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THE HUMILIATION OF FRANCE - THE AVENGING OF VERSAILLES


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WWII* Chapter 5

The army that had been at the end of the First World War indisputably the greatest in the world, and which had started the Second World War as Germany's most feared opponent, had come to a sorry pass. Badly led, ill-trained, the victim of endless political crises which had stifled military planning throughout the Thirties, the French Army had been inflated to unmanageable ill-disciplined proportions by over-hasty mobilisation. The largely amateur colossus that sought to bestride the most professional mechanised army the world had seen seemed to know its deficiencies; to know it could not win; it seemed almost to be committed to losing even before its leaders urged it to successes it could not achieve. Low morale is the most pernicious of diseases in an army open to infection.
In fact, the French Government was on the way to overcoming many of the underlying problems of supply from which the French armed forces - notably the Armee de l'Air - suffered. Nationalised in 1936/37, the French aircraft industry had designed new aircraft but had produced few of them before 1940. Nonetheless, between January and June 1940, production increased to an extraordinary extent. By June 1940, the Dewoitine D.520, the French competitor to the Spitfire and a worthy opponent for the Messerchmitt 109, was being produced at the remarkable rate of one per hour, but there were too few pilots to fly them. The situation was too far gone. France must still be the only power in history to have emerged from losing a campaign with more aircraft than she had had when she started it.
With Dunkirk taken, the German Army turned its attention to the capture of the remainder of France - Operation Red. General Weygand, Allied C-in-C, had 66 divisions available to him - 65 French and one British - and found them facing a reinforced German army of 120 divisions in the line with a further 23 in reserve. Hitler and the OKW staff moved to a temporary headquarters in the Belgian village of Bruly-de-Pesche, and a new plan was devised to enable the predominantly armoured Army Group to make the best use of the terrain. The mass Panzer assault was to be made across the plains of Picardy, XV Panzer Corps from Longpre, and Kleist's Panzergruppe from Amiens and Peronne.
On June 5th, the Battle for France began, and the Germans found that, despite their numerical superiority, they made little progress and suffered considerable losses. By nightfall on the first day, General Erwin Rommel, later to be known as the charismatic "Desert Fox", and at this time in command of the 7th Panzer Division, was only 13km South of the Somme. For days, although some progress was made, the French managed to contain the German forces and inflict great damage upon them. Weygand's army was well dug-in, defending every street corner and hedgerow, and fighting with great tenacity and spirit. Somehow the spirit of Verdun had returned.