To Lose a Battle (63 page)

Guderian Breaks Through

To the north-west of the static battlefield around Stonne, the right-wheel of the 1st and 2nd Panzers moved into top gear on the 16th. Guderian, now restored his ‘freedom of movement’ by
Kleist, was himself riding up with the leading tank company in a signals half-track, repeatedly intervening in the conduct of the advance. Although Luftwaffe reconnaissance could provide no clear-cut picture of the situation to the west, it was rapidly becoming clear to the men with the armoured spearhead that there was no longer any defending force worthy of the name ahead of them. ‘One had the impression,’ wrote Captain Kielmansegg, with the staff of the 1st Panzer, ‘as if he [the enemy] were staring half-paralysed, half-hypnotized at the original breakthrough area at Sedan.’ Driving up from Sedan, Kielmansegg noted that, as far as Bouvellemont, where Balck had fought so hard an engagement against de Lattre’s men the previous day,

there was not a place that was not either shot to pieces or burnt, in which only a few houses could offer a possibility of accommodation. The smell of burning lay everywhere in the air, and in many places the flames had still not been extinguished. Then suddenly all this ceases. There is neither any sign of the enemy nor of our own troops anywhere. A wonderful spring morning… which is not characterized by fliers in the sky but by singing birds… In this peaceful landscape, human beings were absent. Everything is dead and empty, not even the old people have remained… the second thing that I remember is the bellowing cattle in the fields and in the cowsheds.

The troops were ordered to milk the swollen udders of the cows whenever possible, but ‘by now the speed of the campaign seldom made this possible’.

‘We were in the open now’, wrote Guderian, and the realization acted like the most potent of stimulants on his jaded troops. Driving through to Montcornet that day,

I passed an advancing column of the 1st Panzer Division. The men were wide awake now and aware that we had achieved a complete victory, a break through. They cheered and shouted remarks which often could only be heard by the staff officers in the second car: ‘Well done, old boy’, and ‘There’s our old man’, and ‘Did you see him? That was hurrying Heinz’, and so on. All this was indicative.

In the market-place of Montcornet, Guderian found General Kempf of the 6th Panzer, which had captured it the previous night. With three Panzer divisions now pouring through this one centre and no boundaries laid down by Kleist, it was imperative to allot new routes to the various divisions. Guderian and Kempf settled these between themselves and then ‘ordered the advance to go on until the last drop of petrol was used up’. By the end of the day, the leading elements of Guderian’s corps had reached Marle and Dercy on the River Serre, over forty miles from that morning’s starting point and fifty-five miles from Sedan. Corps H.Q. was established at Soize, just east of Montcornet. To the north, Kempf, after capturing Vervins – the former site of Corap’s Army H.Q. – had pushed his reconnaissance units as far forward as Guise on the Oise. (Meanwhile, back on the Meuse, the 3rd Infantry Division, after a hard fight, had just completed its bridge at Nouzonville, thereby enabling Reinhardt’s other Panzer division, the 8th, to get its tanks across the river, which it hitherto had been unable to do. Fresh, and having suffered negligible losses, it now sped forward to catch up with its sister division.) Behind Guderian’s and Reinhardt’s Panzer divisions there was, however, so the Official History of the 1st Panzer tells us,

hardly a single German soldier to be found, except for a few supply services, up to 25 to 30 miles behind the 1st and 2nd Panzer Divisions. Munitions and petrol were brought up over a single very thin, almost unprotected supply road. They were also, however, tanked up from petrol dumps and public petrol stations captured from the French.

By the night of the 16th, the foremost infantry divisions were only just reaching the Sedan area. Here was a situation to alarm sober minds back at Armoured Group H.Q. and beyond – though not the impetuous Guderian.

During the 16th, offensive actions against Kleist’s advancing Armoured Group by French formations, disorganized as they now were, amounted to almost nil. After several days of rest behind the Maginot Line at Longwy, the 3rd Light Cavalry Division had returned to the front via Rheims and was under
orders to join in de Gaulle’s thrust into the southern flank of the ‘Bulge’ which Georges had ordered for the 17th. On the 16th the divisional commander, General Petiet, decided to send a reconnaissance in force towards Montcornet. On reaching Dizy-le-Gros, some five miles short of Montcornet, it ran into the 2nd Panzer and was badly battered late that afternoon. The cavalry force was dispersed and did not rejoin the division until two weeks later, while only two and a half platoons of motor-cyclists and armoured cars were able to disengage themselves. Guderian, in Montcornet at the time, speaks of an entire tank company taken prisoner, which he mistakenly states belonged to General de Gaulle’s division’.
¹⁷
Meanwhile, a battalion of dragoons in Hotchkiss medium tanks, dispatched by Petiet to take up a defensive position near Sissonne, encountered no Panzers, but was almost overwhelmed by an unstoppable flood of fugitives from broken French units. Another battalion of dragoons was ordered to occupy the village of Liesse and make contact with de Gaulle’s force, supposedly concentrating in the Forest of Samoussy, just east of Laon. It arrived in Liesse just as the curé, ‘a big old man with an energetic expression and a moustache cut sharply above his upper lip, locked up his church and pulled out’. At about 1900’ hours the dragoons met a solitary tank belonging to de Gaulle. Three hours later machine-gun fire was heard, indicating that the Panzers were already close.

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 Giraud
¹⁹
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.