The Battle for France & Flanders: Sixty Years On

THE BATTLE OF FRANCE

AND FLANDERS

1940

SIXTY YEARS ON

THE BATTLE OF

FRANCE AND

FLANDERS

1940

SIXTY YEARS ON

Edited by

BRIAN BOND

and

MICHAEL D. TAYLOR

First published in Great Britain 2001 by

LEO COOPER

an imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd

47 Church Street, Barnsley, S. Yorkshire S70 2AS

Copyright © 2001 by Brian Bond and Michael D. Taylor

and individual contributors

ISBN 0 85052 811 9

A catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library

Typeset in 11/13 Sabon by

Phoenix Typesetting, Ilkley, West Yorkshire

Printed and Bound in England by

CPI UK Ltd

CONTENTS

Notes on Contributors

Foreword

Introduction: Preparing the Field Force, February 1939 – May 1940

Brian Bond

The German Breakthrough at Sedan, 12–15 May 1940

Peter Caddick-Adams

Anglo-French Co-operation during the Battle of France

Peter Caddick-Adams

The Manoeuvre that Saved the Field Force

M.R.H. Piercy

The Defence of the Dunkirk Perimeter

Jeremy A. Crang

The French View of Dunkirk

John C. Cairns

The Air War in France

John Buckley

The Royal Navy’s Role in the Campaign

Robin Brodhurst

British High Command and the Reporting of the Campaign

Stephen Badsey

The Influence of the Battle of France on British Miliary Doctrine

John Drewienkiewicz

Repercussions: The Battle of France in History and Historiography

The French View

Martin S. Alexander

The German View

Mungo Melvin

The British View

Brian Bond

Index

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

FOREWORD

In July 2000 the British Commission for Military History (BCMH) devoted its weekend conference at Bedford to a reappraisal of the Battle of France and Flanders sixty years after the dramatic events which left Germany in command of Western Europe, France defeated and in political turmoil and Britain with its Army in disarray and in expectation of imminent German invasion.

Most of the papers collected here in a revised form were delivered and discussed at the conference, and all but two of the contributors are BCMH members. We have consequently drawn on the special interests and expertise of our members and have not attempted either a complete narrative history or systematic coverage of all the controversies or of all national viewpoints: there is, for example, no essay focusing on the Belgian role in the operations or on the confused second phase of the German offensive in June which culminated in a second British evacuation from Cherbourg and other western ports. We have, however, aimed to produce a volume which has coherence and is much more than a miscellany. We re-examine the key phases of the campaign, including the astonishing German breakthrough at Sedan; the failure of the Anglo-French forces to organize and execute a significant counter-offensive; the brilliant manoeuvre which saved the Field Force when the Belgians suddenly accepted a ceasefire; the inspired improvisation of a defensible bridgehead at Dunkirk; and the air and naval aspects of the campaign. There is also an original and provocative account of British reporting of operations, and a brilliant analysis of French attitudes during the final days of the evacuation, based on a wide range of archival sources and interviews, which has been edited from a much longer essay. Finally, these profoundly influential operations have been placed in their historical context by surveys of the post mortems and controversies generated amongst participants and scholars in France, Germany and Britain and, in the British case, with an additional essay on the impact of the campaign on military doctrine which has hitherto been virtually unexplored.

Even after sixty years, the repercussions of the ‘sixty days that shook the West’ are far from over and the vast historiography steadily increases. We offer no apology for adding another stone to the edifice and hope that these essays will stimulate further research and writing, both on the topics covered and on others which we have had to leave aside.

Brian Bond, President BCMH.

INTRODUCTION:

PREPARING THE FIELD FORCE,

FEBRUARY 1939 – MAY 1940

BRIAN BOND

In retrospect it is hard to believe that the British Government did not commit even the small, regular contingent of its Army (the Field Force) to the Continent, in event of German aggression in the West, until February 1939. True, the Field Force was by now entirely dependent on motorized and mechanized transport, but it was smaller than the British Expeditionary Force of 1914, less well-trained and badly deficient in vital stores and equipment. Better late than never, noted Major-General Henry Pownall in his diary in April, but late it is, for it will take at least eighteen months more … before this paper Army is an Army in the flesh.¹

In February 1939 this political decision fell far short of French expectations. Only the first four regular Divisions were definitely committed, with the first two due to reach their assembly area in France 30 days after mobilization. The French would have to carry a heavy burden alone in the first phase while the Field Force slowly assembled. Allied strategy would initially have to be defensive, irrespective of the reasons for going to war.

