To Lose a Battle (112 page)

15
. Of which one was still only rated as a ‘light’ division.

16
. His Chief of Staff, Colonel Kammhuber, was similarly disgraced. After the war he rejoined the new Federal German Luftwaffe and subsequently became its Inspector-General.

17
. Reinberger was repatriated from Canada as a P.O.W. in 1944; Germany capitulated before a case against him could be heard.

18
. There is a certain historic irony about the role bad weather played in Hitler’s plans for 1940. In February 1916 the delay of a week which it imposed on the Crown Prince’s initial attack on Verdun probably saved the French from disaster; in 1940 it was Hitler who was saved.

19
. According to its chief, General Liss, this branch of O.K.H. Intelligence had been divided on the following arbitrary basis: ‘Countries who wear their shirts inside their trousers belong to the West, and those who wear their shirts outside, to the East.’

20
. Just how akin Halder’s First War thinking was to that of his French opposite numbers is revealed by the fact that Gamelin, in his appreciation of German capabilities, was also to reckon that the Germans could not cross the Meuse before the ninth day.

21
. Based on some suspicion that Manstein (ex-Lewinski) had Jewish blood?

22
. In 1956 he became the first Inspector-General of Federal Germany’s post-war Bundeswehr.

23
. Commanded by Guderian himself in the early pre-war days.

24
. In the course of its evolution Hitler had frequently cried out at the lack of imagination his generals showed whenever the issue of ‘special ops’ arose. ‘These generals are too correct… No tricks ever occur to them!’ This was at least one common factor which Hitler as a military mind shared with Winston Churchill.

25
. Even its framers seem to have been partially unconscious of the inherent beauty of
Sichelschnitt
as it developed; for instance, to the French High Command, when Rundstedt broke through at Sedan his ultimate objective might well have been one of three almost equally attractive ones: to swing left and roll up the Maginot Line from behind, to continue straight on and seize Paris, or to swing right and head for the Channel – as in fact the plan intended. Faced with this choice, any High Command would be like a greyhound having to make a decision on three equidistant rabbits.

1
. Brauchitsch and Halder were not even consulted on
Weserübung
until the very last minute, Hitler possibly anticipating the objections which the O.K.H. would raise to this new adventure, which was even more risky than
Sichelschnitt.

2
. An intriguing field of speculation opens up if one considers what
might
have happened if, in both world wars, Britain had remained true to her amphibious traditions and maintained the bulk of her Army as a truly mobile expeditionary force, instead of committing it inextricably to the line in France. Certainly, in the Second World War, the presence or absence of the few B.E.F. divisions in France was to have little influence in events there, whereas, properly organized, they could have undoubtedly inflicted a signal defeat on Hitler in Norway.

3
. Typical of the mistrust festering within Daladier’s War Cabinet was Gamelin’s refusal to discuss France’s military deficiencies in front of Bonnet, to which Daladier commented, ‘You did right. If you had exposed them, the Germans would have known about them the next day.’

4
. In a more modern context, they would have been rated ‘hawks’ or ‘doves’.

5
. De Gaulle was then commanding a tank brigade dispersed behind the Maginot Line. At the end of January he had re-entered the limelight by circulating to political and military leaders a courageous memorandum in which he warned of the dangers of the Germans smashing through the French defences with an overwhelming mechanical force. The official, complacent response was that France ‘was not Poland’. There is a curious historical parallel between Colonel de Gaulle’s memorandum and one which gained disbelief and disfavour for another colonel, Émile Driant, when he warned Joffre of the impending attack on Verdun in 1916.

6
. This declaration was later to be a source of enduring bitterness between Britain and France.

7
. Owing to the blood-letting of 1914–18 and the attendant fall in the birth-rate, France had been able to mobilize far fewer men in 1940 than in 1914; the difference was most noticeable in the fact that whereas in 1914 France had 1,250,000 men between the ages of twenty and twenty-five, in 1940 she had only 600,000 in this vital age-group.

8
. This wide discrepancy arises from the exact numbers of the obsolescent Mark I and Mark II tanks which the German Army ‘retired’ during the winter of 1939–40.

9
. In this design, it was a kind of stepfather to the American ‘Grant’ tank.

10
. Jodl claimed 70 per cent, though Guderian denies the number of breakdowns was even ‘as high as 30 per cent’.

11
. The 4th Armoured, whose command was later given to de Gaulle, was actually in process of formation when the Germans struck. Once, when discussing the 1940 campaign with her long-time lover, Gaston Palewski (who had served as an Air Force major at the time), and myself, Nancy Mitford made a throw-away remark which perhaps summed up better the French failure in 1940 than any other judgement that a military expert could have passed: ‘Yes, I know they had more tanks, and better tanks, but wasn’t the real trouble that the poor darlings left them in their
garidges
?’

12
. Although this was the month that, for the first time, British aircraft production actually surpassed Germany’s.

13
. These are to some extent approximate figures, as there remain considerable discrepancies over the number of German and French machines actually in line on 10 May. One more recent estimate puts the total of French single-seat fighters in line on that day at no more than 542, of which only half were Morane-Saulniers 406, and only 36 France’s newest, and best, fighter, the Dewoitine 520.

14
. Excluding planes based in Britain but used in France.

