To Lose a Battle

by Alistair Horne

  Ninth Army: The counter-attack at Houx did not succeed, the infantry not having followed the tanks… Second Army: The breach at Sedan has been plugged on the halt line… counter-attack with serious forces was unleashed this morning at 0430 hours…

  At 1030 hours, fuller reports gave G.Q.G. the impression that the Second Army was ‘in hand and that the troops are holding’. Then a couple of hours later, Captain Beaufre telephoned some rather more disquieting news: ‘Panic, with the 5th Light Cavalry Division. The Germans are at Omicourt, on the Bar Canal…’ At 1625, Gamelin heard the first news that Rommel had got his tanks across the Meuse. Late that evening he received a disagreeable canard (part of the Germans’ skilful deception plan) about an imminent enemy attack through Switzerland; Goebbels was reported as having declared that ‘within twice twenty-four hours there will no longer be any neutral states in Europe’. Could it indeed be, for all its apparent force, that the attack at Sedan was not in fact the main German effort? The Wehrmacht communiqué of the 14th certainly still continued to make no great capital out of the Meuse crossings. Were the Germans perhaps keeping up their sleeves a flanking attack on the Maginot Line from the Swiss end as well? Obviously, one had to remain cautious about moving reinforcements from behind the Line. The day ended for Gamelin with a last unrealistic report about Sedan from Les Bondons:

  Not much has changed since the last report. Still some small infiltrations in the area of Mézières–Charleville. There has not been any counter-attack at Sedan, but violent aerial bombardment and blocking action. The German advance appears to be blocked… All the prisoners indicate the fatigue of the German troops.

  Says Colonel Bardies acidly of Georges’s optimism:

  It aimed at nothing but minimizing the setbacks, at reassuring General Gamelin, and above him the Government, and above the Government, public opinion… one has the impression that G.Q.G. did not yet believe in a disaster, and as a result did not envisage any means of major scope to counteract it.

  For all the reassuring noises emanating from La Ferté and Vincennes, there were those in Paris who on the 14th already sensed that all was not well at the front. Alexander Werth of the Manchester Guardian noted in his diary: ‘Gloom at the office… The parachutist who descended on Paris yesterday was only a deflated sausage balloon.’ Paul Baudouin, the Secretary to Reynaud’s War Cabinet, relates how he had just been to

  a lunch in honour of the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister of Luxembourg and of the Belgian Foreign and Finance Ministers, and I was just coming out when Colonel Villelume said that he wanted to speak to me urgently. At that moment I was walking on the big lawn of the Quai d’Orsay in glorious sunshine, but a chill came over me… The news was very bad; Huntziger’s Army had been violently attacked and some fortifications in the Sedan district had been lost. We felt that the situation had suddenly become tragic.

  A meeting of the War Cabinet was convened at the Élysée that afternoon at which Gamelin confirmed that the news was bad. (But just how bad he did not say, for the simple reason that he did not know.) He admitted he was ‘surprised’, but externally continued to show every sign of Joffrian sangfroid.

  In London, the British Government also remained oblivious of the full gravity of events.

  Chapter 14

  The Break-Out

  15 May

  If our tanks are distinctly superior to those of the enemy, our fighters dominate perhaps even more the enemy air force.

  Le Temps, 16 May

  Responsible circles lay stress on the fact that north of Sedan, inclusive, a war of movement is in progress, and the conflict must therefore inevitably sway to and fro until the main bodies get to grips and a continuous front is established… Under a seemingly endless torrent of bombs, backed up by artillery barrage from the French forces, the Germans wavered and then began to fall back. They found the roads to their rear choked and blocked in many places by wrecked and overturned lorries, tanks, armoured cars, and supply transport.

  The Times, 16 May

  Upon the crossing of the Meuse in the area of Sedan, with the closest co-operation of the Luftwaffe, the protective wall of France – the Maginot Line – has been broken in its extension to the north-west.

