When the German offensive began in the North, the British Expeditionary Force had, together with the French armies on either side of it, moved forward across the Belgian border. They were not surprised that there were no German air attacks to delay their movement, since Lord Gort’s staff explained that the Luftwaffe could not be everywhere at once. In fact, the German air offensive had been planned so that the Allied armies could advance into Belgium without hindrance. This emptied the rear areas through which the German armored columns raced to the sea.
The German armored forces moved along the northern side of the river Somme. The river provided protection against any French counterattacks from the South and denied the river as a defense line for the Allied armies to the north.
Soon Gort began to realize that the absence of German air attacks was not just a matter of good luck. He realized, too, that what the
French leaders, and Winston Churchill, were calling “a bulge” was a German thrust toward the sea that had severed the Allied armies from their supplies and communications.
This did not only apply to the supplies of the French armies. Showing extreme caution, British planners had since 1939 routed their soldiers through Cherbourg and Le Havre, and the vehicles through Brest and St. Nazaire. Using an area between Le Mans and Laval as an assembly area, the BEF was, like the French, supplied from the southwest. The Germans had cut through these supply lines, and now the British had to improvise other more direct supplies. Big dumps were started near Hazebrouck. Without this outstanding achievement the BEF would not have been able to move, let alone fight. In this respect, the supply services saved the BEF from destruction.
While an alternative supply route was being set up, Gort organized the sort of counterattack that the German commanders most feared; a thrust southward to sever the strung-out German advance.
Using Arras, traditional hub of the British Army in France, as a rallying point, Gort put together a miscellany of garrison troops, field artillery, two territorial infantry battalions, and a tank brigade. There was also a depleted French light mechanized division with about sixty Somua tanks. None of its H35 tanks had survived. Facing them on the German side was Rommel’s V. Pz. Div, the S. Pz. Div, and the motorized SS-Totenkopf Division.
If the German force was representative of the best of the German Army of that time, the Allied force was a demonstration of Anglo-French weaknesses. The infantry arrived late at their allotted positions. Artillery support was also delayed. Because of inadequate netting and bad atmospherics, there was no proper radio contact between units. The promised air support did not arrive.
The British tanks had traveled 120 miles to the battle, on their own tracks, an achievement that surprised some of the crews. Only one tank in eight had been supplied with appropriate (1:100,000 scale) maps as required. Most tank commanders had journeyed across France depending upon 1:250,000 scale maps. Maps of any sort were so scarce that the commanding officer of one British unit had been “beseeched” to give up his map to the accompanying tank squadron commander, who did not have any at all. The officer recounting this story had used a Michelin map bought privately.
German control of the air provided a much better, albeit still confused, picture of troop dispositions. The British commander, on the other hand, had no idea whether his force would meet entrenched infantry, tanks, antitank guns, or merely soft transport. Ordered to attack without delays for reconnaissance, the British commander compromised by deploying two mixed columns of armor, antitank units, and infantry, with little contact between them.
At 2:30 p. M. on 21 May, having given up all hope that the two promised French infantry divisions would ever arrive, the mixed British force began moving south in two columns on roads about 3 miles apart. The British tank component consisted of sixteen Mk. II Matildas with 2-pounder guns and fifty-eight Mk. Is armed only with machine guns.
By coincidence, the Germans had chosen 3 p. m. to move forward, one panzer division each side of Arras. Infantry of T. Pz. Div were the first to make contact with the British force. German 3.7 cm antitank shells tore chunks from the thick metal of the British tanks but could not penetrate them. One British Matilda had fourteen gouges made by shells that failed to penetrate the steel. Although some of the British tanks were set on fire by tracer or suffered broken tracks, the rest of them overran the German gun batteries. But with command of the air, German dive-bombing attacks on the advancing tanks began to cause some casualties. In the late afternoon both British tank battalion commanders were killed, yet with commendable skill the units continued with little interruption.
German tanks artfully crossed the fighting to attack the British armor from the flank. The failure of German antitank guns made it necessary for the German tanks to engage British armor, something usually avoided by the Germans. In the fighting that began about 7 P. M. the Germans lost six of their PzKw Ills and three of the PzKw IVs, as well as some PzKw IIs. The British lost seven Mk. Is. It was at this point of the battle when infantry of SS-Totenkopf Division saw their tanks knocked out and burning. It was a shock. The SS infantry panicked and withdrew quickly.
French Somua tank crews also saw the burning German tanks and were equally surprised. Unable to believe that at long last the Germans were suffering setbacks, the French crews concluded that the antitank guns were German and so opened fire on them. British gunners responded to what they thought was another flank attack and knocked out four of the French Somua tanks before the tragic error was discovered.
