195: The Collapsing Bag

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The situation in Belgium and Northern France was falling apart, and disaster was looming. The only question was how the disaster would be managed. Come check out my keynote speech on the topic of Deception in February 2025: https://intelligentspeechonline.com/ Coupon Code: SECOND

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Hello everyone and welcome to History of the Second World War Episode 195 - The Fall of France - The Collapsing Bag. This week a big thank you goes out to Kalle who chose to support the podcast by becoming a member. Members get access to ad free versions of all of the podcast’s episodes and member only episodes once a month, like this month’s episode where I ruminate a bit on Hitler’s rise to power and how his string of successes after 1933 might have been the root of some of Germany’s wartime problems. You can find out more about becoming a member of at historyofthesecondworldwar.com/members. Last episode covered the discussions that would occur among the German leaders about how they should continue their attacks against the trapped British and French troops in Belgium. Within the pocket itself there were many discussions about what should be done to try and make a really bad situation at least slightly less bad. One possible option was a large counterattack launched by a combined British and French force with the goal of breaking through the German corridor. This had been proposed by the French General Weygand on May 22nd, and had received at least token support from the British General Gort. Weygand wanted the trapped generals to bring together forces to attack south, while at the same time promising that there would be a massive attack from the south. The plan called for more than 18 French divisions to launch into an attack from the south, to push north and meet up with the attacks from the north. If there actually were 18 French divisions that were ready to attack this plan might have actually worked, key word being if, because on May 23 when the attack was planned to start there were only 6 French divisions available, and they were needed to simply man a thin defensive line along the southern side of the German advance. This episode will cover some of the events among the trapped troops that were supposed to launch the northern part of Weygand’s grand offensive. On the 22nd there were divisions detailed to the attack, among them the British 5th and 50th divisions, but they would not be ready to assist for very long. The major problem, even outside of the availability of specific divisions was that the British and French troops inside of the shrinking area in the north could do little but retreat. The German pressure remained, and they had to maintain contact with the sea, and to shore up defensive lines along the coast the troops had to come from somewhere. Eventually on May 25th General Gort made it official, the British were not going to participate in the attack, but this was really just formalizing something that had been a de facto fact for several days. This decision would receive criticism, and would force the French General Blanchard to also call off any French attacks on the night of the 25th as well. But the Weygand plan had been dead since its first delay on the 23rd, and it was honestly better for everyone involved to admit that it was not going to happen so that they could begin planning for what they should do next.

The period from May 22 to the 24th, which was the same time that the conversation was at its height among German high command about the risk of the British and French counterattack, was also the period when the British and French generals was frantically trying to manage their retreat to keep things together. On the British side, this meant trying to slow the collapse of their lines around Arras to allow for the organization of defenses in other areas. Originally Gort had ordered that Arras itself be held to the last man, but this view was changed on the night of May 23rd when it became clear that any troops who stayed in Arras would be quickly destroyed. While his decisions on May 25th would receive much greater attention, this was probably the moment that the Weygand plan actually died. The two divisions that were in and around Arras retreated 25km to positions behind the La Bassé canal, meaning that any attack south would then have to recover that distance. At this same time there were other concerns along the entire stretch of the Allied line from Arras all the way to the coast. One of the challenges during this time was that the Belgian, French, and British troops had been thrown into the line in a frantic manner which made organization and communication difficult. To try and rectify this situation and series of troops movements would take place on the night of May 23rd. Three of the British divisions holding the line would be replaced by French and Belgian forces which would allow the British divisions to take up positions along the Aa Canal and La Bassé canal, relieving a patchwork of smaller units that had previously been defending this critical area of the front. While this was happening on the southern and western end of the area controlled by the Allies, on the Eastern side the slow retreat of the defenses were also continuing. These areas do no receive as much attention in histories due to the headlining role of Guderian’s forces that were advancing on Dunkirk from the West, but the German forces advancing from the east were also causing serious problems. In this area the combined British and Belgian forces were generally just trying to move from water obstacle to water obstacle to try and slow down the German advance. On the night of the 22nd of may they had abandoned the lines along the Escaut river and had retreated back to the north to establish a line that ran roughly along the River Lys in Belgium. Belgian forces would be a critical component of the defense on this area of the front, and they would begin digging into defensive positions along the new line of defense on the night of the 23rd. However, political conversations were about to completely change the situation for all of the Allied forces in their shrinking area of control in Belgium.

