Editing Blitzkrieg (section)

===Continuity===
It has been argued that blitzkrieg was not new, and that the Germans did not invent something called blitzkrieg in the 1920s and 1930s.{{sfn|Citino|2005|p=311}}{{sfn|Frieser|2005|pp=326–328}} Rather, the German concept of wars of movement and concentrated force were seen in wars of [[Prussia]] and the [[Unification of Germany|German Wars of Unification]]. The first European general to introduce rapid movement, concentrated power and integrated military effort was Swedish King [[Gustavus Adolphus]] during the [[Thirty Years' War]]. The appearance of the aircraft and tank in the First World War, called an RMA, offered the German military a chance to get back to the traditional war of movement as practiced by [[Moltke the Elder]]. The so-called "blitzkrieg campaigns" of 1939 to around 1942 were well within that operational context.{{sfn|Citino|2005|p=311}}

At the outbreak of war, the German army had no radically new theory of war. The operational thinking of the German army had not changed significantly since the First World War or since the late 19th century. J. P. Harris and [[Robert M. Citino]] point out that the Germans had always had a marked preference for short decisive campaigns but were unable to achieve short-order victories in First World War conditions. The transformation from the stalemate of the First World War into tremendous initial operational and strategic success in the Second World War was partly the employment of a relatively-small number of mechanized divisions, most importantly the Panzer divisions, and the support of an exceptionally powerful [[air force]].{{sfn|Harris|1995|pp=344–345}}