The Second World War (19 page)

With three German bridgeheads established round Sedan, Dinant and a smaller one in between near Monthermé, where Reinhardt’s XLI Panzer Corps was starting to catch up after a tough fight, a breach nearly eighty kilometres across was about to open in the French front. There would have been a good chance of crushing the German spearheads if French commanders had reacted more rapidly. On the Sedan sector, General Pierre Lafontaine of the 55th Division had already been given two extra infantry regiments and two battalions of light tanks, but he did not issue his orders for the counter-attack for nine hours. The tank battalions were also slowed by fleeing soldiers from the 51st Division blocking the roads and by poor communications. During the night, the Germans had wasted no time in getting more of their panzers across the Meuse. The French tanks finally went into action in the early morning, but the vast majority were knocked out. The collapse of the 51st Division had meanwhile triggered panic in neighbouring formations.

The Allied air forces sent in 152 bombers and 250 fighters that morning to attack the pontoon bridges over the Meuse. But the targets proved too small to hit, Luftwaffe Messerschmitt squadrons were out in force and the German flak detachments put up a murderous fire. The RAF suffered its worst casualty rate ever, with forty bombers out of seventy-one shot down. The French, in desperation, then sent in some of their most
obsolete bombers which were massacred. Georges ordered forward an untested armoured division and a motorized infantry division under General Jean Flavigny, but they were delayed by lack of fuel. Flavigny was directed to attack the Sedan bridgehead from the south because, like Huntziger, Georges thought that the main threat was on the right.

Another counter-attack was attempted to the north by the 1st Armoured Division against Rommel’s bridgehead. But again delays proved fatal due to Belgian refugees blocking roads and petrol bowsers unable to get through. The next morning, 15 May, Rommel’s spearhead surprised the division’s heavy B1 tanks as they were refuelling. A confused battle began, with the French tank crews at a severe disadvantage. Rommel left the 5th Panzer Division to continue the battle while he surged on ahead. If they had been ready, the French tanks could have scored a significant victory. In the event, although the French 1st Armoured Division managed to destroy nearly a hundred German tanks, it was virtually annihilated by the end of the day, mainly by German anti-tank guns.

The Allied forces in the Low Countries still had little idea of the threat to their rear. On 13 May, General Prioux’s Cavalry Corps fought a determined withdrawal to the line of the Dyle, where the rest of Blanchard’s First Army was getting into position. Although Prioux’s Somua tanks were well armoured, German gunnery and manoeuvre were far better, and the lack of radios in the French tanks proved a major handicap. Having lost nearly half its strength after a valiant battle, Prioux’s corps was withdrawn. It was in no state to attack south-east against the Ardennes breakthrough as Gamelin wanted.

The French Seventh Army began to withdraw towards Antwerp after its fruitless advance to Breda to link up with the isolated Dutch forces. Although ill trained and badly armed, the Dutch troops fought bravely against the 9th Panzer Division fighting its way towards Rotterdam. The German Eighteenth Army commander was frustrated by their resistance, but finally that evening the panzers broke through.

The next day, the Dutch negotiated the surrender of Rotterdam, but the German commander had failed to inform the Luftwaffe. A major bombing raid was mounted on the city. Over 800 civilians were killed. The Dutch foreign minister claimed that evening that 30,000 had been killed, an announcement which caused horror in Paris and London. In any case, General Henri Winkelman, the Dutch commander-in-chief, decided on a general surrender to avoid further loss of life. Hitler, on hearing the news, promptly ordered a triumphal march through Amsterdam with units from the SS
Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler
and the 9th Panzer Division.

Hitler was both amused and exasperated when he received a telegram
from the former Kaiser Wilhelm II, still in his Dutch exile at Apeldoorn.
‘My Führer,’ it read, ‘I congratulate you
and hope that under your marvellous leadership the German monarchy will be restored completely.’ Hitler was amazed that the old Kaiser expected him to play Bismarck. ‘What an idiot!’ he said to his valet, Linge.

The French counter-attack planned against the eastern part of the Sedan salient for 14 May was first delayed and then called off by General Flavigny, the commander of XXI Corps. He made the disastrous decision to split up the 3rd Armoured Division simply to create a defensive line between Chémery and Stonne. Huntziger was still convinced that the Germans were heading south behind the Maginot Line. He accordingly pivoted his army round to bar the route to the south. This succeeded only in opening up the route to the west.

