7
June 4 to June 12
High Morale of the Army — My First Thoughts and Directive, June 2, 1940 — The Lost Equipment — The President, General Marshall, and Mr. Stettinius — An Act of Faith — The Double Tensions of June — Reconstitution of the British Army — Its Fearful Lack of Modern Weapons — Decision to Send Our Only Two Well-Armed Divisions to France — The Battle of France: Final Phase — Destruction of the Fifty-First Highland Division, June 11/12 — “Auld Scotland Stands for Something Still” — My Fourth Visit to France: Briare — Weygand and Pétain — General Georges Summoned — Mussolini Strikes — My Discussion with Weygand — The French Prevent the Royal Air Force from Bombing Milan and Turin — The Germans Enter Paris — Renewed Conference Next Morning — Admiral Darlan’s Promise — Farewell to G.Q.G. — Our Journey Home — My Report to the War Cabinet of the Conference.
WHEN IT WAS KNOWN how many men had been rescued from Dunkirk, a sense of deliverance spread in the island and throughout the Empire. There was a feeling of intense relief, melting almost into triumph. The safe home-coming of a quarter of a million men, the flower of our Army, was a milestone in our pilgrimage through years of defeat. The achievement of the Southern Railway and the Movements Branch of the War Office, of the staffs at the ports in the Thames Estuary, and above all at Dover, where over two hundred thousand men were handled and rapidly distributed throughout the country, is worthy of the highest praise. The troops returned with nothing but rifles and bayonets and a few hundred machine guns, and were forthwith sent to their homes for seven days’ leave. Their joy at being once again united with their families did not overcome a stern desire to engage the enemy at the earliest moment. Those who had actually fought the Germans in the field had the belief that, given a fair chance, they could beat them. Their morale was high, and they rejoined their regiments and batteries with alacrity.
All the Ministers and departmental officers, permanent or newly chosen, acted with confidence and vigour night and day, and there are many tales to be told besides this one. Personally I felt uplifted, and my mind drew easily and freely from the knowledge I had gathered in my life. I was exhilarated by the salvation of the Army. I present, for what they are worth, the directives to the Departments and submissions to the War Cabinet which I issued day by day. Ismay carried them to the Chiefs of Staff, and Bridges to the War Cabinet and the Departments. Mistakes were corrected and gaps filled. Amendments and improvements were often made, but in the main, to the degree perhaps of ninety per cent, action was taken, and with a speed and effectiveness which no dictatorship could rival.
Here were my first thoughts at the moment when it became certain that the Army had escaped.
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Prime Minister to General Ismay. |
2.VI.40. |
Notes for C.O.S., etc., by the Minister of Defence.
The successful evacuation of the B.E.F. has revolutionised the Home Defence position. As soon as the B.E.F. units can be reformed on a Home Defence basis we have a mass of trained troops in the country which would require a raid to be executed on a prohibitively large scale. Even 200,000 men would not be beyond our compass. The difficulties of a descent and its risks and losses increase with every addition to the first 10,000. We must at once take a new view of the situation. Certain questions must be considered, chiefly by the War Office, but also by the Joint Staffs:
1. What is the shortest time in which the B.E.F. can be given a new fighting value?
2. Upon what scheme would they be organised? Will it be for service at Home in the first instance and only secondarily despatch to France? On the whole, I prefer this.
3. The B.E.F. in France must immediately be reconstituted, otherwise the French will not continue in the war. Even if Paris is lost, they must be adjured to continue a gigantic guerrilla. A scheme should be considered for a bridgehead and area of disembarkation in Brittany, where a large army can be developed. We must have plans worked out which will show the French that there is a way through if they will only be steadfast.
4. As soon as the B.E.F. is reconstituted for Home Defence, three divisions should be sent to join our two divisions south of the Somme, or wherever the French left may be by then. It is for consideration whether the Canadian Division should not go at once. Pray let me have a scheme.
5. Had we known a week ago what we now know about the Dunkirk evacuation, Narvik would have presented itself in a different light. Even now the question of maintaining a garrison there for some weeks on a self-contained basis should be reconsidered. I am deeply impressed with the vice and peril of chopping and changing. The letter of the Minister of Economic Warfare as well as the telegram of some days ago from the C.-in-C. must, however, receive one final weighing.
