Overview of The Plan
Developed by German Generalleutnant Erich von Manstein, the plan greatly modified the original 1939 versions by Franz Halder of the invasion plan known as Fall Gelb. One way to look at the Manstein Plan was that it was the German Army's answer to the French Army's Dyle Plan. Originally, in Aufmarschanweisung N°1, Fall Gelb, the German Army planned to push the Allied forces back through central Belgium to the Somme river, in northern France, not unlike the first phase of the famous Schlieffen Plan of the First World War. However, on 10 January 1940, the Mechelen Incident took place: a German aircraft carrying documents containing parts of the operational plans of Fall Gelb crashed in Belgium, thus prompting another review of the invasion plan. While Fall Gelb was revised by Halder, not fundamentally changing it in Aufmarschanweisung N°3, Fall Gelb, Von Manstein was able to convince Hitler in a personal meeting on 17 February that the Wehrmacht should attack through the Ardennes forest, followed by a strategic drive to the coast.
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Famous quotes containing the word plan:
“We saw the machinery where murderers are now executed. Seven have been executed. The plan is better than the old one. It is quietly done. Only a few, at the most about thirty or forty, can witness [an execution]. It excites nobody outside of the list permitted to attend. I think the time for capital punishment has passed. I would abolish it. But while it lasts this is the best mode.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)