189: French Counterattacks of May 14

Description

After the first failed counterattacks on the morning of May 14th, the French would attempt to launch another, far larger, effort in the afternoon. The key word in that sentence is “attempt”.

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Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome to History of the Second World War Episode 189 - The Fall of France - French Counterattacks of May 14. This week a big thank you goes out to new members Ryan and Christopher. You to can become a member and get access to ad-free versions of the podcast’s episodes plus member only content like the episode releasing today on the development and evolution of the Hawker Hurricane. You can find out more over at historyofthesecondworldwar.com/members. Last episode covered some of the other crossings of the Meuse other than what would happen at Sedan, but this episode will move the focus of events back to Sedan and the crossings made by the Guderian’s forces. One of the challenges that would occur for Guderian and those under his command is that things were going too well. The initial plan had been to push infantry across and hope that they were able to establish enough of a bridgehead to allow for armor to begin crossing the river. Instead of just barely building out enough of a bridgehead, the infantry was instead doing incredibly well, and had pushed far beyond what was really required. This is a testament to the training and experience of the German infantry troops and their ability to push forward even under strong French resistance. This was unequivocally a good thing but it also required that plans had to change. The success of German infantry even caught the more optimistic German officers, like Guderian off guard. But perhaps the party most caught off guard by events was not the Germans, but instead the French. They had first been shocked that the Germans had even tried the crossing as quickly as they did, and then that they were as successful as they were. The only option seemed to be for quick French action to counterattack the bridgeheads, and this would be scheduled for May 14th. Along with attacks on the ground, the British and French air forces were assigned the task of attacking the German bridges over the Meuse, and they would do their best to disastrous results.

At the very front of the French defense was the 55th division which was responsible for the the defense directly on the Meuse river. And the challenge for General LaFontaine was that the 55th Division was, by the end of the 13th of May essentially disintegrating. Even though many of their units were still resisting the German attack, communications had completely broken down, which prevented the commanders of many units from sending information back to divisional headquarters. At some point communications degraded to the point where the only way to move information was through the use of runners, not exactly a high tech solution. This of course greatly slowed the movement of information, which made it challenging for LaFontaine and any higher commands from truly responding to what the Germans were doing. However, while the situation at the fighting front was unclear what was very clear was that soldiers were beginning to abandon the front altogether and retreat. This was clearly at many command posts along the route back from the forward lines. General LaFontaine and others of his command staff would see this first hand when they could see that soldiers were fleeing past their headquarters. It was, to be quite honest, not a great situation. The situation deteriorated to the point where LaFontaine himself was literally standing in a road with a revolver in hand trying to stop the men, in between a series of trucks that had been positioned to try and block the flow of traffic at an area of the road that ran between two quarries. The problems was that even with the efforts of LaFontaine and other officers, they were unable to greatly impact the overall flow of French forces away from the front, even if maybe the men who LaFontaine pointed his revolver at stopped their retreat. Later investigations into the situation seem to point to the biggest problem not being with French front line forces but instead those of support troops and the artillery which were the first to abandon their positions. This then spread to the infantry near the artillery batteries, who saw the artilleryman abandoning their positions and decided that they should do the same. The fact that the rout began in the artillery meant that when the counterattack was being planned there were very few guns available to actually support it. When the French counter attack began on the morning of May 14th, which we will discuss shortly, of the 174 French artillery guns which were theoretically available only 12 actually were.

