"A Defeat transformed in Victory" by Francesco Riva
The epic retreat from Dunkirk of the allied army under the pressure of the
German armored divisions.
The war is lost!
The brilliant programming of the plan that had brought the Germans to the staving
at Sedan didn't initially foresee a conversion toward northwest in direction of
the Channel and Calais. At least, nobody among the traditionalist generals who
were at the command of the French army would have been able to imagine that a
maneuver of that kind was possible. For military men educated to the war of position,
a movement of hundreds of kilometers in the brief period of time of few days was
simply inconceivable. It missed the conscience of the importance of the armored
troops in the modern war. While French were still considering them as support
of the infantry, the Germans had already reversed the order of the two weapons
and the afoot troops followed the openings created with the forces of the tanks.
The situation that determined itself in the first ten days of open war on the
western front was not very dissimilar from that that it had happened in the first
world conflict.
In that time, the Germans had also threatened encircling the allied troops
of the North, but with wise tactic movement, general Joffre had perceived the
danger and had avoided it with a general retreat that on the moment it was seen
as a terrible defeat, but that it would have revealed itself the decisive solution
of the war, because it had saved whole army corps from the encirclement and from
the destruction. In 1940 a new retreat would have had the same effect and perhaps
also the consequences of that first tragic years of war would have been completely
different. Unfortunately, French missed a military genius at the level of Joffre.
Saying the truth, the shortage of brilliance was common among all military ranks
with some excellent exception (De Gaulle).
The real problem didn't consist in the quality of the men, in any case scarce,
but more than other in the inadequate system of command and communications that
made in concrete useless the organization at strategic level.
The speed shown by the Germans was not perceived as a problem from the French
Head Quarter that answered to every movement of the enemy pretending that it was
really the adversary to conform to the slowness of the soldiers of Paris and not
viceversa. None of the officers of high rank succeeded in perceiving that the
Second World War was not a trench battle. To increase the insipient conduct of
its own commanders also came the extreme discouragement of the French troops that
after having been educated to such point on the invulnerability of the “Line
Maginot” they didn't understand as it was possible that the enemy was already
racing on the French ground. Still less the terrorized civilians understood who
ran away in front of the Hitler's armored troops. Nobody had not even been told
of their approach and therefore who owned some mean of transport that allowed
him to run away had done it in a hurry, the others, with their wagons or with
their legs went to clog the streets of retreat of the French army in rout. The
infernal bedlam in which the narrow streets of province were transformed and on
which were crowded either the fugitives either the soldiers were cyclically interested
from the raids of the famous Stukas, the German nose-dive bombers that after the
conquest of the air supremacy from the Luftwaffe, completed hundreds of raids
of interdiction a day, increasing more the panic than the real material damages.
About all this, the French Chief General Georges and his direct submitted Gamelin
didn't really know anything. On May 20, when the advanced point of the German
invasion already threat the estuary of the Seine, the allied command was still
tied to the plan that foresaw the resistance on the Escaut (or Schelda) where
the English and French troops of the Expedition Corp and the Army of the North
were in support of the Belgian army that still fought. He didn't even suspect
that the whole central front of the French line of defense had abruptly surrendered
allowing the Germans creating a wedge that with the passing time proceeded more
and more quickly toward the sea breaking in two every resistance. If the soldiers
remained irresponsibly unarmed in front of the perspective of a defeat that they
didn't even imagine, the political men were hit by a sudden frenzy. Prime Minister
Reynaud, also being to the dark of the real gravity of what was happening, was
already upset enough and as good man of government it lost whole day on 18 and
19 May to find a scapegoat on which loading every guilt. The serious accusation
reverted on Gamelin himself who was told of his happened dismissal at midday on
May 20. The substitute was certainly worthy of the assignment that was entrusted
to him.
His name was Maxime Weygand, 73-years-old hero of the First World War and Marshal
of France. Certainly, his value as tactical general and strategist was undeniable,
but the same formalities of his nomination would have to show us in which improvisation
he had to work. Only two days before, he was in Beirut, Lebanon. Urgently recalled,
he was transported for the whole Mediterranean in an airplane, with the risk to
be intercepted by the German squadrons. After a deviation on Tunis, he was again
in flight toward France, where the morning on 20 May he had only the time to present
behind Georges to assume the position. The new military responsible of the destiny
of France didn't even know his staff and would have had to stop the Nazi advance!
