Kleist opted ‘to attack at once, without wasting time’. Immediately and according to the War Game plan, OKW put two Air Corps at his disposal. But Guderian demurred because 2nd Panzer Division might not arrive in time to join the unified attack on a broad front which he felt was essential. In any case, time for the dissemination of orders was short. Kleist overruled Guderian. The incident was not without importance since it implies uncertainties in Guderian’s mind, some of which might, as has been suggested by Alistair Home, have been implanted by the shock of the narrow escape from bombing. This is unlikely though it matches neatly with Fuller’s ideas in 1918 that to bomb enemy headquarters might ‘neutralise clear thinking’. It certainly indicates that, for all Guderian’s criticism, Kleist possessed a clean grasp of panzer time and space potential. More shocks were to follow. On the return flight after the interview with Kleist, Guderian’s pilot lost direction and nearly came down in the French lines. It was Guderian’s quick recognition of their actual location – a throw back to the skills of 1915 when he flew on reconnaissance -which saved them.
Planning the assault over the Meuse was a classic example of mixed improvisation and General Staff foresight. Kleist’s Group was to attack at 1600 hours on the 13th and to be preceded by an intensive artillery and air bombardment instead of helped by simultaneous air support as the troops began to cross the water. There was insufficient time for both the army and air force staffs to write and disseminate the necessary complex written orders for a formal river crossing, but Nehring recognised that the situation coincided so closely with that envisaged in a recent War Game that it was only necessary to reproduce the War Game’s orders with times amended to a start at 1600 hours instead of, as originally, 1000. They went out from Corps at 0815 hours on the 13th, and those by 1st Panzer were issued at 1200 hours. The Air Force, faced with a similar communication problem, simply ignored Kleist’s orders and proceeded with the predetermined plan that had been made with Guderian. But the Air Force was snug and intact at its bases whereas XIX Corps could not be sure that 2nd Panzer would arrive at the start line in time, while XXXXI Corps also was short of the river at daybreak. In other words, an intended simultaneous assault by five divisions could easily be reduced to a piecemeal incursion by two. Both corps were committed, in the event, to an opposed assault crossing of a major water obstacle on the run – the sort of operation which few commanders had welcomed in the past and at which many were to boggle in the future. Guderian did not have to be bombed in order to acquire a few reservations about the outcome of the next twenty-four hours!
Though the battle for Sedan opened with 1st Panzer Division leading, it was, in actuality, to be an artillery and air engagement in which tanks took little part and infantry captured ground only after a duel with high explosives had been settled. The Germans were to find that not only were they prevented from crossing the river while French guns were in action, but that their own guns were at a disadvantage in the approaches to the river. For while Guderian allowed the conventional field units to employ the usual indirect fire, he demanded that Anti-Aircraft Regiment 102 should support the crossing ‘for which purpose it is to commit its guns very far forward’. In effect he was asking the powerful 88mm anti-aircraft guns (of a type which one day would arm his heaviest tanks) to execute the direct fire role he envisaged for tanks, the reason being that this highly accurate gun of large calibre had a far deadlier effect against pin point targets than the smaller, less accurate tank guns of the day. This was the moment when a heavy tank or an armoured assault gun would have been useful, but only 55 of the latter were as yet in service (and mostly with Guderian) and they were equipped only with the same inaccurate 75mm guns as in Panzer IV.
