Read Online Between the Alps and a Hard Place by Angelo M. Codevilla - Free Book Online Page B

provide artillery fire support to the northwest end of the Swiss army position on
the Gempen plateau, and move its own troops there directly to back up the Swiss. The Swiss actually improved roads leading onto the plateau and built revetments for heavy artillery for the French army’s eventual use, effectively linking the Maginot Line to the Swiss fortifications. In addition, elements of the French 7th (later the 45th) Army corps would cross the border near Geneva and move northeast. For the sake of symmetry in case of discovery, Guisan began secret exploratory talks with Germany through Major Hans Berly, who had good contacts in the Wehrmacht . But these never resulted in concrete plans.
    Joint planning with France turned out to be a source of trouble rather than help because France itself fell quickly to the German onslaught, and the records of the Swiss negotiations fell into German hands—among a carload of government documents abandoned by the French and recovered by the Germans at Charité Sur Loire on June 16, 1940. The Swiss worried that Germany would use their breach as a legal reason for disregarding their neutrality. But they need not have worried. If Germany had wanted to invade, a jury-rigged pretext such as the staged border incident with Poland in August 1939 would have been enough. More worrisome was Switzerland’s basic military predicament.
    By April 1940 the fall of Norway and Denmark showed that German armies could move just as efficiently across water and against Western armies as they had against Poland. No sooner had Germany’s attack on France begun on May 10, 1940, than the mismatch between the German and Swiss armies became glaring. In Belgium, en route to France, the Germans opened the way for their mobile forces with parachute troops and saboteurs. German paratroopers could drop onto Swiss fortresses bereft of air cover or air defense as easily as they had
on the Belgian fortress of Eben Emael, mistakenly assumed impregnable. Coordinated ground attacks would then overwhelm them. Could the Germans punch through the new Swiss army position on the Sargans-based line? Without antitank weapons, Swiss infantry positions couldn’t prevent breaches. And if Swiss troops behaved like other armies, they would panic once the formidable German columns came near. In fact, as France was falling, tens of thousands of Swiss civilians piled mattresses atop their cars and headed for the mountains, pro-Nazi groups were strutting, and no prominent politician could be found to rally the country. In sum, no army can fight without means or hope.

Stiffening Resistance
    Thus, even as the Swiss still hoped for help from France and Italy, they studied how to meet the mobility and psychological shock of modern warfare. Since there was no chance of quickly raising the Swiss army to German standards, much less of increasing its numbers, the Swiss could only fall back on bloody tactical resistance to the last man coupled with radical strategic withdrawal.
    The psychological effects of German successes had multiplied the effects of German tactics. The proximate objective of all ground combat is to breach the enemy’s line and, by ravaging the enemy’s rear areas, to cut the opposition’s routes home. By these means, an attacker can count on disorganization and discouragement to work wholesale destruction on a defender. The style of mobile warfare introduced by Germany in 1939 had proved effective in this regard. Yet if somehow every defender reacts to a breakthrough by fighting harder at his post—resistance to the last man—the attacker’s advantage is minimized. Later
out and kill them one by one—at great cost in blood, treasure, morale, and time. But it’s easier to preach resistance to the last man than to practice it.
    Without knowing the Swiss military tradition, one could easily discount Guisan’s order to his troops as German forces were breaking through French