Allies

"Small Unit Leadership: A Commonsense Approach47 by retired US Army Colonel Mike Malone because of the practical advice this decorated combat infantry leader gives young officers and NCOs. You cannot, he admonishes, give in to the urge to check and control everybody. In the heat of battle, there isn’t time. You have to trust your soldiers and subordinate leaders to do the right thing under the stress of combat. But, and this is the key point, this trust cannot be wished for or assumed. It must be earned through training and working together, as the German Army did between the two world wars when it was reduced to a small core of career professionals (an “unintended consequence” of the surrender terms imposed by the Allies at Versailles.)"

"To summarize the Allies’ position, they knew an attack was coming, and they knew where it was coming—in the 200-mile gap between the Maginot Line and the English Channel. In this area, they had about the same number of troops as their enemy, and this in an era when one was supposed to need a three-to-one advantage in order to mount a successful attack. Most amazing of all, the French had even foreseen the possibility that the Germans would attack where they actually did, and they had prepared an answer for it With all of this going for them, how could the French and British lose?"