French war planning 1920–1940
The Dyle Plan or Plan D was the plan of the Commander-in-Chief of the French Army, Général d'armée Maurice Gamelin, to defeat a German attempt to invade France through Belgium. The Dyle (Dijle) river is 86 km (53 mi) long, from Houtain-le-Val through Flemish Brabant and Antwerp; Gamelin intended French, British and Belgian troops to halt a German invasion force along the line of the river. The Franco-Belgian Accord of 1920 had co-ordinated communication and fortification efforts of both armies. After the German Remilitarization of the Rhineland on 7 March 1936, the Belgian government abrogated the accord and substituted a policy of strict neutrality, now that the German Army was on the German–Belgian border.
Western Front campaign, 1940
1939 poster from the Ministry of Armament, "With your scrap we shall forge the steel of victory!"
The Rhineland as defined by the Treaty of Versailles, part contiguous with the Belgian frontier.
German Panzer IV (photographed on 22 June 1940)
Maurice Gustave Gamelin was a French general. He is remembered for his disastrous command of the French military during the Battle of France in World War II and his steadfast defence of republican values.
General Gamelin c. 1940