The Breaking Point

by Robert A Doughty

  Because of overwhelming pressure from the enemy, Litalien requested and received permission from his battalion commander, Captain Crousse, to withdraw. The subsequent movement of his company opened a wide hole for the Germans.

  In a remarkably short time, the German 2/1st Battalion reached the heights of La Boulette where they captured forty soldiers and one officer. Then they again moved forward and by 2200 hours seized the village of Cheveuges.54 Their struggle had been a sharp one, as demonstrated by the key intervention of the regimental commander to keep the attack going, but by capturing La Boulette and rushing forward to Cheveuges, they had opened the way for the rest of the German forces.

  Some resistance continued in the area east of La Boulette. Around 2100 hours remnants of the 2/331st, which were mixed with men gathered from the 147th and the 295th, occupied a tenuous line along the wooded front of the Bois de la Marfée. With hardly more than a hundred men, the battalion commander, Captain Foucault, attempted to occupy the center of resistance east of La Boulette, which included terrain east of the highest point of La Boulette. At the same time he tried to stretch his men across the entire front of his sector, but “contact with the right and the left was practically nonexistent.” He could not extend farther to the west, because the Germans had a strong hold on the area around the road between Bellevue and La Boulette. The battalion commander had heard nothing from the platoons in Frénois and the 7th Company, 2/147th, since 1800 hours. He said, “We still held the top [of La Boulette], but the Germans were infiltrating through our left.” At the same time, the enemy had moved past his right flank, and he concluded, “We were thus in a salient in the enemy's lines.”55 The Germans on his left were apparently from the 1st and 2nd Battalions and those on his right from the 3rd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment.

  Foucault had little or no knowledge about what was happening to other battalions. Between 1500 and 2030 hours, he sent four different soldiers to the regimental command post in an attempt to reestablish contact. The first two disappeared, and the third returned after being unable to locate the headquarters of the regiment. The fourth departed at 2030 and returned at 2300 hours with orders for the battalion to occupy a position along the wood line east of Cheveuges. At 0300 hours the battalion received orders to occupy positions along the route between Cheveuges and Bulson and to make contact with the 11th Machine Gun battalion on its right. By the time the order arrived, the battalion had no more than sixty men.56

  The withdrawal of the remnants of Foucault's battalion left the Germans in control of all the high ground surrounding Sedan and in possession of the key town of Cheveuges. The German 1st Infantry Regiment had achieved a breakthrough at Frénois.

  In the German rear, at Gaulier, engineers began erecting a tactical bridge over which tanks and artillery could move. At Donchery, infantry from the 2nd Panzer Division finally made their way across the Meuse around 2200 hours. Their success came only because the French defenders on the Meuse had been pushed back by the infantry of the 1st Panzer Division. Without this assistance, Guderian's old division may never have been able to make their way across the Meuse.

  With support from artillery, tanks, and aviation, German infantry had opened the way for the XIXth Panzer Corps.

  THE PANIC OF THE 55TH DIVISION

  Even before the Germans crossed the Meuse, a few French soldiers fled the fighting around Sedan. As the aerial strikes increased during the afternoon of 13 May, the surge of runaways increased dramatically. Despite these instances of cowardice, the 55th Division still could function and could have offered significant resistance to the Germans. Not until the appearance of a widespread panic on the evening of the 13th and the subsequent disintegration of the division did the combat effectiveness of the division decline precipitously.

  The first indication that division headquarters had of something being dreadfully wrong occurred around 1800 hours. The command post at Fond Dagot had dispatched an officer to go forward toward Bulson and to gather some information, but shortly after leaving, he returned with some alarming news. He reported that a mass of fleeing soldiers was moving south along the road by the command post. Five minutes earlier, Colonel Chaligne had been on this road and had seen nothing abnormal.

