203: Falling Apart

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After the fall of Paris things continued to just as poorly as they did before. 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 203 - The Fall of France: Falling Apart. This week a big thank you goes out to Ingo for the donation and to Deb and Thomas who have decided to support the podcast by becoming members. Members to get access to ad-free versions of all of the podcast’s episodes plus special member only episodes released roughly once a month. You can head on over to historyofthesecondworldwar.com/members to find out more. All around France as the German advance continued confusion reigned supreme, on June 10th a radio broadcast would announce that the government was leaving the capital, saying: ‘The Government is compelled to leave the capital for imperative military reasons. The Prime Minister is on his way to the armies.’ On the 11th the city of Paris was declared an open city, causing it to avoid the destruction that so many other major cities in Europe would experience during the war. Weygand and others put the safety of Paris above continued resistance, which meant that while in 1945 Warsaw, Berlin, Leningrad, and countless other cities would lay basically in ruin, but Paris would remain mostly unharmed. Churchill had advocated for a strong defense of the city, later writing that ‘I emphasized the enormous absorbing power of the house-to-house defence of a great city upon an invading army.’ But the French strongly resisted any kind of push for such fighting. I do not blame them for this hesitation, because while urban fighting through Paris would have been very costly in German lives, it could also only be done at the cost of a tremendous number of French lives as well, bloodshed that many French leaders wanted to avoid since they believed that the war was already lost. But the loss of the capital would be a serious blow to French morale, and just as importantly a major boon for German morale, although it was just another on the long list of German victories which all had the same impact. As a note for long time listeners, on the day after Paris was taken by the Germans, the Germans also captured Verdun, the city that had alluded them, after so much blood spilled, during the First World War. But of course, by the time that Paris was captured the majority of the sacred battlefields of the First World War were already located within German controlled territory. Memories of those earlier battles would still be haunting the halls of French power, even though it had evacuated Paris. Churchill would try to call back to the spirit of 1918, when the German Spring offensives made it briefly seem like everything was lost. But there was a major difference, which Petain would point out, and he was the best person in the world to do so. In 1918 the British Army looked to be on the brink of destruction, and they were only saved by Petain quickly moving 40 divisions from the French sector of the front to bolster the British defense. He would point this out to Churchill, wondering where the British divisions were to do the same for the French? The answer was that they did not exist, and so all that the French army could do was to continue to retreat, but it appeared that there was little they could do to alter the overall situation, other than seek for a way to end the fighting.

While many French leaders were moving to the belief that the war was lost and they had to start looking beyond it, on the German side most of the leadership also understood that the campaign in France was entering its final phase. To coordinate efforts during this time Hitler would issue Führer Direction 15, which outlined what each of the German Armies should do to close out the invasion. In the north Bock’s Army Group B was simply to pursue the retreating French to prevent them from forming any kind of new line of resistance, essentially the French in this area were already retreating and Bock just needed to make sure that did not stop. More importantly, Army Group A under the command of Rundstedt and Army Group C under Leeb’s command would be focused on encircling and then destroying the French 2nd Army Group, which was positioned roughly between Paris and the Maginot Line. This would obviously prevent the French soldiers of that Army Group from continuing the fight but would also, and more importantly, prevent more French forces from escaping to Southern France and then to North Africa. There was a very real fear among the German leadership that the French would do precisely what Reynaud was suggesting they do, take as many men and as much material as possible to the French territory in North Africa, and from there continue to wage war against Germany. Trying to minimize the impact of the French forces should they choose that course of action was a major part of why the Germans chose their course of action after the fall of France. On the French side, the forces at the front did attempt to stage a fighting withdrawal where possible, but often this just appears on the map as a very steady retreat. Once their lines on the Somme and Aisne had been broken, and then lines on the Seine and the Marne had done the same, the French forces began to really suffer from the problems that would plague many retreating armies throughout history, the retreat tends to gather momentum and inertia that gets harder and harder to arrest and end. A new challenge presented to armies during the Second World War was that as they retreated so much of their equipment that was either hauled by or powered by internal combustion engines began to break down, and then had to be left behind, robbing of them of some of their most important equipment and munitions, even if they did want to try and form a new line of resistance. The French tanks were a major problem around their breakdown rate, because when an army was retreating there was no opportunity to fix vehicles, if it broke down and required anything other than the most trivial fixes it had to be left behind, which meant it was as good as destroyed. For the advancing Germans, if one of their tanks broke down, while the loss to fighting power was unfortunate, the tank could easily be recovered, repaired, and put back into action, when a retreating tank broke down it was lost for good. A similar challenge was being faced by the French Air Force, because as the French Army retreated the air forces were put into a displacement cycle as they bounced from airfield to airfield. Any aircraft that was damaged even slightly, anything that prevented it from flying, meant it had to be left behind. And any supplies or equipment that could not be easily moved suffered the same fate, sapping just as much of the strength of the French Air Force as German operations did in the last days of the fighting. The only benefit that air squadrons had is that it was easier for them to flee the country and head to North Africa, which some would do even without firm orders to do so.

