Now, in the 1920s Germany practiced how to move armor in Communist Russia (and the Russian watched and learned, but Stalin had killed off or sent to Siberia his top officers during the purges of the late 1930s, Stalin had to bring those senior officers still alive back to Moscow to defeat the Nazis).
In many ways the German Army looked at how it could modernized in the 1920s, when such planning was technically illegal under the Treaty of Versailles. The German army also supported the "Free Corps" to put down the Communist revolution in Germany in 1919 (with approval of the Western Allies, even through the "Free Corps" were technically illegal under the Versailles treaty). The Free Corps were technically disbanded in 1920 but they were the center of the NAZI party's SA till the SA was smashed in 1934 in the "Night of Long Knives" that Hitler carried out to appease the German Generals.
Anyway, between the making of weapons overseas using German machinery and a clear idea of what the German Army wanted when it did expand, the 1920s was a key decade for the German Army. The decision to go to a General Purpose Machine Gun was made at that time period (and ended in the production of the MG34, the best Machine Gun of WWII except for the later German MG42). The Decision to stay with the 105mm Howitzer for it had perform well during WWI was also made in the 1920s (The US also decided to go with the 105mm Howitzer for the same reasons, it was the best artillery piece of WWI and would be the best Artillery pieces of WWII on the Western Front, it would be the best till self propelled artillery permitted the use of 155mm howitzers with the same type of quick emplacement to replace the 105 starting in the 1950s).
Aircraft were in a constant flux during the 1920s, Flaps were only invented in 1919 (and made anything before it obsolete, this rate of obsolescences do to the invention of Flaps exceeds even the later replacement of prop planes with Jets). By the late 1920s it was understood that sooner or later the monoplane would make a come back and replace the biplane. The need for higher speeds in planes would require that pilots be in fully enclosed cockpits (something Pilots of WWI and even as late as the 1930s opposed, they wanted to be able o extend they bodies over the side of the plane to see what was around them). Thus German research started to look into such planes (The ME 108 four passenger plane and the later ME-109 fighters were a result).
The German foremost Ace of WWI that survived the war, favored dive bombers, for such planes could hit a tank in the middle of a road, something that would take a luckily hit by other methods of bombing till the Smart bombs came into use in the 1960s (This permitted Germany to hit targets with more bombs, even as the total number of bombs they dropped were 1/10th or less of what bombers of other countries could drop. Allies Air forces, except for the US Navy, preferred dropping more bombs as the solution to hitting a target.
The above gave Germany a head-start over and above the fact that Hitler started Germany rearmament in 1934 (Another example of this is the US WWII Battleships, none were built between 1919 and 1936, but the US Navy went into research on how to make them better, thus no US Battleships were lost during WWII when on the high seas, even as their exchanged fire with French and Japanese Battleships).
Side note: After Pearl Harbor, the US Sent two of its Atlantic battleships to the Pacific, thus putting the US Pacific fleet one battleship less then the Japanese in the Pacific. When it became clear that the Japanese was NOT going to hit the West Coast, the damages battleships were withdrawn and sent to Various West Coast ports to be rebuilt to be used in later US Naval Offensive, When one of the new Battleships was launched in 1942, it was sent to the Atlantic, for Germany was seen as the Greater threat and engaged French Battleships when the US invaded French North Africa in November 1942.
The French and British had a hard time recovering from WWI. Both had near communist revolts in 1919 (thus no big push to invade Germany in 1919, in many ways the Treaty of Versailles, while punitive to Germany, was wanted by the allies so they could divert their forces to put down the various labor strikes and communist revolts of the 1918-1921 period (The US was NOT immune, the 1919 Steel Strike was violently put down and 20,000 miners participated in the West Virginia Coal War of 1921).
The US Boomed during the 1920s, for the first time in US History, the US became a net creditor (i.e. was loaning more money overseas then it was borrowing), Some of that wealth spread to Europe, but no enough to restore Europe to what it was in 1913. France decided to tear down the old walls and Forts of Paris (which had to a degree protected Paris in 1914, but had been viewed with distrust for decades for the Commune of 1871 had been protected by those walls. Paris followed the example of Vienna, building a wide boulevard where the wall had been and selling the land not needed by the Boulevard to pay for the Maginot line.
The Maginot line was used till the Soviet Union developed the means to hit a target with one round from one of its jet bombers in the 1970s. Prior to that the Maginot line was a good fortification. The Germans did NOT break through it. The Americans did so in late 1944, but from the side it was designed to protect (and undermanned for most German Soldiers were then in Poland fighting Russians).
Side note: The Maginot line consisted of two sets of Forts. First was the ones from Switzerland to Luxembourg. These were NEVER penetrated by the Germans. A second set on the border with Luxembourg. The hard points (forts) were further apart then in the earlier built section to save money, this is the section of the Maginot line the German broke through AFTER the French were pulling out troops to use elsewhere including protecting the Government as it vacated Paris. As one historian pointed out, the Maginot line did its job. IT forced the Germans to go through Belgium and the Netherlands, which all it was designed to do.
