To Lose a Battle (78 page)

Prioux, who seems to have retained the most fighting spirit of any French general in these days, had indeed wanted to use his armour to slice into the Panzers’ tenuous communications in a cavalry-style raid. But he had his own problems at that moment. A good part of his 1st Light Mechanised Division had been destroyed in the bitter fighting in the Forest of Mormal, and on the 19th he had been unable to reassemble those others of his tank companies, farmed out to various infantry divisions, in time to combine with de Gaulle’s attack from the south. The reluctant infantry generals seem to have turned a deaf ear to the injunctions of Billotte, and finally, at 1700 hours on the 20th, he sent out a draconian order:

the greater part of the fighting vehicles have not been returned to the light mechanized divisions… This order will be carried out immediately. I will not hesitate to bring any formation commander who disobeys this order before a court martial!

But it came too late for Prioux to offer more than a few weak
detachments of his 3rd D.L.M. to help ‘Frankforce’ on the 21st.

At the same time, General d’Astier reveals that his Z.O.A.N. had been called upon by Georges to lend ‘powerful support’ on the morning of the 21st to an operation of ‘first importance’ being launched against Cambrai by Blanchard’s First Army. But no front, no targets, no time had been given; Georges seemed completely out of the picture and d’Astier had been unable to make contact himself with either the First Army or with the British Air Component, now back in Kent. His reconnaissance planes were either shot down or turned back, and it was not until 1600 hours on the 21st that they were able to get through, by which time they reported that nothing was happening round Cambrai. From the Air Component, just completing its move back to Kent, no R.A.F. cover was forthcoming either.
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Despite this confirmation of his worst fears about French participation, Gort stuck doggedly to his plans for the Arras attack, his French critics suggesting that he was ‘perhaps anxious to be done with the thing’. In any case, instinct and experience decided him not to wait for the French. Thus, by 1400 hours on the afternoon of the 21st, when – after various hitches in the morning – ‘Frankforce’ finally attacked, the massive counter-blow called for by Ironside had been whittled down from four French and British divisions to a jab by two British battalions, Territorials at that, supported by tanks of which only the sixteen Matildas were useful against German Panzers, and with flank cover from a few squadrons of light French armour. The sad story of all the previous French counter-efforts was being repeated; the only difference was that the effects would be marginally dissimilar.

Martel’s Attack

Leading it as Rommel would have done, from an open car, General Martel opened his attack by striking southwards around the west of Arras with two mobile columns. Each consisted
of a tank battalion and an infantry battalion (of the Durham Light Infantry), plus a battery of field artillery and one of anti-tank guns. There was no air cover. The objective was to reach the River Cojeul that night. Almost at once the right-hand column unexpectedly came up against the enemy at Duisans.
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The village was cleared after a fight, and a number of prisoners taken, but two precious companies of infantry and some anti-tank guns had to be left behind to hold it. The remainder of the column then pushed on towards Warlus, which it had to capture against substantial opposition. Next it took Berneville and threw an advanced guard out across the Doullen-Arras road. Here the British infantry found themselves pinned down by heavy machine-gun and mortar fire, while for twenty minutes the Luftwaffe attacked the main body unopposed. Nevertheless, Martel’s tanks swept around to the left and pushed on to Wailly, where they hit the newly arrived S.S. Totenkopf motorized infantry division. But the right-hand column had shot its bolt, and that evening was forced to fall back defensively on Warlus, after heavy losses. Here an unfortunate incident took place when a detachment of Prioux’s tanks attacked some British anti-tank guns, taking them for Germans. A spirited engagement followed, in which one British gun was knocked out and several men killed, and more than one French tank hit, before the French commander realized the mistake and made his apologies. Six of these tanks then played a useful role in freeing rear links with Duisans, where Rommel’s tanks were threatening to infiltrate. That was about the extent of French support that day.