General von Kleist, when informed of the arrival of French reinforcements, ordered Guderian to halt until more forces came up to protect that flank. After another fierce row, Guderian managed to convince him that he could continue his advance with the 1st and 2nd Panzer Divisions, providing he sent the 10th Panzer Division and the
Grossdeutschland
Infantry Regiment under the Graf von Schwerin against the village of Stonne, high on a commanding hill. Early on 15 May, the
Grossdeutschland
went straight into the attack without waiting for the 10th Panzer. Flavigny’s tank crews fought back, and the village changed hands several times in the course of the day with heavy casualties on both sides. In the narrow streets of the village, the
Grossdeutschland
anti-tank guns finally knocked out the heavy B1 tanks, and the exhausted German infantrymen were reinforced by panzergrenadiers from the 10th Panzer. The
Grossdeutschland
had lost 103 men killed and 459 wounded. It was the heaviest German loss in the whole campaign.

General Corap began to withdraw his Ninth Army, but that sparked a rapid disintegration and further widened the gap. Reinhardt’s Panzer Corps in the middle had not only caught up with the other two on 15 May, its 6th Panzer Division outpaced them dramatically, with an advance of sixty kilometres to Montcornet which split the hapless French 2nd Armoured Division in two. It was this deep strike into the French rear which convinced General Robert Touchon, who was trying to assemble a new Sixth Army to plug the gap, that they were too late. He ordered his formations to fall back to south of the River Aisne. There were now very few French forces left between the German panzers and the Channel coast.

Guderian had been instructed not to advance until sufficient infantry divisions had been brought across the Meuse. All his superiors, Kleist, Rundstedt and Halder, were deeply nervous about an over-extended panzer
spearhead exposed to a major French counter-attack from the south. Even Hitler was fearful of the risks. But Guderian sensed that the French were in chaos. The opportunity was too good to miss. Thus what has erroneously been described as a Blitzkrieg strategy was to a large degree improvised on the ground.

The German spearheads raced on, with their reconnaissance battalions out ahead in eight-wheeled armoured cars and motorcycles with sidecars. They seized bridges which the French had not had time to prepare for demolition. The black-uniformed panzer crews were filthy, unshaven and exhausted. Rommel allowed the 7th and 5th Panzer Divisions little time to rest or even to service their vehicles. Most men kept going on Pervitin tablets (a metamphetamine) and the intoxication of overwhelming victory. Any French troops they encountered were so stunned that they surrendered immediately. They were simply told to throw down their arms and keep marching ahead so that the German infantry coming along behind could deal with them.

The second wave closely following the panzer divisions consisted of motorized infantry. Alexander Stahlberg, then a lieutenant with the 2nd Infantry Division (Motorized) but later Manstein’s aide-de-camp, gazed at ‘
the ruins of
a defeated French army: bullet-ridden vehicles, battered and burned-out tanks, abandoned guns, an unending chain of destruction’. They passed through empty villages, advancing with as little fear of a real enemy as they had on manoeuvres. Way behind came the infantry on foot, their jackboots burning, forced on by their officers to catch up.
‘Marching, marching
. Always further, always towards the west,’ wrote one in his diary. Even their horses were ‘dead tired’.

If Hitler had had his way the previous autumn the invasion of France would almost certainly have been a disaster. The success at Sedan was truly a miracle for the German army, which was short of ammunition. The Luftwaffe had enough bombs for only fourteen days of combat. In addition, the motorized and panzer formations would have been in a very vulnerable position. The heavier tanks–the Mark IIIs and Mark IVs–which were capable of taking on the French and British tanks had simply not been available then. And the need for training, especially of officers in an army which had expanded from 100,000 to 5.5 million, had also required those extra months. The twenty-nine postponements of Operation Yellow had allowed the Wehrmacht to replenish its reserves sufficiently and prepare properly.