  Wehrmacht communiqué, 15 May

  Corap: Another Terrible Day

  14 May had been a terrible day for General Corap. What the incessant bombing by the Luftwaffe, which had concentrated its attention on the Ninth Army that day, had done to the morale of his battered divisions made a deep impression upon him. But most of all he was concerned at the growth of Rommel’s pocket west of Dinant; and now Guderian was slicing deep into his other flank. Late that night he took a fatal decision, and at 0200 on the 15th he was telephoning Billotte to report that he intended to abandon the whole line of the Meuse. He proposed withdrawing the Ninth Army behind the French frontier positions which they had left just five days earlier in fulfilment of the Dyle Plan. Billotte raised no objection in principle, but instructed Corap to ‘establish an intermediate stop-line on the line of Walcourt–Mariembourg–Rocroi–Signy–l’Abbaye’ – roughly along the main road running north to south from Charleroi to Rethel. But Billotte’s ‘intermediate line’ existed solely on paper, and in the chaos of communications inside the Ninth Army this order marked the beginning of its disintegration. Some of Corap’s units only received orders to halt on the barrier position which General Martin had been trying to establish behind Florennes the previous evening; others duly pulled back to the ‘intermediate line’. Some were unable to move at all; others, receiving no orders, simply disbanded and straggled westwards of their own accord. In a state of high emotion, Corap telephoned General d’Astier begging for air support at dawn to cover his withdrawal. Although his orders were to devote all forces to Huntziger’s front, d’Astier said he would see what he could do; but Corap was even unable to tell him precisely where his own front lay.

  Such was the situation at Army level as dawn broke on the 15th. In effect, Huntziger the previous evening had opened one sluice-gate; Corap was now opening the other. Through the pair of them the flood was about to burst into France.

  Rommel Strikes Again

  Opposite Rommel’s bridgehead, the ‘stop-line’ decreed by Corap ran close by Philippeville, some twelve miles from where Rommel had come to a halt on the 14th. But his orders to the 7th Panzer for the 15th were to ‘thrust straight through in one stride’ to the Cerfontaine area, eight miles to the west of Philippeville. Rommel himself intended to ride with Rothenburg’s tanks so as to direct operations from up forward, leaving divisional H.Q. in the hands of his senior staff officer, the extremely able Major Heidkaemper who was to end the war as a lieutenant-general. Guarding his right flank, but still slightly behind, came Colonel Werner’s tanks from the 5th Panzer. At about 0800 hours a Luftwaffe liaison officer informed Rommel that Stuka support would be available for the 7th Panzer that day. Rommel called for them to go into action immediately just ahead of his tanks, which were already beginning to move forward. Within the next hour they came up against General Bruneau’s 1st Armoured Division, positioned near Flavion, in what Rommel describes as a ‘brief engagement’.

  On reaching its concentration area late on the night of the 14th, Bruneau’s tank battalions had adopted a defensive stance of ‘rassemblement gardé’ while waiting for the arrival of the fuel tankers which Bruneau had mistakenly placed at the rear of his column. Agonizingly the hours ticked by and still the tankers, held up by the appalling chaos on the roads, did not arrive. Finally, Bruneau had told General Martin that he could not possibly attack at dawn, as prescribed by XI Corps. Refuelling, he now reckoned, would only be complete by the end of the morning. Accordingly, he sent back his artillery, deploying one lone battery out of six in support of his immobilized armour.1 Soon after dawn, Bruneau learned that his units were being heavily dive-bombed. Then at 0830 hours his two battalions of heavy ‘B’ tanks were caught by a dense concentration of Rommel’s Panzers just as they were
refuelling. A confused action ensued at close range. One French squadron managed to counter-attack, inflicting noteworthy losses. Once again the Germans discovered that their 37-mm. guns could not penetrate the massive ‘B’ tanks, and that their best bet lay in shooting off the tracks. But many of these superb instruments, tragically immobilized like hobbled elephants by their lack of fuel, simply had to be set on fire in haste by their own crews.

