There was no armoured division in the BEF, but the British
did have almost 450 tanks in France, including about 150 A10 and A13 Cruisers
and 75 of the heavy A12 Mark II Matildas, which proved virtually impenetrable
to the German PaKs (Panzerabwehrkanone – anti-tank guns) because of their 75 mm
(3-inch) armour. All these tanks used the same high-velocity 2-pounder (40 mm)
gun. The BEF also had around 200 Mark II machine-gun tanks.
The Germans had a total of 2,600 tanks available for the
attack, but these were all organised into ten panzer divisions and not
frittered away in penny packets like the Allied tanks. This was in keeping with
Guderian’s adage that ‘You hit with your closed fist, not with your fingers
spread.’ Concentrated together for an attack en masse, tanks could punch a hole
right through the enemy front and then keep going. Of this tank total, 525 were
Pz Is armed only with machine-guns and 955 were Pz IIs mounting a weak 20 mm
cannon. These obsolete light tanks were really only a match for the lightest
Allied armour, such as the Renault FT, but they did have the effect of
terrorising infantry, who at that time had no adequate weapons for defending
themselves against tanks.
Of the more modern German tanks, only 350 Pz IIIs and 280 Pz
IVs were available for the attack on France. The Pz III carried a 37 mm gun and
the Pz IV a poor velocity 75 mm. To make up for the clear deficiencies in gun
power, Czech-built tanks made up a high proportion of the Panzerwaffe: there
were 228 Pz 38(t)s and Pz 35(t)s. These tanks had the same calibre gun as the
Pz III, yet only weighed half as much. So the panzers were clearly not only
outnumbered, but outgunned – 1,500 of their 2,600 tanks carried only
machine-guns or puny 20 mms, whereas the vast majority of the Allied tanks had
at least a 37 mm. German armour too was inadequate when compared to that of its
opponents, being never thicker than 30 mm while the Char Bs had 60 mm and the
Somuas 55 mm.
One-way radio was available to all medium tanks and unit
commanders possessed two-way sets to issue orders. All the German tanks except
the Pz Is and IIs had 4- or 5-man crews with 3 men working in the turret. This
kind of teamwork greatly enhanced battlefield efficiency as even in the heat of
action no one felt overworked or isolated. On the battlefield the tanks were
controlled by 135 Panzerbefehlswagens (command vehicles), built either on the
Pz I or Pz II chassis.
As is clear from the figures, the Panzerwaffe was heavily
outclassed, both qualitatively and quantitatively and so their success would
ride solely on their men, tactics and leadership.
Prior to the assault the 10 panzer divisions were organised
into 5 panzerkorps and allocated to the various attacking Armies. Bock’s Army
Group B got 2 of the 5 panzerkorps, although this added up to only 3 panzer
divisions: the XXXIX Panzerkorps under Schmidt contained the 9th Panzer
Division and was to take part in the attack on Holland, while Hoepner’s XVI
Panzerkorps contained the 3rd and 4th Panzer Divisions and would thrust for
Brussels and Liege. Reflecting the importance of its new role, Rundstedt’s Army
Group A received the remaining 7 panzer divisions formed into three
panzerkorps. Hoth’s XV contained the 5th and 7th Panzer Divisions and was
positioned at the northern end of the Ardennes. Reinhardt’s XLI, containing the
6th and 8th Panzer Divisions, took up the centre. Most hopes were pinned on
Guderian’s XIX which was positioned at the southern end of the Ardennes and was
made up of the 1st, 2nd and 10th Panzer Divisions as well as the crack
motorised infantry regiment, Gross Deutschland.
Guderian’s Panzerkorps and Reinhardt’s Panzerkorps were both
placed under the command of Panzergruppe Kleist, along with General Gustav
Wietersheim’s XIV Armeekorps, which contained 3 motorised infantry divisions.
This Panzergruppe had 1,200 tanks, including the largest share of Pz IIIs and
IVs and the first Schutzenwagens (armoured half-tracks for carrying infantry),
and formed part of Generaloberst List’s Twelfth Army. General der Kavalerie
Ewald von Kleist, an efficient but cautious officer, had commanded a
Panzerkorps in Poland, but as an old cavalryman was not known as a follower of
the new school of tank theory. His appointment was made in an effort to reign
in what the OKH saw as Guderian’s impetuousness, an expectation Kleist
certainly fulfilled during the campaign.
All in all, Rundstedt’s Army Group A had 7 panzer divisions,
3 motorised infantry divisions and 35 ordinary infantry divisions, while farther
north the reduced role of Bock’s Army Group B meant that it had 3 panzer
divisions, 1 motorised infantry division and 24 ordinary infantry divisions.
