To Lose a Battle

by Alistair Horne

  The Luftwaffe Attacks

  For the massive air support promised that day, the Luftwaffe had allocated the whole of Lieutenant-General Bruno Loerzer’s Fliegerkorps II, one of the principal components of the Third Air Fleet, commanded by General Hugo Sperrle, plus Major-General Wolfram von Richthofen’s Fliegerkorps VIII, borrowed from Kesselring’s Second Air Fleet operating in the north. Kesselring and Sperrle (later promoted Field-Marshals for their work during the French campaign) were both regular, Army officers who had transferred to the Luftwaffe in the 1930s, while Kesselring, an artillery man, had only learned to fly when he was forty-eight. Sperrle, a vast brooding figure, had, however, gained invaluable experience as first commander of the Condor Legion in Spain. Loerzer was what was known as ‘an old eagle’, who, claiming forty-four victories, had tied for seventh place in the German list of First War aces. Freiherr von Richthofen, cousin of the famous ‘Red Knight’ and who had also been a junior member of his ‘Flying Circus’ in the First War, had succeeded Sperrle in the Condor Legion, establishing a reputation as the Luftwaffe’s outstanding expert on ‘close support’ tactics. It was his Stukas particularly that were to make their mark at Sedan. Between them, Loerzer and Richthofen disposed of nearly 1,500 aircraft,15 roughly equivalent to the combined British and French total available air strengths in France. Certainly by 1940 standards, it was a staggering concentration of air power to be brought to bear on just a few miles of front.16

  At 0700 hours, Loerzer’s level bombers, mostly Dornier 17 ‘Flying Pencils’, started bombing the French positions. But these were ‘harassing attacks’, hardly heavier than the raids of the previous days. The bombing continued for four hours, gradually mounting in intensity. It was particularly the communication links of the defenders that were hit by this preliminary ‘softening-up’. Grandsard stated that his artillery fire plan was greatly hindered by repeated breaks in telephone lines, and as the morning progressed, its fire began to slacken. Visiting the H.Q. of General Baudet’s newly arrived 71st Division, Grandsard found that the makeshift divisional telephone exchange had been destroyed, and that Baudet, still disgruntled at the accelerated movement into line of his division, had already ‘been affected by this bombardment’. Grandsard says he tried to ‘comfort’ Baudet, telling him too that ‘it did not seem the enemy would be able to attack on the 13th with important forces’. Meanwhile, General Lafontaine of the 55th Division was complaining to Grandsard that he was being bombed without any intervention from Allied aircraft, and this was of course shaking the morale of his soldiers. Grandsard promptly passed on these views to Huntziger, coupled with a plea for immediate air cover; but according to Grandsard, Huntziger gave a most ‘unsatisfactory’ response: ‘They must receive a baptism of fire.’

  The total failure of both Allied air forces at Sedan on 13 May is one of the more extraordinary, in some ways inexplicable, features of the whole battle. If any simple, general explanation is to be found, it must lie in the dreadful quagmire of liason links between the various French ground armies and combat units of the Air Force. As far as bombing missions to break up the German concentrations east of the Meuse were concerned, General d’Astier tells us that at 0940 hours on the 13th, he was at last asked by Billotte to allot priority to air support for the Second Army. But he claims that he was given no inkling of the imminence of a German river-crossing attempt, Billotte speaking only in vague terms of ‘the next two or three days’. It was not until midday that the Second Army reported tank concentrations near Givonne, and it added that for the moment it did not require intervention by bombers as its artillery ‘was engaging these targets’. Thus, in the stereotyped mind of the French artilleryman, simultaneous aerial bombing could only upset his observation. (Meanwhile Billotte, reporting Rommel’s crossing at Houx, also refused air support on the grounds that armour had already been sent for – the sequel to which has been recounted.)