Martel’s left-hand column also had to fight all the way, but it made faster progress and (as will be seen from Rommel’s own account) inflicted heavy casualties. Occupying Dainville, its tanks smashed up a motorized column, destroying its transports, while the following infantry took a considerable number of prisoners. Two miles further on, six Matildas found little difficulty in overrunning a German anti-tank battery near
Achicourt. The left-hand column then pushed on to Agny and Beaurains, and a small advanced party reached Wancourt on the River Cojeul. Throughout most of the afternoon a savage battle raged in the area of Agny-Beaurains between the heavy infantry tanks of the 4th Royal Tank Regiment and Rommel’s 6th Rifle Brigade, backed by a powerful line of guns. There were heavy losses on both sides; but, like Martel’s right-hand column, the left also had no troops to follow up its success or even to make good the ground won. Meanwhile, east of Arras, Brigadier Haydon’s 150th Brigade (50th Division) had made a harassing raid across the Scarpe towards Tilloy, and the 13th Brigade had established a bridgehead further east in preparation for the second phase of ‘Frankforce’s’ operation. But realizing that he could not hold the ground occupied on the first day and that Rommel’s Panzers would soon be threatening his rear to the west of Arras, Franklyn decided to call off the attack. The British counter-attack at Arras had come to a halt. It had advanced a maximum of ten miles, taken more than 400 German prisoners
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and destroyed a large number of tanks and transport; but it had lost all but twenty-six of its Mark I tanks and two of its valuable Mark IIs.
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The remainder, with their tracks breaking from the excessive wear of the past days, had to fall back to the rear, constantly harried by Stukas.

The German View

This, in brief, is the British view of what was effectively their first major armoured engagement of the war. The German accounts reveal, however, that the drive Martel instilled into the ‘Frankforce’ attack, combined with the almost impenetrable thickness of the armour on the British infantry tanks, made an impression out of all proportion to the numbers involved. The S.S. Totenkopf Division apparently abandoned its first line in haste when attacked at Wailly, and even Guderian states that
it ‘showed signs of panic’, a comment not to be found previously in his forthright account of the campaign. Rommel’s eye-witness account of the day’s events is, as so often, the most instructive. At almost exactly the moment that Martel began his attack, Rommel had ordered Rothenburg’s 25th Panzer Regiment to advance again around the north-west of Arras. He intended to accompany the tanks himself, together with his faithful A.D.C., Lieutenant Most. But once again he had to retrace his footsteps to shepherd forward his lagging infantry regiments. He could not find the 7th, but just south of Wailly,

we eventually came across part of the 6th Rifle Regiment, and driving alongside their column, turned off with them towards Wailly. Half a mile east of the village we came under fire from the north. One of our howitzer batteries was already in position at the northern exit from the village, firing rapidly on enemy tanks attacking southward from Arras.
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Rommel continues:

As we were now coming under machine-gun fire and the infantry had already taken cover to the right, Most and I ran on in front of the armoured cars towards the battery position. It did not look as though the battery would have much difficulty in dealing with the enemy tanks, for the gunners were calmly hurling round after round into them in complete disregard of the return fire.

But on reaching Wailly itself, Rommel found that the British tank fire had created

chaos and confusion among our troops in the village and they were jamming up the roads and yards with their vehicles, instead of going into action with every available weapon to fight off the oncoming enemy. We tried to create order.

West of the village, Rommel came across a light flak troop and some anti-tank guns, ‘most of them totally under cover’. Close to this position, British tanks had shot up a Mark III Panzer, and other tanks approaching from Bac-du-Nord were pressing in closely upon Wailly. ‘It was,’ says Rommel, ‘an
extremely tight spot.’ He watched while ‘the crew of a howitzer battery, some distance away, now left their guns, swept along by the retreating infantry’. The scene was almost more reminiscent of the French débâcle at Sedan than anything previously recounted by Rommel. To restore this perilous situation, Rommel continues:

With Most’s help, I brought every available gun into action at top speed against the tanks. Every gun, both anti-tank and anti-aircraft, was ordered to open rapid fire immediately and I personally gave each gun its target. We ran from gun to gun… Soon we succeeded in putting the leading enemy tanks out of action. About 150 yards west of our small wood a British captain climbed out of a heavy tank and walked unsteadily towards us with his hands up. We had killed his driver.