Besides, the same day when Weygand assumed powers, the Germans conquered Abbeville
reaching the Channel. By now, the war was lost.
A way out
Or at least, it would have been so if there had been another person at the
place of Weygand. His better quality was surely pragmatism. He didn't refuse any
offensive on the paper, but he preferred a directed taking of contact with the
front, to understand what the real conditions of his own soldiers were. To do
this, it was planned an inspection in Dunkirk. The new commander immediately started
to understand which disorder reigned in the communications of the French army.
In fact, his move had been originally previewed by train, in the wrong conviction
that there still was a direct connection with the Army of the North. Weygand discovered
the encirclement of the largest parts of his men from the missing answer from
a stationmaster of an anonymous town to north of the Somme!
The accident had at least a positive aspect that is to clarify definitely how
much the position of the allied troops was serious in the North of France. The
allied front was divided in two. The southern part included all the divisions
swallowed by the Line Maginot still not employed, but in practice unusable for
maneuvers in open field. To them they were added the units in retreat after the
defeat of Sedan. A forces too weak to oppose the invasion. The only hope was the
army of the North that together with the British Expedition Corp had fought few
and had suffered fewer losses. Their encirclement could not be anything else other
than the prelude of the defeat. To go out of the trap, Weygand individualized
an only plan that was also the most logical. He put every thought of an offensive
toward East in direction of Belgium aside and he planned what became known as
the “plan Weygand” that is a maneuver of approach with direction North-south
between the two separated allied armies. Theoretically unexceptionable, in practice
the plan immediately presented difficulties of realization.
The allied command was divided inside from affairs of the varied nations in
struggle (Great Britain, France and Belgium) that threatened letting fail the
initiative. With the purpose to arrange a plan of common action, Weygand assumed
the risk to fly again up to the encircled zone for meeting the military responsibles.
The mission was soon transformed in an adventure to the limit of the legend. Under
the continuous attack of the German bombers, Weygand was forced to land and to
take off three times for the absolute lack of information about the precise place
where all the military responsibles would have gathered. Reached Calais, he was
informed about the necessity to return on his own steps because the meeting had
been organized in Ypres! At his arrival in the town building of the city, nobody
of the desired guests was present. After an exhausting waiting, only Billottes,
French general entrusted of commanding the 1st Army Corp and Leopold, king of
Belgium and chief commander of the armed forces of Bruxelles, arrived. Weygand
summarily exposed his idea to reunify the two allied sections and discovered with
his surprise that partially the operation was already in progress for initiative
of Gort that on May 20 had entrusted the assignment to 5th and 50th British Division
to reduce the hostile wedge in direction of the Escaut. An English-French disengagement
of the troops was arranged from the oriental scenery to allow the offensive toward
south. Belgian forces would have sustained such withdrawal increasing the operations
of deceleration of the units of the Wehrmacht.
The definite program on the occasion of the meeting of Ypres possessed two
enormous enigmas: the real ability and wish of resistance of the Belgians and
the obedience of the British general Gort. King Leopold approving of motto the
plain Weygand also communicated that hardly his/her own soldiers you/he/she would
have accepted an ulterior abandonment of the national territory, whose defended
it was the only reason for which they were beaten. His/her politics, shared not
by tall exponents of the government of Bruxelles, it will become object of the
serious breaking that will happen in the country to the moment of the capitulation.
For that that Gort concerns, the suspect of his insubordination had been already
in the air for some days. Billotte had officially communicated his impression
to Weygand that the British Expedition Corp was already acting autonomously. Although
theoretically subordinate to the French command, Gort was able to pass over the
orders to him deriving from Weygand basing his decisions on the directives of
his own executive. His absence at Ypres seemed confirming the atrocious doubt
that Churchill had communicated to Gort the order of re-embarkation.
Weygand left from Ypres without knowing how much unfounded his fears were.
Gort arrived in the city only after the sunset and had knowledge of the plan of
the French general from Billotte. He was fully subdued to the French directives
without opposing anything, recognizing in the maneuver the only possibility of
unblocking of the zone near Calais and Dunkirk. On May 23, the Expedition Corp
perfected the withdrawal from the Belgian territory, leaving as only units of
rear-guard 5th and 50th Division, already harshly stricken in the attacks of the
three preceding days. The day on May 24 was decisive.
