German forces invaded areas of France pushing the British Forces (British Expeditionary Force BEF) and French forces (Dunkirk) back to the sea in Operation Dynamo. An estimated 40,000 were prisoners of war, 100,000 racial deportees, 60,000 political prisoners and 40,000 died as slave labourers. The I Corps was the spearhead of the Free French First Army that had landed in Provence as a part of Operation Dragoon. [155], The 4th DCr, led by de Gaulle, attempted to launch an attack from the south at Montcornet, where Guderian had his Korps headquarters and the 1st Panzer Division had its rear services. The Battle Of The Alps Italy attacked France on June 10, 1940, and two weeks of fighting in the French Alps ensued. Around 440 men were evacuated. [216], On 21 June 1940, Hitler visited the site to start the negotiations, which took place in the same railway carriage in which the 1918 Armistice was signed. 5.0 /5. [137] Guderian was able to get Kleist to agree on a form of words for a "reconnaissance in force", by threatening to resign and behind-the-scenes intrigues. [95][96] Considering their training and equipment, they had to cover a long front and formed a weak point of the French defence system. (, The number of people killed, wounded, or missing was 68,000. The political effects of the loss of Norway were immediate and far-reaching, however. Street fighting raged Tuesday for control of Ukraine's flashpoint city of Severodonetsk, with the situation changing "every hour", an official said, as Kyiv warned its troops were outnumbered by . May wrote that without the reassurance of intelligence analysis and the results of the war games, the possibility of Germany adopting the last version of Fall Gelb would have been remote. Huntziger considered this at least a defensive success and limited his efforts to protecting the flank. [citation needed], By the end of the war, some 580,000 French citizens had died (40,000 of these were killed by the western Allied forces during the bombardments of the first 48 hours of Operation Overlord). [12], In 1956, the English historian J. F. C. Fuller called the military operations on the Meuse in 1940, "the Second Battle of Sedan". The shock was all the greater because the trauma was not limited to a catastrophic and deeply embarrassing defeat of her military forces it also involved the unleashing of a conservative political revolution that, on 10 July 1940, interred the Third Republic and replaced it with the authoritarian, collaborationist Etat Franais of Vichy. The Vichy regime retained the zone libre (free zone) in the south. He was the only Allied commander in the north briefed on the Weygand plan. That day, the British decided to evacuate from the Channel ports. [27] General Philippe Ptain declared the Ardennes to be "impenetrable" as long as "special provisions" were taken to destroy an invasion force as it emerged from the Ardennes by a pincer attack. The French numerical advantage in heavy weapons and equipment, which was often deployed in "penny-packets" (dispersed as individual support weapons) was offset. The Battle of Mortain. Though Poland had been quickly defeated, many armoured vehicles had been lost and were hard to replace. On 14 May, having been held up at Hannut, Hoepner attacked again, against orders, in the Battle of Gembloux. German army officers were astonished by the swiftness of the victory, the French collapse and the British escape. But 15 September was the decisive day - the day the Germans realised they had lost the Battle of Britain. While British and French commitments to Poland were met politically, the Allies failed to fulfil their military obligations to Poland, later called the Western betrayal by the Poles. On the day France surrendered British Prime Minister Winston Churchill gave a speech that was as prescient as it was inspirational. In it he avoided mentioning Guderian and played down the strategic part of the armoured units, to avoid unnecessary resistance. A professor emeritus of English at Wheelock College in Boston, he loved the Vineyard and lived there year-round with his wife, Shirley. [25], In 2006, Tooze wrote that the German success could not be attributed to a great superiority in the machinery of industrial warfare. The Allies outnumbered the Germans in fighter aircraft, with 81 Belgian, 261 British and 764 French fighters (1,106) against 836 German Bf 109s. The 36 minute sermon was the third of three speeches he gave during the Battle of France, following on from the "Blood, toil, tears and sweat" speech of May 13 and the "We shall fight on the beaches . [169], Gort doubted that the French could prevail. Automobiles and horse-drawn carts carrying possessions clogged roads. German commanders wrote during the campaign and after, that often only a small difference had separated success from failure. To overcome this difficulty, the Germans resorted to unconventional means in the Battle of Fort Eben-Emael. The newer German Panzers had a crew of five: commander, gunner, loader, driver, and mechanic. [2] The new national dictator of Vichy France, Marshal Philippe Ptain, had his explanation: "Our defeat is punishment for our moral failures. Battle of Britain Day - what happened hour by hour. against panzers. [162][163] Radio-equipped forward liaison officers could call upon the Stukas and direct them to attack Allied positions along the axis of advance. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). [33], In the German tradition of delegation, sometimes known as Auftagstaktik (mission command), leaders were trained to take the initiative, within the commander's intent, to accomplish the mission. The Germans were able to mass 45 elite divisions in the Ardennes against 18 second-rate Belgian and French divisions, a ratio of 3:1 in favour of the Germans, multiplied in effect by deception and speed of manoeuvre. About 28,000 men were evacuated on the first day. Cornick, Martyn. ), written by Alfred-Ingemar Berndt, a journalist and close associate of propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, is a witness account of the battles that led to the fall of France. The Battle of France was the first great tank battle, and perhaps the first major battle, of World War II. [20], French and British intelligence sources were better than the German equivalents, which suffered from too many competing agencies but intelligence analysis was not as well integrated into Allied planning and decision-making. [34], Doughty noted that the 55th, 53rd and 71st Infantry divisions had collapsed at Sedan under little pressure from the Germans but that this was not a matter of French decadence but of soldiers being individuals within a group, which fights according to doctrine and strategy in the spirit by which they are led. The gap left by the Belgian Army stretched from Ypres to Dixmude. Gort replied that seven of his nine divisions were already engaged on the Scheldt River and he had only two divisions left to mount such an attack. (A 9,300-gun Flak component with the field army would have needed more troops than the British Expeditionary Force.) Connors, Joseph David. A further 2,151 men suffered from frostbite during the campaign. German U-boats spent the phony war period sinking scores of Allied merchant ships, and the Germans sent out diplomatic feelers in the hopes that a negotiated peace would allow them to consolidate their already significant gains. On 16 April, Gamelin also made provision for a German invasion of the Netherlands but not Belgium, by changing the deployment area to be reached by the Seventh Army; the Escaut Plan would only be followed if the Germans forestalled the French move into Belgium. The politico-strategic aspects of the plan ossified French thinking, the Phoney War led to demands for Allied offensives in Scandinavia or the Balkans and the plan to start a war with the USSR. The Luftwaffe failed in its task of preventing the evacuation but inflicted serious losses on the Allied forces. It was well equipped and well supplied despite the economic disruption brought by the occupation thanks to Lend-Lease and grew from 500,000 men in the summer of 1944 to over 1,300,000 by V-E day, making it the fourth largest Allied army in Europe. Stonne changed hands 17 times and fell to the Germans for the last time on the evening of 17 May. [24] The line was intended to economise on manpower and deter a German invasion across the FrancoGerman border by diverting it into Belgium, which could then be met by the best divisions of the French Army. Tel : + 33 (0)2 31 51 25 50. The Allied position was complicated by Belgian King Leopold III's surrender on 27 May, which was postponed until 28 May. [80] The combined Allied total was 2,935 aircraft, about half the size of the Luftwaffe. Only Britain stood in the way. Huge risks were taken to get the columns forward, including running petrol lorries in the armoured columns to refuel vehicles at every stop. [194] On the Aisne, the XVI Panzerkorps employed over 1,000 AFVs in two Panzer divisions and a motorised division against the French. In the Second World War, the Battle of France, also known as the Fall of France, was the successful