6. Ask Admiralty to supply a latest return of the state of the destroyer flotillas, showing what reinforcements have arrived or are expected within the month of June, and how many will come from repair.
7. It should now be possible to allow the eight Regular battalions in Palestine to be relieved by the eight native battalions from India before they are brought home, as brought home they must be, to constitute the cadres of the new B.E.F.
8. As soon as the Australians land, the big ships should be turned round and should carry eight or ten Territorial battalions to Bombay. They should bring back a second eight Regular battalions from India, and afterwards carry to India a second eight or ten Territorial battalions from England. It is for consideration how far the same principle should be applied to batteries in India.
9. Our losses in equipment must be expected to delay the fruition of our expansion of the B.E.F. from the twenty divisions formerly aimed at by Zl + 12 months, to no more than fifteen divisions by Z + 18; but we must have a project to put before the French. The essence of this should be the armoured division, the 51st, the Canadians, and two Territorial divisions under Lord Gort by mid-July, and the augmenting of this force by six divisions formed from the twenty-four Regular battalions in conjunction with Territorials, a second Canadian division, an Australian division, and two Territorial divisions by Z + 18. Perhaps we may even be able to improve on this.
10. It is of the highest urgency to have at least half a dozen Brigade groups formed from the Regulars of the B.E.F. for Home Defence.
11. What air co-operation is arranged to cover the final evacuation tonight? It ought to be possible to reduce the pressure on the rearguard at this critical moment.
I close with a general observation. As I have personally felt less afraid of a German attempt at invasion than of the piercing of the French line on the Somme or Aisne and the fall of Paris, I have naturally believed the Germans would choose the latter. This probability is greatly increased by the fact that they will realise that the armed forces in Great Britain are now far stronger than they have ever been, and that their raiding parties would not have to meet half-trained formations, but the men whose mettle they have already tested, and from whom they have recoiled, not daring seriously to molest their departure. The next few days, before the B.E.F. or any substantial portion of it can be reorganised, must be considered as still critical.
* * * * *
There was of course a darker side to Dunkirk. We had lost the whole equipment of the Army to which all the firstfruits of our factories had hitherto been given:
|
7,000 |
tons of ammunition |
|
90,000 |
rifles |
|
2,300 |
Guns |
|
120,000 |
vehicles |
|
8,000 |
Bren guns |
|
400 |
anti-tank rifles |
Many months must elapse, even if the existing programmes were fulfilled without interruption by the enemy, before this loss could be repaired.
However, across the Atlantic in the United States strong emotions were already stirring in the breasts of its leading men. A precise and excellent account of these events is given by Mr. Stettinius,2 the worthy son of my old Munitions colleague of the First World War, one of our truest friends. It was at once realised that the bulk of the British Army had got away only with the loss of all their equipment. As early as June 1 the President sent out orders to the War and Navy Departments to report what weapons they could spare for Britain and France. At the head of the American Army as Chief of Staff was General Marshall, not only a soldier of proved quality, but a man of commanding vision. He instantly directed his Chief of Ordnance and his Assistant Chief of Staff to survey the entire list of the American reserve ordnance and munitions stocks. In forty-eight hours the answers were given, and on June 3 Marshall approved the lists. The first list comprised half a million .30 calibre rifles out of two million manufactured in 1917 and 1918 and stored in grease for more than twenty years. For these there were about 250 cartridges apiece. There were 900 soixante-quinze field guns with a million rounds, 80,000 machine guns, and various other items. In his excellent book about American supplies Mr. Stettinius says: “Since every hour counted, it was decided that the Army should sell (for 37 million dollars) everything on the list to one concern which could in turn resell immediately to the British and French.” The Chief of Ordnance, Major-General Wesson, was told to handle the matter, and immediately on June 3 all the American Army depots and arsenals started packing the material for shipment. By the end of the week more than six hundred heavily loaded freight cars were rolling towards the Army docks at Raritan, New Jersey, up the river from Gravesend Bay. By June 11 a dozen British merchant ships moved into the bay and anchored, and loading from lighters began.