Early on the morning of 10 May 1940, Sitzkreig gave way to
Blitzkrieg. Late on the 9th the codeword ‘Danzig’ had been flashed to the
German units waiting at the frontier and they had begun to move west, heading
for Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg. At 0530 hrs the invasion of France began
when Generalleutnant Guderian took the 1st Panzer Division across the
Luxembourg border – the attack that had been postponed so many times was
finally under way. To be close to the fighting, Hitler had moved to a new
headquarters nearer the frontier, which he called ‘Felsennest’ (Eyrie).
Even though all the really significant events were happening
in the south, for the first few days all eyes were on the north, just as the
Germans had intended. The German attack in Holland and northern Belgium was
likened by Liddell Hart to a matador’s cloak, the intention of which was to
dazzle the bull, or in this case the Anglo-French armies, so that they didn’t
see the real thrust coming.
First the Luftwaffe launched surprise raids on fifty Allied
air bases. This was followed up on the 10th by Fallschirmjägers (paratroops)
being dropped into Holland in a daring attack with the objective of capturing
and holding the bridges on the Maas over which the 9th Panzer Division would
move on its way to Rotterdam. They succeeded and by the 13th, Hubicki’s panzers
had reached the Dutch city. On the 11th, glider-borne Fallschirmjägers had
landed on the roof of Eben Emael, the much-vaunted Belgian fortress near
Maastricht, quickly putting it out of action. The road to Brussels and Antwerp
was now open for Hoepner’s XIV Panzerkorps.
Of course events in the north were just a feint, a mere
side-show put on to persuade the Allies that this would be the Schwerpunkt, the
point of main German effort. It worked brilliantly and the Anglo-French armies
moved north to meet Army Group B, aided by the fact that the Luftwaffe
purposefully didn’t attack them on the way. Meanwhile the seven panzer
divisions of Army Group A that had assembled on the Luxembourg frontier over
the previous days were now threading their way through the Ardennes on their
way to the Meuse, 70 miles away. The 1,500 tanks that made up the three
panzerkorps stretched back one hundred miles from the frontier.
According to Oberst Günther von Blumentritt, Rundstedt’s
chief planner, the Germans saw the advance through the Ardennes as more of an
approach march than an operation. Staff officers had had to put in a huge
amount of preparatory work, poring over maps and aerial photos to make out what
passable roads existed and then designating specific routes of advance for each
division. Once they did get moving, effective traffic management was essential
to keep the armoured train moving smoothly and quickly on the steep, narrow and
winding roads. Despite all the planning, inevitably there were traffic jams,
delays and stoppages, one of which lasted a whole day and was only sorted out
when an officer went up in a plane to act as an aerial traffic warden.
But contrary to Allied expectations, the Ardennes, while
steeply hilled, densely wooded and serviced by only a few narrow roads, was far
from impassable as the panzers were quickly proving. Following on after the
panzers came the three motorised infantry divisions under General von
Wietersheim and thirty-five ordinary infantry divisions, the latter marching
cross country in order to leave the few roads solely to the vehicles. Eighty
battalions of motorised infantry took part in the invasion, yet only two of
these were equipped with the newly-built 251 half-tracks, all the rest
travelling by truck. The infantry were also supported by four 6-gun Stug batteries.
For the purpose of movement the panzerkorps were divided
into three layers, the first two made up of armour, the third of motorised
infantry. It must have been quite a sight to behold, this cavalcade of tanks
trundling through the scenic countryside, followed up by the ganglia of supply
in lorries and horse-drawn wagons, and flanked on either side of the road by
grey-clad infantry marching through the woods. Allied pilots did spot the
armoured columns and reported them to their superiors, but inexplicably were
given no orders to attack.
As they had expected, the Germans met very little resistance
as they travelled through the Ardennes, easily brushing aside the weak
opposition of the Belgian Chasseurs Ardennais and two French cavalry divisions.
The panzers moved with all possible speed, because the whole plan pivoted on
their getting across the Meuse before the Allies realised what was going on.
The defenders had mined, blocked or demolished many of the approach roads, but
while these caused some delay to the onrushing tanks, they failed to hold them
up for very long.
In those early days Guderian’s greatest fear was not of
enemy attacks on the ground, but from the air. He knew that bottled in as
tightly as they were, with their movements channelled by the few available
roads, the armoured columns were extremely vulnerable to air attack. But no air
attacks came in those early days and didn’t begin until the Germans had already
reached the Meuse; by then the planes were already too late and suffered heavy
losses as a result. Still the Allies had not realised that this German armoured
thrust in the south was the Schwerpunkt of their whole attack and represented a
deadly danger to their armies in the north.
