Western Europe · France vs Germany
Saar Offensive
7 September 1939 – 17 October 1939
France's only offensive action of the Phoney War: eleven divisions advanced a few miles into the Saarland while Germany was still fighting in Poland, then halted on Anglo-French order and withdrew without reaching the Siegfried Line. It was the sole western-front fighting between the declarations of war and the Norway campaign the following spring.
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Day by day
— Into the Saar
Eleven divisions of Pretelat's Second Army Group advance from the Maginot Line on a 32-kilometre front either side of Saarbruecken. Contact is with outposts only: the German First Army is under orders to fall back on the Westwall. Mines and booby traps do most of the killing.
— Halt
The French hold the Warndt Forest and a strip of German ground eight kilometres deep at most, some twenty villages. The Supreme War Council at Abbeville decides that with Poland lost nothing more is to be gained, and Gamelin orders offensive action stopped that evening.
— Back to the line
The French pulled back to the Maginot Line by night from 3 October, leaving rearguards. Divisions freed from Poland let the Germans follow up, and on 16 and 17 October they retake the lost villages and push patrols into French ground. The front then sleeps until May.
