@SuperbattleshipYamato Risking a bit of a Necro to say I am green with envy that you have ‘French Army Order of Battle 1939-1945’, it is not easy to get hold of! It’s a very interesting scenario imo. Niehosters website seems to indicate that Germany had 30 divisions assigned to Heersgruppe C in 1939, with another 11 assigned to OKW reserve for this Heersgruppe so 41 total. Presumably the Germans were fully mobilized unlike the French and were behind the formidable (if incomplete) Aachen-Saar fortifications. Many of the divisions are high numbered or from late Welle divisions but I think many of the French divisions were Light Cavalry/C category reservists anyway. So the figures are 71 French divisions and 41 German.
The French would have been risking alot of their best regular divisions in such an attack and even a wildly successful attack would have ran into the Rhine/Mossel rivers. I imagine the experience of 1914 would have given such an attack a bad taste in the mouth of most French generals, particularly as their plan was to fight the Germans together in 1941 with the British.
I have a low key theory that the French genuinely were attacking pretty much as fast as they were able in September 1939. They started their attack on the 7th day of mobilisation (which is the minimum amount of time to bring their heavy guns forward from the positions behind the Maginot) then stopped after advancing through the German outpost line to the limit of the guns range, fended off a counterattack, then stopped for another 7 days to bring the guns forward (now into actual range of the main line) with French mobilisation scheduled to finish on September 16th. However, on the 14th the news of the Soviet invasion and Polish collapse arrived, rendering their attack near pointless to help the Poles. This pace of attack fits near perfect with French ‘Battle Methodic’ doctrine.
During the time the press (and British High Command) tore into the French for their slowness, and were joined postwar by Wehrmacht generals and Americans and was presented as a great missed opportunity, but the more I look at this the more I am coming to see it as a manufactured myth. The only way the French would have been ready to launch an attack in September 1939 is if they had mobilized with (or before) the Germans, and that was something the British (and much of the public) staunchly opposed, just as they stopped Poland from mobilizing until too late. The fear that mobilisation would trigger a war was too great.
Please feel free to poke holes in my theory!
