The construction of German rear area defences, which were soon to become the front line, was the responsibility of local Nazi Party officials. It was not long before Blaskowitz was at loggerheads with Gauleiter (District Leader) Adolf Wagner, who answered directly to SS-Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler. The Todt Organisation did not start work until September, by which time their efforts were largely too late. While the front-line troops fought delaying actions, little was achieved behind them despite their sacrifice. An exasperated Blaskowitz sent Generalmajor Hans Taeglichsbeck to assess the situation between Nancy and Belfort. He found that even the strongpoints necessary for holding the mountain passes were only at the preliminary stage. This was news that Blaskowitz did not want to hear. It also seemed that Himmler intended to take direct command of these defensive lines behind Blaskowitz, thereby hampering the operational chain of command. Blaskowitz’s vocal protests understandably upset both Himmler and Wagner.
By early September it was evident that those senior Vichy politicians at Belfort would have to be moved. On the 8th Pétain arrived at Sigmaringen on the upper Danube. The castle there became the haunt of the most unsavoury Vichy collaborators, including Joseph Darnand, the former head of the reviled Milice. On the 20th Pétain was moved again by his captors, this time to Schloss Zeil, north of Wangen. De Gaulle keenly hoped he would die before the Allied landings, but to the embarrassment of all the old marshal clung on. Clearly there would have to be a messy and doubtless acrimonious trial once Pétain was captured.
The Free French forces now numbered 560,000 men under arms, rising to a million by the end of the year, with men fighting in Alsace, the Alps and Brittany. On 1 September the headquarters of the French I Corps was assembled at Aix to command troops as a subordinate corps of the French 1st Army. It was now under the command of Lieutenant-General émile Béthouart, who was a veteran of the 1940 campaign in Norway and had aided the Allied landings in French North Africa in November 1942. The I Corps’ main component divisions were colonial formations, consisting of the 2nd Moroccan Infantry Division (2e DIM), the 9th Colonial Infantry Division (9e DIC), and the 4th Moroccan Mountain Division (4e DMM) supported by the 1st Armoured Division (1re DB). It was not until the end of the month that Army B was officially redesignated the French 1st Army.
The US 45th ‘Thunderbird’ Division moved into position opposite épinal on 20 September, between the French 1st Army on its right and the 36th Division and Patton’s US 3rd Army’s XV Corps, forming the US 7th Army’s left flank. The 36th ‘Texas’ Division crossed the Moselle on the night of 20/21 September near éloyes and by the 24th, despite German resistance, had secured a bridgehead from Remiremont to Jarmenil, which had Bailey and pontoon bridges respectively. The 45th Division went over on the 21st/22nd and after some tough fighting seized épinal. The 3rd Division was instructed to cross in the Rupt area to take Gerardmer near the Schlucht Pass and by a stroke of good luck seized a bridge before the Germans could blow it. By the last week of September the whole of VI Corps was over the Moselle.
Although Patch was reinforced by Patton’s XV Corps (US 79th Infantry and French 2nd Armoured Divisions), the weather conspired to bog down the US 7th Army’s advance; also it was short of fuel and ammunition. To make matters worse, both it and the French 1st Army lacked artillery as the Italian Front had been given priority. In the meantime the German defences had been improved, and beyond the Forest of Parroy were trenches, anti-tank ditches and concrete bunkers. Some 2,000 troops from the 15th Panzergrenadiers had entrenched themselves within the forest, and it would take the Americans a week of bitter fighting to drive out the defenders.
On 28 September the men of the US 79th ‘Cross of Lorraine’ Infantry Division entered the forest and came under attack by Panzer Mk IVs; they endured close-quarter fighting with enemy infiltration groups. The Americans pushed forwards about a kilometre and during the night came under constant German artillery fire, with splintered trees causing horrific injuries. Attempts to cut off the southern end of the woods on 1 October were met by an infantry attack supported by six panzers, and seven days later the Germans were still tenaciously clinging on. The following day the Americans launched an all-out push to finally subdue the remaining stubborn panzergrenadiers.