By these extraordinary measures the United States left themselves with the equipment for only 1,800,000 men, the minimum figure stipulated by the American Army Mobilisation Plan. All this reads easily now, but at that time it was a supreme act of faith and leadership for the United States to deprive themselves of this very considerable mass of arms for the sake of a country which many deemed already beaten. They never had need to repent of it. As will presently be recounted, we ferried these precious weapons safely across the Atlantic during July, and they formed not only a material gain, but an important factor in all calculations made by friend or foe about invasion.
* * * * *
Mr. Cordell Hull has a passage in his memoirs 3 which is relevant at this point:
In response to Reynaud’s almost pitiful pleas for backing, the President urged Mr. Churchill to send planes to France; but the Prime Minister refused. Bullitt [the United States Ambassador in Paris], outraged by this decision, communicated to the President and me on June 5 his fear that the British might be conserving their Air Force and Fleet so as to use them as bargaining points in negotiations with Hitler. The President and I, however, thought differently. France was finished, but we were convinced that Britain, under Churchill’s indomitable leadership, intended to fight on. There would be no negotiations between London and Berlin. Only the day before Bullitt’s telegram, Churchill had made his magnificent speech in the House of Commons. The President and I believed Mr. Churchill meant what he said. Had we had any doubt of Britain’s determination to keep on fighting, we would not have taken the steps we did to get material aid to her. There would have been no logic in sending arms to Britain if we had thought that, before they arrived there, Churchill’s Government would surrender to Germany.
* * * * *
The month of June was particularly trying to all of us, because of the dual and opposite stresses to which in our naked condition we were subjected by our duty to France on the one hand and the need to create an effective army at home and to fortify the island on the other. The double tension of antagonistic but vital needs was most severe. Nevertheless, we followed a firm and steady policy without undue excitement. First priority continued to be given to sending whatever trained and equipped troops we had, in order to reconstitute the British Expeditionary Force in France. After that our efforts were devoted to the defence of the island; first, by re-forming and re-equipping the Regular Army; secondly, by fortifying the likely landing-places; thirdly, by arming and organising the population, so far as was possible; and of course by bringing home whatever forces could be gathered from the Empire. At this time the most imminent dangers seemed to be the landing of comparatively small but highly mobile German tank forces which would rip us up and disorganise our defence, and also parachute descents. In close contact with the new Secretary of State for War, Anthony Eden, I busied myself on all this.
The following scheme was devised by the Secretary of State and the War Office for reconstituting the Army in accordance with the directives which had been issued. Seven mobile brigade groups were already in existence. The divisions returned from Dunkirk were reconstituted, re-equipped as fast as possible, and took up their stations. In time the seven brigade groups were absorbed into the re-formed divisions. There were available fourteen Territorial divisions of high-quality men who had been nine months ardently training under war conditions and were partly equipped. One of these, the 52d, was already fit for service overseas. There was a second armoured division and four Army tank brigades in process of formation, but without tanks. There was the 1st Canadian Division fully equipped.
It was not men that were lacking, but arms. Over eighty thousand rifles were retrieved from the communications and bases south of the Seine, and by the middle of June every fighting man in the Regular forces had at least a personal weapon in his hand. We had very little field artillery, even for the Regular Army. Nearly all the new 25-pounders had been lost in France. There remained about five hundred 18-pounders, 4.5-inch and 6-inch howitzers. There were only 103 cruiser, 132 infantry, and 252 light tanks. Fifty of the infantry tanks were at home in a battalion of the Royal Tank Regiment, and the remainder were in training-schools. Never has a great nation been so naked before her foes.
* * * * *
From the beginning I kept in the closest contact with my old friends now at the head of the Governments of Canada and South Africa.