  What about the British? In the absence of any desperate plea for assistance from General Georges, Barratt’s Advanced Air Striking Force (A.A.S.F.) spent the 13th licking its wounds. They were painful. For the previous three days, the rate of loss had amounted to 40 per cent of all sorties on the 10th, 100 per cent on the 11th, and 62 per cent on the 12th. By the evening of 12 May, the A.A.S.F.’s total of 135 serviceable bombers had dwindled to 72, and perhaps not surprisingly Barratt had received a signal from the Chief of the Air Staff in London expressing concern at his heavy losses, and warning ‘we cannot continue indefinitely at this rate of intensity… If we expend all our efforts in the early stages of the battle we shall not be able to operate effectively when the really critical phase comes.’ It would be hard to conceive of a more ‘critical’ day than 13 May; nevertheless, with this caveat of the previous night, Barratt made no call on his Blenheims, and the Battles restricted themselves to blocking a crossroads near Breda, in Holland.

  As for Allied fighter cover over Sedan, General Ruby, who was then at Huntziger’s H.Q., claims that all Grandsard’s requests were immediately passed on to the air command, but the latter’s ‘appalling organization’ somehow swallowed them up. General d’Astier states that his fighters in fact made 250 sorties that day between the Ninth and Second Army fronts, shooting down twenty-one enemy planes for the loss of twelve; but this was a mere drop in the bucket compared with the turn-out of the Luftwaffe. Typical of what the French fighters were up against was this entry in a squadron diary: ‘Between 10 and 11 o’clock, a three-plane patrol flying over the area Carignan–Sedan runs into 50 enemy bombers protected by 80 Messerschmitts. Free-for-all in which Lieutenant Wrana is shot down…’ Against this kind of competition, the French Curtisses – 60 m.p.h. slower than the Me-109s – were at a grave if not hopeless disadvantage. Nevertheless, considering the seriousness of the threat on the 13th, one does get the impression that the French fighter squadrons, whose pilots were already short on sleep, did not press home their attacks with every ounce of vigour.

  At midday the intensity of the bombing rose sharply, with the Luftwaffe sending over hundreds of planes in dense formations. Sergeant Prümers of the 1st Panzer, still being heavily shelled by the enemy artillery, was among those to watch with awful fascination the first appearance of Richthofen’s Stukas:

  Three, six, nine, oh, behind them still more, and further to right aircraft, and still more aircraft, a quick look in the binoculars – Stukas! And what we are about to see during the next twenty minutes is one of the most powerful impressions of this war. Squadron upon squadron rise to a great height, break into line ahead (Reihenformation) and there, there the first machines hurtle perpendicularly down, followed by the second, third – ten, twelve aeroplanes are there. Simultaneously, like some bird of prey, they fall upon their victim and then release their load of bombs on the target. We can see the bombs very clearly. It becomes a regular rain of bombs that whistle down on Sedan and the bunker positions. Each time the explosion is overwhelming, the noise deafening. Everything becomes blended together; along with the howling sirens of the Stukas in their dives, the bombs whistle and crack and burst. A huge blow of annihilation strikes the enemy, and still more squadrons arrive, rise to a great height, and then come down on the same target. We stand and watch what is happening as if hypnotized; down below all hell is let loose! At the same time we are full of confidence… and suddenly we notice that the enemy artillery no longer shoots… while the last squadron of Stukas is still attacking, we receive our marching orders…

  The Stukas operated in three groups, each of about forty planes; the first coming in at about 5,000 feet, would attack with two or three planes at a time while the second group hovered watchfully at 12,000 feet, looking for the targets missed by the first group and then – after that had expended its bombs – moving in in turn; the third group operated in isolation, picking out single or moving targets. After the Stuka waves, the Dorniers would resume their work; then more Stukas. Around them buzzed the Me-109s and the heavier Me-110 ‘destroyers’, pouncing on any slower French
fighter that attempted to get at the vulnerable Stukas.

  Watching the steady procession of the bomber formations, Guderian suddenly realized that the Luftwaffe was carrying out the tactics he and Loerzer had agreed upon, not the massive, once-for-all bombardment dictated by Kleist. Though puzzled, Guderian ‘sighed with relief’. When the day was over he questioned Loerzer; shrugging his shoulders, the First War ace explained that Kleist’s change of orders had arrived ‘well, let’s say, too late. They would have muddled the Geschwader. So I didn’t pass them on!’