Here and there French fire hindered the German deployment, but mostly it was restricted in order to conserve ammunition and in the conventional belief that it might be four to six days before the attack would come. At 1600 hours the first waves of bombers arrived – the heavies to carpet selected areas, the dive-bombers to swoop on individual gun-pits. In Poland this method had achieved only marginally good results because the Poles were difficult to intimidate. Near Sedan, second-rate French divisions were unequal to the shock. Mostly the men went to ground, ran or were withdrawn upon receipt of supine orders from above. For five hours the bombing continued: with every minute that passed the French return fire slackened. Unsupported by artillery, front-line French infantry wavered while those who shot at the gathering German infantry, as they dragged their assault craft to the water’s edge, were struck by 88mm fire that came straight through the pill-box embrasures. As evening encroached the German infantry gained a first foothold and began to work their way inland. Throughout the night the work of constructing tank ferries and bridges would go on but the first tank would not be across until dawn. In the meantime Guderian boated across himself to be met by his old comrade, the exultant commander of 1st Rifle Regiment, Oberstleutnant Hermann Balck, with a ribald reproof for ‘joy riding in canoes on the Meuse’, and the news that a bridgehead was secure. Balck needed no reminding that Guderian wished them to go on advancing all night: each German was well rehearsed. By daybreak 1st Rifle Regiment and the Grossdeutschland Regiment on his left had formed a bridgehead that was three miles wide and six deep as reproof to Guderian for a previous, galling remark that infantry ‘… slept instead of advancing at night’.
Yet on this terrain where, in a German historian’s words, ‘the noise of fighting had almost stopped’ the tank had won a victory where no German tank set track. The tank terror which had undermined German morale in 1917 and 1918 was turned upon its originators. French infantry fled from key and unthreatened positions at the mere hint of a tank’s engine, though the engines they heard and reported in fear were those of French tanks, moving to the rescue for a dawn counter-attack. This French attack, if it had been pressed, might have thrown the battle back to the river, but the two light tank battalions which caused such alarm halted in case they multiplied a panic they had already raised in the night among the shattered defenders. In consequence they were far from the start line at dawn, and when next they moved it was to find themselves firmly opposed by German tanks and guns whose intentions were deadly and purposeful in the spirit of von Seeckt, the general who had once demanded of the good commander that ‘He will always fix his goal somewhat beyond the point he feels to be really attainable. He will leave a margin for luck, but wise restraint and an artistic sense are necessary to prevent him fixing the goal too far outside a reasonable sphere of action’.
That was advice Guderian had now to heed as information began to accumulate of the existence of that breach in the French defences he had hoped to open. His mind was always fixed upon the raid to Amiens. But first there had to be what one of the major-generals on the British side, Bernard Montgomery, was one day to entitle ‘the dog-fight’. And since the dog-fight mainly concerned the opposing armoured formations, to recall their fate is to understand the confrontation. To match the Germans, the French fielded three Divisions Légères Mécaniques (DLM) each of which had 194 tanks including the good S 35s and four Divisions Cuirassees Rapides (DCR) each of 156 tanks including the heavy Char Bs. There were, in addition, 25 independent battalions of light tanks for infantry support. The DLMs were sent into Belgium, and badly chewed by XVI Corps: besides many machines, they lost the will to fight and for the remainder of the campaign were jumpy at the very mention of German tanks. Guderian saw nothing of them. Nor did he meet the 1st DCR which, like its fellows, had only recently been formed and lacked the organisation, the communications, the philosophy or the techniques of panzer divisions. They were short of infantry and supporting arms, still wedded to the concept of close infantry support in linear positions as well as slow and untutored in their deployment and battle drills. 1 st DCR had also gone to Belgium and on 14th May was sent towards Dinant to oppose a sudden breakthrough by Hoth’s XV Corps. In three days’ combat it was virtually wiped out during a series of scattered engagements. I
nvariably it was short of fuel (because of logistic ineptitude): never was it coordinated due to weak command procedures and chaotic traffic control.
Two of the remaining three DCRs tried conclusions with panzer divisions and the result of their labour resolved itself into a study of contrasts between prowess and trepidation, professionalism and amateurism. 3rd DCR began to arrive south of Sedan at Chemery on the 14th as part of XXI Corps, whose task it was to push Guderian back into the Meuse. Once more the dissemination of orders by the French was dilatory (the converse of Guderian’s) and refuelling disorganised and slow. As with 1st DCR a second chance for recovery was denied, first by 1st Panzer moving against Chemery and later by Grossdeutschland Regiment and 10th Panzer pushing resolutely on to the high ground of Bois Mont Dieu and denying 3rd DCR its assembly area. Third DCR complied with enemy pressure, reverted to the defensive, and thus was dispersed. But in dispersal it also became engaged in a hard and bitter struggle for the village of Stonne, and this prompted a manoeuvre which was to exemplify the foundation of Guderian’s concept of armoured warfare – and incidentally induce another clash with Kleist.
