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By breakfast time warrior King Leopold's Belgians were killing Germans, and being killed (see below). Prepared to let the whole northeast lobe of their country go undefended, Queen Wilhelmina's little Army made its first stand along the west banks of the rivers Ijssel and Maas until their rear water belts should rise, their Allies come.*By mid-morning Friday, bulletins began to pour in reporting the crash and clank of 40 German divisions invading the Eastern frontiers. (Sixty more waited in reserve.) From Emden one column struck across the Ems estuary at Delfzijl, aiming at the big Groningen air base and at the Great Dike which harnesses the Ijssel Sea, keeps its waters high enough to flood the lowlands if needed. Other Nazi spearheads aimed for Zwolle and Deventer down the Ijssel first defense line. More powerful columns struck for Arnhem, at the base of this line, and Venlo and Roermond down on the Maas defense line (see map). Besides the familiar German power array (tanks, armored cars and motorcycles, troop charabancs, tractor-drawn artillery caissons and ammunition trucks) columns moved over the railroads in armored trains of which the Dutch destroyed four, including one completely blasted with all hands on the bridge at Venlo. Dutch demolition squads opened draw bridges and smashed their mechanism. They touched off dynamite charges wired on trees, to strew the roads. When the Germans unlimbered rubber boats (of which Berlin boasted they had 185,000) to paddle across the rivers and canals, Dutch machine-gunners let fly. But still the crushing avalanche of manpower moved ahead, myriad low airplanes bombing and strafing a passage for them.
At Maastricht, at Gemmenich, at Mal-medy, across Luxembourg (whence Grand Duchess Charlotte fled safely to France) in the direction of Arlon and Neufchateau, rolled more German columns. In the Moselle Valley opposite Sierck, a German division sallied toward the Maginot Line. From the Moselle south to Switzerland, the Westwall lay ominously quiet. Between 20 and 30 divisions were massed at its south end on the Swiss railroad. The Swiss mobilized in full force (525,000), guessing their turn was next now that Adolf Hitler's decisive hour had come. In the North, observers quickly gauged the German strategy so far as it had been unfolded.
Stab and Swing. The pattern of air bombardment and aerial troop landings in Holland indicated the Germans' intention to stab straight through from Arnhem and Venlo to the sea; to isolate and seize rich, populous Zuid (South) Holland and with it the Zeeland Islands at the rivers' mouths. Taking these objectives would put Germany in position to smash across the North Sea from close range at Britain, and down the coast to the Channel ports to cut Britain off from France.
The drives at Maastricht, Malmedy and across Luxembourg indicated the Germans' second purpose: to roll up Belgium's Liege fort system and the Ardennes. If they penetrated, these drives could pivot with the Armies in The Netherlands in a classic Schlieffen Plan swing upon Paris from the North, driving the French Army before it to ultimate envelopment in the east of France.