  Hurrying to the road, General Lafontaine, Colonel Chaligne, and other members of the staff were confronted by the sight of numerous soldiers running away from the fighting. The runaways included infantry and engineers but above all artillerymen. The 1/78th Artillery, whose commander insisted that he had received an order to withdraw, was moving in a convoy with its cannon and vehicles. But there were also artillerymen from other battalions and regiments who were fleeing without their weapons; officers sometimes moved alone with their men without attempting to control them or to get them to return to their artillery pieces.

  Colonel Chaligne explained, “All the panicked men said that the enemy was in Bulson with tanks and that he would break out at any moment.”57 To halt the fleeing soldiers, Lafontaine had several trucks placed across the road between two quarry pits. He then stood in the middle of the road, halting soldiers with his revolver in his hand. Fearing that the Germans had in fact broken through at Bulson, he and Chaligne used an engineer company, the infantry company that was charged with securing the division command post, and the staff of the headquarters to establish a hasty defensive line north of the command post. Meanwhile, they attempted to gain control over the fleeing soldiers and to get them formed into units again.

  By 1900 hours the enemy had not appeared, and the division's leaders knew that the rumor about Germans breaking out at Bulson were false. The damage, however, had been done, and the specter of fleeing soldiers continued, though at a lower scale, throughout the evening.

  Though Lafontaine had little to say in detail about the incident around the division's command post between 1800 and 1900 hours, Chaligne later insisted that the men who attempted to flee past Fond Dagot were regrouped into units, placed under the control of officers and noncommissioned officers, and returned to the front. He also said that the artillerymen returned to their batteries.58 The panic on the evening of 13 May would not have been so embarrassing or devastating to the combat effectiveness of the Xth Corps had it happened as Colonel Chaligne described it. However, incidents of individual men and units fleeing from the fighting occurred throughout most of the 13th and 14th. Despite the best efforts of Lafontaine and Chaligne, the terribly disruptive and negative effects of the panic were not curtailed. They may have momentarily turned the tide of soldiers fleeing past Fond Dagot, but the men did not return to their weapons and units.

  Nevertheless, Chaligne's testimony is supported by other officers present at Fond Dagot around 1900 hours. For example, one officer who insisted that the runaways were not significant was Captain Boyer, who commanded a section of gendarmerie in the Sedan sector. In a report written after the battle, he said that all the artillerymen moving along the road were under the control of their commanders and that the infantry consisted of no more than two or three platoons that were gathered up and regrouped into new units. In a most illuminating addition, however, Boyer explained, “Around 2000 hours, the mobile platoon commanded by Lieutenant Liègeois could not be located. I learned later that the officer had withdrawn with his personnel toward Vouziers without having received an order from me.”59 In reality, many soldiers followed the same path as Lieutenant Liègeois.

  Some of the strongest evidence against Chaligne's assertion that the artillerymen returned to their guns comes from the Germans. For the 14th, the 1st Panzer Division reported capturing twenty-eight artillery tubes, while the 10th Panzer Division reported “more than 40.”60 Most of the tubes had apparently been abandoned. Lafontaine and Chaligne may have stemmed the tide of runaways for a short period, but soldiers and units continued to flee to the rear. By 1900 hours the village of Chémery was crammed with soldiers fleeing from the areas of Bulson and the Bois de la Marfée.

  Though individual infantrymen started fleeing duri
ng the afternoon, subsequent investigations suggested that the panic around 1800 hours began in the artillery. Also, it was the fleeing of entire artillery units that gutted the fighting capability of the division and left it far less capable of resisting the Germans. Much of the Xth Corps’ artillery was located on the high ground southeast of Sedan and north of Fond Dagot, and almost all of it was affected by the panic during the evening of the 13th. While the French artillery units had not panicked under the German aerial attacks that occurred throughout the morning and afternoon of the 13th, the incessant bombing clearly had unsettled them and had sapped their courage. Their subsequent panic came more from a failure of will than from damage done by the enemy.