German invasion of France and the Low Countries, beginning on 10 May 1940, defeating primarily French forces. French intelligence were informed through aerial reconnaissance that the Germans were constructing pontoon bridges about halfway over the Our River on the LuxembourgGerman border. The Luftwaffe attacked lines of resistance, which then quickly collapsed under armoured attack. Gamelin replied: After the war, Gamelin claimed he said "There is no longer any". [19][18] Those captured amounted to 200,000 men whom 2,000 died in captivity. [115], Delay might endanger the outcome of the entire campaign, because it was essential that the main body of Allied troops be engaged before Army Group A established bridgeheads. When consideration is made for those in Poland, Denmark and Norway, the Army had 3,000,000 men available for the offensive starting on 10 May 1940. The title of Ernest May's book Strange Victory: Hitler's Conquest of France (2000) nods to an earlier analysis, Strange Defeat (1946) by the historian Marc Bloch (18861944), a participant in the battle. [54] Hitler recognised the breakthrough at Sedan only in tactical terms, whereas Manstein saw it as a means to an end. The French divisions suffered from poor organisation, doctrine, training, leadership and a lack of confidence in their weapons, which would have caused any unit to fail. Battle of France Battle of France Within six weeks Germany's traditional nemesis France had been conquered at remarkable ease, along with the Low Countries of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, demonstrating that this second major European war was proving rather different to the bitter toil of its 1914-1918 predecessor. On 26 February 1945, Hitler claimed he had let the BEF escape as a "sporting" gesture, in the hope Churchill would come to terms. It is known simply as The Battle of Britain. Within a month, the Royal Navy attacked the French naval forces stationed in North Africa in the Attack on Mers-el-Kbir. )[181], The British launched Operation Dynamo, which evacuated the encircled British, French and Belgian troops from the northern pocket in Belgium and Pas-de-Calais, beginning on 26 May. In hindsight, it may seem obvious that Hitler would eventually be defeated but in 1940, this was not so apparent. Initially positioned on the left flank near the coast, the Seventh Army, reinforced by a Division Lgre Mcanique (DLM, mechanised light division), was intended to move to the Netherlands via Antwerp. Jonathan Fennell notes "Losses 'included 180,000 rifles, 10,700 Bren guns, 509 two-pounder anti-tank guns, 509 cruiser tanks and 180 infantry tanks'.". GQG had anticipated that the Ardennes forest would impassable to tanks, even though Belgian army and French intelligence warned them of long armour and transport columns crossing the Ardennes and being stuck in a huge traffic-jam for some time. a German soldier's account of war in the Low Countries and France, 1940", "La campagne italienne de juin 1940 dans les Alpes occidentales", "June 1940: The Italian Army and the Battle of the Alps", "Viscount Gort's Despatch on Operations of the British Expeditionary Force in France and Belgium, 19391940", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_France&oldid=1119154249, This page was last edited on 31 October 2022, at 00:40. In early 1939, a balance of payments crisis led to chaos in the armaments programme; the beginning of the war led to armaments output increasing again but still with no sign of a blitzkrieg concept determining the programme. [85], France had spent a higher percentage of its GNP from 1918 to 1935 on its military than other great powers[example needed] and the government had added a large rearmament effort in 1936[citation needed]. (2015) "Paul Reynaud and the Reform of France's Economic, Military and Diplomatic Policies of the 1930s." Twenty-two Belgian, ten Dutch and two Polish divisions were also part of the Allied order of battle. The French Dyle-Breda variant of the Allied deployment plan was based on an accurate prediction of German intentions, until the delays caused by the winter weather and shock of the Mechelen Incident, led to the radical revision of Fall Gelb. [17] About 64,000 vehicles were destroyed or abandoned and 2,472 guns were destroyed or abandoned. Because of the danger the Luftwaffe posed, movement over the rail network was limited to night-time, slowing the reinforcement. Hooton uses the Bundesarchiv, Militrarchiv in. [37] It would also provide the basis for a long-term air and sea campaign against Britain. [227] The British Chiefs