And what of General Bruché’s bisected 2nd Armoured Division, supposedly preparing for its attack against the northern flank of Kleist’s ‘Bulge’ the next day? Because of the chaos on the railways, some of its trains were halted near Bohain west of the Oise, so that when the order came to disembark they found themselves on the wrong side of the river and were ordered by Giraud (in accordance with the defensive part of Georges’s Order No. 14) to disperse and ‘cork-up’ the crossing points. (Meanwhile, the fine brigade of Somua tanks from the 1st Light Mechanized Division, which was on its way southwards through Belgium, was stuck at Soignies (north-east of Mons) by a breakdown in the Belgian railways.)18 The rest of the 2nd Armoured’s tanks left on the north side of the ‘Bulge’ found themselves disembarking at scattered points between Etreux (on the Oise), Le Nouvion and Hirson, completely out of touch with Bruché at divisional H.Q., which was now safely south of the Aisne, and receiving conflicting instructions from half a dozen different commands. Two companies of ‘B’ tanks disembarking at Le Nouvion received orders on the 16th (before receipt of Georges’s No. 14) direct from General Giraud to strike southwards at once towards Montcornet. There followed a saga which revealed sadly the mechanical deficiencies of France’s best tank. At Le Nouvion, 2nd Lieutenant Perré, son of the division’s second-in-command, found that his ‘B’ tank, Tempête, would not shift into fourth gear. On reaching Voulpaix, it had only third gear left and was abandoned by the remainder of the company. Perré spent the morning trying to repair his tank, and towards 1500 hours, hearing that the enemy had already captured Vervins, he decided to limp on regardless, in third gear. But, coming to a hill, the motor rebelled. To his agreeable surprise he then met another tank, Martinique, which was having fan trouble. Like the blind leading the blind, the two tanks took turn to tow each other. Then, just as Martinique was giving up the ghost for good, they came upon Aquitaine and Toulon, which, also broken down, were being nursed along by Bourrasque.
It was now midnight. Martinique and Aquitaine were set on fire, while Bourrasque managed to tow the two surviving tanks. They advanced for three hours, passing ten German tanks which failed to recognize them. At 0500 on the 17th, Bourrasque’s petrol pipe broke under the strain. Just at that moment the tanks were attacked by lorried infantrymen. These were driven off by the tanks’ machine-guns; then a few minutes later two men – French prisoners – came up with a white hand-kerchief, calling up the tanks to surrender. They were sent back with a burst of fire, and the Germans moved away. Its petrol pipe repaired, Bourrasque alone remained roadworthy and moved off, destroying two German vehicles that came too close. The commanders of the two immobilized ‘B’ tanks, Perré and Rollier, then ordered their crews to escape and make for the French lines, taking with them the tank machine-guns. All through the 17th the two commanders stayed with their tanks, manning the 47-mm. turret. That evening Perré blew up a German ammunition truck and then knocked out a light tank with an armour-piercing shot. Meanwhile Rollier chalked up two tanks and a car. That night, running out of ammunition, they blew up Tempête and Toulon and, after watching from a ditch as a column of sixty Panzers trundled past, finally made their way back to the French lines at La Fère.
The few fighting elements of the 2nd Armoured south of the Aisne had meanwhile been absorbed by General de Lattre, and he put them to use defending Rethel. On the evening of the 15th, a Chasseur reported to de Lattre that three ‘B’ tanks from the 2nd Armoured were in mechanical difficulties just north of the river. During the night de Lattre had them brought in and positioned guarding bridges over the Aisne. The next day, Téméraire spotted an enemy staff car approaching at almost point-blank range. A well-placed round from the 47-mm. gun destroyed it, and in the wreckage was found a German colonel who had had his foot shot away. On him was a briefcase containing the whole of Guderian’s order of attack for the following day, together with detailed itineraries for the Panzer columns. The documents were at once dispatched – supposedly to G.Q.G. Hearing the roar of enemy motors to the north-east of Rethel, the crew of Villers-Brettonneux were horrified to discover simultaneously that the 47-mm. gun was jammed, while a swollen cartridge could not be rammed home in the breech of the hull 75-mm. The co-driver finally bashed it into place with a tremendous blow from a hammer, in time to halt an enemy column with a couple of shots. Thirteen German trucks were then shot up. Without being knocked out themselves, the three ‘B’ tanks kept up their action for four days and nights, thereby forming the backbone of de Lattre’s spirited stonewalling defence at Rethel. But this was not what these offensive weapons were there for, and de Lattre’s fight, admirable as it was, in fact did no more than hold one of the gateposts through which the stampede had already passed.