Convinced that hundreds of tanks were attacking, Rommel took personal command of his guns. He hurried from battery to battery giving them targets and urging them to faster action. When the antitank guns failed, he brought into play the guns of his artillery regiment, but it was the 8.8 cm antiaircraft guns that finally penetrated the heavy British tank armor. The Allied counterattack was halted by the versatility of German arms and their coordination effected by the personal energy of the divisional commander. It was the same story everywhere on the Allied fighting front.
SS-Totenkopf Division had panicked, but this motorized division (mostly consisting of concentration camp guards) had been considered too inexperienced for the spearhead of the assault. It had been kept in reserve until 16 May and was only now committed to the battle. But if the SS-Totenkopf men came out of the battle with their reputation damaged, Rommel emerged with even greater glory. Legends abounded wherever Rommel went. They were assisted by his flair for publicity—and his photographs. Soon after the fighting at Arras, a story circulated that Rommel had saved the day by using
8.8 cm antiaircraft guns in the antitank role for the first time ever. How this story gained currency is hard to imagine, for obviously the guns would have been virtually useless against armor unless they had already been supplied with Panzergranate (armor-piercing shells).
In fact, many of the German guns were supplied with ammunition suitable for both air and armor targets. In 1938 Hitler expressed special interest in the use of 8.8 cm guns against ground targets. As early as the 1938-1939 Catalonian offensive in Spain’s civil war, the
8.8 cm guns had been towed into action behind the tanks, and it was estimated that over 90 per cent of their rounds were used against ground targets. At Ilza in Poland, Flakregiment 22, separated from their range finders and communications equipment, had been pressed into action as artillery. As well as the Luftwaffe’s 8.8 cm guns, the army’s 20 mm flak joined in the Ilza battle. The Luftwaffe suffered 195 ground staff casualties in the Polish campaign; 129 of these were among flak crews fighting in the artillery role.
The British counterattack at Arras came to a standstill. There could be no breakthrough of the long overextended German columns. After forty-eight hours, the British withdrew. It was during the Arras fighting that German columns reached the Channel. German victory was more or less inevitable. The attack westward to the sea was decisive because it severed the Allied armies from their lines of communication and required them to turn to face southward. To pass fighting components back along routes occupied by the ganglia of supply, while keeping command communications open, is virtually impossible, especially if the army is already engaged in battle. A modem army attacked from the rear is as good as defeated. It simply seizes up into a traffic jam of monumental confusion. Thus the greatest ambition of a strategist is to attack an enemy’s rear and then sever the enemy from his supplies. The Manstein plan had achieved both these ambitions.
The Arras fighting had been the most significant counterattack made against the German thrust. Guderian agrees that the German infantry panicked, and Rundstedt admits that for a short time he feared that his armor would be separated from the advancing infantry. It probably disconcerted the OKH more than the forward units, but it is doubtful whether it affected them to the extent that has been claimed for it.
The importance of the Arras battle was in the two and a half days’ delay it caused to the German armor. It enabled four British divisions and a large part of the French First Army to withdraw in relatively good order toward the Channel coast.
Subsequent to the fighting at Arras, Rommel’s T. Pz. Div was halted for rest and repairs. The necessity for this pause is worth remembering in the light of the controversy about the later halt before Dunkirk. By the time the division was moving again, on 26 May, Rommel had got official sanction to add two tank regiments of the neighboring armored division (S. Pz. Div) to his own command. This reinforcement— specifically given for the attack on Lille—made Rommel’s division one of the strongest in the German army and enraged General von Hartlieb, the commander of the depleted division, who was still angry about the loss of his bridging equipment at the Meuse on 13 May.
Rommel, the newest and most junior of the panzer division commanders, now gained a new distinction. After a conference on 27 May, attended by the commanders of his enlarged tank force, Rommel’s aide, Karl Hanke, had a surprise. Hanke, a fervent Nazi and onetime official of the Propaganda Ministry, was one of several Nazi officials who had followed Rommel to T. Pz. Div.46
“On the Fuhrer’s orders,” announced Karl Hanke, “I herewith bestow upon the general the Knight’s Cross.” Rommel was the first divisional commander to receive this award in France. Soon afterward, Rommel was able to do the same thing for Hanke. He not only recommended his aide for this coveted medal but, ignoring the regular procedure, sent his recommendation directly to Hitler for approval. Hanke foolishly chose this moment to point out to Rommel that his position in the Nazi hierarchy was senior to Rommel’s rank in the army. Immediately Rommel sent a messenger to Hitler’s headquarters so that the award could be canceled.
World History
