France attacked 25 October 1939

Allied ground attack
Stalin had been too out of reach with the situation and too late in redressing his deal with Hitler.

Both the RAF and Armé de l'Air had realized that using two seat aircraft for ground attack operations had serious drawbacks – a fast light single engine aircraft could do the job much better at less expense. As the outcome of these evaluations the Hawker Hurricane, Morane Saulnier MS406 and Bloch 152 was pressed into service as such.
Both airforces regretted the earlier sale of such aircraft to Balkan nations and Turkey but that had been a means to not letting these drift towards Nazi-Germany and Mussolini's Fascist Italy.

The Hurricane was stripped of its 8 MG's and given 2 20mm Cannon instead and racks for bombs. No need to carry weighty ordenance around designed to kill people when You wanted to destroy fortifications and Tanks and just inflict as much damage as possible.
All three aircraft having rather robust airframes and being resonably agile and the French already carrying Cannon was organized in new close-support units and pilots trained in their new job.
To the veterans of the October 1939 attack the effectiveness of German lowlevel light FLAK was well remembered and the assignment termed a suicide mission. Though somebody had to carry it out.
As the Airforces brass said ”take a low cost aircraft with low cost weapons and get maximum return and if fail lose just one man!”
Certainly a better outcome than the French newly designated Attack Groups during the early days of war that had suffered high losses or the light bombers on like operations.
It worked and Pilots of such units never had to pay their drink when in a bar filled with Army troops.

January 1 1941 the WAllies unleashed a new offensive having rebuild the tank losses of August 1940.
The Germans would have spend Christmas in the cold of their trenches.
With more than 3 million men in combat formations trained in the new way of fighting the WAllies felt quite ready for attempting a ”push”.
The Armoured formations now looked quite different than the year before – a not insignificant part of its Infantry would ride in APC's build by Lorraine for the French Army and Renault for the BEF.
The French Motorized Infantry formations had become all motorized by the acquiring of US trucks mainly 4x4 and 6x4 ones to make them able to negotiate terrain. Gone were the days of truck pools for the French Motorized Infantry making them a much more efficient part of motorized operations making units able to hold onto gained ground.
With their huge numbers of now obsolete tanks the French had stripped quite a number of these to use the chassis for motorizing Artillery formations making these too able to follow up on keeping territory gained from the enemy.
The Strategic Bombers were kept on attacking German infrastructure mainly the bridges on the Rhine and to keep the Luftwaffe Fighters occupied.
Light Bombers and Tactical Airunits would support the ground operations. Light Bombers though from altitude to be out of range of light FLAK.

The German defences in the Belgium Ardennes would hold but in the other parts of Belgium the WAllies achieved a breakthrough being on the Dutch border at Maastricht and the Rhine by February 1.
A month later the Germans withdrew from the Belgian Ardennes as the French had invaded and fought their way through Luxembourg successfully and almost cut off the German defenders retreat.

Hitler was furious but even the Nazi-oriented General were beginning to doubt the sanity of the war that was beginning to resemble the end of the Great War which wasn't reassuring.
True the Soviet reopening of the pipeline in the East had helped with fuel mainly but cotton still had to be cut sewn for dress and uniform. Other raw materials had gone right to factories that had lowered output for several months though this wasn't a fairey's wand being moved but a slow trickle slightly increasing.
Some began thinking that soon the French would be entering the Rheinland and Pfalz and this time Saarbrucken would remain French!

The WAllied offensive of 1 January 1941 had been carried out to no small amount of intelligence gathered from Neutral Nations and from information gathered by Spy Networks in Germany and no less so from accounts of Neutrals travelling in Germany for business or as Military Attaché's.

The use of Enigma had also taken on a role as a means to keep track of the whereabouts of various German military units and their composition of the three services.
The British that had been quite adept at radiointerception during the 1930's had seen this resurface to paint the more detailled picture of the German intentions and more information on troop dispositions.

One of the Enigma intercepts was Luftwaffe repositioning part of the AA-units supporting the Army to various areas of Germany that had been subjected to WAllied strategic bombing notably the Ruhr but also other areas around Germany.
The Germans moving off their ultimate Tank defence proved too good to be true. But it was. With less big AT-guns and a dwindling Tank production it served to deliver the defeat of Germany.

There had been proposals to mine the Rhine River but the sudden collapse of the German defences in Belgium and the subsequent WAllied advance to the German border and on to the Rhine at Cologne had made the plan obsolete as it was figured that WAllied aircraft could do the job and thus the risk of having mines drifting into Dutch territory would be avoided.

Instead of assaulting Cologne on the western bank of the Rhine which the Germans were busy fortifying the BEF instead drove up the western bank to the turn of the Rhine into the Netherlands – quite suitable terrain for a Mechanized thrust. A southern thrust reached Bonn only halting at the Eifels.
Those advances also helped to see the Germans evacuate those parts of the Westwall east of the Rhine to be evacuated. Though these defences had been thinned out for personnel since October 1939 it still contributed to the German soldiers feeling of defeat. And losing faith in the Nazi-regime.

The Germans pulling out of the Belgian Ardennes then had to turn southest to avoid the British on the western bank of the Rhine and skirt the Luxembourg border to get to the Mosel River Valley.

Having the Germans on the run the French kept up the pursuit from the Belgian Ardennes on the heels of the retreating Germans but also attacking out of Luxembourg towards the Northeast and Rhine River; as the French advanced they found the Westwall behind the German border virtually unoccupied and was able to clear a broad hole to make vehicles pass through.
The German gift of the HEAT-ammunition was now used to knock-out those bunkers occupied. Because of the crammed conditions within the thick-walled bunkers only a few hits were usually required to make the Germans evacuate the bunker if they survived.
Even the German generals had been critical of the defences as built and some planned extensions and improved areas hadn't been carried out due to the early launch of the German attack but also due to the constant lack of materials and workers.
Because of these deficiencies the French was able to breach the impregnable Westwall with little difficulty much to their surprise.

Thus the retreating Germans ended up in the area north of the Rhenish Massif south of Bonn; with the British pressing on down the Rhine the Germans did what they could to get as many troops across the Rhine in the freezing conditions.

In Pfalz things suddenly began developing as the German troops there realized the difficulty of their position about to be squeezed from the north by the advancing French Army out of Luxembourg and Trier.
A hasty defence was being set up on the Hunsruck by 1. German Army though already it had had units siphoned off for establishing defences on the Rhine further north as was the case of 7. German Army along the Rhine in the south in Baden.