In the period between May 21 and 23, the German offensive was suspended in
the uncertainty of a failure. The OKH itself (oberkommandherees, Supreme Command
of the German Armed Forces) was aware of the fact that the armored divisions that
kept the territory from the German frontier up to the Channel they were insufficient
to sustain an offensive in large scale of the allied troops. The support troops
of infantry that would have had to be in the lands, on which the tanks of the
Panzerdivisionen have flown to occupy the position, they were late because of
the extreme disarrangement of the ways of communication. For three long days,
the Plain Weygand would have been able to have success. Ill-omenedly, the same
uncomfortable conditions were lived also from the Allies that also speeding up
the march, would not have been able to start the attack before May 25 and, as
remembered, on 24 May the offensive was clearly already impossible.
No movement from Lille based French forces had been signaled and with a hit
of fortune due to the interception of an order of the 6th German Army, Gort knew
that the German reinforcements were finally arrived and that they planned a double
offensive toward West in direction of the Escaut and toward North departing from
the Somme. It was evident that the Belgian army would never have been able to
withstand the double German movement threatening in case of surrender the annihilation
of the whole English rear-guard.
“Retreat!”
Weygand had also come to the same conclusion. He was aware that it was not
possible to break the encirclement anymore. A directive that foresaw the creation
of a head-bridge in the north of France supplied by sea through Calais and Dunkirk
was emanated. For the whole day on May 25, Gort was concerned to this second order,
also knowing that the staving in of the Belgian lines was by now matter of days
or hours. He had also thought some days before effecting a general retreat for
the re-embarkation in direction of Dunkirk, but Churchill's government had refused
with vigor opposing reasons of “opportunity.” How would they have been
able to abandon the French ally to its destiny bringing home the English troops
practically intact with the risk to be accused of cowardliness?
Gort, however, after days of wait without any novelty, assumed responsibility
to communicate the order that led off the retreat toward the sea: general Franklin
had to bring back 5th and the 50th division toward Ypres and from there to Dunkirk.
The plain Weygand was definitely abandoned.
In the studies of the history of the Campaign of France, that order has always
constituted a cornerstone element and in the same time a dark point of the allied
operations and consequently of the following war behavior. It's enough to remember
how controversial even the date is in which such order was indeed given. According
to the French historians it would be the evening on May 23, date confirmed also
from the outburst of Weygand happened the following day when he knew of the failure
of his project. For the English historians instead the initiative of Gort was
taken only at 18 PM on May 25 and supporting this affirmation there would be either
the officiality acquired by the order in the inter-allied reunion on day 26 either
the telegram of the English War Office of the same day that approved the decision
of the general and subsequently it authorized him to proceed toward the coast
“in conjunction with the French and Belgian troops.” It doesn't have
to appear of secondary importance the dispute around the exact day when the decision
was taken, because the difference of date would also involve a different interpretation
of the behavior of Gort and the English government. If really Gort had decided
to retire on day 23, it could not be sustained that he has done it of his initiative
worried by the tactical conditions, because at that moment the German army had
not gotten the necessary forces for the final assault. Besides, if it was confirmed
the French theory, Churchill would have taken the decision to disengage some days
before, with the Expedition Corp still in Belgium. It would be in practice a disownment
of the iron wish of the English leader to keep faith to the alliance with France
that would have brought to the recognition of Free France.
The truth of the facts in this case is practically impossible to determine.
Therefore, it will have to follow the historical truth that is founded on the
official documentation that affirms that locate the definitive provision in the
evening on May 25, taken in total independence from the British general. For this
reason, the person of Gort would have subsequently attracted the attention of
the researchers. Certainly, he don't lack of personal courage having earned the
Victoria Cross during the First World War, perhaps this man had not some qualities
of command necessary for the assignment that the Great Britain pretended from
him. However, a judgment of this kind would be ungenerous. He correctly knew to
read the tactical-strategic situation in few hours and he resolved it safeguarding
the affairs of his own men and his own country. It is confirmation of it what
it happened on Monday May 27 1940.
In that day the Belgian army capitulated. King Leopold decided to stop the
sufferings of his people. The action had also consequences on the political plan.