Despite the clear lack of opposition, the natural caution of
Guderian’s commander, von Kleist, asserted itself on the 11th when he ordered
that the 10th Panzer Division change its direction so as to meet a reported
force of French cavalry. Guderian, unwilling to dilute his forces by one third
just to meet a hypothetical threat, ignored the order. The French cavalry never
appeared, but this was just the first of many halt orders Guderian was to face
along the way.
By the evening of the 12th, the three panzerkorps were
ranged along the eastern bank of the Meuse on a 64-km (40-mile) front
stretching from Dinant to Sedan. They were surprised to discover how relatively
feeble the French Meuse defences were, having expected extensive field
fortifications bristling with heavy artillery and well manned by troops. On paper
indeed the Meuse looked well defended, with 150,000 troops housed in concrete
blockhouses along a 150-km (95-mile) front. But in reality these defenders were
inferior troops of poor fighting quality, consisting mainly of elderly
reservists and soldiers unfit for more active service, all the better divisions
having been sent north to meet the German threat there. Those left behind
lacked modern weaponry, in particular anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns.
The weakness of the Meuse defences meant that the panzers
would be able to start crossing the river almost straightaway instead of having
to wait for the infantry corps to come up and launch an attack; this could have
taken as long as a week, a pause that the French were counting on and during
which time they could have brought up reinforcements.
By the evening of the 12th, Guderian’s Panzerkorps had
reached the Meuse valley and captured Sedan, scene of another French military
disaster in 1870 when they were roundly beaten by the Prussians. Now another
Prussian was on the verge of inflicting a second painful defeat. Guderian and
his trusty Chief of Staff, Nehring, set up their headquarters in a nearby
hotel, but were soon forced to abandon it when an enemy air attack brought a
stuffed boar’s head mounted on the wall crashing down within inches of the
shaken Corps Commander.
Kleist ordered him to attempt to cross the river with his
panzer divisions the next day. Guderian now altered and reissued orders from war
games at Koblenz so as to minimise delay and the night preceding the attack was
spent in bringing the artillery into position. The Germans had practised river
crossings with tanks on the Moselle in Germany, but not while under hostile
fire. No one really knew what to expect the next day, but the whole operation
pivoted on the panzers getting across the river quickly.
At 1600 hrs on the 13th the Germans opened up on the
defenders with artillery and Guderian positioned his Pz IVs and 88 mms so as to
fire directly into the French concrete blockhouses that dominated the heights
on the other side of the river. Then he called in waves of Stuka dive-bombers
to terrorise the defenders. Guderian had requested the commander of the
Luftwaffe’s Third Airflotte to launch continual attacks for the entire duration
of the Meuse crossing, rather than just a large, one-off attack, thus giving
the attackers continual air support while keeping the defenders’ heads down. As
a result, twelve squadrons of dive-bombers were used in the Sedan sector and
they continued to fly missions all that crucial day. In this way, aircraft took
on the role more traditionally filled by artillery.
Meanwhile the panzer divisions’ engineers laboured to build
pontoon bridges. Guderian went to the crossing place of the 1st Panzer Division
and crossed the river himself in an assault boat. On the opposite bank he met
Oberstleutnant Hermann Balck, commander of a Schutzenregiment (rifle regiment),
who greeted him with the words: ‘Joy riding in canoes on the Meuse is
forbidden!’ echoing Guderian’s own words during a practice run on the Moselle.
Balck and his men had formed the first German bridgehead across the Meuse,
crossing the river in rubber boats under cover of the air attack and seizing
enough ground to allow the engineers to begin building a pontoon bridge for the
tanks.
Balck, like Guderian, was a Prussian with proud military
antecedents. He had distinguished himself in the First World War as a company
commander on the Western and Eastern fronts, winning the Iron Cross First Class
and being wounded seven times. Retained in the Reichswehr after the war, he had
twice turned down appointments to the General Staff, preferring to remain as a
front-line officer. During the Polish campaign he’d been responsible for
refitting and reorganising the panzer divisions and was to prove an inspired
panzer commander himself.
Elements of the Gross Deutschland (GD) Regiment, the most
prestigious unit in the German Army, crossed the river and headed for the
Marfee Heights, a commanding position held by the French. Guderian’s attack was
aimed specifically at the junction of two French armies, the Ninth and the
Second, always the weakest point in any defensive line. The morale of these
garrison troops soon collapsed under the continual bombardment. The French 55th
Infantry Division was routed and went into headlong retreat, telling stories of
thousands of German tanks, even though Guderian’s panzers hadn’t even crossed
the Meuse yet. So far the tank was having more effect on morale than it was
actually having as an offensive weapon.