By the end of April the British government had further complicated the enormous problems of rapid rearmament by doubling the Territorial Army (to a paper target of 340,000); each existing T.A. unit was duplicated, thus creating twelve new infantry divisions, which stretched resources to the limit. A limited form of conscription was also introduced. As Pownall noted in his diary it is a proper Granny’s knitting that has been handed out to us to unravel…. What an unholy mess our politicians have made of the rebirth of the Army through shortsightedness, unwillingness to face facts and prejudice against the Army.² But at least, he reflected, it would be better to get the worst of the inevitable muddles over before the outbreak of war. Pownall of course was parti pris but he was in a position to say I told you so, having foreseen the necessity for a Continental commitment ever since Hitler’s advent to power.

Until the political commitment was made, practical staff arrangements with the French were studiously avoided. Consequently, during the Munich crisis it would have been extremely difficult for the Army to mobilize and impossible to despatch it to France. It was therefore a remarkable achievement that in the autumn of 1939 the Field Force was mobilized efficiently, transported to allotted French ports and moved to its assembly area according to plan. This was due to months of painstaking work, in liaison with the French, by Brigadier L.A. Hawes and a small team of officers at the War Office. When Hawes began his work he found there was no accurate information about conditions in France, particularly about ports and railways. Worse still, there were no up-to-date maps of France.³

Because of the risk of air attack it was agreed that the main ports of disembarkation were to be in Normandy and the Bay of Biscay.⁴ Different ports were to be used for the landing of troops, equipment, supplies and stores, the main ones being Havre, Cherbourg, Nantes and St Nazaire which would entail long and complex lines of communication and a huge administrative ‘tail’.

By the summer of 1939 maps had arrived, the naval escort arranged and a deception plan set up to persuade the enemy to concentrate his expected submarine attacks further east against the Channel ports. As late as mid-August detailed arrangements had been made for the dispatch of only two divisions, but these were expanded to cover four just before the outbreak of war.

Meanwhile strenuous efforts were made on both sides to foster closer Anglo-French relations at various levels. Good will was encouraged by frequent visits and exchanges. In June, for example, the French Commander-in-Chief, General Gamelin, came to London to see the Tattoo, but also to settle important military matters, including the nature and scale of British military missions at French headquarters, the air defence of the Field Force, and its concentration area. Pownall proudly informed the French that the first two divisions of the Field Force could now arrive 19 days after mobilization and the whole regular contingent in 34 days.⁵

Some vital matters were amicably settled a month later when Hore-Belisha, Churchill, Gort and others visited Paris for the 14 July celebrations. The assembly area for the British forces would be Le Mans, and their concentration area around Picquigny on the Somme northwest of Amiens. The Field Force would eventually take over a sector of the frontier on the French left between Maulde and Halluin. To First World War veterans like Gort and Pownall the scenario being anticipated seemed eerily similar to 1914. This view was underlined by agreement that the British Commander-in-Chief would be subordinate to General Georges (Commander of the North-Eastern Front), but with the right to appeal to his own government. In these, and later, discussions after the outbreak of war the British representatives, from Gort downwards, felt acutely conscious of their weak bargaining position because of their small contribution to the land forces of the alliance. Thus in attending the ceremonial march past down the Champs Elysées on 14 July, Churchill was heard to remark, Thank God we’ve got conscription or we couldn’t look these people in the face.⁶

At the highest political level Chamberlain proposed, and Daladier agreed, that a Supreme War Council should be set up to meet whenever necessary in Britain or France. The Council would have no executive authority, leaving final decisions to the two governments and any additional allies such as Belgium. This was a marked improvement, in timing and definition of military responsibilities, on the Supreme War Council belatedly set up in November 1917, but it could not resolve divergent national approaches to the war, or strategic issues such as long-range bombing. Gamelin also opposed the creation of a permanent inter-allied staff in London. Furthermore, both sides had acute internal problems such as civil-military mistrust and bitter rivalry between Gamelin and Georges in France; whereas in England Gort (and later Ironside too) were scarcely on speaking terms with the War Minister, Hore-Belisha.⁷

Apart from its lack of a single armoured division organized for war in Europe (as distinct from North Africa) in 1939, the Field Force’s greatest weakness lay in the paucity of air support under its own control. This weakness was the inevitable result of extremely poor Army-RAF relations throughout the inter-war period, for which both Services bore some responsibility. The Air Ministry’s pre-occupation with its independent bombing policy, and later with home defence (Air Defence of Great Britain), and the War Office’s uncertainty over the Field Force’s role, meant that the employment of air power in close support of ground forces remained unresolved at the beginning of 1939.