  The scale and nature of the panic during the evening of the 13th was greatly affected by the locating of headquarters for corps and division artillery around Bulson. These headquarters included the command posts of the heavy artillery of the Xth Corps, Artillery Group B of the heavy artillery of the Xth Corps, and the division artillery of the 55th. Colonel Poncelet, who commanded the heavy artillery of the Xth Corps, had his command post at Flaba, which is about three kilometers southeast of Bulson, and Lieutenant Colonel Dourzal, who commanded Artillery Group B under Poncelet, had his command post at Bulson. Colonel Baudet, who commanded the artillery of the 55th Division, had his command post just south of Bulson.61 Though these headquarters were not the first to flee, they were eventually overcome with fear and panic. When they fled south and west, the artillery batteries and infantry companies around them that were already nervous simply followed their example of moving quickly away from the German onslaught. In other words, their move turned a trickle of runaways into a torrent.

  The clearest statement of the causes of the panic and sequence of events came from Brigadier General Duhautois, who commanded the artillery of the Xth Corps. According to General Duhautois, an infantryman on a motorcycle reported to Lieutenant Colonel Dourzal's command post at 1815 hours and informed the artillerymen that German tanks were near Bulson and that it was necessary for them to move. No one could later recall the unit or name of this messenger, though some implied that he was a German who delivered false messages. At 1830 hours Captain Fouques, who commanded batteries B-7 and B-8 of the 169th Artillery Regiment, which was part of corps artillery, informed his battalion commander that “intense small-arms fire” was occurring about four or five hundred meters from his batteries. Without being able to confirm it, he said that the firing “could be coming from tanks.”62

  At about the same time, Colonel Baudet, who commanded the artillery of the 55th Division, heard firing around his command post. The officers on the staff rushed outside, prepared to defend the headquarters with their pistols. While awaiting an attack, fleeing soldiers reported to them that enemy tanks had been sighted just south of Bulson. Reports from Fouques and Baudet undoubtedly found their way to Dourzal's command post.63

  At 1845 hours Dourzal called the commander of the Xth Corps artillery, Colonel Poncelet, and informed him that a fight was taking place around four or five hundred meters from his command post and requested permission to withdraw. Poncelet asked Dourzal to determine if the firing was coming from German weapons. Shortly thereafter, Dourzal called and confirmed that the firing was coming from the enemy. Moments later, a panicked call came from the adjutant to Dourzal, who informed the artillery commander that the command post would be encircled in five minutes. Poncelet then gave permission for Dourzal to move his command post and reported his having given permission to the corps commander.64

  Needless to say, none of the artillery battalions or batteries was directly threatened by German infantrymen. Except for the 2/99th Artillery near Cheveuges, all were to the rear of Lieutenant Colonel Pinaud's command post for the 147th Fortress Infantry Regiment. Pinaud did not have to move his command post until midmorning on the 14th.

  Nevertheless, the panic continued to spread to units that were safely away from the German threat. Around 2000 hours the commander of the 1/110th Artillery, northwest of Haraucourt and about five kilometers from Noyers, told the commander of the 120th Infantry Regiment, 71st Division, that he was preparing to defend his command post. He issued ammunition to his men and placed them about one hundred meters away toward the west.65

  Around 1945 hours Poncelet's command post at Flaba for the heavy artillery in the Xth Corps moved. While Colonel Poncelet was away visiting a subordinate unit, the men in the command post responded to the panicked reports from units to his front by hastily moving. All the officers and men departed except for two liaison officers who were not present when the move occurred. The two men had left the command post en route to the alternate command post, and upon returning discovered the main command post had moved without telling them. Discovering that a great deal of equipment had been left, they destroyed the central telephone system, burned maps and other documents, and carried away telephones and “dossiers.” They then reported to the command post of Artillery Group A.66

  Colonel Poncelet did not take long to discover that the move had been premature. After receiving an order from corps headquarters to reestablish his command post, he and his men returned. Unfortunately, much of their communications equipment had been damaged or destroyed. Disgraced by the precipitous move of his command post and recognizing the terrible effect of the panic, Colonel Poncelet committed suicide on 24 May.67 By taking his own life, the commander of the heavy artillery in the Xth Corps acknowledged the role of his headquarters in spreading the panic on the evening of the 13th.