15
. The best equipment having been siphoned off for the Seventh and First Armies in the north.

16
. It should not be forgotten, however, that the British Secretary of State for War, Leslie Hore-Belisha, was sacked (in January) for criticizing the poverty of the B.E.F. defence works.

17
. Which the Panzers were to reach by the eleventh day of the offensive.

18
. Compared, by General Beaufre, to Marshal Bazaine ‘laying one cannon at St Privat’ in 1870.

19
. By comparison, Hitler’s despised Siegfried Line could boast a density of between twenty and thirty.

20
. Despite the fact that, as previously noted, G.Q.G. had been fully informed of what had happened to the Polish bunkers when attacked by the Panzers.

21
. Note, though, that the weather did not appear to halt Luftwaffe operations.

22
. Possibly his single most helpful contribution to Hitler during the war.

23
. Oster was executed in the aftermath of the July 1944 bomb plot.

24
. German time, i.e. one hour ahead of French time.

1
. Later he became General, and Commander of Central Forces, NATO.

2
. French time, which, together with British time, was one hour behind German time. French times are given throughout the rest of the narrative.

3
. Hitler immediately claimed that the bombers had been Allied, thereby providing himself with an admirable
quid pro quo
to excuse the launching of terror raids against Allied – as well as Belgian and Dutch – civilian centres. Goebbels’s propaganda machine kept up the story of the Allied atrocity against Freiburg throughout the war, and it was not until several years afterwards that the whole truth was revealed.

4
. In 1940 Holland, with a larger population, had an Army of only 250,000 men, compared to Belgium’s 700,000.

5
. ‘Construction and Training Company’. Quite by coincidence, the Germans who had pulled off without loss the greatest
coup de main
of the First War, the capture of Verdun’s Fort Douaumont, the world’s most powerful fortification, were also ‘Brandenburgers’, in that they came from III Brandenburg Corps.

6
. After the war Witzig rejoined the Army and ended his career commanding a wing of the Engineer School of the Bundeswehr.

7
. Literally ‘crag’s nest’. Hitler had a passion for giving his headquarters gothically romantic names.

1
. Philby’s remark was recorded, long before he came to fame, by Middleton in
Our Share of Night
, published in 1946.

2
. About ten air miles up the Meuse from Dinant. See Map 3.

1
. In fact, it was of course Rommel.

2
. Later killed in Russia.

3
. Midway between Dinant and Yvoir, and about two and a half miles from each. See Maps 3 and 4a.

4
. i.e. roughly two hours after the actual crossing.

5
. Note that the 2nd Armoured dropped temporarily out of sight; next day it was dispatched to the First Army.

6
. It should also be noted that, by 12 May, Georges had already oriented several more of his reserve divisions – including both the 1st and 2nd Armoured, towards northern Belgium – away from the main threat.

7
. Again, this was thinking in 1914–18 terms; it need hardly be remarked that the German infantry divisions of 1940 would not have found such a march beyond their powers, even on foot.

1
. Mixed divisions, roughly comparable to the French D.L.M.s, consisting of two rifle regiments and only one tank detachment. The Polish campaign proved them to be unsatisfactory.

2
. Later killed at the Battle of Alam Halfa in the desert, while again serving under Rommel.

3
. The whole 7th Panzer in fact possessed only some two dozen of the new Mark IV tank with its heavy 75-mm. gun.

4
. Many of which, it will be remembered, had never received the vital armour plates protecting their embrasures.

5
. Hanke, according to Rommel’s son, Manfred, was an out-and-out Nazi highly unpopular with the other officers. He ended the war as Gauleiter of Silesia, and conducted the last-ditch defence of Breslau. When the devastated city finally capitulated to the Russians, Hanke disappeared in a plane and has never been heard of since.

6
. Successor to the wounded Schraepler.

7
. Rommel’s total losses that day were five officers, seven N.C.O.s and forty-nine men killed, plus a considerable number of wounded.

8
. The fact that Rommel considered it ‘powerful’ is in itself indicative of just how precarious his position on the west bank was, and what might have been achieved by any really resolute French riposte.

9
. The sluggishness and lack of punch with which these first ripostes were executed characterized almost all the French counter-attacks subsequently carried out at various levels; in contrast, right through to the last days of the war, the art of the counter-attack was something in which the German Army was particularly skilled. As many American and British veterans will testify, the German capacity to hit back with an instant and weighted blow with whatever forces happened to be at hand was often little short of miraculous.

10
. Like the 66th Regiment, both were ‘A’ series reservist units.

11
. D’Argenlieu was killed a few days later.

12
. Duffet was commander of the 18th Division.

13
. It is to be recalled that this also marked the hinge between the French Ninth and Second Armies.

14
. Note the two different, closely situated place-names over which confusion was later to arise: Chéhéry and Chémery.

15
. In the Luftwaffe of 1940, the basic unit was the
Staffel
, comparable to an R.A.F. squadron and containing 10–12 planes; three
Staffeln
comprised a
Gruppe
, equivalent to an R.A.F. wing; three
Gruppen
made up a
Geschwader
, which consisted of approximately 120 planes. Then came the
Fliegerkorps
, constituted of
Geschwader
of different types of aircraft. The two Air Fleets deployed in the West between them contained five
Fliegerkorps.