In London on 14 May, even the War Cabinet had little idea of the situation west of the Meuse. Purely by coincidence Anthony Eden, the secretary of state for war, announced that day the creation of the Local Defence
Volunteer Corps (soon renamed the Home Guard). Some 250,000 men put down their names in under a week. Yet Churchill’s government started to appreciate the scale of the crisis only when Reynaud sent a signal from Paris late on that afternoon of the 14th. He requested ten more fighter squadrons from Britain to protect his troops from Stuka attacks. He admitted that the Germans had broken through south of Sedan, and said he believed that they were heading for Paris.

General Ironside, the chief of the imperial general staff, gave orders to send a liaison officer to the headquarters of either Gamelin or Georges. Little information was forthcoming, so Ironside concluded that Reynaud was being a ‘
little hysterical
’. But Reynaud soon found that the situation was even more catastrophic than he had feared. Daladier, the minister of war, had just heard from Gamelin, who had been shaken out of his complacency by a report on the disintegration of the Ninth Army. Information also came in that Reinhardt’s panzer corps had reached Montcornet. Late that night, Reynaud called a meeting at the ministry of the interior with Daladier and the military governor of Paris. If the Germans were heading for Paris, they had to discuss how to avoid panic and maintain law and order.

At 07.30 hours the next morning, Churchill was woken by a telephone call from Reynaud. ‘We have been defeated,’ Reynaud blurted out. Churchill, still half asleep, did not immediately respond. ‘We are beaten; we have lost the battle,’ Reynaud emphasized.

‘Surely it can’t have happened so soon?’ Churchill said.

‘The front is broken near Sedan; they are pouring through in great numbers with tanks and armoured cars.’ According to Roland de Margerie, Reynaud’s foreign affairs adviser, he added: ‘
The road to Paris is open
. Send us all the planes and all the troops you can.’

Churchill decided to fly to Paris to stiffen Reynaud’s resolve, but first he called a War Cabinet meeting to discuss the request for ten more fighter squadrons. He was determined to do all in his power to help the French. But Air Chief Marshal Dowding, the head of Fighter Command, resolutely opposed the despatch of any more aircraft. After a heated argument, he walked round the table and placed a paper in front of Churchill showing the likely rate of loss based on current casualties. Within ten days, there would be no Hurricanes left either in France or in Britain. The War Cabinet was impressed by his arguments, but still felt that another four squadrons should be sent to France.

The War Cabinet came to another decision that day. Bomber Command should at last go on the offensive against German territory. It should mount a raid on the Ruhr in retaliation for the Luftwaffe attack on Rotterdam. Few of the aircraft found their targets, but this still marked the first
step towards the strategic bombing campaign.

Deeply disturbed by the possibility that France might collapse, Churchill sent a telegram to President Roosevelt in the hope of shocking him into action on behalf of the Allies. ‘
As you are no doubt aware
, the scene has darkened swiftly. If necessary, we shall continue the war alone and we are not afraid of that. But I trust you realise, Mr President, that the voice and the force of the United States may count for nothing if they are withheld too long. You may have a completely subjugated, Nazified Europe established with astonishing swiftness, and the weight may be more than we can bear.’ Roosevelt’s reply was friendly, but he offered no commitment to intervene. Churchill composed another letter emphasizing Britain’s determination ‘to persevere to the very end whatever the result of the great battle raging in France may be’, and again urged the need for rapid American help.

Still feeling that Roosevelt did not appreciate the urgency, he wrote yet another message on 21 May, which he hesitated to send. Although he insisted that his government would never consent to surrender, he raised another danger. ‘
If members of the present
administration were finished and others came to parley amid the ruins, you must not be blind to the fact that the sole remaining bargaining counter with Germany would be the fleet, and if this country was left by the United States to its fate no one would have the right to blame those then responsible if they made the best terms they could for the surviving inhabitants. Excuse me, Mr President, putting this nightmare bluntly. Evidently I could not answer for my successors who in utter despair and helplessness might well have to accommodate themselves to the German will.’

Churchill did send this signal, but, as he later realized, his shock tactics, implying that the Germans might even obtain the Royal Navy’s warships to challenge the United States, proved counter-productive. They were bound to weaken Roosevelt’s confidence in Britain’s determination to fight alone, and the President raised with his own advisers the possibility of the British fleet being moved to Canada. He even contacted William Mackenzie King, the Canadian prime minister, to discuss the matter. Churchill’s mistake was to have a tragic influence some weeks later.