun coverage for all sectors and a forward-facing 20mm cannon for heavier fire. The aircraft was conceived of as a luchtkruiser, or air cruiser, capable of delivering a bomb load but also of entering a formation of enemy aircraft and delivering firepower against them.

The German plan was to knock out the Dutch airfields with a surprise early-morning attack, then insert troops via either parachute drops or airborne delivery to captured airfields, seize strategic bridges and hold them until armour could arrive from the south. But they were not aware that the Dutch had an effective intelligence network that had been alerted to the possibility of an attack; and they seriously under-estimated the effectiveness of the air defence system. The result was that, even with a pre-dawn attack, the Luftwaffe was unable to destroy the Dutch air force on the ground, and as a result they were surprised to find themselves on the receiving end of opposition.

Worse was to follow. With an air force still largely intact after the first wave of attacks, the Dutch were able to intercept the Junkers Ju.52 transports carrying troops into forward areas, and attack them. Matters were made worse for the Germans when the transport aircraft found that their target aerodromes, which they had been told would by now be in German hands, were actually not available to them. A number of transport aircraft diverted to try to land their troops on the beaches, only to find that their aircraft bogged down on the wet sand and could neither manoeuvre not take off again to collect third-wave reinforcements. 455 of the aircraft deployed in the attack were put out of service through Dutch opposition; 69% of those were Junkers Ju.52s, and indeed that loss of airborne transport capability impacted the Luftwaffe's effectiveness in military transport for the rest of the war - a fact acknowledged after the war by Albert Kesselring himself, the general in command of Luftflotte 2. By the end of day one of Fall Gelb, the Germans had only landed some 3,500 troops, roughly 35% of the intended total; and they were scattered across 14 different landing sites, often well away from their intended targets. Of those troops, some 2,735 became casualties or prisoners of war (the PoWs were handed over to the British, who had facilities for handling prisoners that the Dutch did not; and so those captured during Fall Gelb were not repatriated after the Netherlands fell).

In the later stages of the attack, when Dutch fighter forces had been eroded by repeated air combats, trainers and obsolete biplane fighters were pressed into service to carry out hedge-hopping attacks on German artillery units. Operating with some fighter support, these low-level attacks gave the advantage of surprise back to the Dutch and hampered German efforts to consolidate their gains.

The Dutch were hampered by a major imbalance of forces; although they had performed far better than the Germans expected, their position was nonetheless precarious and they were relying on reinforcements from France and Britain. A French armoured column attempted to reach southern Holland to reinforce key bridges against further German attack, but they were intercepted by a superior German armoured force and had to withdraw. And British attempts to throw aircraft into strategic attacks in support of the Dutch were ineffective. German armour was still able to reach their objectives originally planned for the later stages of Fall Gelb, but the outcome was less favourable. In the end, it was only through heavy area bombing of the civilian population of Rotterdam, plus a threat to subject Utrecht to the same treatment that a Dutch surrender was forced.

The Germans painted this as a major success; but the losses were out of proportion to expectations. It also forced changes in German policy. For the proposed invasion of Britain, Hitler insisted that there must be total air superiority before airborne troops were sent in: this never happened. The Dutch experience demonstrated the value of an integrated air defence system. And although Göring insisted that it was the area bombing of Rotterdam that was decisive in victory, his attempt to inflect the same treatment on London failed.

All this information and more can be found within this slender volume in Osprey's Air Campaign series. The book is nicely presented, although there is quite a heavy emphasis on units and orders of battle. Enough remains in the stories of Dutch efforts to repel the attacks to be of interest. Osprey proofreading, however, is sadly lacking.

None of which should deter the more general reader from this book, as it gives a different perspective on the accepted story of the success of Blitzkrieg.… (meer)