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Prime Minister to Mr. Mackenzie King. |
5.VI.40. |
British situation vastly improved by miraculous evacuation of B.E.F., which gives us an army in the island more than capable, when re-equipped, of coping with any invading force likely to be landed. Also evacuation was a main trial of strength between British and German Air Forces. Germans have been unable to prevent evacuation, though largely superior in numbers, and have suffered at least three times our loss. For technical reasons, British Air Force would have many more advantages in defending the air above the island than in operating overseas. Principal remaining danger is of course air[craft] factories, but if our air defence is so strong that enemy can only come on dark nights precision will not be easy. I therefore feel solid confidence in British ability to continue the war, defend the island and the Empire, and maintain the blockade.
I do not know whether it will be possible to keep France in the war or not. I hope they will, even at the worst, maintain a gigantic guerrilla. We are reconstituting the B.E.F. out of other units.
We must be careful not to let Americans view too complacently prospect of a British collapse, out of which they would get the British Fleet and the guardianship of the British Empire, minus Great Britain. If United States were in the war and England [were] conquered locally, it would be natural that events should follow the above course. But if America continued neutral, and we were overpowered, I cannot tell what policy might be adopted by a pro-German administration such as would undoubtedly be set up.
Although President is our best friend, no practical help has [reached us] from the United States as yet. We have not expected them to send military aid, but they have not even sent any worthy contribution in destroyers or planes, or by a visit of a squadron of their Fleet to southern Irish ports. Any pressure which you can apply in this direction would be invaluable.
We are most deeply grateful to you for all your help and for [the four Canadian] destroyers, which have already gone into action against a U-boat. Kindest regards.
Smuts, far off in South Africa and without the latest information upon the specialised problems of Insular Air Defence, naturally viewed the tragedy of France according to orthodox principles: “Concentrate everything at the decisive point.” I had the advantage of knowing the facts, and of the detailed advice of Air Marshal Dowding, head of Fighter Command. If Smuts and I had been together for half an hour, and I could have put the data before him, we should have agreed, as we always did on large military issues.
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Prime Minister to General Smuts. |
9.VI.40. |
We are of course doing all we can both from the air and by sending divisions as fast as they can be equipped to France. It would be wrong to send the bulk of our fighters to this battle, and when it was lost, as is probable, be left with no means of carrying on the war. I think we have a harder, longer, and more hopeful duty to perform. Advantages of resisting German air attack in this island, where we can concentrate very powerful fighter strength, and hope to knock out four or five hostiles to one of ours, are far superior to fighting in France, where we are inevitably outnumbered and rarely exceed two to one ratio of destruction, and where our aircraft are often destroyed at exposed aerodromes. This battle does not turn on the score or so of fighter squadrons we could transport with their plant in the next month. Even if by using them up we held the enemy, Hitler could immediately throw his whole [air] strength against our undefended island and destroy our means of future production by daylight attack. The classical principles of war which you mention are in this case modified by the actual quantitative data. I see only one way through now, to wit, that Hitler should attack this country, and in so doing break his air weapon. If this happens, he will be left to face the winter with Europe writhing under his heel, and probably with the United States against him after the presidential election is over.
Am most grateful to you for cable. Please always give me your counsel, my old and valiant friend.
* * * * *
Apart from our last twenty-five Fighter Squadrons, on which we were adamant, we regarded the duty of sending aid to the French Army as paramount. The movement of the 52d Division to France, under previous orders, was due to begin on June 7. These orders were confirmed. The 3d Division, under General Montgomery, was put first in equipment and assigned to France. The leading division of the Canadian Army, which had concentrated in England early in the year and was well armed, was directed, with the full assent of the Dominion Government, to Brest to begin arriving there on June 11 for what might by this time already be deemed a forlorn hope. The two French light divisions evacuated from Norway were also sent home, together with all the French units and individuals we had carried away from Dunkirk.
That we should have sent our only two formed divisions, the 52d Lowland Division and the 1st Canadian Division, over to our failing French ally in this mortal crisis, when the whole fury of Germany must soon fall upon us, must be set to our credit against the very limited forces we had been able to put in France in the first eight months of war. Looking back on it, I wonder how, when we were resolved to continue the war to the death, and under the threat of invasion, and France was evidently falling, we had the nerve to strip ourselves of the remaining effective military formations we possessed. This was only possible because we understood the difficulties of the Channel crossing without the command of the sea or the air, or the necessary landing craft.