Rommel: the Avesnes Raid
On Rommel’s front the 16th began modestly enough, so much so that around the middle of it the new Ninth Army Commander, Giraud, was beginning to derive utterly false hopes that the front had been ‘stabilized’. But it was to end with the most spectacular German exploit of the day – possibly of the whole campaign – and one which, more than any other, was to establish Rommel’s reputation. His principal task that day was to smash through what he always subsequently referred to as the ‘Maginot Line’. The Line proper terminated at Longwy, but Rommel too, like the Allied Press, seems to have fallen for French propaganda of the Line having been extended to stretch from Switzerland to the sea. In fact, what faced him was a shallow belt of anti-tank obstacles and pill-boxes which had been run up behind the French frontier during the winter; they had now been manned hastily in part by remnants from Martin’s broken XI Corps, who, for reasons already noted, had even encountered difficulties in occupying many of the pill-boxes. Rofrimel, however, seems to have regarded this line as a serious barrier and to have concentrated his forces for a heavy and deliberate blow to smash through it. By mid-morning he was still preparing his plans when, quite unexpectedly, in walked the army commander, Kluge. On his way forward, Kluge had been reassured by the scenes he had witnessed:
troop detachments are closing up, the rear services are moving forwards, prisoners marching back. Once again there is evidence of the defeat, for numerous French tanks lie shot up in the terrain on both sides of the road. One sees the effect of the German Stuka attacks along the road, with bomb craters particularly numerous at the crossroads. The hits lie mostly in the immediate neighbourhood of the road. Vehicles and horses that have been hit have been pushed to one side, and craters on the edge of the road have been rapidly filled in. The artillery fire of the early morning has meanwhile died away… men of the army staff… take prisoner two Frenchmen, who, according to their story, have been wandering around in the woods south of Anthée for three days. In their troop they have received no regular food for the last days. They seem to be strongly impressed by the effect of the German attack.
Coming across an abandoned French camp, his staff noted the horses still left tethered to trees, or else wandering about serenely grazing. Everywhere there were signs of utter panic. Arriving at Rommel’s H.Q., Kluge – perhaps rather censoriously – ‘was surprised that the division had not already moved off’. Rommel then elaborated on his plan for a set-piece attack on the ‘Maginot Line’, to which Kluge gave his complete approval.
One of the first units to encounter Rommel’s advance upon the French frontier was the remains of General Duffet’s hardtried 18th Division, the same that had first felt the bite of Rommel at Houx. After a brief stand they were rounded up at noon. Duffet himself lost contact with his troops and, like a lost soul, wandered from command post to command post in search of them all through the following day. Finally, with a handful of men, he escaped through the German lines, arriving back in Paris to place himself at Gamelin’s disposal again. Early on the 16th, General Sancelme of the 4th North African was also a commander without a division. While withdrawing from Neuville the previous night, deprived of any information about its formations, divisional H.Q. heard the dread cry of ‘Here come
the Panzers!’ There was a shot from an anti-tank gun, and a tank was discovered, knocked out. It turned out to be a French Hotchkiss, the crew of which had been killed – the leading vehicle of a company (presumably belonging to the 1st Armoured) which had not been engaged in that day’s battle, and was now also retreating across the frontier. Taking the tank company along with him, Sancelme arrived at General Martin’s command post on the morning of the 16th, where he was greeted with some amazement, because it had already been assumed that the whole division had been taken prisoner. Still he could gain no news about it; nevertheless Martin ordered him to install what remained of his division in a defensive posture at Anor, and then (with total inaccuracy) informed Giraud19 that ‘the 4th North African has just arrived with all its infantry and a portion of its artillery’. By this time, after the appalling strain of the past week, Martin seems to have been making little sense. Having issued these and other orders to hold fast, in the afternoon he received unconfirmed (and inaccurate) reports that the Germans were already threatening the bridges behind him on the Sambre and upper Oise. Without reference to Giraud, he now ordered an unconditional withdrawal back across the Oise – the line which Georges’s Order No. 14 was just decreeing should be held at all cost.
Of the 4th North African, about all that in fact reached Anor (on the 17th) was a colonel and a thousand of his Tirailleurs who had escaped through the German net at Philippeville, though losing the whole of the regimental H.Q. After a seventy-mile march, without rations, they were then forced to turn and face the Germans in a state of complete exhaustion. This was the tragic end of a division which had acquitted itself bravely. That same night, General Sancelme was taken prisoner with his staff at La Capelle.
Rommel was across the French frontier, travelling, as on the previous day, in Rothenburg’s command tank. Moving towards the village of Clairfayts, the tank column was warned that the road through it had been mined, so
we bore off to the south and moved in open order across fields and hedges in a semi-circle round the village. There was not a sound from the enemy, although our artillery was dropping shells at intervals deep into their territory… Suddenly we saw the angular outlines of a French fortification about 100 yards ahead. Close beside it were a number of fully-armed French troops, who, at the first sight of the tanks, at once made as if to surrender. We were just beginning to think we would be able to take it without fighting, when one of our tanks opened fire on the enemy elsewhere where, with the result that the enemy garrison promptly vanished into their concrete pill-box. In a few moments the leading tanks came under heavy anti-tank gunfire from the left and French machine-gun fire opened over the whole area.