As his troops moved into the Bois Mont Dieu, Guderian appreciated that the twelve-mile gap which had opened between this piece of high ground and the Meuse was wide enough to allow his entire corps to turn right and move westward towards the Channel. The one inhibiting factor was an air report of French tanks concentrating against the exposed flank. In fairness he felt it right to ask the commander of 1st Panzer Division if he was prepared to take his whole division or whether a flank guard should be left behind. From the division’s Ian Major Wenck, came the answer: ‘Klotzen, nicht Kleckern’. In any case a strong flank guard was provided on both 1st Panzer’s flanks. On the right, XXXXI Corps was at last beginning to make progress westward after crossing the Meuse near Montherme, and 2nd Panzer was moving its tanks close alongside -furious Allied air attacks on the bridges having failed in their mission. On the left, Grossdeutschland and 10th Panzer were absorbing the intervention of French XXI Corps, particularly in the vicinity of the key village of Stonne. Here, throughout the latter part of the 14th and most of the 15th, 3rd DCR and Grossdeutschland strove for ascendancy. 3rd DCR began to lose tanks when they tried to take up their advanced defensive positions and fell back; once more the sheer pace of the panzer attack had preempted them. Early on the 15th Grossdeutschland took possession of Stonne. At that moment 3rd DCR came under orders, once more, to make a phased attack towards Sedan. But the division, once it had been dispersed, was incapable of concentrating again in so short a space of time. Instead it indulged in a piecemeal counter-attack against Stonne and at once met emplaced German infantry anti-tank guns. A desperate battle ensued, tank versus gun and gun versus tank in the manner envisaged in Achtung! Panzer!. The casualties mounted on both sides and the ordinary riflemen cowered in impotence. For a moment the heavy French Char Bs dominated since their armour proved impenetrable to the German 37mm guns. Eventually only one German gun remained in action – but this proved sufficient. At 100 metres range the layer detected a small ventilation grill in the tank’s side and through this posted his shots. Then, in quick succession, he destroyed three Char Bs. Even so, at 1800 hours, Stonne was once more in French hands, for Grossdeutschland was exhausted.
Guderian watched this struggle on the 15th, anxious that his risky decision of the previous night should not rebound in its rashness, conscious too that he was acting against the wishes of Kleist who had resisted the early westward shift of XIX Corps for fear of the sort of threat which was now developing. There had been strong words: Guderian had railed at Kleist’s desire to halt and consolidate as ‘a plan which throws away the victory’. Kleist had given way, but there was justification for his anxiety. Guderian could be accused of taking an awful risk, of despising an enemy who was yet to be categorised as effete. News from 10th Panzer was disturbing. They were receiving a heavy tank attack on their extreme left and could barely spare their reserve infantry to reinforce Grossdeutschland at Stonne. Everything hung in the balance. One concerted push by the French, even if their offensive went in with only attenuated strength, could have swung the issue their way. It might not have crippled XIX Corps (for XIV Motorised Corps was arriving close to Sedan and, in a dire emergency, 1st and 2nd Panzer Divisions could have been brought back) but the mere suggestion of a brake upon Guderian would have reasserted the dominance of Kleist and permanently inhibited Guderian’s future attempts to maintain the Seecktian doctrine of an ambitious goal. As it was the French halted their attack when it was on the verge of making progress and the crisis for Guderian passed. On the following day a fresh German infantry division arrived to stabilise the front.
In five days half the main French armoured formations had been eliminated.