* * * * *
We had still in France, behind the Somme, the 51st Highland Division, which had been withdrawn from the Maginot Line and was in good condition, and the 52d Lowland Division, which was arriving in Normandy. There was also our 1st (and only) Armoured Division, less the tank battalion and the support group which had been sent to Calais. This, however, had lost heavily in attempts to cross the Somme as part of Weygand’s plan. By June 1 it was reduced to one-third of its strength, and was sent back across the Seine to refit. At the same time a composite force known as “Beauman Force” was scraped together from the bases and lines of communication in France. It consisted of nine improvised infantry battalions, armed mainly with rifles, and very few anti-tank weapons. It had neither transport nor signals.
The Tenth French Army, with this British contingent, tried to hold the line of the Somme. The 51st Division alone had a front of sixteen miles, and the rest of the army was equally strained. On June 4, with a French division and French tanks, they attacked the German bridgehead at Abbeville, but without success.
On June 5 the final phase of the Battle of France began. The French front consisted of the Second, Third, and Fourth Groups of Armies. The Second defended the Rhine front and the Maginot Line; the Fourth stood along the Aisne; and the Third from the Aisne to the mouth of the Somme. This Third Army Group comprised the Sixth, Seventh, and Tenth Armies; and all the British forces in France formed part of the Tenth Army. All this immense line, in which there stood at this moment nearly one and a half million men, or perhaps sixty-five divisions, was now to be assaulted by one hundred and twenty-four German divisions, also formed in three army groups, namely: Coastal Sector, Bock; Central Sector, Rundstedt; Eastern Sector, Leeb. These attacked on June 5, June 9, and June 15 respectively. On the night of June 5 we learned that a German offensive had been launched that morning on a seventy-mile front from Amiens to the Laon-Soissons road. This was war on the largest scale.
We have seen how the German armour had been hobbled and held back in the Dunkirk battle, in order to save it for the final phase in France. All this armour now rolled forward upon the weak and improvised or quivering French front between Paris and the sea. It is here only possible to record the battle on the coastal flank, in which we played a part. On June 7 the Germans renewed their attack, and two armoured divisions drove towards Rouen so as to split the Tenth French Army. The left French Ninth Corps, including the Highland Division, two French infantry divisions, and two cavalry divisions, or what was left of them, were separated from the rest of the Tenth Army front. “Beauman Force,” supported by thirty British tanks, now attempted to cover Rouen. On June 8 they were driven back to the Seine, and that night the Germans entered the city. The 51st Division, with the remnants of the French Ninth Corps, was cut off in the Rouen-Dieppe cul-de-sac.
We had been intensely concerned lest this division should be driven back to the Havre peninsula and thus be separated from the main armies, and its commander, Major-General Fortune, had been told to fall back if necessary in the direction of Rouen. This movement was forbidden by the already disintegrating French command. Repeated urgent representations were made by us, but they were of no avail. A dogged refusal to face facts led to the ruin of the French Ninth Corps and our 51st Division. On June 9, when Rouen was already in German hands, our men had but newly reached Dieppe, thirty-five miles to the north. Only then were orders received to withdraw to Havre. A force was sent back to cover the movement, but before the main bodies could move the Germans interposed. Striking from the east, they reached the sea, and the greater part of the 51st Division, with many of the French, was cut off. It was a case of gross mismanagement, for this very danger was visible a full three days before.
On the 10th, after sharp fighting, the division fell back, together with the French Ninth Corps, to the perimeter of St. Valéry, expecting to be evacuated by sea. Meanwhile all our other forces in the Havre peninsula were embarking speedily and safely. During the night of the 11th and 12th fog prevented the ships from evacuating the troops from St. Valéry. By morning on the 12th the Germans had reached the sea cliffs to the south and the beach was under direct fire. White flags appeared in the town. The French corps capitulated at eight o’clock, and the remains of the Highland Division were forced to do so at 10.30 A.M. Only 1350 British officers and men and 930 French escaped; eight thousand fell into German hands. I was vexed that the French had not allowed our division to retire on Rouen in good time, but had kept it waiting till it could neither reach Havre nor retreat southward, and thus forced it to surrender with their own troops. The fate of the Highland Division was hard, but in after years not unavenged by those Scots who filled their places, re-created the division by merging it with the 9th Scottish, and marched across all the battlefields from Alamein to final victory beyond the Rhine.