  With that magical feeling for the situation which characterized all his movements, Rommel then swung round Bruneau’s flank to continue his thrust towards the west. Having struck one first hard blow at the 1st Armoured, he left it to the approaching 5th Panzer to administer the coup de grâce. Bruneau, making an accurate appreciation of Rommel’s intent from the consequent lull in the fighting, at 1400 ordered his division to regroup north of Florennes, facing south-east. But by the time the order reached his tanks they were inextricably engaged in heavy fighting – this time with Colonel Werner’s ‘Red Devils’2 from the 5th Panzer. What that afternoon’s armoured battle was like from the French point of view is well described by a subaltern fighting in a ‘B’ tank of the 37th Battalion:

  ‘En avant!’ orders the Adour, the Captain’s tank… The Gard is on my right, the Captain is to the right of the Gard… At that moment, a shell strikes the armour on the left side! Towards the road, red lights flare up on the level of a low hedge; another shell in the armour plate! I hesitate to shoot back, because I thought it was a mistake by one of ours; then I traversed my turret towards the flames, and shoot off five high-explosive shells at the hedge, after which nothing moves any longer. I continue my advance and arrive at the woods which mark the edge of the plateau, and it is there that the battle begins. The driver shouts: ‘A tank on the edge of the wood in front of us!’ It was certainly an enemy! A Mark IV on which I directed the fire of the 75… Near a burning German tank, men are climbing and crawling towards the undergrowth. The whole of our left flank is crowded with big German tanks; I can make them out more or less indistinctly, because they are camouflaged, broadside on and immobile.

  At this moment the co-driver of the Captain informs me that the Captain, wounded in the stomach and in the legs, is handing over the command to me. The new Mark IVs burst into flames under our fire, but my radiators are themselves smashed in; my 75 is hit on the side of the muzzle, and remains in a position of maximum recoil; I continue with the 47. Feeling myself harassed, I try to change position and to move myself in a thicket further to the south. The wood is being hammered by a 105-mm., and shell-holes open up not far from us. From a distance, I can make out the Gard, the door of whose turret is open… On my right a knocked-out tank of the 28th; the line of German tanks form a semi-circle of vehicles which I estimate in number at between fifty to sixty.

  I give the order to the tanks of my company to retire… Ourcq and Yser withdraw slowly, while I observe Hérault burning…

  By the late afternoon the 37th Battalion was reduced to four ‘B’ tanks; its sister, the 28th, had only two left in fit state to comply with Bruneau’s order to withdraw; while the 26th could muster less than a score of its light tanks. Only the 25th (light) Tank Battalion remained more or less intact, having lost its way the previous night and arrived too late to take part in the action. Thus was the first of General Georges’s ‘rooks’ destroyed as an effective force. The tank crews of the French 1st Armoured had fought bravely and well, and claimed to have knocked out some hundred German tanks.3 But they had been squandered, not in a bold armoured counter-stroke, but piecemeal in a battle of encounter. The division had been engaged, remarks Colonel Bardies, ‘as in times gone past squadrons of cuirassiers were engaged, to cover a rout, in giving them the order to die’. Under cover of night the 1st Armoured crept back to Beamount, and then to Solre-le-Château behind the French frontier positions. When Bruneau saw it the next day, it had only seventeen tanks left, the remainder having lost their way or run out of fuel during the night’s withdrawal.4

  Rommel Breaches French Front

  Meanwhile, sweeping around the 1st Armoured, Rommel’s Panzers were now out in the open, inflicting fearful havoc upon the Ninth Army’s ‘soft’ rear areas. On the way to Philippeville, Rommel himself noted passing:

  numerous guns and vehicles5 belonging to a French unit, whose men had tumbled headlong into the woods at the approach of our tanks, having probably already suffered heavily under our dive-bombers. Enormous craters compelled us to make several détours through the wood. About 3 miles north-west of Philippeville there was a brief exchange of fire with French troops occupying the hills and woods south of Philippeville. Our tanks fought the action on the move, with turrets traversed left, and the enemy was soon silenced. From time to time enemy anti-tank guns, tanks and armoured cars were shot up. Fire was also scattered into the woods on our flanks as we drove past.