The huge projected expansion of the Army to at least 32 divisions from Spring 1939 appeared to give the War Office leverage for a large increase in air support under the control of the Field Force. In June a War Office memorandum called for an allocation to the Army of 1,440 first-line aircraft with special emphasis on the roles of close-support and short-range, tactical bombing. The Air Ministry objected strongly to the notion that any aircraft, other than the small Air Component, should be placed under military control. The Chief of Air Staff, Sir Cyril Newall, warned that the dissipation of bomber squadrons into ‘small packets’ over a wide front would prevent the concentration of maximum effort at the decisive point.⁸

Consequently the Field Force sailed to France with the very modest air support of the Air Component, consisting of two bomber reconnaissance squadrons, six Army co-operation squadrons, four fighter squadrons and two flights of a headquarters communication squadron. The commander of the Advanced Air Striking Force of medium bombers was completely independent of the Field Force, receiving his orders direct from Bomber Command. The role of the AASF on the Continent was not to collaborate with land forces, but simply to bring British bombers nearer to targets in Germany. This peculiar arrangement provoked the wry comment from General Ismay that It almost seemed as though the Air Staff would prefer to have their forces under Beelzebub rather than anyone connected with the Army.⁹ British lack of close air support would prove to be an enormous handicap in the operations in May 1940, and it would take more defeats and more bitter controversy before really effective battlefield co-operation was achieved between the RAF and the Army.¹⁰

In the summer of 1939 the military forces in Britain were in a profound state of disarray due to the sudden changes which had been imposed on their priorities, size and organization. Conditions of near-chaos could not be remedied in the few months available. The most disturbing aspect was that, despite years of pundits invoking the lessons of the First World War, Britain seemed bent on creating a mass infantry army that would be suitable only for a static war of attrition. Although the Field Force contained eleven mechanized cavalry regiments and five Royal Tank Regiment battalions, its mixture of light, cruiser and heavy infantry support tanks was in most respects no match for the Panzers. In July a review of the difficulties of the regular divisions of the Field Force revealed that there were available only seventy-two out of 240 heavy anti-aircraft guns with only 30 per cent of the approved scale of ammunition and only 144 out of 240 anti-tank guns. The field-artillery regiments had not yet received any of the new 25-pounder guns. In the final pre-war progress report from the War Office small arms, cordite, gauges and fuses were among the items in short supply. Only sixty infantry tanks were available against a total requirement of 1,646. As for training, financial restrictions had prevented any large-scale Army manoeuvres being held for several years: exercises in September 1939 had been planned to get even I Corps into good order. Consequently, the first four divisions of the Field Force went to France inadequately trained and short of every type of equipment, especially guns, ammunition and tanks. The remainder of the Territorial units at home were little more than a token force of semi-trained troops, lacking equipment for realistic training.¹¹

As for transport, the Field Force could now claim to be fully motorized and not at all dependent on horses. In reality the situation was little short of desperate. Major-General Montgomery, recently appointed to command the 3rd Division, recalled in his Memoirs that on mobilization transport had to be supplemented by requisitioning from civilians firms:

Much of the transport of my division consisted of civilian vans and lorries from the towns of England; they were in bad repair and, when my division moved from the ports up to its concentration area near the French frontier, the countryside of France was strewn with broken-down vehicles. He also noted that the Field Force had an inadequate signals system, no administrative backing, and no organization for high command; all had to be improvized on mobilization. He was dissatisfied with his division’s anti-tank weapons, and remarked that he never saw any tanks of the single Army Tank Brigade either during the winter or the operations in May 1940.¹²

Montgomery’s damning conclusion was that the Field Force had been dispatched to a modern war against a most formidable enemy with weapons, equipment and transport which were completely inadequate.

