To Lose a Battle (114 page)

14
. ‘Victoriously we’ll roll over France.’

15
. Two Battle squadrons (Nos. 105 and 208) had only four planes left between them; the two Blenheim squadrons (Nos. 114 and 139) had nine.

16
. The British were largely absent from the battle that day.

17
. Note that in the Assembly that day Laval was reported as already calling for a Government led by Pétain and Weygand.

1
. These were presumably Somuas from the 1st D.L.M.

2
. The episode later caused something of a domestic furore, in itself illustrative of the stresses which the campaign was beginning to impose upon the Germans. Rommel’s extremely competent Staff Major, Heidkaemper, complained to him in a memorandum that, as divisional commander, he should have stayed farther to the rear. Furious, Rommel confided to his wife:

‘I shall have to have him posted away as soon as I can. This young General Staff Major, scared that something might happen to him and the Staff, stayed some 20 miles behind the front and, of course, lost contact with the fighting troops which I was commanding up near Cambrai. Instead of rushing everything up forward, he went to Corps H.Q., upset the people there and behaved as if the command of the division were no longer secure. And he still believes to this day that he performed a heroic deed.’

A few days later, however, Heidkaemper was forgiven.

3
. This was obviously somewhat premature, as Rommel did not in fact take Cambrai till much later in the day.

4
. Among those already mentioned in this story, just to name a few, are General Prioux, Drew Middleton of the
New York Times
and Gordon Waterfield of Reuters.

5
. Some French Press reports referred categorically to 100,000 German agents as having been deployed in the Low Countries and Luxembourg alone.

6
. The story of the Polish ‘poisoned chocolates’ is an interesting example of how, in an atmosphere of rampant terror, even the craziest allegations can gain wide credence and reappear in countless different contexts. After the invasion of Holland, orders went out for all ‘unexplained’ chocolates to be instantly destroyed; in France, Alexander Werth’s diary for 21 May reveals this entry:

‘Another woman says they dropped poisoned sweets at the Gare d’Austerlitz the other day, and that one child died after eating one.’

7
. This assumption was perpetuated by no less a person than Paul Reynaud, who, in his ‘the Fatherland is in danger’ speech of 21 May, erroneously declared that ‘Through unbelievable faults, which will be punished, bridges over the Meuse were not destroyed.’ (According to General Doumenc,
all
the Meuse bridges were blown.)

8
. Walter Schellenberg, the famous S.S. Intelligence operator, boasted that he had been responsible for sending out ‘false news items’ rn French over powerful German transmitters, but he makes no claim, however, of bogus orders having been among his repertoire.

9
. The Nazis retorted that for every one shot, they would execute ten French prisoners. ‘Nice pleasant people the Germans,’ commented Shirer. ‘That takes us back a thousand or two years.’

10
. The extremist organ of the right-wing ‘Leagues’, which, just before the war, had perpetrated one or two minor bomb outrages.

11
. Guderian’s cool-headedness is all the more remarkable in that, through an error, he seems at the time to have exaggerated de Gaulle’s threat. Although in his memoirs (
Panzer Leader
) he describes it as ‘slight’, he goes on to say:

‘During the next few days de Gaulle stayed with us and on the 19th a few of his tanks succeeded in penetrating to within a mile of my advanced H.Q. in Holnon wood. The headquarters had only some 20-mm. anti-aircraft guns for protection, and I passed a few uncomfortable hours until at last the threatening visitors moved off in another direction.’

The fact was that, after the 19th de Gaulle disengaged to the south and did not attack again until the 27th. Furthermore, Holnon, where Guderian came in jeopardy, lies nearly twenty-five miles north-west (beyond St Quentin) from the farthest point reached by de Gaulle on the 19th. It seems more likely that the infiltrating tanks belonged to units of the dispersed French Second Armoured.

12
.
Ausgabebereit
instead of
ausgebrannt.

13
. He was replaced by the indestructible Balck.

14
. The 9th was still deployed against Antwerp.

15
. Although, on the 18th,
L’Époque
felt inspired to claim: ‘The German Air Force loses some of its advantage every day. Nowhere does it now have mastery of the air.’

16
. Gamelin later chided Georges for the lack of gratitude he showed towards this concern for his ‘susceptibilities’.

17
. Gamelin originally wrote ‘we must get away from classical notions’, but altered it on the objection of his staff.

18
. Like Gamelin (and, before him, Hitler and Rundstedt), Churchill had also arrived at the same conclusion; on the 19th he wired Gamelin in colourful terms:
‘The tortoise has protruded its head very far from its shell. Some days must elapse before their main body can reach our lines of communications. It would appear that powerful blows struck from the north and south of this drawn-out pocket could yield surprising results.’

19
. As a variation on this theme, the German radio promptly claimed on Weygand’s appointment that he was the son of Maximilian by a Saarlander, thus claiming good German blood for the poor misguided general.

20
. At the most critical moment in June, Weygand insisted that he be left those divisions which remained fresh ‘in order to maintain order’, on the assumption that, by then, the threat of revolution was more dangerous than the Germans.

21
. On arriving from Syria and having first seen a map of the German advance, Weygand is reported to have exclaimed: ‘If I had known the situation was so bad I would not have come’ (on which Spears commented acidly, ‘It meant he was thinking of his reputation.’).