  The Stukas kept on coming in. Down they screamed, sirens howling, loosing their solitary 550-lb bomb upon the thinskinned French pill-boxes, on the infantry crouching exposed in their trenches, and on the gun crews. It was against the French artillery positions in their poorly concealed and shallow gunpits that the rage of the Stukas was particularly concentrated, and among these it was the new reinforcements arrived the previous night, with insufficient time to dig themselves in, who suffered most. The explosive force of the heavy bombs literally turned batteries upside down, wrecked guns and filled the working parts of anti-aircraft machine-guns with earth and grit. Observers in concrete bunkers were blinded by dust and smoke, and everywhere telephone lines were ruptured. The noise was terrifying.17 Grandsard’s reservists had the impression that each plane was about ‘to land right on top of him’, that it simply could not miss. In some uncanny way, the German pilots seemed to know exactly where every gun and bunker lay. Nowhere was one out of sight, nowhere out of range of this dreadful weapon.

  Yet owing to the inaccuracy of the Stukas, casualties were in fact not great. But as an instrument of terror it was far more effective than the Kaiser’s ‘secret weapon’ of 1914, the ‘Big Bertha’ shells that had plunged down on the Belgian forts; more effective than the gas attack at Ypres; more than the first appearance of flame-throwers, or even the tank. This was a new dimension of war for which not even tough regulars had been prepared, and Grandsard’s men were flabby civilians whose morale was not conspicuously high, and who had received absolutely no training in how to cope with dive-bombing. For what ensued they could not entirely be blamed. Says General Ruby:

  The gunners stopped firing and went to ground, the infantry cowered in their trenches, dazed by the crash of bombs and the shriek of the dive-bombers; they had not developed the instinctive reaction of running to their anti-aircraft guns and firing back. Their only concern was to keep their heads well down. Five hours of this nightmare was enough to shatter their nerves, and they became incapable of reacting against the enemy infantry…

  To add to their demoralization, over their heads they could see no sign of any Allied planes coming to their assistance. Plea after plea from the 55th Division went apparently unanswered.

  Seen from the German side of the river, the whole of the west bank had disappeared in a blanket of smoke. Even at a distance the waiting Germans suffered disagreeably from the tremendously high pressure caused by the bomb blasts. In awe, they wondered how anything could possibly survive such an inferno. Then, half an hour before H-Hour, Guderian’s artillery joined in the hideous fugue with a short but ferocious barrage. Meanwhile, taking advantage of the stunning effect of the Stukas, the flak gunners moved their weapons out of cover, manhandling them right down almost to the very river’s edge to engage with flat trajectory fire the French bunkers just across the river. At this close range, the twin-barrelled 20-mm. and 37-mm. automatic cannon swiftly sought out the bunker slits and gun embrasures. Against those bunkers where the protective armour had not arrived, the consequences were deadly, though much less so with those that were properly equipped. But the most lethal work was affected by a piece that was later to achieve renown as the most feared anti-tank gun on any side – possibly, with the Russian T.34 tank, as the most successful single weapon of the whole war. This was the German ‘88’. Designed by Krupp as the Wehrmacht’s standard heavy anti-aircraft gun, it was a direct descendant18 of the weapon hastily produced (also by Krupp) in 1870 to shoot down the French balloons escaping from besieged Paris. The 88-mm. imparted a very high muzzle velocity, and therefore, at close ranges, tremendous hitting and penetrating power. The ‘88’ had been tried out experimentally in the early part of 1939, firing at close range into the embrasures of the French-designed bunkers among the Czechs’ ‘Little Maginot Line’, supposedly at Hitler’s own instance. The results were devastating, and it is worth noting that (according to General Menu) they were reported upon in detail by the then French Military Attaché in Prague. The first combat employment of the ‘88’ in a horizontal role, however, occurred purely by accident; during the Polish campaign, an isolated flak unit had been attacked by surprise by Polish cavalry and, in the emergency, brought their ‘88s’ to bear, firing them over open sights. The success achieved surprised even the Germans. Suddenly new possibilities presented themselves. Now at Sedan, the French bunkers designed to stand up to the oblique fire of guns of all calibres up to 210 mm. proved desperately vulnerable to the direct fire of the ‘88s’, limited in number as they were. One by one the guns in the bunkers were smashed, their crews blinded by splinters, or horribly mutilated by shells exploding within the confined space of the bunkers; or else simply forced by the torrent of light flak fire to abandon guard at the embrasures.