Fortunately for the Field Force, and in contrast to the experience of the BEF in 1914, it was not plunged into an early encounter with the Wehrmacht. Despite widespread fears of a massacre from the air or from submarines, the first four divisions were transferred to France without a single life being lost. The main troop landings began at Cherbourg on 10 September and at Nantes and St Nazaire two days later. By the end of the month more than 160,000 service personnel with over 23,000 vehicles and a vast tonnage of equipment and supplies had arrived in western France. On 3 October I Corps (1st and 2nd Divisions) commanded by Lieutenant-General Sir John Dill began taking over part of the front line allocated to the Field Force, followed nine days later by II Corps (3rd and 4th Divisions) commanded by Sir Alan Brooke. The 5th (Regular) Division arrived in December.¹³ Though only a token force in comparison with the French Army, this was still a considerable achievement for ‘the Cinderella Service’ which only a year previously had been earmarked for an extra-European role against inferior opposition.

When the expected German autumn offensive in the West did not occur, there began a period of ‘Phoney War’ or ‘sitzkrieg’ marked by minimal military activity along the whole Anglo-French-held frontier and accompanied by complacent popular assumptions about ‘hanging out our washing on the Siegfried Line’. In reality these were dreary, dull and potentially demoralizing months, particularly when a ferociously cold spell set in at the end of the year.

The main activities were marching, digging trenches and constructing pill-boxes. Slow progress on these frontier defences provided the occasion for the dismissal from the War Office of Hore-Belisha, whose well-meant but badly-presented criticisms gave Gort and Pownall at GHQ their opportunity to remove a detested politician who, they felt, was not giving them proper support in the War Cabinet.¹⁴ This whole affair was suffused with irony because, at the very time the ‘pill-box’ issue erupted, Britain’s military leaders were (however reluctantly) endorsing Gamelin’s strategy for an advance into Belgium in event of a German attack, or earlier if invited by the neutral Belgian government.

The well-worn phrase ‘all quiet on the Western Front’ was certainly appropriate for the Field Force right through the severe winter of 1939–1940. Press coverage was very restricted and in any case there were few newsworthy incidents. Regimental histories describe this as a dreary period of digging and wiring (in a depressing industrial area all too familiar from the First World War), interspersed with weapon-training and route marches. Diarists among the other ranks noted that there was very little range-firing and no inter-arms training outside their battalions. A company commander summed up his unit’s experience as ‘Equipment poor and late in delivery. Training all right but orthodox, eg., movement at night neglected. Our commanders were too rigid in their attitude. They did not learn enough about enemy tactics’. Senior officers seem to have largely ignored the ‘blitzkrieg’ tactics demonstrated in Poland. Even members of tank crews did very little training in tanks, partly due to shortage of fuel, but also because it was feared that tank tracks would be observed by enemy spotter aircraft. Diaries and letters mention many days of idleness, often in grim accommodation, and of whiling away the time in cafés.¹⁵ Apart from a few units which were given a chance to experience carefully controlled forays in the French Saar sector (including 51st Highland Division, which happened to be detached from the British sector on 10 May 1940), there was very little activity on the ground. Not surprisingly, many soldiers expressed feelings of impatience or boredom, and even eagerness for ‘the balloon to go up’.

We now know that from October 1939 onwards Hitler repeatedly issued directives to the Wehrmacht to launch Plan Yellow (the Western offensive), but that these orders were again and again postponed, initially because the German generals urged caution in the light of lessons being assimilated from the Polish operations, and latterly because of the severe weather. From the Anglo-French viewpoint these frequent false alarms, conveyed to them on good authority from sources in Berlin, necessitated high states of alert and movements to the frontier in dreadful conditions invariably ending in anti-climax and the sapping of morale.¹⁶ More seriously, these false alarms served to exacerbate anti-Belgian prejudices in the sense that the latter appeared to be clinging unrealistically to their neutral status, even to the extent of handicapping would-be allies who were being frustrated in their attempts to save Belgium from German occupation. Pownall’s diaries provide a running commentary on the folly and iniquity of Belgian policy and behaviour.¹⁷ This was just one of the ominous signs than an improvised alliance between France, Britain and Belgium would not function smoothly under the pressures of battle.