  Already by midday Rommel had occupied Philippeville, and was pushing on to Cerfontaine six miles beyond, thereby breaching in one swift bound Billotte’s and Corap’s ‘intermediate line’ even before it could be occupied. Men and machines were exhausted. One of his Panzer commanders records:

  A number of vehicles broke down, even my command vehicle could no longer keep up and I had to have it towed by a truck… I’m dead tired… two days and three nights, not a moment of rest, food consists of two slices of bread, a hellish thirst. Next day we are to have a rest.6 The vehicle badly needs a service, wire has wound itself around the drive wheel, and the batteries are run down… We look like pigs, muddy, sticky and without a shave for several days. I am tottering with fatigue, and have to help myself with Pervitin tablets. The radio operators can only be kept awake with difficulty.

  But Rommel was a hard taskmaster. Furious to discover that Bismarck’s weary riflemen were lagging nearly ten miles behind the tanks, creating a gap into which enemy elements were infiltrating, he turned about and headed eastward to chase them up. Along the route Rommel had covered that morning, he found two tanks which had broken down:

  Their crews were in process of collecting prisoners, and a few who had already come in were standing around. Now hundreds of French motor-cyclists came out of the bushes and, together with their officers, slowly laid down their arms. Others tried to make a quick get-away down the road to the south.

  I now occupied myself for a short time with the prisoners. Among them were several officers, from whom I received a number of requests, including, among other things, permission to keep their batmen and to have their kit picked up from Philippeville, where it had been left.

  His mission accomplished, Rommel headed westwards once again at high speed, and just short of Cerfontaine he met

  a body of fully armed French motor-cyclists coming in the opposite direction, and picked them up as they passed. Most of them were so shaken at suddenly finding themselves in a German column that they drove their machines into the ditch and were in no position to put up a fight.

  From his Panzer lager at Cerfontaine, ‘looking back east from the summit of the hill, as night fell, endless pillars of dust could be seen rising as far as the eye could reach – comforting signs that the 7th Panzer Division’s move into the conquered territory had begun’. Rommel’s losses for that day had totalled just fifteen killed; he had advanced over seventeen miles, taken 450 prisoners, knocked out or captured seventy-five tanks, and struck a decisive blow against the Ninth Army, and its hopes for a counter-attack.

  The Ninth Army Breaks

  At 0400 on the 15th Billotte had informed Georges on the telephone that ‘the Ninth Army is in a critical position’. By nightfall on the same day its condition was one of rout, all along its fifty-mile front. Describing the effect of the German bombing, a staff officer of the 18th Division recounts:

  we passed through clouds of smoke from a petrol convoy which had just been bombarded by a plane and was burning along the road close to the route. Elsewhere an artillery group had been attacked while on the march. On the road and elsewhere there was a series of enormous bomb
craters and very numerous corpses of horses, which indicated that the attack had been devastating… On the road to Fraire, there arrives upon us at full gallop a group of disbanded artillerymen. Halted, they declared that the enemy was behind them.

  Hammered since the day Rommel had first set foot across the Meuse, the 18th Division now dissolved. Having lost most of his staff, its commander, General Duffet, spent the day roving the battlefield, in an attempt to regroup his scattered units. With a handful of men he ended the day trying to set up a defence at Beaumont, just inside the Belgian frontier, through which the remnants of the 1st Armoured were retreating. On his right, General Hassler’s 22nd Division, which had given no particularly commendable account of itself the previous day against the German infantry forcing the Meuse at Givet, shared a similar fate. ‘Aircraft do not cease to follow us, to bombard us and machine-gun us,’ recorded one of its battalion commanders.

  We passed through Couvin, where all kinds of columns were mixed up together… the disorder worsened, and our men, in whom fatigue had exceeded anything that one could imagine, mounted on any vehicles they encountered, despite their officers who attempted to stop them. But understanding that this was the only way of pulling out a force completely exhausted, I gave them the order to allow them to do this…

  But at the exit to Couvin, we were once again attacked by enemy machine-guns. There were scenes of horror which occurred with women, children, lying alongside the road, dead or wounded, stretched out in the ditches. Grown men also fell… the planes came in quantity, machine-gunning and bombarding in turn, increasing the confusion.