  Sedan: the Fatal Moment

  Abruptly, at 1500 hours, the Stuka bombardment lifted, shifting to targets further behind the Meuse. Though few of the soldiers confronting each other across this narrow strip of water can have had time to reflect upon it, the moment of crisis in the whole battle had arrived. Here was the culminating point of all the elaborate plans of Sichelschnitt – indeed, of Hitler’s very aspirations to become the founder of a ‘Thousand-Year Reich’. If the crossings at Sedan were to fail, if Guderian’s spearhead were to be smashed, who could foretell what future would lie ahead for Germany? It was the crisis for France, for Western civilization, and it would come to be regarded as one of the critical moments of the twentieth century. At such a moment, suddenly the great, complex stratagems of both sides, in which armies are moved about like chess pieces, become reduced to the isolated actions of one or two men. Like the adage of the nail, the horse and the rider, the success or failure of such lone combats leads to the success or failure of a platoon, from a platoon to a company, a company to a regiment, and so on until the whole battlefield is in flux and the day is decided.

  At Sedan, events move with such brutal speed that the historian is left floundering – as blinded by the all-obscuring smoke of the Stuka bombs as the French defenders. Unlike the leisurely four months of siege warfare around Paris in 1870, or the ten months of static warfare at Verdun in 1916, minutely and superbly recorded at every level, the decisive acts at Sedan pass in confused, unchronicled minutes, or even seconds. On the French side, there would be but little time to enter up the regimental diaries; whole pages of the story that day have disappeared for ever with the participants. Others are, alas, so shaming to French amour propre that, like the details of the mutinies of 1917, they will probably lie forever hidden from sight in the archives contained in the gloomy dungeons at Vincennes. Even on the German side, where headquarters units were not destroyed or dispersed, the pressure of events resulted in an unfortunate lack of cohesive reports on the course of the battle. Thus one is forced to build up a picture of the day upon snatches and fragments of small, scattered scenes, and to rely to a large extent upon the German accounts, with their occasional distortions imposed by National Socialist bombast.

  10th Panzer

  Even before the smoke from the last Stuka bombs had cleared, the attackers were appearing everywhere on the river in their inflated rubber dinghies.19 There were many casualties among the first wave. To the survivors, the sixty-yard crossing seemed to last interminably. On the left of Guderian’s corps, the 10th Panzer, crossing ‘according to the last war-game at Bernkastel’ (on the Moselle), made a bad start. The boats for the right-hand group, composed of the 86th Rifle Regim
ent, reached the water’s edge too late for it to take full advantage of the Stuka bombardment. On its left, the 69th reported (at 1600 hours) to Lieutenant-General Schaal, the divisional commander, that it could not move on account of heavy flanking shell fire from guns20 apparently left untouched by the Luftwaffe, which rained down upon it in the flat, exposed meadows bordering the Meuse near Bazeilles. Out of some fifty small rubber dinghies, all but two had been shot up. A vivid account is provided by Sergeant Schulze of the 69th. His platoon had come under heavy artillery fire at Givonne that morning, and after being ordered to ‘dig in’ for the first time during the campaign, it had been particularly gratified to see the first Stukas come shrieking down on the enemy guns. At H-Hour, Schulze’s team began to work its way through the village of Balan:

  A large meadow lies in front of us. On a hill about 800 yards away, the enemy is dug in [on the far side of the Meuse]. To begin with we move forward well; the meadow is wet, finally we are wading up to our calves through the water, here and there shots fly over our heads. Barbed wire is cut through, and we move on ahead. In the next second everything breaks loose. Machine-gun bursts whistle over us, there are strikes before, near and behind us. The enemy is shooting well. Under this fire it is impossible for anybody to get forward. The least movement… brings the fire down anew. We are lying in the water, we hug the ground very close, and are delighted when a particularly high grass hummock keeps us out of sight of the enemy. To the left of us some of our own troops are going back, but for us any movement is impossible. About 300 to 400 metres further to the right is Oberfeldwebel S.P. with his platoon. The men have already got to within 80 yards of the river…