It is an illusion to believe that one can work out a plan of campaign far in advance and then carry it through to the end. The first collision with the enemy’s main body, and the outcome of that clash, creates a new situation (Lage).
Usually shortened in military discourse to “no plan survives contact with the enemy,” it has become one of the most quoted aphorisms in the canon. The condensed version usually leaves off the important qualifier about “the first collision with the enemy’s main body” (der erste Zusammenstoss mit der feindlichen Hauptmacht), but it works nonetheless as a general truism, warning the commander that the enemy will have something to say about how things go.
The only problem with this famous quote is that it is not true. Sometimes—rarely, to be sure, but sometimes—your plans go off exactly as you draw them up, or even succeed beyond your wildest dreams. The Wehrmacht had already had a few such moments in this war: Case Yellow in 1940, for example, or Operation 25, the campaign in Yugoslavia in 1941. Another wildly successful undertaking was Operation Axis. In any operation, so much depends on the attitude of the enemy. Some fight tooth and nail, some put up a good appearance, and some disappear altogether. In response to Operation Axis, the Italian army chose the third option.