Some lines of Dr. Charles Murray’s, written in the First World War, came into my mind, and it is fitting to print them here:
Half-mast the castle banner droops,
The Laird’s lament was played yestreen,
An’ mony a widowed cottar wife
Is greetin’ at her shank aleen.
In Freedom’s cause, for ane that fa’s,
We’ll glean the glens an’ send them three,
To clip the reivin’ eagle’s claws
An’ drook his feathers i’ the sea.
For gallant loons, in brochs an’ toons,
Are leavin’ shop an’ yaird an’ mill,
A’ keen to show baith friend an’ foe
Auld Scotland counts for something still.
* * * * *
About eleven o’clock the morning of June 11 there was a message from Reynaud, who had also cabled to the President. The French tragedy had moved and slid downward. For several days past I had pressed for a meeting of the Supreme Council. We could no longer meet in Paris. We were not told what were the conditions there. Certainly the German spearheads were very close. I had had some difficulty in obtaining a rendezvous, but this was no time to stand on ceremony. We must know what the French were going to do. Reynaud now told me that he could receive us at Briare, near Orléans. The seat of government was moving from Paris to Tours. Grand Quartier Général was near Briare. He specified the airfield to which I should come. Nothing loth, I ordered the Flamingo to be ready at Hendon after luncheon, and having obtained the approval of my colleagues at the morning Cabinet, we started about two o’clock. Before leaving I cabled to the President.
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Former Naval Person to President Roosevelt. |
11.VI.40. |
The French have sent for me again, which means that crisis has arrived. Am just off. Anything you can say or do to help them now may make the difference.
We are also worried about Ireland. An American Squadron at Berehaven would do no end of good, I am sure.
* * * * *
This was my fourth journey to France; and since military conditions evidently predominated, I asked the Secretary of State for War, Mr. Eden, to come with me, as well as General Dill, now C.I.G.S., and of course Ismay. The German aircraft were now reaching far down into the Channel, and we had to make a still wider sweep. As before, the Flamingo had an escort of twelve Hurricanes. After a couple of hours we alighted at a small landing-ground. There were a few Frenchmen about, and soon a colonel arrived in a motor-car. I displayed the smiling countenance and confident air which are thought suitable when things are very bad, but the Frenchman was dull and unresponsive. I realised immediately how very far things had fallen even since we were in Paris a week before. After an interval we were conducted to the chateau, where we found M. Reynaud, Marshal Pétain, General Weygand, the Air General Vuillemin, and some others, including the relatively junior General de Gaulle, who had just been appointed Under-Secretary for National Defence. Hard by on the railway was the Headquarters train, in which some of our party were accommodated. The château possessed but one telephone, in the lavatory. It was kept very busy, with long delays and endless shouted repetitions.
At seven o’clock we entered into conference. General Ismay kept a record. I merely reproduce my lasting impressions, which in no way disagree with it. There were no reproaches or recriminations. We were all up against brute facts. We British did not know where exactly the front line lay, and certainly there was anxiety about some dart by the German armour – even upon us. In effect, the discussion ran on the following lines: I urged the French Government to defend Paris. I emphasised the enormous absorbing power of the house-to-house defence of a great city upon an invading army. I recalled to Marshal Pétain the nights we had spent together in his train at Beauvais after the British Fifth Army disaster in 1918, and how he, as I put it, not mentioning Marshal Foch, had restored the situation. I also reminded him how Clemenceau had said, “I will fight in front of Paris, in Paris, and behind Paris.” The Marshal replied very quietly and with dignity that in those days he had a mass of manoeuvre of upwards of sixty divisions; now there was none. He mentioned that there were then sixty British divisions in the line. Making Paris into a ruin would not affect the final event.
