This was deemed too risky by the Dutch government and General Reijnders. The Government wanted the army to resist at the Grebbe Line and Peel Raam Position, and then fall back to the Fortress Holland. Reijnders was not given full military authority in the defence zones. On 5 February 1940 he resigned because of these disagreements with his superiors. He was replaced by General Henry G. Winkelman who decided that in the north the Grebbe Line would be where the battle was to be fought, partly because it would be easier to counterattack.
During the Phoney War the Dutch said they were neutral. In secret, the Dutch military talked with both Belgium and France to organize a common defence to a German invasion. This failed because of differences of opinion about which strategy to follow.
Belgium, though it said it was neutral, had made arrangements for working with Allied troops. This made it more difficult for the Dutch to make arrangements with the Belgians. He did not approve of a plan by Van Voorst tot Voorst to occupy the "Orange Position to form a continuous line with the Belgian lines.
When Winkelman took over command, he proposed on 21 February that Belgium would set up a connecting line with the Peel Raam Position along the Belgian part of the Zuid-Willemsvaart. The Belgians refused to do this unless the Dutch sent in new troops in Limburg. The Dutch had no forces available. Repeated Belgian requests to defend the Orange Position were refused by Winkelman.
Therefore, the Belgians decided to withdraw, in an invasion, all their troops to their main defence line, the Albert Canal. This created a gap forty kilometres wide. The French were asked to fill it. Now the French Commander in Chief General Maurice Gamelin was more than interested in including the Dutch in his continuous line. But he would not stretch his supply lines that far unless the Belgians and Dutch would take the allied side. When both nations refused, Gamelin said he would occupy a position near Breda.
Winkelman decided on 30 March to abandon the Peel-Raam Position after a German attack. He withdrew his Third Army Corps to the Linge. This Waal-Linge Position was planned to have pillboxes; the budget for pillboxes was increased with a hundred million guilders.
In addition to the Dutch Army and the German 18th Army, a third force would operate on Dutch soil: the French 7th Army. Both the French and the Germans saw the possibility of a surprise attack. For the Germans this would mean bypassing the Antwerp-Namur line.
Rapid forces were needed to protect important locations from the enemy. Long before the Germans did, the French had thought of using airborne troops to do speedy attacks. A naval division and an infantry division were set to go to Zealand to block the Western Scheldt against a German crossing.
French Commander in Chief General Maurice Gamelin feared the Dutch would surrender or accept German protection. He reassigned the former French strategic reserve, the 7th Army, to go in front of Antwerp. The force consisted of the 16th Army Corps, the 9th Motorised and the 4th Infantry Division; and the 1st Army Corps, consisting of the 25th Motorised Infantry Division and the 21st Infantry Division.
This army was later reinforced by the 1st Mechanised Light Division, an armoured division of the French Cavalry. Together with the two divisions in Zealand, seven French divisions were to be used.
Although the French troops would have more motorised units than the Germans, they could not hope to reach their places in the battle before the enemy did. Their only prospect of beating the Germans was using rail transport.
They would have to build up their forces near Breda. They needed the Dutch troops in the Peel-Raam Position to delay the Germans for a few extra days to allow French forces to move in and dig trenches. These consisted of the reconnaissance units of the armoured and motorised divisions, with armoured cars. These would be put into two task forces.
During the plans for "Fall Gelb" the idea of leaving the Fortress Holland alone was considered. The first plan of 19 October 1939 suggested a full occupation. In the version of 29 October it was proposed to limit the invasion to a line south of Venlo. In the "Holland-Weisung" (Holland Directive) of 15 November it was decided to conquer the entire south, but in the north to advance no further than the Grebbe Line, and to occupy the Frisian Isles.
Hermann Göring wanted a full capture of Holland as he needed the Dutch airfields to use against Britain. He was afraid the Allies might reinforce Fortress Holland and use the airfields to bomb German cities and troops. A swift defeat would also free troops for other sectors.
On 17 January 1940 they decided to conquer all of the Netherlands. However, few units were available for this task. The main effort of "Fall Gelb" would be made in the centre, between Namur and Sedan. The attack at central Belgium was only a trick; and the attack at Fortress Holland only a trick as well.
Although both the 6th and 18th Army were in place at the Dutch border, the first, larger force would move south of Venlo to Belgium. This would leave just the 18th Army under General Georg von Küchler to attack the Dutch main force.
Of all German armies in the battle, this was the weakest. It contained only four regular infantry divisions (the 207th, 227th, 254th and 256th Infantry Divisions), assisted by three reserve divisions (208th, 225th, and 526th Infantry Divisions). Six of these divisions were units created in August 1939 from territorial "Landwehr" units. They had few professional officers and little fighting experience.
Like the Dutch Army, most soldiers (88%) lacked training. The seventh division was the 526th Infantry Division, which lacked combat training. The German divisions had 17,807 men, fifty percent larger than their Dutch counterparts. They had twice their firepower, but even so they did mot have enough men for a successful attack.
To add more men, the only German cavalry division, the 1st "Kavalleriedivision" was told to capture the weakly defended provinces east of the river IJssel. A landing in Holland near Enkhuizen was to be attempted, using barges. As both efforts were unlikely to do well, the regular divisions were reinforced by the "SS-Verfügungsdivision" (including "SS-Standarten" "Der Führer", "Deutschland" and "Germania") and "Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler". These would attack the Dutch fortified positions. Still this added only 1 division to the equation.
To ensure a victory the Germans used new methods. The Germans had trained two airborne divisions. The first of these, the "7. Flieger-Division", was paratroopers; the second, the 22nd "Luftlande-Infanteriedivision", of airborne infantry. The airborne troops would capture the airfields around The Hague, and then capture that government, together with the Dutch High Command and Queen Wilhelmina.
The plan, "Fall Festung", had been developed by Hitler. If the first attack did not succeed, the bridges at Rotterdam, Dordrecht and Moerdijk would be captured to allow a mechanised force to move in. This force was to be the German 9th Panzer Division. They were the only German armoured division having just two tank battalions. the total number of tanks in the group was 141. The plan was for them to go through a gap in the Dutch lines created by the 254th and 256th Infantry Divisions. Then they would join up with them, forming the "XXVI. Armeekorps". At the same time, an attack would be made against the Grebbe Line in the east by the 207th and 227th Infantry Divisions, united to form "X. Armeekorps", to fight the Dutch Army. The plan was to force the Dutch back to the east front of the Fortress Holland or beyond. If the Dutch did not surrender on the first day, the Eighteenth Army would attack Fortress Holland on the third day from the south.