By May 25th Gort had made the decision that the British Expeditionary Force was not going to saved by troops advancing from the south, and that the continued idea of a counterattack by British forces simply was not going to be feasible. The admission that this was not going to happen was important because up until the afternoon of the 25th two British divisions had been kept in reserve for the attack, the 5th and 50th divisions. At 6PM Gort would send out orders that the 5th division would be be committed to the defensive line. The exact reason that this occurred at this moment is debated, with it generally be attributed to the capture of some German orders that indicated that the German 6th Army was about to launch an attack towards Ypres which Gort believed that the troops in the area would not be able to stop, and therefore the 5th division needed to be committed to the line to prevent the German attack from capturing the areas around Ypres and forcing the Belgian forces to the south from further retreats. But it also seems likely that this is actually a post-campaign cover for Gort’s actions, with Lord Alan Brooke’s report from this time saying that Gort had already made up his mind to commit the 5th division along the line even before the German orders were captured. The exact sequence of events would be very important in the immediate aftermath of the surrender of France, when it seemed very important to the British to try and determine why the disaster had happened, and the idea that the British only made the decision based on the lucky capture of the some German documents. Here is a good quote from the article Why did Gort Change His Mind on 25 May, 1940? Genesis of a Myth by Charles More “The belief that Gort changed his mind because he had access to captured German orders is not, on the face of it, a criticism of him. Nonetheless it is a story that contains a message about the commander of the BEF. The message is that the BEF was saved by luck, by a series of hugely fortunate coincidences […] In reality, however, Gort took the decision not because of luck, but because of judgement. He took it because he was in receipt of information that he had specifically asked to be searched for. Furthermore, he had the flexibility of mind to act promptly in spite of his earlier commitment to the attack southwards.” This is one of those areas that seemed so important at the time that the event occurred and in the immediate aftermath but in my mind is not some critical war changing decision, but instead just a smart decision based on the situation at hand. Any counterattack had long since been impossible by the 25th, Gort was simply able to read the room and was being honest with the capabilities of the remaining French and British forces. He did not decide to cancel the attack by moving the 5th division, the Germans had already made that decision for him with their continued attacks along the length of the defensive perimeter, and perimeter that was rapidly shrinking from all directions. If anything, Gort should be applauded for shaking the British and French leaders out of their counterattack delusions which would allow for serious conversations about what came next, conversations that would eventually lead to discussions of evacuation.

As the German attacks had developed after May 10th, the area of Belgium that were controlled by German forces had done nothing but grow. This mirrored the situation during the opening weeks of the First World War when the German forces had marched through Belgium on their way to France. Just like during the earlier World War Belgian city after Belgian city was forced to surrender to the advancing Germans, with Brussels surrendering late on May 17th. However, by May 24th there had been a major divergence from what had happened in 1914, the French and British appeared to be in a disastrous position. This prompted conversations between the Belgian King Leopold and his military commanders on the 24th about what the real future of Belgian resistance was. At that time they were still committed to continuing to resist in conjunction with the British and French, but the long term possibilities seemed bleak once it was clear that any kind of counter attack was o longer possible. By May 27th the last Belgian reserve formations were committed into the defensive line and it seemed clear that the British and French were moving either to evacuation or surrender and so serious discussions began about surrender. King Leopold would be the driver of these events, he did not necessarily want to surrender but he saw few other options due to the deterioration of the military situation. There was just one pretty major problem, a disagreement with the government about what the best course of action was for the King and the government. The Belgian government wanted to take the same path as Norway, going into exile with the King, which would allow the Belgian government to continue to exist even if the Germans controlled all of Belgium and all of the Belgian forces in the country surrendered. However, King Leopold wanted to surrender and stay in Belgium under the theory that this would allow for the King and the Belgian government to help protect the people. This disagreement escalated to the point where the Belgian government went into exile in Paris, and this caused a problem for the King. Technically Leopold did not have the constitutional power to surrender to the Germans, and so he would have to stand up a new government just so that it could surrender. I’m sure you can imagine that the Belgian government in Paris was not a big fan of this decision, and they would denounce this course of action in a broadcast on May 29th which went right up to the line of calling the king a traitor to the country, without actually calling him a traitor. This radio broadcast would take place just one day after the King agreed to the surrender of the Belgian army to the German General Reichenau on the 28th. While the British and French would continue to fight on Belgian soil for several more days, it was the beginning of over 4 years of occupation for the people of Belgium. As for whether or not the King or the Belgian government in exile were correct in their approach to surrender, in the end it honestly barely mattered. The result of the Norwegian or Belgian methods of surrender both resulted in a harsh occupation by German forces that would move to extract what they wanted from the people and the economy of the two countries.