  The cowardly performance of the artillery around Sedan cannot be defended and can only partially be explained. One surprising reason for the panic of so many units was the effective communications between artillery forward observers and units. The artillery units did not suffer as many communications lapses as did the infantry units, for most of their communication wires were apparently buried and thereby protected. While breaks in lines did occur, reports that were sometimes extremely alarming somehow managed to find their way to superior and subordinate units. As forward observers called in fires, they relayed information that was sometimes inaccurate and other times extremely surprising. In short, the artillery may have been better informed about what was happening to the division than was the division headquarters, and the spreading of information may have sapped their will to fight.

  At the same time, the artillery communications links may have been used to repeat unfounded rumors, for erroneous information did get passed from artillery units to their higher headquarters. The best example is the report of German tanks at Bulson. No good explanation exists for this destructive rumor, other than perhaps an artillery forward observer having sighted and mistakenly identified a French armored vehicle. In fact, the Germans reported destroying nine French armored vehicles around the Bois de la Marfée by midnight.68 Though the 55th Division did not have any tanks around the Bois de la Marfée, the vehicles were probably lightly armored and tracked vehicles used by the French to ferry troops and resupplies. The irony is that a French forward observer, as well as the Germans, may have mistakenly identified them as tanks. Moreover, the Germans did not have tanks across the Meuse at 1800 hours on the 13th, but they did have a few self-propelled guns. The bridge at Gaulier was not completed until around 2300 hours, and the first German tanks crossed sometime thereafter. The truth appears to be a false report that soon became gospel and that spread like wildfire through the artillery units. As for the small-arms fire that was reported close to several artillery elements, one experienced infantry battalion commander who was in the Bulson area explained, “The panic was caused by an isolated parachutist who fired at vehicles and autos passing along the route from Cheveuges to Bulson.”69

  All in all, the panic on the evening of 13 May had a devastating effect on the fighting capability of the 55th Division. In an army that placed special value on fire support and that had inculcated into the very soul of its officers and men the requirement to have effective fire support, the loss of almost all
the artillery in the 55th Division's sector was a staggering blow. Instead of having 174 artillery tubes available, the division had almost none. And instead of blanketing the enemy's crossing sites with massive amounts of artillery, the division did little more than harass the vulnerable and massed Germans. A significant amount of combat power had been lost needlessly and foolishly.

  The panic on the 13th may also not have been so embarrassing had it been confined only to the artillery. Unfortunately, virtually every type of unit was affected by men being overwhelmed by fear and fleeing to the south.

  THE WEAKNESS OF THE FRENCH INFANTRY

  Of all the units engaged in the Sedan area, perhaps none performed as poorly as the 331st Infantry Regiment, which had arrived at Sedan on 6 May. When the 213th Infantry Regiment departed for training, the 331st replaced it. Thus, by the 13th, the regiment had occupied positions along the Meuse for a week. While a week is certainly long enough to prepare reasonably strong defenses, many of the advantages of having the same unit in a position from October through May were lost when the 213th Regiment departed.

  Five companies from the regiment occupied key positions along the second line or the stopping line, but only one or two managed to offer any real resistance against the Germans. Captain Carribou, commander of the 2/144th, had terrible problems with the 6th Company, 2/331st, which occupied his battalion's rearmost line in the Bois de la Marfée. He had to intervene personally to keep its soldiers from withdrawing precipitously through the woods, but his efforts were futile. As soon as he left them, they disappeared and left a huge hole on his left flank. Captain Foucault, commander of the 2/331st to the left (west) of Carribou's unit, also had problems with the 7th Company, 2/331st, which occupied his battalion's rearmost position in the Bois de la Marfée and near the top of La Boulette. Except for Lieutenant Langrenay's platoon, this company disappeared about the same time as the 6th Company faded away into the darkness.