During the evening and night of the 13th on the German side there was a frantic push to get bridges across the river, and to move as many supplies as possible across on boats and ferries before they were constructed. One of the engineers working on the bridges for the 1st Panzer division would say “Sleep just was not an option, there was always something to do and we were exhorted to ever greater feats of endurance. We were constantly reminded how important we were to the offensive and that the lives of comrades were in our hands. It was a huge responsibility, we thought, but in the end we just did what we were told.” While there would always be more work for the engineers to do, once the first heavy bridges started to come into operation late on the 13th the period of greatest risk for the German forces had passed. The infantry forces that had made the greatest advances on the 13th were still at risk though, particularly the units of the 1st Rifle Regiment that had advanced further than any other German unit. All along the bridgehead there were many areas where the French forces were still strongly resisting any further German advances, but the German infantry units continued to push forward. But by late in the evening they were reaching the end of their abilities to continue, and there are stories that after some of the units captured the last of their objectives for the day many of them simply collapsed from exhaustion after being in combat since the middle of the afternoon. On the eastern side of the river, the greatest challenge was the continued battle against the greatest enemy the German Panzer forces had faced up to this point in the war: traffic jams. With just one bridge initially over the Meuse there was a tremendous traffic jam trying to get these across, and this meant that even for units that were given the highest possible priority it was only after hours and hours of waiting that they were able to cross. The drive to move forces across the river was well known by all of the German forces in the area, and they were united in that purpose, on the French side a lack of unity of purpose was one of the major problems that would plague their early response to the developing crisis.

One of the major themes that I have emphasized over the course of these episodes is how important it was for the French to launch an early counterattack to hit the German forces while they were at their weakest. The French commanders also understood this, but that did not mean that they could make such counter attacks happen instantly. The 55th Division was part of the X Corps, which was commanded by General Grandsard. Soon after it was confirmed that the crossings had started Grandsard began planning to move some of his reserve units up into a position from where they could counterattack. The general idea was to use the 213th Infantry Regiment and the 7th Tank Battalion for a counter attack, and Grandsard’s assumption was that they could be ready for such an action in around 2 hours, give or take a bit of time to communicate orders. However, because they would not start moving until late in the afternoon of the 13th it would almost certainly take until the next morning before they could attack, but that would mean there would be plenty of time for them to move into position and prepare for an attack at dawn. Orders were dispatched to this effect, and on the infantry side they would begin moving early in the evening of the 13th, although they found it difficult to make their way forward due to the constant flow of traffic going the other way. The 7th Tank Battalion would take a bit longer to get going, delaying their initial movement until darkness fell out of concern that they would be attacked by the Luftwaffe while moving to the front. They would experience the same challenges when it came to fighting against traffic. While the forces were moving into position there were some issues getting everything in order on the command side. Grandsard believed that the best course of action was to make LaFontaine, the commander of the 55th Division, the officer in control of the counterattack. Orders went out to this effect, which prompted Lafontaine to change his headquarters to be in a better position to work with these new units. Unfortunately, in a situation like what was happening on May 13th, the movement of a divisional headquarters can send the wrong signal to the troops around the headquarters, and this is exactly what would happen. Many men inside the headquarters just assumed that if they were moving it was being German troops were about to advance into the area, and so they did the things that they had to do if that were to occur. Secret documents and codes were burned. To make matters worse, some of the critical communications equipment was broken during the process of moving, which meant that the existing communication challenges experienced by the division only got worse. The result of these challenges, and then a lack of decisiveness on the part of Lafontaine, was that the precise orders for the attack were not even issued to the counterattacking units until 5AM on the 14th. Part of this delay was due to the fact that before he took action Lafontaine requested that written orders be issued for the counterattack, which simply took time to arrive. In a situation like what was being experienced among the French army the idea of waiting for written orders was certainly a choice that could be made, but not the best one. While all of these delays were occurring among French command, the counterattack units continued to try and make their way forward. There were two main challenges during the evening and night for the units, the first was that during the 13th they had been stationed only about 25 kilometers from the crossing points, which meant that they had already received a good amount of attention from the Luftwaffe. One of the platoon leaders from the 213th Infantry regiment would later recall that “During the entire day, enemy squadrons followed each other, launching their bombs at the top of the trees without being bothered by a single friendly aircraft. Alone, an antiaircraft battery reacted weakly. This was the baptism of fire for the 213th Infantry Regiment. The men were very affected by the whistling of the bombs and by the sight of the dead and wounded.” The second major challenge was the traffic issues. Some units of the 55th Division were simply falling apart and were retreating in disorder to the west, there were abandoned vehicles and equipment, there were civilian refugees, and the counterattack units that were trying to move against this flow found it very challenging. The only way the situation could have been altered was through quick and decisive action along the entire chain of command of the 55th division, but that did not happen. This would reduce the amount of time the forces would have to organize themselves before beginning their attack.