Following the dispatch of the five regular divisions to France in the Autumn of 1939, a further eight Territorial Army divisions were sent out between January and the end of April 1940. These divisions were in general hastily put together, with imported drafts from other units to complete establishments, short of regular officers and senior NCOs and in varying states of equipment and training. With the exception of 50th (Northumbrian Division), all the Territorial brigades had a stiffening of one regular battalion. Three unofficially designated Labour Divisions (12th, 23rd, and 46th) were not equipped or trained to fight, but they too were swept up in the maelstrom of the retreat and virtually annihilated. Major-General John Drewienkiewicz reaches a sombre verdict in his study of the battle performance of the Territorial Army divisions: heroic though some of their actions were, as for example at Cassel and Hazebrouck, none managed to impose any significant delay on the German advance.¹⁸ Indeed the Field Force as a whole was neither equipped nor trained for a fast-moving war against a first class opponent. It was essentially dependent on the French High Command’s strategy and direction, and on fighting a static, or slow-moving, defensive campaign not so very different from that of 1914–1918.

In the early months of 1940 some politicians, including the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, were inclined to believe that Hitler had ‘missed the bus’ and that there would be no great German offensive in the West. Others, including Churchill (First Lord of the Admiralty) and Ironside (Chief of the Imperial General Staff), thought that the Allies could seize the initiative by embroiling Germany in a campaign in Scandinavia. Consequently, in March and early April 1940, there was a tendency to neglect the needs of the Field Force in France in favour of possible operations in Finland and Norway. Not merely was there a delay in the build-up of personnel and supplies to the Field Force, but a brigade (15th Brigade from 5th Division) was actually recalled to fight in Norway.¹⁹

This diversion had important consequences for the organization and command structure of the Field Force. Had III Corps (commanded by Sir Ronald Adam) been fully formed before 10 May, Gort would almost certainly have appointed an Army Commander to run the battle while he was left free to deal with onerous issues of policy, strategy and liaison with two other allies. Since Gort had anyway been promoted ‘above his ceiling’, it was asking too much of him to fight the battle at the front (which he would have much preferred), while simultaneously having to cope with increasingly difficult command problems involving not only allies but also his own government, which was to show itself to be hopelessly out of touch with fast-moving events.

When the German onslaught began early on 10 May:

The Field Force’s leading formations advanced quite efficiently to the line of the River Dyle in Belgium as agreed with their allies, and for a few days the line was held with deceptively little enemy action. Once the retreat began, however, due to the German breakthrough further south, confusion and even worse soon occurred. Only a static or slow-moving campaign had been planned and communications (in all senses) soon collapsed under the unexpected strain. There had been sufficient motor transport for a planned advance but not for an improvised retreat on roads congested with refugees. There was soon an acute shortage of fuel. The British had relied almost entirely on the Belgian public telephone system, which now collapsed. Radio communications had been restricted for security reasons and now proved useless, as did field telephones. Thus orders could not be transmitted with any confidence and, in effect, confusion reigned.²⁰

Thus was the scene set for the largely disorganized retreat to the coast, redeemed in part by gallant defensive actions, the brilliant manoeuvre described by Michael Piercy, and the skilful organization of the eastern sector of the Dunkirk perimeter described by Jeremy Crang.

As I wrote in Time to Kill:

From the military historian’s viewpoint the main conclusion must be that the other ranks and junior officers paid the price for the government’s belated acceptance of a continental role with inadequate equipment and tanks, an almost total lack of close air support, unimaginative training still based essentially of First World War attitudes, and mediocre leadership. The speed and decisiveness of the Allied rout came as a terrible shock to those who understood the situation, resulting in some bitter criticisms of the politicians and generals held responsible. Understandably too, though it now seems rather shameful, much of the blame was transferred to Britain’s recent allies, France and more especially Belgium for the latter’s sudden announcement of a ceasefire on 28 May. But there was also a sentiment of profound respect for the Wehrmacht, and particularly for the Panzer divisions and the Luftwaffe.²¹

From a later perspective it is clear that this humiliating retreat and evacuation was ‘a blessing in disguise’ in that it signified an escape from the Continental commitment until 1944 and hence obviated the terrible prospect of repeating the experience of 1914–1918.

Notes

1

Brian Bond, (ed) Chief of Staff: the Diaries of Lt. Gen. Sir Henry Pownall (Leo Cooper, 1972) Vol I, p. 178. See also Brian Bond, British Military Policy between the Two World Wars (O.U.P., 1980) passim.

2

Pownall Diaries, pp. 201–2. See also Peter Dennis, The Territorial Army 1907–1940 (Royal Historical Society, 1987).

3

Bond, British Military Policy, pp. 334–5. See also Major-General