To Lose a Battle (110 page)

2nd North African,
546–7

3rd North African,
235
,
315
,
385–6

4th North African,
234
,
375
,
377–8
,
408
,
413–14
,
430
,
473–4

4th Colonial,
629

7th Colonial,
602
,
629

GERMAN

1st Panzer,
207
,
258
,
263
,
265
,
284
,
286–7
,
300
,
303
,
304
,
314
,
317
,
334–5
,
350
,
358
,
365
,
382–4
,
386
,
387
,
390
,
392
,
394
,
418
,
427
,
466–8
,
492
,
497
,
501
,
512
,
517
,
541
,
558–9
,
597
,
644
,
676

2nd Panzer,
207
,
283
,
286–7
,
305
,
317
,
334
,
355–7
,
366
,
387–8
,
392
,
394
,
418
,
427
,
466
,
468
,
497
,
512
,
541
,
560
,
565
,
597–8

3rd Panzer,
369
,
507
,
542
,
599
,
639

4th Panzer,
369
,
507
,
542
,
599
,
617
,
639

5th Panzer,
208
,
263
,
283
,
307
,
380
,
407–9
,
513
,
542
,
598
,
616–17
,
639
,
642
,
667

6th Panzer,
208
,
283
,
285
,
305
,
335
,
367
,
380
,
415–16
,
418
,
468
,
501
,
512
,
518
,
545
,
561
,
581–2
,
598

7th Panzer,
208
,
257
,
259
,
306–7
,
322
,
326
,
328–9
,
407
,
414
,
500
,
515
,
561–2
,
577
,
616
,
639
,
666

8th Panzer,
208
,
283
,
305
,
335
,
415
,
468
,
501
,
581–2
,
598

9th Panzer,
267
,
291
,
294–5
,
369
,
542
,
599
,
639

10th Panzer,
207
,
279
,
284–5
,
300
,
303–4
,
317
,
334
,
346
,
347–50
,
355
,
365
,
385–6
,
388
,
394–5
,
420–3
,
502
,
512
,
539
,
541
,
559
,
564
,
596–8
,
639

3rd Infantry,
381
,
415
,
468
,
666

23rd Infantry,
381
,
415

32nd Infantry,
601

29th Motorized,
424
,
647

22nd Airborne,
259

Grossdeutschland Regiment,
207
,
257
,
261–2
,
264
,
274–5
,
334
,
350–1
,
353
,
357
,
365–6
,
387
,
394–5
,
418–24
,
466
,
597
,
666
,
669

S.S. Regiment Totenkopf,
577
,
578

BRITISH

1st Armoured,
594
,
598

3rd Infantry,
289
,
402
,
546
,
636

5th Infantry,
546
,
573–6
,
605
,
620

12th Territorial,
517
,
560–1

23rd Territorial,
517
,
561

50th Infantry,
546
,
573–6
,
578
,
605
,
620

51st (Highland),
629
,
639
,
642

Durham Light Infantry,
577

Royal West Kents,
517
,
559

Royal Sussex,
560

4th Royal Tank,
578

‘Frankforce’,
573–82
,
587
,
596
,
599
,
601
,
605
,
608

1
. Title of Clemenceau’s memoirs.

2
. The idea of burying an Unknown Warrior, selected from the remains of eight fallen at Verdun, under the Arc de Triomphe was not conceived until later.

3
. Despite exhortations, the vast majority of the Left appear to have been lured away by the greater attraction of the Victory Parade.

4
. In fact, the last French soldier left the Rhineland in June 1930.

1
. Throughout most of 1932, the middle-aged Rector of Stiffkey (pronounced ‘Stewky’ locally) had provided the British Press with an unending source of anticlerical entertainment through his escapades with battalions of teenage waitresses in London teashops. Defrocked, he ended his career in a lion’s cage in 1937, where he was billed to give a lecture. The lion objected.

2
. The inverted attitudes of post-1945 make an interesting comparison.

3
. André Beaufre, a junior staff officer at the Ministry of War after the First World War, later became a full general and one of France’s leading military intellects after the Second World War. He led the French contingent at Suez in 1956.

4
. £24 million at the then rate of exchange.

5
. Though ironically enough, when the supreme test came, the drain imposed by maintaining the ‘interval troops’ was to be one of the leading factors in depriving the French Army of the mobility it so sadly lacked.

6
. Both in 1927 and 1932, Pétain, the President of the Army Council, had stressed the importance of having ‘a mobile force near the frontier and to make sure of its swift advance into Belgium’.

7
. Even in the underpaid British Army at this time, a captain (unmarried) received a basic pay of £38 a month, a major £53.

8
. Arms credits for 1936 totalled 1,492 million francs, roughly a fifth of what had already been spent on the Maginot Line.

9
. ‘Light mechanized division’ – which was something of a misnomer, in that the D.L.M.s were largely equipped with the excellent Somua medium tank, more heavily armoured than most of its German counterparts. They also had a strength of 220 tanks each, compared with only 150 for each of the subsequently created French ‘Armoured Divisions’.

10
. In Britain, for instance, up to 1932 the Services worked on the simple assumption each year of not having to anticipate a major war for at least another ten.