In the hours before the French attack began, on the German side, probing attacks began at dawn as they tried to determine the state of the French forces in front of them. At the same time the commander of the 1st Panzer Division, General Kirchner, also made a concerted effort to ensure that his forces that were across the river were prepared for the expected French counterattack. Meanwhile, at the headers of the French General Georges, Gamelin would be at the headquarters throughout the day lending whatever support he could. This was critical because by this, the 4th day of the German attack Georges was by all accounts having essentially a nervous breakdown. What seemed to be clear is that while Georges was a good peacetime General, even earmarked to take over when Gamelin retired, his abilities during wartime left much to be desired. Gamelin would later write that ‘Right from the start of the crisis he was overwhelmed. He did not know how to organize his work, became submerged in details and exhausted himself to no avail.’

Back at the front, while Lafontaine had issued the proper orders for the counterattack at 5AM, it was not scheduled to jump off until 7:30. The plan was for a company of the 7th Tank Battalion to reinforce each of the Infantry battalions engaged in the fighting, and to hopefully give them the firepower to push back the Germans. This was completely in accord with French plans and regulations at this time, with the armor and infantry working together towards a shared goal. However, it also meant that whatever possible advantage that the French could have gained from the speed of the tanks was removed, and in their already delayed race against time they were falling even further behind. This was made much worse by the fact that the French infantry was also hesitant to push forward in front of the tanks, which meant that when they ran into German anti-tank positions, which would happen on several areas of the attacking front, instead of aggressive infantry moves to disable the guns the counter attack just kind of stopped. Unfortunately, this cautious approach was exactly the wrong thing to do on the morning of the 14th. The counterattack had already been spotted by a German reconnaissance aircraft before it even set out, with the report being made a 7AM when the tank units of the 7th tank battalion had been spotted. This caused a frantic shift of German forces as two anti-tank platoons and two armored cars from the Gross Deutschland regiment were rushed into the area to meet and hopefully delay the French attack as long as possible. Along with these forces the 2nd Panzer company of the 2nd Panzer Regiment, which had just crossed the river, was ordered to advance with ‘greatest possible speed’ into a blocking position. When these tanks arrived at the front they were able to quickly move onto a ridge directly in the path of the main French effort. If the French could have captured this ridge they would have been in a much better position to continue their counterattack. But, in what turned into a suicide mission, the panzer company got there first and was able to halt the French counter attack at great cost to themselves, leaving just a single tank still operating by the time that further reinforcements arrived on the scene. However, their efforts were rewarded by blunting one of the primary thrusts of the counterattack, and just as importantly buying more time.

While the French troops were trying to advance forward they were constantly harrassed by Luftwaffe aircraft who had been ordered into the area. Then by 10AM, just a few hours after the French counter attack started, the entire situation shifted as more and more German armored units were rushed into the area, with a total of 4 Panzer companies coming forward individually as soon as they crossed the bridges. By 10:45, with the Germans not just stopping the French attacks but beginning to counter attack, Lafontaine would issue an order to pull back the forces involved, mostly due to the fear that they were going to be outflanked and destroyed by the oncoming rush of German armor. The French counterattack had failed, achieving essentially nothing at the cost of the destruction of the 7th Tank Battalion, with only 10 tanks still running by noon, out of a total of 40 with which they started the day. For the French, this failed counterattack would be the only moment where they had any real chance of pushing the Germans back from their bridgehead, and the planned French counterattacks in the days that followed would all be about containment, not destruction, of the new German territorial gains.