Anyway, from 1919 to 1940 French plans were simple, to prevent any incursion into Alsace and fight a war of maneuver in Belgium.
The problem was that in the 1930s, France was going through the same pressure Germany was going through, but France did not pick a Fascist ruler, instead opted for a Communist-Socialist coalition that the Right Wing (who were strong in the Officer Corp) opposed. As Germany went from its design phase of the 1920s straight into rearmament in 1934, France went into a non-violent Civil War between its Right and Left Wing. The Army thus was short changed and this internal Civil War did not end till 1938 (in fact the Munich Agreement was more an attempt to delay the war everyone knew was coming, so that Britain and France could get their militaries up to par with the Germans, something the French thought would take to 1941, a position also agreed to by the Germans).
France had decided to adopt what many considered the best bolt action military rifle ever made, the Model 1936. France had used Semi-automatic rifles in WWI, and found them wanting (most were pieces of junk). Thus the French took the German Mauser model 1898 Action (the Strongest bolt action ever made) and then moved the lock for the bolt from in front of the bolt to the rear, as in the British Lee Enfield. Thus you had the strength of the Mauser and the Speed of the Lee Enfield.
Side note: The Lee Enfield was designed in the 1880s, and was to be replaced in 1914-1920 period, but WWI started and the fact that the Lee Enfield was rear locking meant that the bolt only had to be pulled back the length of the round NOT the round and the lock. Thus the Mauser, which locks in front of the bolt, has a mas fire rate of 14 rounds per minutes, while the Lee Enfield can do 20. The M1 Rifle could do 30, and the M16 can do 40 in the semi-automatic mode (The M16 can fire faster in the fully automatic mode, but at the cost of less accuracy, i.e more bullets down range, but less bullets on target, thus we use the semi-automatic numbers).
The French had updated their M1897 75 mm Cannon, during WWII it had rubber wheels. It was a very good cannon, better then the 105mm in direct fire situation (Thus US Sherman Tanks used a variation of m1897 as its main gun even in 1945), but less effective in the more common situation in Western Europe of indirect fire support. French Airplanes were of early 1930s design, thus in the Battle for France in 1940, the French Troops came to see the sky being flown by Germans in ME-109s or British in Spitfires or Hurricanes. This was the result of the fact no French Planes had been designed in the 1936-1938 period (some were designed in the 1938-1940 period, but few were built).
Worse, French Troops had NOT been trained as while as their fathers had been in 1914. Training went down hill with the generally lack of fund 1934-1938, and with the Declaration of War in 1939, the troops were sent to the front to defend, instead of being kept back to train. Poland asked for assistance and the French did invade Germany in September 1939, but that had the problem of making the lack of training worse. Armies always deteriorate as they fight. They get sloppy and if faced with a well trained unit torn to pieces no matter how veteran they are. Thus went units are in combat, they should be pulled out and re-trained. The problem is it is hard to re-train if the unit is in combat OR in a position to defend from a potential attack. The September 1939 offensive kept the French Army from training till it withdrew behind the Maginot line in October 1939. Then it had to be put into a position to defend, for Germany had defeated Poland and was moving its Armies from Poland to the French Border.
On the surface the French Army was equal to the German Army in 1940, but the Germany Army had been training for at least two years while the French Army had only pulled some of its units back from the front to re-train. France had some good tanks, bigger, engines, more armor, more powerful gun, but overall poor design compared to the Germans. The British tanks followed the German tank lines except The British had two tanks, one a slow tank to provide fire support for the infantry and second a "Cruiser" tank that was intended to replace cavalry, it was under gunned, under armored and they crews were NOT trained to work with Infantry as while the German Tankers were.
Overall, France needed another year. Hitler knew this and is why he invaded Poland when he did. His German Generals said Germany would not be fully ready for war till 1943, but by then the French would have caught up in terms of supplies and training. Thus the superiority of Germany over France and Britain was coming to an end, probably would have ended in 1941 (By 1941 Britain was out producing Germany in all aspects of War, except by then Britain had no European allies left).
The above was the supply and training problems. Another was tactics, the French Generals took a while to understand that unlike WWI, by 1940 you could replace artillery with bombs from planes. At least once, French Generals did not think an attack would occur, for the Germans had a lack of Artillery to support such an attack, but then the German Attack supported by Ju-87 Dive bombers and other bombers providing the needed fire support. To a degree training would have brought this up, but the lack of training between 1934-1938 was again fatal.
Sorry, the Strategy of the French in 1940 was sound, wait till the supplies, equipment and training of your army caught up with the Germans before you did any offensive action. The problem was that same lack of Supplies, Equipment and Training meant that in any war of maneuver the French would come in second. Strategy was NOT the problem, it was the lack of Supplies, Equipment and Training that did in the French in 1940.
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