of Staff Committee had concluded in May 1940 that if France collapsed, "we do not think we could continue the war with any chance of success" without "full economic and financial support" from the United States. The main approach route was blocked by Fort Eben-Emael, a large fortress then generally considered the most modern in Europe, which controlled the junction of the Meuse and the Albert Canal. Hitler also tried to alter the plan, which he found unsatisfactory; his weak understanding of how poorly prepared Germany was for war and how it would cope with losses of armoured vehicles were not fully considered. [202] The German 18th Army then deployed against Paris. Their rescue plan, Operation Dynamo, went into effect on May 26. OKH and OKW occasionally lost control and in such unique circumstances, some German commanders ignored orders and regulations, claiming the discretion to follow mission tactics, the most notable being the unauthorised break-out from the Sedan bridgehead by Guderian. May wrote that the wartime performance of the Allied intelligence services was abysmal. [144], Rommel lost contact with General Hermann Hoth, having disobeyed orders by not waiting for the French to establish a new line of defence. France, May 1940. [112] Dutch casualties amounted to 2,157 army, 75 air force and 125 Navy personnel; 2,559 civilians were also killed. Works Cited Horne, Alistair. [217] After listening to the reading of the preamble, Hitler left the carriage in a calculated gesture of disdain for the French delegates and negotiations were turned over to Wilhelm Keitel, the Chief of Staff of OKW. Colonel Goutard dissects the French strategy for war and the lessons it applied to this war learned from previous defeats by the hands of Germans but obviously in vain. [203] On 13 June, Churchill attended a meeting of the Anglo-French Supreme War Council at Tours and suggested a Franco-British Union but this was refused. [127] The first German units to arrive hardly had local numerical superiority; the German artillery had an average of 12 rounds per gun per day, while French artillery had 30 rounds per gun per day. "If an increase in feeling for Adolf Hitler was still possible, it has become reality with the day of the return to Berlin", commented one report from the provinces. In the early dawn hours of April 9, German troops crossed the Danish border, and German warships sailed into Copenhagens harbour. While the French armies were being defeated, the government turned to elderly warriors from the First World War. The capitulation document was signed on 15 May but Dutch forces continued fighting in the Battle of Zeeland with Seventh Army and in the colonies. ", Kiesling, Eugenia C. (2007) "Illuminating Strange Defeat and Pyrrhic Victory: The Historian Robert A. A huge pocket, containing the Allied 1st Army Group (the Belgian, British and French First, Seventh and Ninth armies), was created. There was little organized resistance, and by noon the whole of Denmark was occupied. The British contributed 13 divisions in the BEF, three of which were untrained and poorly-armed labour divisions. May wrote that Hitler had better insight into the French and British governments than vice-versa and knew that they would not go to war over Austria and Czechoslovakia, because he concentrated on politics rather than the state and national interest. These groups were reinforced by the elite Infantry Regiment Grodeutschland. The same discrepancy between German military-industrial preparations and the campaign can be seen in the plans formed for the war in the west. The Battle of Cantigny, fought May 28, 1918 [4] was the first major American battle and offensive of World War I. The war in the west occurred at a watershed in military history when military technology was favourable to the attack. Weygand asserted it would not take long for the French Army to disintegrate. How was it that a catastrophic defeat was turned into one of British history's great victories? For perhaps the only time during the Third Reich there was genuine war-fever among the population. On 21 June, 37 Bristol Blenheims were destroyed. At 11:45 on 14 May, Rundstedt confirmed this order, which implied that the tank units should now start to dig in. At least 3,000 Senegalese Tirailleurs were murdered after being taken prisoner. Georges was told that the role of the Seventh Army on the left flank of the Dyle manoeuvre would be linked to it and Georges notified Billotte that if it were ordered to cross into the Netherlands, the left flank of the army group was to advance to Tilburg