22
. So as to be closer to the conduct of operations, but also perhaps to rid himself of the shades of Gamelin lurking in the gloom of Vincennes, Weygand decided to move his headquarters in with General Doumenc’s staff at Montry.

23
. Surprisingly, the Gare du Nord was still sending trains off from Paris to Amiens as late as the evening of the 19th.

24
. At one point, even a mobile bath unit had been thrown into the battle.

25
. By comparison, it is interesting to note that in mid-April 1945, when Germany was all but defeated, the American 5th Armoured – in what was held to be a record – took
eleven
days to advance the same distance.

1
. General Schaal, for example, was reporting back in alarm that his 10th Panzer, covering the western end of the flank along the Somme, was spread out over a distance of sixty miles.

2
. However, by way of reinsurance, on the morning of the 20th Churchill did follow up with a decree that ‘as a precautionary measure the Admiralty should assemble a large number of small vessels in readiness to proceed to ports and inlets on the French coast’.

3
. As further instance of the poor liaison existing between the French High Command and the B.E.F., Gort only learned indirectly on the 20th that Weygand had taken over and was now directing operations; the British Government was not consulted on the change of command.

4
. Close to where Guderian crossed it (in the opposite direction) on 19 May.

5
. For the British Government’s misconceptions, Gort must himself be held partly to blame in his failure to communicate earlier his doubts about the French conduct of the battle; he seems certainly to have erred in not complaining much earlier to Ironside about his receiving no orders from Billotte.

6
. One of the French present at the meeting that day, Captain René de Chambrun, says that Ironside struck him as the tallest man he had ever seen.

7
. The exaggeration of this remark again indicates how incompletely Ironside and the War Cabinet in England understood how disastrous the French defeat had already been.

8
. The British 2-pounder had a slightly larger calibre but considerably more hitting-power than the 37-mm. then carried on the German Mark III Panzer.

9
. Although Colonel Goutard blames Blanchard for saying in his orders to Altmayer: ‘ “The attack will start
from 21 May onwards.
” Nothing then was imperative about the order.’

10
. D’Astier, apparently, had not yet been informed of the withdrawal of Air Component.

11
. Motorized infantry of Rommel’s 7th Panzer who were just resuming their advance north-westwards. The fact that their presence was unreported reveals the incompleteness of the hasty Franco-British reconnaissance.

12
. Probably the biggest bag of prisoners taken in any isolated action against the Germans since 10 May.

13
. The commanders of both the British tank battalions had also been killed.

14
. This was in fact the right-hand column of Martel’s force.

15
. The first, Lieutenant Schraepler, recovered from his wounds and returned to Rommel a few days later.

16
. Or four times the losses suffered during the breakthrough into France. One of Rommel’s battalion commanders, Major von Paris, had a very lucky escape. After his unit had been overrun by Martel’s tanks, he evidently took refuge in a house, under a bed. Some British officers apparently came in and rested on the bed, and Paris was only able to get out when the British withdrew the next day.

17
. Running inland from Montreuil through Hesdin. See Map 6.

18
. Reckoned by some to be the King’s bar-sinister uncle.

19
. According to a British Liaison Officer at Billotte’s H.Q., Major A.O. Archdale (
Liaison with the 1st Group of French Armies, October 1939–1940
, private papers quoted by Brian Bond in
France and Belgium 1939–1940
, p. 111), already by 18 May Billotte had been showing disquieting signs of breakdown, repeating constantly ‘
je suis crevé de fatigue, crevé de fatigue… et contre ces panzers je ne peux rien faire
’.

20
. Benoist-Méchin’s
Soixante Jours qui Ébranlèrent l’Occident
(Paris, 1956), partly written while he was serving a commuted death sentence for collaboration, contains a mass of inaccuracies, although it made a considerable impact in France.

21
. On the other hand, Weygand has been equally criticized by French historians for not waiting for Gort in Ypres; and Churchill questions the wisdom of Weygand making the journey at all, thereby sacrificing another precious day.

22
. General d’Astier rates him as having been the most outstanding of all the French commanders, and the only one who could possibly have averted the final disaster.

23
. About the same time, rumours were also rife in Paris that Gamelin had done the same.

24
. Werth commented sceptically: ‘Reynaud’s belief in miracles somehow reminds me of the Russian communiqué after the Battle of Tannenberg – “God will not desert Holy Russia”.’

25
. But he had not seen Gort, and Billotte was dying.

26
. As the scene is recorded by the Secretary of the War Cabinet, Paul Baudouin.

27
. Which was not, however, dispatched to the now headless No. 1 Army Group until 2050 hours on the 22nd.

28
. Certainly as they stood by 22 May.

29
. Author’s italics.

30
. Not to be confused with his brother, General René Altmayer, commander of V Corps with the First Army. On 30 May, Robert Altmayer’s new
groupement
was to be designated the ‘Tenth’ Army.

31
. Here at least was one most tangible benefit gained by Martel’s effort. What the consequence might have been if Guderian had been able to break through to Dunkirk on the 23rd as easily as he did to Boulogne and Calais is not pleasant to contemplate.

32
. When called upon to surrender by the 10th Panzer, Nicholson replied: ‘The answer is no, as it is the British Army’s duty to fight as well as it is the German’s.’ He later died in a German prisoner-of-war camp.

33
. In his diary for the 23rd, Halder exclaimed: ‘Notre-Dame de Lorette! The fate of France is in our hands!’