When the 7th Panzer Division advanced further they came into the area held by a mixed British and French force. The British, who were to the north of the German advance, decided to mount a counter-attack from the direction of Arras. They were under the impression that the French, who were south of the German advance, would also attack. On 21 May the British launched their attack into the flank of the Germans.
The allied force was small in comparison to the German forces, but they put up a good fight and actually caused a panic in the German High Command. Elements of the 7th Panzer Division were redirected back towards Arras to meet the threat. The Germans had estimated the attacking allied force to number hundreds of tanks when, in fact, it was considerably less than this. Although the British attack was determined, a French thrust from the south failed to materialise and the battle could not halt the advance of the enemy. It did, however, give the Germans a bloody nose and cause them considerable concern. This attack had showed what could be achieved if the allies had been better coordinated.
Guderian’s amazing sweep from the Meuse to the sea exemplified Blitzkrieg in its purest and most lethally efficient form. Urged on by their impetuous commander and to the increasing alarm of some his superiors, his tanks drove onward to the coast, frequently covering 50 miles a day and far outstripping the supporting infantry. Often the mere sight and sound of the thundering tanks was sufficient to disperse any opposition.
The disaster at Sedan caused consternation among the French High Command. Astute French officers had read correctly the lessons of Poland. Tragically, their Generals suffered from the military equivalent of myopia and blithely ignored them. New technology had been accepted only grudgingly, new ideas, never. In the long, cumbrous chains of command, it could easily take two days for an order to reach the front, by which time the battle situation was usually completely transformed.
Guderian’s tanks drove relentlessly on. All over France wild rumours abounded: of fifth-columnists and saboteurs, of bizarrely-disguised German paratroopers, of imminent new disasters. The already prevalent mood of defeatism deepened further.
Yet the French had more troops than the Germans and a superiority in nearly all types of armaments. They even had more tanks than the Germans, and the best of them, such as the heavily armed Chars and Somuas, were formidable vehicles of war.
What were missing were the will and the perception to use all of these advantages in a concentrated approach to modern warfare. It would have required an impossibly drastic shift in the thinking of the past 50 years. Quarrels between French and British, inter-service rivalries and other dangerous pettiness combined further to make an effective military response impossible.
On 20th May Guderian reached Amiens. The last link between the allied forces to the north and south was severed, adding still further to the already dire confusion in the chain of command.
On the 24th Hitler issued one of the most controversial orders of the war. For two days the tanks were halted. This respite prevented a massacre taking place during the subsequent evacuation of BEF from Dunkirk. This has been one of the most hotly debated actions of the war and numerous possible reasons have been ascribed to Hitler’s curious order. One very plausible explanation is that Hitler, from his studies of the rates of attrition of the tank forces, had become concerned that his armoured forces would be too worn down to continue the battle against France.
Throughout his military career Hitler was inclined to dabble in every aspect of detail, even to the point of inspecting the daily strength returns for the Panzer Divisions. There is a strong possibility that he may have confused the numbers of unserviceable machines, which could be repaired in the very short term, with those that were complete write-offs. The lessons from the street fighting in Warsaw may also have had an impact. With the withdrawal of the BEF, France now faced the mighty German forces alone. They were unable to hold back the tide of men and weapons.
Once Dunkirk was secured the Germans surveyed the mayhem that had been left behind by the retreating BEF. The British had been forced to abandon all of their equipment and the majority of this lay in ruin around the port. The German victory was not yet complete and the next phase required them to turn south and concentrate on the remaining French and British forces that still numbered some 66 Divisions. This part of the advance began on 5th June 1940. Less than 3 weeks later the enemy was completely defeated.
By 10th June, with the Germans outside the French capital, the government abandoned Paris. Widespread fighting continued but there was no place for illusions. A full-scale rout was taking place.
On 20th June, after just six weeks of war, France agreed to sign a demeaning armistice.
Hitler was overjoyed at this astounding vindication of the methods of Blitzkrieg. Germany rejoiced with him and with the glorious euphoria of victory mingled a deeper, more human desire. For the German population the war was surely over. The nation’s honour had been restored, German prosperity assured by the new order in Europe. The ignominy of Versailles was lost in the past. Under their revered leader this transformation had been achieved at a cost far below all expectation.
The Armistice was signed by the leaders of the destroyed French forces in the same railway carriage that they themselves had used at the end of the First World War. This was the perfect end to what was almost a perfect victory for Hitler and his new Panzer army.
The part played by the German tanks in the victory had been crucial. In a few weeks they had destroyed the armies of Holland, Belgium, France and Britain. The confidence of the Germans was at an all time high. They had complete faith in their men and machines. The close support of the Luftwaffe had also been a deciding factor and helped to instil terror upon the fleeing enemy soldiers. Hitler now regarded the war as almost won. New weapons development was restricted after this time due to the strains on the economy and resources were routed to anti-tank weapons and the more economical assault guns. The deficiencies that were apparent with regard to armour protection and main armament in these early campaigns were to resurface in later campaigns, but with greater consequences. The best that Germany could offer in 1941 would be severely outclassed by the Russian tanks.
With a sense of invincibility in everyone’s mind, a complacency and lack of urgency set in. Although Hitler was already looking to undertake the biggest gamble yet, the equipment of the tank forces did not undergo any serious redesign. It is true to say that an expansion programme was undertaken that was to add many new units to Germany’s armed forces, but there was no real thought given to imputing the existing tools of destruction. Minor modifications were made to the Panzer III which had the main gun upgraded to a 50mm weapon and a slight increase in armour thickness. The Panzer IV also had the armour increased slightly, to 50mm. The expansion programme also had to cater for the units that needed their battle losses replaced. German tanks required hundreds of man-hours to complete; this meant they were comparatively slow to come off the production line compared to the Russian T-34s that were simple and cheap to produce.
Other experiments were conducted in preparation for the proposed invasion of England, code named Operation Sea Lion. One of the most interesting was the development of a submersible Panzer III. Although the planned invasion did not materialise, this development would be used in the early stages of Operation Barbarossa. Hitler, although annoyed at the failure of the Luftwaffe to deliver victory against England, plunged ahead with the planning for the mighty invasion of the Soviet Union. He was confident that his army would deliver victory once more. The men on the front line would quickly discover just how inadequate their tanks would be against the enemy. The puny 37mm gun was still used to equip many of the Panzer Ills, which were then Germany’s main battle tanks. The same 37mm gun was also carried by all of the Czech made 38(t) tanks which, in 1940, were Germany’s most numerous battle tanks. These guns were insufficient to penetrate at all but the shortest range, and even the upgrade to a 50mm gun carried by some Panzer III by 1941 was still not really sufficient.
Only the 75mm gun of the Panzer IV and Sturmgeschütze battalions were really suited to the demands of the modern battlefield, even then it had its limitations. The short barrel of the 75mm gave the shells only a limited velocity, which was effective against the thinly armoured tanks of the early war years but proved to be totally inadequate when the Germans met the superior Russian tanks during 1941.
On campaign with the “flying ghost” Division. This shot from Signal magazine displays the daily life of the 11th Panzer Division on campaign in France and the Balkans.