Heavy rain now further slowed the Americans’ advance as they approached the next layer of German defences, which were some 3–5 km deep, extending from the swamps beyond the Forest of Parroy to the High Vosges. With the Allied air forces grounded by the weather, the Germans were able to bring up reinforcements unhindered by air attack. The exhausted US 79th, which had been continually in combat for four months, was relieved by the US 44th Infantry in mid-October. They were followed by the 100th and 103rd Infantry and 14th Armored.
To the south the US VI Corps launched its renewed attack on 20 October, following deception operations to convince the Germans that the assault would fall west of Le Tholy, south of Ramnervillers. The US 3rd Infantry Division came under heavy counter-attack and artillery bombardment, but by the end of the month it had captured 5,000 prisoners along with the high ground overlooking the Meurthe river valley in the St Die area. While this battle was under way, on the 23rd the 1st Battalion, 141st Regiment from the US 36th Division had been dispatched through the forest east of Bruyères. It soon came under counter-attack and was surrounded; two days later attempts to reach the 240 trapped men failed. Only on the 30th did the Japanese-American 442nd Infantry (Nisei) Regiment manage to cut their way through. By now the US VI Corps’ main tasks were to bring its left and right flanks up through the 3rd Division’s salient along the Meurthe, commit the newly arrived US 100th ‘Century’ and 103rd ‘Cactus’ Infantry Divisions and then penetrate the Vosges passes and push to the Rhine.
Problems for de Lattre
Unfortunately for the French, by early October the weather had begun to close in as conditions became wet and cold. The adverse weather, plus manpower and supply problems, combined to bring a halt to I Corps’ advance that month. Also it was at this point that the French high command decided to replace its ‘Senegalese’ troops with Free French volunteers and send the colonial troops south. By the end of the year de Lattre was having increasing problems with his brave colonial forces. They were exhausted and ill-equipped, and French replacements were not forthcoming; they also viewed the ill-disciplined Free French forces with disdain. Many of the units had already endured one winter in Italy in 1943/4 and had been fighting continuously ever since. Among the Algerians there was a growing perception that their colonial masters were exploiting them. Where was the metropolitan or mainland French Army, many asked.
The 9th Colonial Division, as with other French divisions originating from the Francophone African colonies, lost its colonial troops in response to the ‘climatic conditions’ in France. Three ‘Senegalese’ regiments from the division were replaced with white Free French troops in November and the units were retitled Colonial Infantry Regiments. Similarly the 2nd Moroccan Division replaced one of its colonial regiments with a Free French-raised regiment. The 1st Division Française Libre or 1st Motorised Infantry Division had five battalions from Cameroon, Djibouti and French Equatorial Africa replaced by Free French recruits during September and October. In February 1945 the whitening process was extended to the black African, Caribbean and Pacific units. Inevitably the incorporation of Free French battalions into the 1st Army created friction, especially when the men of the North African divisions found themselves handing their weapons over to white French troops.
De Lattre not unreasonably wanted Frenchmen to liberate France, but this ultimately led to ugly accusations of racism. The huge numbers of Free French had to be brought within the French Army, particularly the 1st Army, and by November 1944 75,000 men had signed up, followed by another 65,000 by May 1945. However, Roosevelt and Eisenhower’s original equipment shipments could not cater for such a massive influx of men. The Americans came up with light weapons and equipment for 52,000 men, but the shortfall meant that the French Army also ha
d to rely on old French and captured German weaponry (including Czech and Russian arms). This caused a standardisation problem and such weapons were useless once available ammunition stocks had been exhausted.
In total, FFI units were used to create 8 infantry, 2 colonial and 1 armoured division, plus some 36 unaffiliated infantry regiments. Only about half the divisions ever saw any action, with the 10th and 25th Infantry involved in the fighting in Alsace. The Americans also requested 120 battalions of French troops to protect their lines of communication throughout France.
Battle for the Belfort Gap
The defection of Ukrainian recruits from the 30th Waffen-SS Division brought the Free French forces more than 1,200 trained men with all their weapons and equipment; they were duly inducted into the FFI as the 1st Ukrainian Battalion (Batallion Ukrainien, or BUK). On 26 September, attired in French black berets and German uniforms, they marched from Chateau de l’Abbeye to take part in the attack on Belfort. In their last action as the 1st BUK, on 3 October they assaulted and secured Hill 736 near the town. Afterwards the French took the unorthodox step of recruiting the whole of the 1st BUK into the 13th Demi-Brigade of the French Foreign Legion in order to avoid having to repatriate them. This was the only time in the history of the Legion that an entire foreign unit was embraced in such a manner.
