By early November 1939, Brauchitsch and Chief of the General Staff Franz Halder started to consider overthrowing Hitler, who had fixed "X-day", the invasion of France, as 12 November 1939. Both officers believed that the invasion was doomed to fail. On 5 November 1939, the Army General Staff prepared a special memorandum purporting to recommend against launching an attack on the Western powers that year. Brauchitsch reluctantly agreed to read the document to Hitler and did so in a meeting on 5 November. Brauchitsch attempted to talk Hitler into putting off X-day by saying that morale in the German Army was worse than in 1918, a statement that enraged Hitler. He harshly berated Brauchitsch for incompetence. Brauchitsch went on to complain: "The aggressive spirit of the German infantry is sadly below the standard of the First World War ... have been certain symptoms of insubordination similar to those of 1917–18."