One of the interesting events that would occur at this late stage of the campaign, is that there would be real assaults on some of the French positions that made up the Maginot Line as the Germans were trying to push through and surround some of the retreating French forces. Next episode will discuss some of the actions around the Maginot Line in more detail, but one of the areas that would see fighting during the period of retreat was the area known as the Saar Gap. This area, south of Saarbrucken was fortified differently than most of the areas of the Maginot Line, due to a difference in Geography. Along most of the Maginot fortifications everything was anchored on large gros ouvrages, or very large bunkers, and these were truly strong fortifications. Places like Ouvrage Hochwald and many others would be almost impervious to German attack and would be held until the very end of the fighting, in some cases French officers had to be sent to the ouvrages after the armistice was signed to convince them to surrender. But the defenses in the Saar Gap were different due to a combination of general geography and the higher water table in the area which made it difficult to build underground fortifications. And so instead the French defenses were built around smaller fortifications which required more infantry to man and to defend. Since the beginning of the campaign 2 infantry divisions had been positioned on this sector of the front. But this under was much reduced when the general retreat was ordered by General Weygand after the collapse of the defenses on the Seine. Even with this reduction in force, when the German artillery fire began on the morning of June 14th the French defenders were ready. They would be facing the German troops of the 1st Army with the goal of pushing through the fortified area and surrounding the French forces to the north. However, when they attacked after their 90 minute barrage they found that the French defenders were still quite capable of inflicting serious casualties and 5,000 German soldiers would be killed or wounded throughout the 14th of June. The French forces, feeling that they had done their duty, would spend the next night retreating back 25 kilometers to their final defensive line, with the Germans then advancing into the newly abandoned French territory. But there the German advance would end, because it was difficult to continue to push forward against an enemy that was resisting while also being unable to attack to the north and the south of the Saar gap. On both flanks the ouvrages of the Maginot fortifications resisted German efforts to neutralize them, and so 25 kilometers was as far as the Germans would go, at least for the moment.

When the Germans had invaded Poland in September 1939, and then declarations of war had flown back and forth between Germany, France, and Great Britain, the fourth major European power, Italy had very specifically stayed out of the war. Mussolini had very clearly informed Hitler that this would be his course of action when he was informed of the forthcoming invasion of Poland a few days before it happened, and this neutrality was accepted. Then during the Phoney War, while everyone was anticipating a German attack into France, Mussolini and the Italians continued their policy of neutrality. The Italians had very good reasons to want to stay out of a war, most importantly the fact that the Italian ready was far from ready to participate in a major European war with the other major powers. After their adventures in Ethiopia, Spain, and Albania in 1939 the Italian military just needed time to recover and rebuild. As an example of the level of unpreparedness of the Italian military at this point, in November 1939 Marshal Badoglio would send a report to Mussolini which stated that Badoglio believed that out of the 63 divisions that the Italian Army had on paper only 10 of them were truly fit for war, and most of the rest were missing critical equipment, training, and in some cases even uniforms. The Italians did have two armored divisions, but they only really existed on paper, and the tanks that they were equipped with were completely inadequate for the European battlefields of 1940. There was also very little to gain for the Italians when it came to the conflict, and so neutrality seemed like the best course. But then something somewhat unexpected happened, when the Germans attack France their attack was successful, very successful and very quickly. This caused Mussolini to completely reconsider his course of action because if the Germans were about to win the war Mussolini wanted, needed, to be a part of the peace negotiation process. It was only in that position that the Italians could get their share of the spoils, hopefully some juicy territory in North Africa that had previously been controlled by the French. This meant that late in the afternoon on June 10th, just five days after the start of Case Red, Italy declared war on France, Mussolini declared war on France. There were a few problems as a result of this declaration, the most important being that the Italian Army was not adequately informed, particularly those that were on the border with France. These were the units of Army Group West which were stationed along the border, and the commanders of its units would only find out that they were at war with France when they heard a broadcast of the speech given by Mussolini when he announced the declaration. Fortunately there was at least somebody at Italian high command who understood the general situation of the Italian forces at the front, and Badoglio would tell Mussolini that the Italian Army would require 25 days of preparations before any operations could be launched against France. Even this was probably too optimistic, but it was far too slow for the situation, because Mussolini and everybody else could see that in the days after Case Red the French were retreating almost everywhere, if the Italians were going to be get anything from the war they had to do something and do something fast before the French surrendered to the Germans.

On the French side of the declaration, well they certainly did not to be at war with yet another country, and the fact that they now had to worry about attacks on the Italian border was a problem. On a political side they also would lose what they hoped would be a good negotiating avenue, with the Italians and Mussolini acting as an arbiter between the Western Allies and Hitler. But of more immediate concern were the troops along the border. When the war started there were around 550,000 French forces along the Italian front, manning the defenses that had been created in the Alps during the interwar years. However, by the time that the Italians attack the raw number of those forces had been heavily reduced to requirements elsewhere. This meant that the number was down to around 185,000 when war was declared. The good news is that many of the defenses along the southern reaches of the Maginot Line were some of the strongest and most modern. But they would not be the first areas where the two sides would begin their fighting, and instead it would in the air and at sea that they would first exchange blows. Almost immediately after the war started, on the morning of June 11th, a flight of Italian bombers would bomb air French targets in Tunisia. Then on the night of June 12th 8 Italian bombers would launch a raid against the French naval base at Toulon. This attack was then might be a French attack, although one at sea, because on the night of June 13th a French naval squadrons of 4 heavy cruisers and 11 destroyers would conduct a bombardment of Genoa. The bombardment would only last for a few minutes in the early morning hours of June 14th, but during that time they would still be able to drop 500 8 inch shells and over 1,000 smaller caliber rounds onto a few industrial targets. This raid did not cause a lot of damage, and was mostly symbolic in nature, with the French Navy wanting to prove that it could strike a blow against the Italians, especially with it appearing that an armistice might be signed in the near future. The Royal Air Force would also launch some raids against Italy, with a dozen Wellington bombers moving to airfields near Marseille and launching two raids after Toulon was bombed by the Italians. These raids, again against industrial targets in northern Italy were more symbolic in nature, and after the two raids the entire operation would be ended with the RAF bombers moved elsewhere. All of this raiding, both in the air and at sea was fine, but what Mussolini needed his army to do was attack and take territory, especially after Paris fell and it appeared that the war might continue for only a major of a few more days.

Reaching the point of panic that the war would be over before his armies did anything, on June 15th Mussolini gave Army Group West a 3 day deadline to launch an offensive. The need to launch an offensive gained greater urgency during a meeting between Hitler and Mussolini on June 18th when Mussolini’s demands for French territory, primarily Nice, the island of Corsica, and territory in Tunisia were straight up denied by Hitler who told Mussolini the only territory that Italy had any chance of being awarded were those that they were in possession of when the armistice negotiations began. There was the hope that when Petain sent out his radio broadcast on June 17th for the French army to stop fighting, the defenders of the French defenses in the Alps would begin to back away from the Italian border, but Mussolini and the Italian military would not be that lucky. Instead when the Italian forces began their attack just after 5AM on June 21st they found advancing too far over the border to be impossible. In many ares they would advance only a few kilometers between the start of the offensive on the 21st and the signing of the armistice on June 24th. During those days fighting would be fierce, but in many cases entire Italian divisions were held up by small French units that were manning their prepared defensive lines. Due to the terrain, this was the Alps after all, there were no real options to outflank or outmaneuver and instead the poorly equipped Italians could only throw themselves at the French, a tactic that would prove to be quite unproductive. There were some successes along the front though, with a few French villages and towns occupied by Italian forces that were able to either push through to them or were lucky enough to be able to bypass some of the French positions. When the armistice went into effect the positions generally froze in place, but unfortunately for Mussolini’s dreams and aspirations, the Italian territorial goals were generally not fulfilled during the negotiations with France, and instead they would be almost completely removed by Hitler who just wanted the French to stop fighting and cared very little for what the Italians wanted, and what both he and the French felt they did not earn. It can generally be said that the French defenses of the Maginot line along the Italian border did quite well, and next episode will cover the fighting along the rest of the Maginot Line, which had been mostly bypassed when the Germans had attacked through Belgium and the Ardennes.