Greatest Battles SIEGE OF WARSAW
In the early hours of 1 September 1939, the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein fired the first shot of World War II. The German campaign plan, Fall Weiss (Case White) swung into action and the world was introduced to a ruthless new form of warfare that would later be recalled as ‘blitzkrieg’ (lightning war).
On the seventh day of the campaign, German tanks approached the outskirts of Warsaw and the stage was set for a brief yet brutal siege.
THE INVASION FORCE
In 1939 the German Army was not quite the smooth-running machine it’s usually characterised as. As war approached only a fraction of the army had been mechanised and the bulk of it still relied on horses, bicycles and its own feet.
By concentrating all of its mechanised and motorised divisions on Poland, however, the German military was able to create massive local superiority. An advantage in tanks of 2,511 to 615 would no doubt have proved decisive enough, but the German campaign plan allowed them to enjoy a better than eight-to-one advantage at the points of attack.
The tanks involved were not the powerful behemoths of the later war years. Tanks were utilised in an anti-infantry role and