After the decision was mad on May 25th, it did not actually solve any problems, and in fact the problems for the British and French would only grow in the days that followed, particularly when they were informed that the Belgians planned to surrender. On the 26th the British had been informed that unless a major counter attack was launched soon then the Belgian army would be forced to surrender. Gort would also admit in his Despatches that he knew that the Belgian army was probably coming to the end of its abilities even before it was officially confirmed. Some of those forces that were previously earmarked for the counterattack would be moved into the line that was previously held by the Belgians when it became clear that they were in the process of surrenderin. Even before the official notification arrived there were instances of entire Belgian units surrendering to the Germans without resisting. This was caused partially by the situation that they found themselves in, and partially by rumors that had been spreading among the units about the state of the French and British troops. There were also stories making the rounds that the French were turning away Belgian refugees at the border, and charging them large sums for basic goods like food and water. After two weeks of nothing but defeat these stories and rumors caused the men in the units to tip over the edge and surrender was the way out. While the Belgian surrender was always going to be a serious problem for the British and French, at least it came at a time when they were already simply trying to retreat towards the coast and this simply accelerated the need for such movements.

The situation around the on again off again nature of the Weygand counter attack, and then the final admission that it was not going to happen caused another major rift in British and French relations, which had been experiencing strain for over a week. I like this summary of the overall state of the allied relationship by Eleanor M. Gates in End of the Affair: The Collapse of the Anglo-French Alliance, 1939-40: “The British had already lost faith in the French military’s strategic capacity; the slowness and ineffectiveness of French movements completed their disillusionment. The French, on the other hand, were embittered as they watched their partner growing more high-handed and selfish with each new threat to their mutual safety.” Along with these feelings on both sides was a growing divergence among the leaders of both nations about the best path forward for military operations. Up until May 23rd, while there were disagreements in the details of plans and what was happening, there was a general consensus about the broad strokes about what the goals were. However, this changed once Gort and then the leadership in London began to shift to a strategy with a new emphasis on getting the BEF to the coast and then executing some kind of evacuation. It would take more time for the French leaders to come to the conclusion that evacuation was the best path forward, and even after the counterattack was cancelled, Weygand resisted putting in place evacuation plans. Instead he just told General Blanchard, the commander of the French forces trapped in the north to stay with the British as they both retreated towards the coast. This put the French forces in the north in a bit of a limbo that would persist for several days, Weygand did not want to shift to a strategy of evacuation, while at the same time the British were pursuing that path completely. The ambiguity about French plans would continue until a meeting of British and French generals at the town of Cassel to the south of Dunkirk. This meeting was built around conversations from both armies to discuss the best way to manage the collapse of their territory back towards the coast, and even on this late date the topic of evacuation would not be discussed in detail. Some of the French officers would even leave the conference without knowing that the British were going to be evacuated. On the next day, May 28th, Gort and Blanchard would meet and there Gort would officially inform Blanchard that his orders were very clear that he was to evacuate as quickly as possible. He told Blanchard his plans, which included a retreat from the British defensive lines on that very night. Blanchard’s French troops had been ordered to hold a defensive line along the Lys river, and the treat of the British would leave their flanks wide open for a German attack, but Gort was adamant that even this French concern could not override his orders to retreat to the coast immediately. Without any other real options, Blanchard would send out the orders at 10PM that night, May 28th, for all French forces to fall back to a perimeter around Dunkirk and to keep pace with the British in their retreat.

