Carroll Quigley - Tragedy and Hope - A History of the World in Our Time

After forty years of parliamentary life, during much of which he had been the best-hated man in the House of Commons, Churchill’s arrival to the highest political office was received by Englishmen with a sigh of relief. Right or wrong, fairly or unfairly, Churchill had always been a fighter and, in May 1940, as the German armies swept westward, what the forces of decency and democracy needed was a fighter, to provide a nucleus about which those who wished to resist tyranny and horror could rally. In his first speech, the new prime minister provided such a nucleus: all he had to offer was “blood, toil, tears and sweat. . . . Our only aim is victory,” he said, “for without victory there is no survival.”

The Fall of France (May-June 1940) and the Vichy Regime

In the next six months neither victory nor survival seemed very likely for the West. The German forces which attacked on May 10th were inferior in manpower to the forces which faced them but were much more unified, used their equipment in an effective fashion, and had a single plan which they proceeded to carry out. Amounting to about 136 divisions, they were opposed by 156 divisions, but the defenders were divided into four different national armies, were arranged improperly, were given tasks too difficult for their size and equipment and, in general, were so managed that their weakest points coincided completely with the most powerful German attacks.

The French plan of campaign was dominated by two factors: the Maginot Line and Plan D. The Maginot Line, an elaborate and expensive system of permanent fortifications, ran from Switzerland to Montmédy. Behind this line, where they could not be used in the great battle drawing near, were stationed 62 of 102 French divisions on this frontier. From Montmédy to the sea, France had 40 divisions, plus the British Expeditionary Force of 10 divisions. According to Plan D, the anticipated German attack on the Low Countries was to be met by the Allied forces north of Montmédy advancing as rapidly as possible to meet the enemy. If the Belgian Army of 20 divisions were successful in holding up the German advance, it was hoped that a new Belgian-British-French line could be formed along the Dyle River or even forty miles farther north along the Albert Canal; if the Belgian defense were less successful, the new line was to be formed along the Scheldt River, fifty miles behind the Dyle. To carry out this rapid movement as soon as the German attack was announced, the French placed their best and fastest divisions on the extreme left (in Henri Giraud’s Seventh Army) and their poorest divisions close to the end of the Maginot Line (in Andre Corap’s Ninth Army), where they were expected to make a relatively short advance to take a position between Sedan and Namur along the Meuse River. Once this Plan D advance into the Low Countries had been achieved, it was expected that the new line, from the sea to Longwy (deep in the Maginot Line), would stand as follows:

Netherlands forces—10 divisions

Giraud’s Seventh Army—7 divisions

Belgian forces—20 divisions

Lord Gort’s British Expeditionary Force—10 divisions

Jean Blanchard’s First Army—6 divisions

Corap’s Ninth Army—9 divisions

Charles Huntziger’s Second Army—7 divisions

Originally the German plans were, as the French anticipated, a modified version of the Schliefen Plan of 1905, involving a wide sweep through the Low Countries. The false alarms of a German attack in the winter of 1939-1940 revealed to the Germans, however, that the Allies would meet this attack by a rapid advance into Belgium. Accordingly, at the suggestion of General Erich von Manstein, the Germans modified their plans to encourage the Allied advance into Belgium while the Germans planned

to strike with their greatest strength at Sedan, the pivot of the Allied turning movement. Such an assault at Sedan made it necessary for the German forces to pass over the narrow, winding roads of the Ardennes Forest, then to cross thedeep and swift Meuse River, and to break between Corap’s and Huntziger’s forces, but, if this could be done and Sedan taken, excellent roads and a railroad ran from Sedan westward across France to the sea.

Under the “Manstein Plan” the German attack from the North Sea to Sedan was organized in four armies. In the north, the Netherlands was attacked by the German Eighteenth Army (one panzer and four infantry divisions); in the middle, Belgium was attacked by the German Sixth Army (two panzer and 15 infantry divisions) and the German Fourth Army (two panzer and 12 infantry divisions); farther south, in the Ardennes area, France was attacked by the German Twelfth Army (five panzer and four other divisions); from Sedan to Switzerland, although Germany had about 30 divisions, all were infantry formations and no major offensive was made.

The “Manstein Plan” was a total surprise to the French. They were so convinced that the Ardennes were impassable for large forces, especially for tanks, that everything was done to make the German task easier: Corap and Huntziger placed their poorest forces (six Series B divisions, undermanned, with little training) on either side of Sedan and their best forces on their fronts most remote from the Ardennes (that is, from Sedan). In Huntziger’s case these better divisions were behind the Maginot Line itself. Because of the Ardennes, Corap gave his four poor divisions near Sedan no antitank guns, no antiaircraft guns, and no air support (reserving these for his high-quality divisions forty miles farther north), and expected them to defend a front of ten miles per division (while the French Third Army, deep behind the Maginot Line, had a front of 1.8 miles per division). Moreover, Corap’s poor divisions were not stationed on the Meuse, but two days’ march to the west of it, and were required, once the German attack began, to race the Germans to the intervening river.

The German attack began at 5:35 on May 10th. Two days later the panzer division with the German Eighteenth Army broke through the Dutch defenses and began to join up with parachute and airborne forces which had been dropped behind these; the Netherlands collapsed. The Dutch field forces surrendered on May 14th, after much of the center of Rotterdam had been destroyed in a twenty-minute air attack. The Netherlands royal family and the government moved to England to continue the war.

The great mass of the German attack fell on Belgium, and was greatly aided by the failure of many ordinary defensive precautions. Vital bridges over the Meuse and the Albert Canal were destroyed only partly or not at all. The defenders on the Albert Canal were attacked from the rear by parachutists and glider forces which had been landed behind them. The powerful fort of Eben Emael, covering the canal bridges, was captured by airborne volunteers who landed on its roof and destroyed its gun apertures with explosives. Belgium’s forces fell backward toward the Dyle as the French and British units, according to Plan D, wheeled northeastward, on Sedan as a pivot, to meet them. As the Belgian forces withdrew northwest, while the German attack swung southwest, the main burden of the German assault now fell on the French First Army, to pin it down and thus prevent it from reinforcing Corap farther south. In this the Germans were successful; on May 15th, as news of the breakthrough at Sedan became known, Gamelin ordered all forces in Belgium to fall backward from the Dyle Line toward the Scheldt.

The attack through the Ardennes on Corap’s Ninth Army was made by a special German force of five panzer and three motorized divisions under General Paul von Kleist. These passed through the forest and crossed the Meuse to fling themselves on the right side of Corap’s inexperienced divisions. By the evening of May 15th, Corap’s army had been “volatilized,” and the German spearhead was racing forward thirty-five miles west of Sedan. The misplaced French Sixth Army, in reserve 300 miles south near Lyon, began to move toward the breach, while General Giraud, with three divisions from the Seventh Army, was ordered from the extreme northwest, and seven other divisions were taken from the forces behind the Maginot Line. All these arrived too late, because von Kleist’s advance units crossed France and reached the sea at Abbeville on May 20th, having covered 220 miles in eleven days. No coordinated attack was ever made on this thin extended line, although orders were issued for it to be attacked both from the north and the south.