ABSTRACT
Gamelin had possessed a strategic mass of maneuver, but he had directed these forces a priori to the Breda Variant. Gamelin assigned Giraud's Seventh Army to execute the dangerous Breda Variant, a scheme designed to save the Dutch Army and secure important bases on the North Sea. Appropriately enough the execution of the Breda Variant was a fiasco and confirmed all of Giraud's and Georges' well-founded suspicions. The Breda Variant did not strengthen the Allied cause in spite of the addition of ten Duich divisions. The Breda Variant also promised to secure the North Sea communications and to keep the Escaut River open for commerce, thereby easing Allied logistical problems in Belgium. Since the end of the First World War the French High Command had been building its defenses against another German offensive on the premise that the main thrust would come through Belgium.