if possible and certainly to Breda. There are a total of [ 11 ] Battle of France Aircraft entries in the Military Factory. Frustrated, Guderian ordered that, if Calais had not fallen by 14:00 on 26 May, he would withdraw the 10th Panzer Division and ask the Luftwaffe to destroy the town. It was not a Panzer spearhead arm, since in 1939 fewer than 15 per cent of Luftwaffe aircraft were designed for close support as this was not its main role. The 1st Panzer Division advanced to Calais, the 2nd Panzer Division to Boulogne and the 10th Panzer Division to Dunkirk (later, the 1st and 10th Panzer divisions' roles were reversed). [72], Wireless proved essential to German success in the battle. Winston Churchill delivered the rousing line ' This was their finest hour' in a speech to the House of Commons on June 18,1940, just a month after he took over as Prime Minister. A separate operation organised by the Luftwaffe, the Battle for The Hague, failed. For the next three weeks there were fierce rearguard battles and another 209,000 soldiers were later evacuated. Most French soldiers that joined the line only knew of German success by hearsay. German invasion of France and the Low Countries, executed 10 May 1940 which ended the Phony War. Deeper positions were held by the 55th Infantry Division, a grade "B" reserve division. After the evacuation at Dunkirk, while Paris was enduring a short-lived siege, part of the 1st Canadian Infantry Division was sent to Brittany but was withdrawn after the French capitulation. (, There were 6 destroyers that sunk, fourteen damaged by bombs and twelve by collisions and there were 9 personal carriers that sunk, eleven damaged and eight were so badly damaged that they were taken out of service. The fall of France left Britain as the sole opposition to Nazi aggression with little of hope of victory. It was composed of the 6th and 18th Armies. [179], Frieser wrote that the Franco-British counter-attack at Arras had a disproportionate effect on the Germans because the German higher commanders were apprehensive about flank security. The events of 1940 had no relation to a blitzkrieg strategy ascribed to Hitler. The French 104th Division and 105th Division were forced back into the Vosges Mountains on 17 June. When we consider the heroic resistance made by the French Army against heavy odds in this battle, the enormous losses inflicted upon the enemy and the evident exhaustion of the enemy, it may well be the thought that these 25 divisions of the best-trained and best-equipped troops might have turned the scale. It was also an unfortified part of the Allied line. To keep going for three days and nights, drivers were given Pervitin stimulants. There was no plan before September 1939 and the first version in October was a compromise that satisfied no-one but the capture the Channel coast to conduct an air war against Britain, was apparently the purpose determining armaments production from December 1939. Melvin wrote that Germans writing in 1940 showed apprehension rather than confidence. [25][26] The main section of the Maginot Line ran from the Swiss border and ended at Longwy; the hills and woods of the Ardennes region were thought to cover the area to the north. He was convinced that "over them will pass either victory or defeat!". At 19:00 on 13 May, troops of the 295th Regiment of the 55th Infantry Division were holding the last prepared defensive line at the Bulson ridge 10km (6mi) behind the river. Only two British infantry battalions and two battalions of the 1st Army Tank Brigade, with 58 Matilda I and 16 Matilda II tanks and an attached motorcycle battalion, took part in the main attack. [64], In the winter of 193940, the Belgian consul-general in Cologne had anticipated the angle of advance that Manstein was planning. Guderian continued the advance, despite the halt order. The German units occupied Amiens and secured the westernmost bridge over the river at Abbeville. The siege lasted for four crucial days. [218] On 27 June, German troops occupied the coast of the Basque Country between France and Spain. The 4th DCR also had its losses replaced. Daily losses were high but the short campaign meant that the total number of casualties was low. British reinforcements (the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment, equipped with cruiser tanks and the 30th Motor Brigade; the latter constituted much of the infantry force that was to have served with British 1st Armoured Division) had been hastily landed 24 hours before the Germans attacked.

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