Next it was the fatal turn of 2nd DCR which was in the dangerous process of sending its tanks in small packets by rail to Hirson and St Quentin and its supply lorries by road from Châlons to Guise and thence eastward to Signy L’Abbaye on the 15th. Nobody warned them they were heading into the path of Kleist’s Group since nobody on the French side was sure how far Kleist had advanced. While the battle at Stonne raged on the 15th, Reinhardt’s XXXXI Corps on Guderian’s right, was accelerating in its westward drive and already, with impunity, was overrunning French formations. Its 6th Panzer Division (leaving its companion, the 8th, on the east bank of the Meuse) had driven through the French defended areas and entered the exposed communication zone to begin playing havoc with supply columns, communication centres and dumps. Among the lorries they caught were those belonging to 2nd DCR, the survivors racing southward to escape but thus becoming divorced from the tanks they were meant to supply. Those tanks were at that moment beginning to off-load from trains between St Quentin and Hirson and from the outset would be marooned, presented, fuelless, for mopping up by Reinhardt.
Reinhardt was at Liart at midnight when the leading elements of XIX Corps still lay far behind at Poix-Terron, though 2nd Panzer had at last broken clear of opposition. XIX Corps had suffered from the worst of the dog-fight by being compelled to dissipate part of its strength in holding the hinge of the southern flank and having also collided with a few well-led French infantry units which stood and fought strenuously. There was furious fighting for the village of Bouvellemont in which Balck’s exhausted 1st Rifle Regiment, supported by tanks, at last overcame part of 14th Division commanded by a future Marshal of France – Lattre de Tassigny. Here, once more, Guderian managed to arrive at the psychological moment – at dawn on the 16th when the French were beginning to withdraw – when the Germans were longing for a rest and the necessity for fresh impetus had need to be injected into a pursuit.
It was in moments such as this – in triumph or in crisis – that Guderian appeared at his best. Paul Dierichs, who often accompanied Guderian and referred to him as ‘a modern Seydlitz’, wrote at the time:
‘He radiates a sensation of positive and personal calmness. He is never ruffled. But that does not mean that Guderian cannot astonish his officers. For instance, when he arrives at a command post of a subordinate unit and states its next task, many a person might think it a joke that the goal would be placed so far ahead. But in short, clear terms the general explains the feasibility of the operation. At such moments he speaks in a fascinating way to put over his intense desire to advance’.
Vibrant haste was not the only product of his habitual eagerness. As so often before he felt anxious about the shortage of time in which to produce convincing results – the invariable bane of the Panzertruppe from the day of its inception, and the spur to its brash ambition. The previous evening he had held a hectic telephone conversation with Kleist who once more was expressing anxiety about the southern flank. Again Kleist had justification for caution. The situation at Stonne was still obscure and there was insufficient evidence to prove that the French no longer had the capacity to mount a decisive counter-stroke. Neither Kleist nor his superiors were to know that French armou
red forces were virtually extinct, that only 1½ of these major formations remained intact or that the moral fibre of the French High Command had cracked at realisation of the calamity which had befallen their armies.
German leaders at the tip of the spearhead, where it broke through the final layers of the French linear positions, may not have been so well supplied with statistics and sophisticated politico-military intelligence as their High Command, but they were right in claiming that this was the moment to take risks for they could smell the atmosphere of enemy decay and recognise from instinct and experience the sight of victory. Nothing like this had been seen by Guderian when he rode near the head of the breakthrough at the Marne in 1914, and yet it was a reference to this somewhat dubious historical precedent which he flung at Kleist as Kleist endeavoured to have him stop. Kleist yielded and granted him another twenty-four hours’ grace. But Guderian was not to know then (since Kleist was unswervingly loyal to his superior officer), nor does he seem to have known later, that Kleist was simply obeying orders from above -orders, moreover, which neither reflected the current mood of OKH nor OKW.
Guderian: Panzer General Page 17