Rommel then switched the fire of his guns to another group of British tanks, knocking out several and forcing the remainder to retreat:

Although we were under very heavy fire from the tanks during this action, the gun crews worked magnificently. The worst seemed to be over and the attack beaten off, when suddenly Most sank to the ground behind a 20-mm. anti-aircraft gun close beside me. He was mortally wounded.

Lieutenant Most was the second of Rommel’s A.D.C.s to fall at his side already during the campaign,
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but this episode marked the final halting of Martel’s right-hand column.

Turning now to the progress of the left-hand column, Rommel speaks of ‘very powerful armoured forces’ which had inflicted ‘heavy losses in men and material’ on his 6th Rifle Regiment:

The anti-tank guns which we quickly deployed showed themselves to be far too light to be effective against the heavily armoured British tanks, and the majority of them were put out of action by gunfire, together with their crews, and then overrun by the enemy tanks. Many of our vehicles were burnt out.

The attack was finally brought to a halt after Rommel had
established a strong gun-line between Beaurains and Agny, formed from his divisional artillery and 88-mm. anti-aircraft batteries. Firing over open sights, the German field-pieces proved too much even for the thick armour of the Matildas, and once again the 88s proved their deadliness, one battery alone claiming nine tanks. Later that evening Rommel was striking with his tanks north-west of Arras at the flank and rear of ‘Frankforce’. There was another fierce engagement, during which seven more heavy British tanks were knocked out, but at a cost of nine of Rommel’s.

The day’s fighting cost Rommel considerably more tanks than any other operation so far. His casualties amounted to 89 killed (including seven officers), 116 wounded and 173 missing.
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For one of the few times in the campaign, German eye-witnesses, as their accounts reveal, were particularly struck by the number of their own burnt-out tanks visible on the battlefield, and it is perhaps instructive that in the German propaganda film,
Sieg im West
, Martel’s action at Arras is the only Allied counter-stroke to be singled out for special mention. There is no reference to de Gaulle. That Rommel for one was even more concerned than his diaries reveal is apparent from the magnification of Martel’s four battalions in his own immediate appraisals; his communiqué on the 21st speaks of being attacked by ‘hundreds of enemy tanks’, while situation maps marked up in his own hand display arrows purporting a counter-offensive by ‘
five
enemy divisions’.

Rommel’s anxiety echoed back all the way up the German chain of command. His Army Commander, Kluge of the 4th Army, admits in his communiqué that the 21st was ‘the first day on which the enemy had met with any real success’, and he was inclined to halt any further advance westward from Arras until the situation there had been resolved. In Kleist’s Armoured Group, the 6th and 8th Panzers were ordered by Rundstedt to
swing back from Le Boisle and Hesdin (which they had reached) respectively, to assume defensive positions along the flank of the ‘five enemy divisions’, while Guderian’s 10th Panzer, still badly needed to guard the southern flank of the ‘Panzer Corridor’, was placed in reserve, to be ready in case of emergency to move up to the Arras front. In front of the Nuremberg Tribunal, Rundstedt declared:

A critical moment in the drive came just as my forces had reached the Channel. It was caused by a British counter-stroke southward from Arras on 21 May. For a short time it was feared that our armoured divisions would be cut off before the infantry divisions could come up to support them. None of the French counter-attacks carried any serious threat as this one did.

Back at O.K.H., Halder recorded in his diary early on the 21st: ‘The day begins in a quite nervous atmosphere!… a rather heavy pressure is being exerted on the north flank of the 4th Army.’ As the day ended, returning to his prevailing mood of confidence, he wrote: ‘The situation on the right wing of Kluge cannot be very serious. Only local affairs…!’, but by the following morning his first entry betrays a new note of concern: