Fall Gelb

Background

The Manstein plan was a counterpart to the French Dyle plan for the Battle of France. Lieutenant-GeneralErich von Manstein dissented from the 1939 versions of Fall Gelb (Case Yellow), a plan for an invasion of France and the Low Countries, devised by Franz Halder. The original Aufmarschanweisung N°1, Fall Gelb (Campaign Instruction No 1, Case Yellow), was a plan to push the Allied forces back through central Belgium to the Somme river in northern France, with similarities to the 1914 campaign of the First World War. On 10 January 1940, a German aircraft carrying documents with parts of the plan for Fall Gelb crashed in Belgium (the Mechelen Incident) prompting another review of the invasion plan. Halder revised Fall Gelb to an extent in Aufmarschanweisung N°3, Fall Gelb and Manstein was able to convince Hitler in a meeting, on 17 February, that the Wehrmacht should attack through the Ardennes, followed by an advance to the Channel coast.