The Allies’ logistics situation was improving by early November, coinciding with orders from Eisenhower, now in charge of all Allied forces in north-western Europe, calling for a broad offensive along the entire French front. In the meantime the inactivity of the French I Corps misled the Germans into believing it was digging in for the winter and they reduced their forces in the Belfort Gap to a single under-strength infantry division. Just before the Vosges campaign commenced the 198th Infantry Division was reinforced with men from six different battalions and five regiments and companies, including troops from two Kriegsmarine units, 8. Schiffs-Stamm-Abteilung and leichte Marine-Artillerie-Abteilung 687. None of these did much to enhance the division’s lamentable combat capabilities.
The French attacked the Belfort Gap on 13 November, killing the German divisional commander near the front lines; the commander of the German IV Luftwaffe Field Corps narrowly escaped capture. Six days later French armour pushed through the Belfort Gap and reached the Rhine at Huningue. The defenders were split into isolated pockets, particularly in Belfort itself, and French troops of the 2e Division d’Infanterie Marocaine, 9e Division d’Infanterie Coloniale and 1re Division Blindée were able to move through the German lines. By the 24th the German 308th Grenadier-Regiment was trapped, forcing its men to surrender or intern themselves in Switzerland. The following day I Corps liberated Mulhouse after a surprise armoured drive, and Belfort was assaulted and captured by the Moroccans.
General de Lattre, appreciating that the Germans were conducting an almost entirely static defence, directed both his corps to advance on Burnhaupt in the southern Vosges Mountains to encircle the German LXIII Corps (formerly the IV Luftwaffe Corps). By the 28th this operation had been completed, capturing over 10,000 German troops and crippling the LXIII Corps. French losses were serious enough that plans to clear the Alsace Plain had to be shelved while both sides reorganised and regrouped for the next round of bloodletting.
After forcing the Belfort Gap, General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny’s French 1st Army reached the Rhine in the region north of the Swiss border and south of the town of Colmar. In the meantime the French 2nd Armoured Division, spearheading the US 7th Army (VI and XV Corps) in the northern Vosges Mountains, forced the Saverne Gap and also reached the Rhine, liberating Strasbourg on the 23rd. The net result of this was to compact the German presence in southern Alsace into a semi-circular bridgehead that became known as the ‘Colmar Pocket’.
Trapped in the Colmar Pocket
The Colmar Pocket contained the now exhausted German 19th Army. Forming the southern boundary was the French I Corps, facing the Rhine at Huningue. The French soldiers launched an offensive to destroy the Pocket, but this operation was thwarted owing to the requirement to cover more of the Allied front line as US units were shifted north in response to Hitler’s Ardennes Offensive. Hitler was also determined to hold the Colmar Pocket, and during the first half of December reinforced it with 8,000 men; these represented no less than 80 per cent of the total reinforcements sent to fight the US 6th Army Group. His intention was for them to strike north through the French to attack the US 7th Army. The 19th Army deployed nine divisions to try to halt French attempts to develop the pocket into a threat against Strasbourg.
On 1 January 1945 the Germans launched Operation Nordwind, which was aimed at retaking Alsace. Only after the US 7th and French 1st Armies had contained and turned back this offensive were the Allies able to resume their efforts to reduce the troublesome Colmar Pocket. On the 20th the French I Corps led a fresh attack northwards but met stiff German resistance and the advance stalled after the first day as the German 19th Army fed in reinforcements. It would take three long weeks for the French and the US XXI Corps (US 28th and 75th Infantry and 12th Armored Divisions) to overwhelm the 19th Army, fighting in extremely cold weather over ground that offered the attackers little or no cover, against stubborn defenders who put up fierce resistance.