While conversations were happening within the pocket and at French military headquarters, in London there were also conversations that were triggered by the overall situation with the BEF, especially after it was clear that Gort would not be able to join in any kind of counterattack. The core driver for these conversations were concerns among British leaders that they might be just days away from their greatest fear: the defeat of France and the destruction of the Expeditionary Force that had been sent to the continent. The BEF represented the majority of all of the best trained British army forces available at the time, and if it was destroyed in France and Belgium the home islands would be at risk of possible German invasion. How each British leader approached this problem was heavily influenced by their own personalities and their experience before the war. One of the avenues of discussion, and one that would become very important by May 25th was the idea of working with Italy to find a peace agreement with Germany. At this point in the war Italy was still neutral, and Mussolini was more than willing, eager even, to play matchmaker between the two sides of the conflict. This idea made more sense in May 1940, because Italy had not yet declared war and while the Mediterranean nation had shifted into a close relationship with Germany throughout the 1920s and early 1930s Italy had been a close partner with both Britain and France. On May 25, the British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax was approached by Italian ambassador in London with the idea that the Italian government organize a conference in which Mussolini would play the role of arbiter between the two sides in the war. Halifax supported some kind of continued attempts at peace, especially as it appeared that the action in France had tilted heavily against the Allies. He also hoped that Mussolini would be able to convince Hitler that Germany should take a much more lenient stance on peace so that it could be accomplished as quickly as possible. This was, to put it mildly, a complete overestimation of Mussolini’s influence on Hitler, but there really was no way for the British leaders to know the exact relationship between the two leaders. Halifax would report on these meetings to the British War Cabinet, and here are the minutes from that meeting, Halifax said “we had to face the fact that it was not so much now a question of imposing a complete defeat upon Germany, but of safeguarding the independence of our own Empire… In this connection, he informed the War Cabinet that he had had an interview with the Italian Ambassador the previous evening, in which Signor [Giuseppe] Bastianini had clearly made soundings as to the prospect of our agreeing to a conference. The Ambassador had said that Signor Mussolini’s principal wish was to secure peace in Europe. The Foreign Secretary had replied that peace and security in Europe were equally our main object, and we should naturally be prepared to consider any proposals which might lead to this, provided our liberty and independence were assured.” The idea of negotiations with Germany and Italy was a very divisive topic among the British war cabinet during these days, with the concern among part of the cabinet being that they simply served no purpose and it was unlikely that the Italians would make the situation better for the British even if they had to negotiate. In their mind, the most likely result would be that the discussions would leak to the press and it would damage the overall position of Britain in the case that negotiations were required. Churchill in general did not support the initiative, mostly because he was against the very concept of negotiations with Germany given the situation at the front. In response to Halifax’s report above Churchill was be recorded as saying “that peace and security might be achieved under a German domination of Europe. That we could never accept. We must ensure our complete liberty and independence. He was opposed to any negotiations which might lead to a derogation of our rights and power.” In between these two views would be the path advocated for by Chamberlain, that the negotiations with the Italians should be continued even if there was little chance of success. The goal was not to actually make peace happen, but instead simply to use it as a way of keeping the French in the fighting, essentially giving them hope that there was some path forward other than complete defeat. There were also some efforts being made by the American president Roosevelt that Chamberlain believed should be allowed to continue which might be aided by continued conversations with the Italians. The British War Cabinet would once again meet at 2PM on the 26th, after Churchill had met with the French Prime Minister Reynaud. In his report to the Cabinet Churchill informed the others in the meeting of the dire straights that France found itself in. To quote the minutes from the meeting “[Churchill] asked M. Reynaud if any peace terms had been offered to him. M. Reynaud had said “No” but that they knew they could get an offer if they wanted one.” After further discussion on the topic Churchill would say that “the only point to be settled that day was that General Weygand should be instructed to issue orders for the BEF to march to the coast. It was important to make sure that the French had no complaint against us on the score that, by cutting our way to the coast, we were letting them down militarily.” During further conversations that would occur later in the day the topic of British negotiations with Germany would be discussed again with Churchill saying “that he hoped that France would hang on. At the same time we must take care not to be forced into a weak position in which we went to Signor Mussolini and invited him to go to Herr Hitler and ask him to treat us nicely.” Halifax would then give information of an interview he had earlier in the day with the Italian Ambassador and further conversations about the possibility of negotiating through Italy. What is generally interesting in these conversations is of course the things that were said, but also the general assumptions being made by the British leaders in two key areas: the situation for the Germans and the views of Mussolini. When it came to the situation in Germany there were many comments during this meeting and others that Germany was not going to be able to continue the war long term. And instead it would be forced to the peace table by the end of 1940 or maybe early 1941 due to economic and political problems. When it came to Mussolini there was the general belief that he was just as concerned about Germany’s growing power as anybody else and would throw his support behind a peace deal that placed.a check on further German expansion. In another quote from the minutes Halifax is recorded as saying “he felt sure that Signor Mussolini must feel in a most uncomfortable position.” Churchill would then say, quite famously, “that Herr Hitler thought that he had the whip hand. The only thing to do was to show him that he could not conquer this country.” The final decision on the matter was for Halifax to create a draft communication that would be sent to Italy that would be presented to another War Cabinet meeting on the 27th.