The king accused his government to have abandoned the population to its own destiny
and to have run away abroad, while the executive flung in the monarch's face to
have delivered Belgium to the invader without not even trying continuing the struggle
near the overseas allies, as instead the queen of Holland and the Great Duke of
Luxembourg had done. The tensions born in these days will be proposed intensified
at the end of the war, when Belgium will have to choose if confirming trust to
Leopold with a referendum. Putting aside the political problem, the collapse of
Belgium involved what Gort had estimated: the whole left front of the Allies was
crumbled in the turn of few hours. His preventive maneuver to move 5th and the
50th Division to coverage of the region was scarcely enough to save him from the
disaster.
The gravity of the crisis was immediately clear in London from where on May
27 at 13 o'clock it was telegraphically communicated to general Gort “to
evacuate the greatest number of men possible.” Intelligently, the English
Command omitted to point out if in the evacuation they had to also be included
the French forces of the 16th Corp of the Army of the North that defend the line
between Gravelines and Bergues and the rest of the 1st Army. Even the French didn't
know what orders to follow, because their Command had fallen in the chaos at the
moment of the Belgian capitulation with the consequent collapse of the border
defenses. Hesitations of this kind were avoided for the 5th French Corp, because
the Germans surrounded it inside Lille, preventing its retreat.
An unexpected help from Hitler
On May 28 evening, the destruction of French Army of the North and the British
Expedition Corp were imminent. The strengths' disposition on the field was the
following: as remembered the 16th French Corp defended the right line of the new
perimeter of defense planned around Dunkirk and, in practice they were the only
force near enough to the port for being reasonably saved. The remaining forces
either French either British were disseminated between the sea city and Armentiere,
a small town at little distance from Lille, forming a corridor with too long sides
to be effectively defended by the men at disposition, particularly 44th and 48th
British Division that kept the sides of the wedge. 5th and the 7th German armored
divisions pressed on them from North and West, participating in the siege of Lille
and the whole 6th Army of the Wehrmacht from East. The supremacy of German forces
was overwhelming and nothing that had done the encircled troops those moments
would have been able to change their destiny.
The allies, however, ignored that Hitler had already pardoned them. On May
23, when the definitive German victory was in for happening, he had decided that
the final offensive would not be started before on May 31. Despite his generals
had understood that a similar delay was not justifiable for the changed conditions
of the enemy, nobody had had the courage to let notice it to the Führer.
Straight, general Rundstedt, preceding and favoring the wish of Hitler, unintentionally
annulled an order of the OKH that detached the whole 1th Army of Group A, by now
useless, to the Group B for breaking down the last resistances in Dunkirk. He
thought that a couple of days of rest were necessary to the armored divisions
for recovering from the intense fights of the preceding two weeks.
The Allies took advantage of the granted time, succeeding in 36 hours to withdraw
four British divisions and 2/3 of 1st French Army inside the perimeter of Dunkirk.
At first sight, what can seem a hit of fortune it was the result either of a repeated
laxity of the German command either of an unexpected and, unfortunately useless,
gesture of heroism of the French army. General von Bock who after the capitulation
of the Belgian army would have been able to march unmolested up to Dunkirk, remained
on surer positions granting an additional day of rest to his own troops that had
crossed four hundred kilometers in less than twenty days. This way, 5th and 50th
British Division that initially had been given for lost reached without too difficulties
the salvation inside the defensive perimeter. Instead, around Lille, where the
5th French Corp of the Army of North was trapped, the fights continued tireless.
Germans themselves were surprised of so much resistance of the French soldiers
who were the same who had run away at Sedan. They resisted until June 1, granting
some precious time to the fellow citizens who escaped to the encirclement. Their
courage was also recognized by the winners who recognize them the honor of the
weapons.
In the meantime, already since May 28 evening, the operation Dynamo that is
the repatriation of the British Expedition Corp had started. The perspectives
were not the best. The boats that had to reach Dunkirk, approached to a city that
was bombed from land and from the air. The armored troops of Guderian stopped
at only 8 kms from the city could reach with their guns the center of the city
and they licked up the port that was also heavily struck by the Luftwaffe. Hitler
had great hopes on this weapon. Göring had promised that the air forces would
have been able to prevent the re-embarkation of the allied troops. Such promise
revealed itself without sense for a complex series of reasons.