Notably the 2nd and 4th Moroccan Divisions from General émile Béthouart’s I Corps were assigned to take Ensisheim, with secondary attacks on the right flank of the corps north of Mulhouse carried out by the 9th Colonial Division. Armoured support was provided by the French 1st Armoured Division. The heavily wooded and urban terrain again favoured the defenders. Attacking in a snowstorm, the French I Corps initially achieved tactical surprise against General Abraham’s LXIII Army Corps. This attack forced General Siegfried Rasp to commit his only reserves, consisting of the 106th Panzer Brigade, the 654th Heavy Anti-tank Battalion and the 2nd Mountain Division. In reality, Panzer Brigade 106 was not up to much and had been already mauled in the fighting in Lorraine.
Formed in July from the remnants of Panzergrenadier Division Feldherrnhalle, which had been destroyed on the Eastern Front, two months later Panzer Brigade 106 was deployed in reserve in the Lorraine sector with the German 1st Army. On 8 September its forty-seven armoured fighting vehicles were involved in the counter-attack against Patton’s US 3rd Army in the Luxembourg sector. The brigade was routed after one day’s fighting, with 750 men captured and 21 panzers and tank destroyers and more than 60 half-tracks lost. With three-quarters of its combat effectiveness gone, the brigade was no longer capable of any offensive operations.
On the night of the 20th, German counter-attacks managed to stall I Corps’ advance, and the Germans’ in-depth defence, the poor weather and the exposed geography all combined to mar the French advance and limit its success. Notably the French 1st Armoured Division’s 1st Combat Command lost 36 of its 50 medium tanks to mines, and losses in other tank units were also high. It was evident that the Germans had no intention of giving up the fight.
General de Monsabert’s French II Corps with the US 3rd ‘Rock of the Marne’ Infantry Division and Brossel’s 1st Infantry Division launched its attack southwards on 22/23 January. To the south of the 3rd Division, the US 28th ‘Keystone’ Infantry Division (whose battle honours included the liberation of Paris) held its sector of the front with the French 2nd Armoured Division in reserve. General John W. O’Daniel’s 3rd Infantry Division attacking to the south-east aimed to cross the Ill river, bypass the city of Colmar to the north, and open a path for the French 5th Armoured Division to cut the vital railway bridge at Neuf-Brisach that was used to resupply the Germans in the Colmar Pocket. The pressure from the French and American forces was so intense that by the end of the month the Germans were forced to redistribute their troops. Then I Corps struck again in early February, moving north to link up with the US XXI Corps at Rouffach, south of Colmar, after pushing through weak German resistance and reaching the bridge over the Rhine at Chalampé.
The pocket was sealed by 9 February, an
d although the Germans lost 22,000 men taken prisoner, the bulk of the 19th Army escaped over the Upper Rhine. Those remaining German forces in the I Corps area retreated over the Rhine into Baden. From now on the thrust of the Allied offensive moved to the north, and I Corps was assigned the defence of the Rhine from the area south of Strasbourg to the Swiss frontier until mid-April.
Colmar cost the French 13,390 casualties and the Americans 8,000. Total German losses were put at 38,500.
Chapter Eleven
Lorraine and the Southern Push to the Rhine
After retreating through France in August and September 1944, the German 1st Army fought a protracted defensive battle in Lorraine. With Army Groups G and B streaming eastwards, the German High Command had to do something dramatic to stop the rot. In particular, they needed to gain valuable time in which to strengthen the West-wall defences before the Allies launched their assault on Germany itself.
Despite the failure of the Normandy/Mortain counter-attack, Hitler remained convinced that his panzers could successfully envelop the advancing Allies. This view he derived from the German Army’s performance on the Eastern Front, where time and time again it had managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat; it was most certainly not based on the reality of the situation in France, where Operations Overlord and Dragoon were backed by overwhelming firepower on the ground and in the air.
By early September Blaskowitz’s 1st Army, now under General Otto von Knobelsdorff, was safely behind the Moselle and Wiese’s 19th Army was holding Army Group G’s front from Nancy to the Swiss border and stretching westwards as far as the Loire. After the collapse in Normandy Field Marshal Walter Model’s Army Group B, with four armies, was defending the region from the North Sea down to Nancy and trying to stabilise the situation. Following his successful withdrawal from southern France, Hitler became convinced of Blaskowitz’s tactical abilities: he was the right man to oversee the much-needed counteroffensive.
Operation Dragoon Page 19