Taking up the story, one of Rommel’s tank commanders describes coming up against one of the French bunker positions towards evening:
It spits fire. Two vehicles knocked out; and also from the right an anti-tank gun fires and hits the command tank of the heavy company. The radio operator has a leg shot off, commander unhurt. I am close by with my tank, but take cover. Enemy artillery fires heavily on us with medium-calibre guns. How are we going to get through the bunker line? Big question. In front of us is a thick wire entanglement, behind it a broad and deep Panzer ditch, and in the middle of the road anti-tank obstacles have been built. Are there still further obstacles? The only possibility; to blow up the anti-tank obstacles, and then rush through, hoping for luck. Meanwhile divisional commander [Rommel] as ever accompanies us in our attack in a tank. Explosion, silence full of apprehension, then two Very lights, the road is passable. Now with a rush shooting wildly between the bunkers. There are one or two casualties, but the mass get through.
Heavy artillery fire now plastered the French fortified zone. Under cover of smoke, engineers crept up to demolish the anti-tank ‘hedgehogs’. Rommel watched as another assault troop dealt with the pill-box ahead of him:
The men crawled up to the embrasure and threw a 6-pound demolition charge in through the firing slit. When, after repeated summonses to surrender, the strong enemy garrison still did not emerge, a further charge was thrown in. One officer and 35 men were then taken prisoner, although they shortly afterwards overcame the weak assault troop and escaped, after French machine-guns had opened fire from another pill-box.
Slowly the sky darkened and it became night. Farms were burning at several points in Clairfayts and farther west. I now gave orders for an immediate penetration into the fortified zone, and a thrust as far as possible towards Avesnes.
With jubilation, Rommel wrote in his diary:
The way to the west was now open… We were through the Maginot Line! It was hardly conceivable. Twenty-two years before we had stood for four and a half long years before this self-same enemy and had won victory after victory and yet finally lost the war. And now we had broken through the renowned Maginot Line and were driving deep into enemy territory. It was not just a beautiful dream. It was reality.
Now the fighting took on an entirely different character, that of a mad nocturnal pursuit. There was a bright moon, and Rommel ordered his tanks to advance at top speed, firing on the move to discourage any enemy anti-tank gunners or minelaying parties. ‘We’ll do it like the Navy,’ he said. ‘Fire salvoes to port and starboard.’
In the moonlight we could see the men of the 7th Motor-cycle Battalion moving forward on foot beside us. Occasionally an enemy machine-gun or anti-tank gun fired, but none of their shots came anywhere near us.
The French were clearly taken by surprise, first that Rommel should have broken through the frontier fortifications with such speed, and secondly that, against all the rules, he should be continuing the advance by night:
The people in the houses were rudely awoken by the din of our tanks, the clatter and roar of tracks and engines. Troops lay bivouacked beside the road, military vehicles stood parked in farmyards and in some places on the road itself. Civilians and French troops, their faces distorted with terror, lay huddled in the ditches, alongside hedges and in every hollow beside the road. We passed refugee columns, the carts abandoned by their owners, who had fled in panic into the fields. On we went, at a steady speed, towards our objective.
As always, Rommel was leading the raiding party in much the same way that, as a young captain, he had led his infiltrators behind the Italian lines at Caporetto. Occasionally he transmitted a brief radio message to his divisional staff, well to the rear. Towards Avesnes, progress became slower:
Military vehicles, tanks, artillery and refugee carts packed high with belongings blocked part of the road and had to be pushed unceremoniously to the side. All around were French troops lying flat on the ground, and farms everywhere were jammed tight with guns, tanks and other military vehicles… Always the same picture, troops and civilians in wild flight down both sides of the road.
On reaching Avesnes, the small town from which Ludendorff had directed the Germans’ last-gasp offensive of March 1918, Rommel appreciated that it might be occupied by strong French forces. Nevertheless, he ordered the Panzer column to thrust forward at full speed. In fact, in Avesnes Rommel’s advance-guard caught the remnants of Bruneau’s 1st Armoured, on its way to La Capelle, completely offguard. There was a disagreeable moment for Rommel when some of the surviving ‘B’ tanks managed to push into a gap in the Panzer column, ‘shooting wildly around them’. Several German tanks were knocked out; then, as dawn was coming up, Lieutenant Hanke – the diehard Nazi who had proved himself on the Meuse – moved in with his Mark IV and polished off the remaining ‘B’ tanks. Out of the whole of the French 1st Armoured Division, only three tanks crept off the battlefield. Later that day its artillery was also mopped up; with the exception of one battery, it had not fired a solitary shell. Having lost his division, General Bruneau ‘gave his staff officers their freedom’, and himself disappeared into the night. The following night he too was captured, east of St Quentin, by two engineers of the 6th Panzer.
After cleaning up in Avesnes, Rommel signalled corps H.Q. for further orders.
There was no reply. He decided to continue the headlong rush and try to seize Landrecies and its crossing over the Sambre, eleven miles west of Avesnes. Ammunition was running out, so his column now ‘drove westwards through the brightening day with guns silent’. But Rommel was convinced that the rest of his division, infantry and supplies was following up closely behind him. Once again, he passed more columns of wretched refugees mingled with utterly astonished French troops on the march:
A chaos of guns, tanks and military vehicles of all kinds, inextricably entangled with horse-drawn refugee carts, covered the road and verges. By keeping our guns silent and occasionally driving our cross-country vehicles alongside the road, we managed to get past the column without great difficulty.
To Lose a Battle Page 48