Indeed, the British admiralty in a pessimistic forecast of the operation had
calculated to save 45.000 men only, a tenth of the total English soldiers. Already
the first day, however, it was possible to recover more than 17000 men, figure
that was increased up to reach the 68000 daily units on May 31. The effort was
entirely possible for the extreme sacrifice of the members of the British Navy.
Not only of the military one, that lost a third of the 693 boats officially employed,
but above all of the civil one that with great sense of the duty had formed what
Churchill had defined a “mosquito-fleet.” It was formed by hundreds
of boats of every type, from the fishing-boats to the riverboats, from the tourist
ferries to the boats for lake trips, every ship that floated was employed for
military transport. It cannot be known how many voluntaries risked their own life
in those days, because many of them were not even enrolled in the special lists
predisposed by the admiralty, travelling between Great Britain and France without
any authorization, only to save their own brothers. The work by sea would be useless
if the Great Britain didn't have employed the most precious good that it still
preserved for the protection of homeland: the Metropolitan Aviation.
The new models Hurricane demolished more than two hundred German bombers above
the beaches of Dunkirk, losing aircrafts for little more than half that figure.
To weaken the promise of Göring, there was also the extreme difficulty to
provoke serious damages to such heterogeneous flotilla and to the infantry on
a terribly sandy ground that enormously limited the destructive potential of the
nose-diving bombardment. With alternate circumstances, on May 31, 165000 soldiers
had abandoned unharmed the French ground.
The alliance creaks.
At first sight, it would be had to say that already in that date operation
Dynamo had been a full success. General Gort, reentered in London after having
been replaced by Alexander at the command of the last English units remained in
Dunkirk, could be satisfied, he had fully reached his objective: saving the Expedition
Corp. Really here the problem was, among the men evacuated until May 31, only
15000 were French.
They had remained transalpine units only to defend the redoubt of Dunkirk in
the month of June, some of second selection, as for instance the 68th Division
of the Engineer Corp that would have favorite the retreat until June 3, sacrificing
itself against superior forces in a three to one ratio. Weygand had vehemently
protested against what he thought a deliberate violation of the accords of alliance
and in concrete an abandonment of the common operations of war. The order to destroy
the whole war material that could not be transported was complied by English in
systematic way, also when such material, especially the transport trucks, could
be still used by the French allies. However, the chaos that still pervaded the
French divisions was a justification for English. No clear order of embarkation
existed, straight the French Command still dreamed to be able to counterattack
in direction of Calais opening a new zone of escape for the encircled troops.
On June 2 when last English departed, the admiralty would have liked interrupting
whatever operation in the waters of Dunkirk and a direct order of Churchill was
necessary so that the English fleet performed a new journey in direction of the
French coast. The air support, however, was denied, because RAF had already suffered
heavy losses to defend the Expedition Corp and it could not go over. For French,
the embarkation was so true challenge to the fortune. The Stukas finally free
from the danger of the British fighters, bombed anything was on the sea. 26000
French miraculously succeeded in going toward Great Britain.
Despite the initial reticence, the admiralty didn't abandon the French defenders
of Dunkirk and decided to try for a last time the crossing in the night during
June 3 and 4 night. In those hours there were not orders or ranks that could give
the precedence to an individual. The priority was only one: saving oneself life.
In the hurry to make impracticable the port, the Royal Navy had already partially
obstructed the entrance sinking two ferries. In the narrow neck of bottle that
was so formed all the ships that had to go out of the city crowded. The French
civilians inveighed against his own soldiers who abandoned them in the hands of
the enemy without knowing that about 35000 of them would have shared the same
fate, ending prisoners of the Germans. Between them also the brave men of the
68th Division that will finish fighting with less than the twenty per cent of
the initial strengths.
The arid figures say that 340000 men have been saved, among which 115000 French,
but they don't tell the heroism and the desperation of those people that remained
on the docks looking at the last ship that disappeared at the horizon. France
still had 50 Divisions, such only on the paper, useless to defend the long front
that was created. Nazi Germany had virtually won the Campaign of France, but Great
Britain practically preserved intact its own human war potential and it attended
with trepidation the future “of tears and blood” that Churchill foresaw.
Sources: “The Second World War” by Raymond Cartier, “Great
battles of the Second World War told by Winston Churchill” edited by Giordano
Bruno Guerri (Mondadori Editore), “Second World War” by Winston Churchill
(Mondadori Editore)
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