Given the importance of the German bridges over the Meuse it was clear to allied commanders that one of the best possible things that could happen for them was for an aircraft to drop a bomb directly onto each of them. During the night of the 13th that is exactly what was ordered with the goal being for both the French and British bombers to make multiple strikes throughout the day on the 14th to attempt to damage and destroy the German bridges. The problem was that, of course, the Germans also understood how important the bridges were and they would take every possible precaution to defend them. Just like during their advance through the Ardennes the Panzer forces on the Meuse had the luxury of almost constant fighter cover with the goal of intercepting any Allied aircraft that might make their way into the area. Then there was also generally as many anti-aircraft guns as possible positioned around the bridges, by the time of the bombing attacks there were over 300 anti-aircraft guns in the vicinity of the bridge. With these preparations it was clear that the Germans were prepared for exactly what was about to happen. They also knew how important the bridges were, by the afternoon of the 14th there would be 4 bridges over the Meuse and during that day somewhere around 600 German tanks would stream across just 1 bridge, and if the bridge was subsequently destroyed there were precious few extra bridging materials to create another one. For the Allied bombers, the general importance of the bridges did not make their task any easier, and the problem was not just the German defenses. It was always going to be hard to destroy the bridges on the Meuse, something that the RAF had studied in the years before the war. In his excellent book The Development of British Tactical Airpower 1940-1943 Matthew Powell says of these studies that: “The RAF had investigated the attacking of bridges as early as November 1939 as it was believed that more disruption could be caused to an advancing enemy through their destruction. The problems associ- ated with conducting attacks on these targets were made abundantly clear: ‘The penetration [to destroy them] must be obtained by high or medium altitude bombing’ as the targets’ small size and the anti-aircraft defences that would surround them required greater accuracy.” Even though they knew it would be a problem, 153 bombers, 109 of them being British, were assembled for the attacks which would happen throughout the day. They would also be protected by fighters, with the Allied fighters flying about 250 bomber protection sorties throughout the day. But this paled in comparison to the over 800 that the Germans would fly at the same time. Instead of just one large bombing raid, they would instead arrive, at least theoretically in four attacks throughout the day. However, a lack of coordination among the bombing squadrons often strung out these raids into smaller raids throughout the day, all of them being smaller than desired. This meant that instead of 4 larger raids 27 smaller raids would take place.

The early morning raids at least had the benefit of surprise, with the British bombers that were taking part. During these raids, which would be the easiest for the RAF bombers throughout the day, only one aircraft was able to score anything even close to a hit with its bombs. It would only get worse from there. The raids throughout the day took on a dreary pattern, with the allied bombers coming into the area, being set upon by German fighters and then as they approached the bridge coming under strong anti-aircraft fire. They would try to see their bomb runs through to the end, but with little success. Even the largest raid in the afternoon would not be successful, with 73 British Fairey Battles and Bristol Blenheims attacking at one time, they even had the protection of 27 French fighters. Of the 73, 40 would be shot down. As an aside, I think it is important to pause here for just a moment to talk about the scale of this specific raid. There were a total of 73 aircraft attacking the bridge, which was a lot, but from a bombing perspective I think it is important to put the proper scale into the conversation. These were early war bombers light and medium bombers, and could only carry around 1,200 pounds of bombs each, a little more or less for the Fairey Battles depending on the exact bomb configuration, but 1,200 pounds average is a decent number, that is about 540 kilograms. This meant that these 73 bombers carried the combined bomb load of about 6 Avro Lancasters. Much like with the German tanks that I have discussed before, the changes in Allied bombing aircraft throughout the war meant that these efforts in early 1940, from a scale perspective, bare little resemblance to later aircraft. But those massive allied bombers would only play a major role later in the war, and could not change the fact that May 14th, 1940 was a day that was a complete disaster for the RAF and the French bombing forces. Of the 109 RAF bombers committed, 47 would be shot down, of the 43 French bombers 5 would be shot down, in 250 fighter sorties the French would lose 30 fighters, the British 20. To add to this 65 aircraft of all types would be so heavily damaged that, while they made it back to their airbases, they were then written off from further action. 167 aircraft lost in a single day on a raid on a single target. This did not completely destroy French and British bombing forces on the continent, but unfortunately for the aircrews it was just another in a string of very bad days that put the Allied bombing forces on an attrition curve that was completely unsustainable. After just 5 days of fighting in France the RAF’s bomber squadrons had lost half of their aircraft, and some had simply been taken off the flying line due to too many losses. Decisions would be made in the days that followed that would see a reduction in the commitment of RAF resources to the fighting in France, out of concern that they could not save the situation and they would be needed for whatever happened after.