Winston Churchill - Their Finest Hour (Complete Edition)

On the outbreak of the war eight months before, the main power of the German Army and Air Force had been concentrated on the invasion and conquest of Poland. Along the whole of the Western front, from Aix-la-Chapelle to the Swiss frontier, there had stood forty-two German divisions without armour. After the French mobilisation France could deploy the equivalent of seventy divisions opposite to them. For reasons which have been explained, it was not deemed possible to attack the Germans then. Very different was the situation on May 10, 1940. The enemy, profiting by the eight months’ delay and by the destruction of Poland, had armed, equipped, and trained about 155 divisions, of which ten were armoured (“Panzer”). Hitler’s agreement with Stalin had enabled him to reduce the German forces in the East to the smallest proportions. Opposite Russia, according to General Halder, the German Chief of Staff, there was “no more than a light covering force, scarcely fit for collecting customs duties”. Without premonition of their own future, the Soviet Government watched the destruction of that “Second Front” in the West for which they were soon to call so vehemently and to wait in agony so long. Hitler was therefore in a position to deliver his onslaught on France with 126 divisions and the whole of the immense armour-weapon of ten Panzer divisions, comprising nearly three thousand armoured vehicles, of which a thousand at least were heavy tanks.

These mighty forces were deployed from the North Sea to Switzerland in the following order: Army Group B, comprising 28 divisions, under General von Bock, marshalled along the front from the North Sea to Aix-la-Chapelle, was to overrun Holland and Belgium, and thereafter advance into France as the German right wing.

Army Group A, of 44 divisions, under General von Rundstedt, constituting the main thrust, was ranged along the front from Aix-la-Chapelle to the Moselle. Army Group C, of 17 divisions, under General von Leeb, held the Rhine from the Moselle to the Swiss frontier.

The O.K.H. (Supreme Army Command) Reserve consisted of about forty-seven divisions, of which twenty were in immediate reserve behind the various Army Groups and twenty-seven in general reserve.

Opposite this array, the exact strength and disposition of which was of course unknown to us, the First Group of Armies, under General Billotte, consisting of fifty-one divisions, of which nine were held in G.Q.G. (Grand-Quartier-Général Réserve), and including nine British divisions, stretched from the end of the Maginot Line near Longwy to the Belgian frontier, and behind that frontier to the sea in front of Dunkirk. The Second and Third Groups of Armies, under Generals Prételat and Besson, consisting, with the reserves, of forty-three divisions, guarded the French frontier from Longwy to Switzerland. In addition the French had the equivalent of nine divisions occupying the Maginot Line—a total of 103 divisions. If the armies of Belgium and Holland became involved, this number would be increased by twenty-two Belgian and ten Dutch divisions. As both these countries were immediately attacked, the grand total of Allied divisions of all qualities nominally available on May 10 was therefore 135, or practically the same number as we now know the enemy possessed. Properly organised and equipped, well trained and led, this force should, according to the standards of the previous war, have had a good chance of bringing the invasion to a stop. However, the Germans had full freedom to choose the moment, the direction, and the strength of their attack. More than half of the French Army stood on the southern and eastern sectors of France, and the fifty-one French and British divisions of General Billotte’s Army Group No. 1, with whatever Belgian and Dutch aid was forthcoming, had to face the onslaught of upwards of seventy hostile divisions under Bock and Rundstedt between Longwy and the sea. The combination of the almost cannon-proof tank and dive-bomber aircraft which had proved so successful in Poland on a smaller scale was again to form the spearhead of the main attack, and a group of five Panzer and three motorised divisions under Kleist, included in German Army Group A, was directed through the Ardennes on Sedan and Monthermé.

To meet such modern forms of war the French deployed about 2,300 tanks, mostly light. Their armoured formations included some powerful modern types, but more than half their total armoured strength was held in dispersed battalions of light tanks, for co-operation with the infantry. Their six armoured divisions, 8 with which alone they could have countered the massed Panzer assault, were widely distributed over the front, and could not be collected together to operate in coherent action. Britain, the birthplace of the tank, had only just completed the formation and training of her first armoured division (328 tanks), which was still in England.  THE FORWARD MOVEMENTS STARTING 10 May

The German fighter aircraft now concentrated in the West were far superior to the French in numbers and quality. The British Air Force in France comprised the ten fighter squadrons (Hurricanes) which could be spared from vital Home Defence, eight squadrons of Battles, six of Blenheims, and five of Lysanders. Neither the French nor the British air authorities had equipped themselves with dive-bombers, which at this time, as in Poland, became prominent, and were to play an important part in the demoralisation of the French infantry and particularly of their coloured troops.

During the night of May 9–10, heralded by widespread air attacks against airfields, communications, headquarters, and magazines, all the German forces in the Bock and Rundstedt Army Groups sprang forward towards France across the frontiers of Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg. Complete tactical surprise was achieved in nearly every case. Out of the darkness came suddenly innumerable parties of well-armed, ardent storm troops, often with light artillery, and long before daybreak a hundred and fifty miles of front were aflame. Holland and Belgium, assaulted without the slightest pretext or warning, cried aloud for help. The Dutch had trusted to their water-line; all the sluices not seized or betrayed were opened, and the Dutch frontier guards fired upon the invaders. The Belgians succeeded in destroying the bridges of the Meuse, but the Germans captured intact two across the Albert Canal.

By Plan D, the First Allied Army Group, under General Billotte, with its small but very fine British army, was, from the moment when the Germans violated the frontier, to advance east into Belgium. It was intended to forestall the enemy and stand on the line Meuse Louvain-Antwerp. In front of that line, along the Meuse and the Albert Canal, lay the main Belgian forces. Should these stem the first German onrush the Army Group would support them. It seemed more probable that the Belgians would be at once thrown back on to the Allied line. And this, in fact, happened. It was assumed that in this case the Belgian resistance would give a short breathing-space, during which the French and British could organise their new position. Except on the critical front of the French Ninth Army, this was accomplished. On the extreme left or seaward flank the Seventh French Army was to seize the islands commanding the mouth of the Scheldt, and, if possible, to assist the Dutch by an advance towards Breda. It was thought that on our southern flank the Ardennes constituted an impassable barrier, and south of that again began the regular fortified Maginot Line, stretching out to the Rhine and along the Rhine to Switzerland. All therefore seemed to depend upon the forward left-handed counter-stroke of the Allied Northern Armies. This again hung upon the speed with which Belgium could be occupied. Everything had been worked out in this way with the utmost detail, and only a signal was necessary to hurl forward the Allied force of well over a million men. At 5.30 a.m. on May 10 Lord Gort received a message from General Georges ordering “Alertes 1, 2, and 3”; namely, instant readiness to move into Belgium. At 6.45 a.m. General Gamelin ordered the execution of Plan D, and the long-prepared scheme of the French High Command, to which the British had subordinated themselves, came at once into action.