Then General Weygand exposed the military position, so far as he knew it, in the fluid battle proceeding fifty or sixty miles away, and he paid a high tribute to the prowess of the French Army. He requested that every reinforcement should be sent – above all, that every British fighter air squadron should immediately be thrown into the battle. “Here,” he said, “is the decisive point. Now is the decisive moment. It is therefore wrong to keep any squadrons back in England.” But in accordance with the Cabinet decision, taken in the presence of Air Marshal Dowding, whom I had brought specially to a Cabinet meeting, I replied: “This is not the decisive point and this is not the decisive moment. That moment will come when Hitler hurls his Luftwaffe against Great Britain. If we can keep command of the air, and if we can keep the seas open, as we certainly shall keep them open, we will win it all back for you.” 4 Twenty-five fighter squadrons must be maintained at all costs for the defence of Britain and the Channel, and nothing would make us give up these. We intended to continue the war whatever happened, and we believed we could do so for an indefinite time, but to give up these squadrons would destroy our chance of life. At this stage I asked that General Georges, the Commander-in-Chief of the Northwestern Front, who was in the neighbourhood, should be sent for, and this was accordingly done.
Presently General Georges arrived. After being apprised of what had passed, he confirmed the account of the French front which had been given by Weygand. I again urged my guerrilla plan. The German Army was not so strong as might appear at their points of impact. If all the French armies, every division and brigade, fought the troops on their front with the utmost vigour, a general standstill might be achieved. I was answered by statements of the frightful conditions on the roads, crowded with refugees harried by unresisted machine-gun fire from the German aeroplanes, and of the wholesale flight of vast numbers of inhabitants and the increasing breakdown of the machinery of government and of military control. At one point General Weygand mentioned that the French might have to ask for an armistice. Reynaud at once snapped at him: “That is a political affair.” According to Ismay I said: “If it is thought best for France in her agony that her Army should capitulate, let there be no hesitation on our account, because whatever you may do we shall fight on forever and ever and ever.” When I said that the French Army, fighting on, wherever it might be, could hold or wear out a hundred German divisions, General Weygand replied: “Even if that were so, they would still have another hundred to invade and conquer you. What would you do then?” On this I said that I was not a military expert, but that my technical advisers were of opinion that the best method of dealing with German invasion of the island of Britain was to drown as many as possible on the way over and knock the others on the head as they crawled ashore. Weygand answered with a sad smile, “At any rate I must admit you have a very good anti-tank obstacle.” These were the last striking words I remember to have heard from him. In all this miserable discussion it must be borne in mind that I was haunted and undermined by the grief I felt that Britain, with her forty-eight million population, had not been able to make a greater contribution to the land war against Germany, and that so far nine-tenths of the slaughter and ninety-nine-hundredths of the suffering had fallen upon France and upon France alone.
After another hour or so we got up and washed our hands while a meal was brought to the conference table. In this interval I talked to General Georges privately, and suggested first the continuance of fighting everywhere on the home front and a prolonged guerrilla in the mountainous regions, and secondly the move to Africa, which a week before I had regarded as “defeatist.” My respected friend, who, although charged with much direct responsibility, had never had a free hand to lead the French armies, did not seem to think there was much hope in either of these.
I have written lightly of the happenings of these days, but here to all of us was real agony of mind and soul.
* * * * *
At about ten o’clock everyone took his place at the dinner. I sat on M. Reynaud’s right and General de Gaulle was on my other side. There was soup, an omelette or something, coffee and light wine. Even at this point in our awful tribulation under the German scourge we were quite friendly. But presently there was a jarring interlude. The reader will recall the importance I had attached to striking hard at Italy the moment she entered the war, and the arrangement that had been made with full French concurrence to move a force of British heavy bombers to the French airfields near Marseilles in order to attack Turin and Milan. All was now in readiness to strike. Scarcely had we sat down when Air Vice-Marshal Barratt, commanding the British Air Force in France, rang up Ismay on the telephone to say that the local authorities objected to the British bombers taking off, on the grounds that an attack on Italy would only bring reprisals upon the South of France, which the British were in no position to resist or prevent. Reynaud, Weygand, Eden, Dill, and I left the table, and, after some parleying, Reynaud agreed that orders should be sent to the French authorities concerned that the bombers were not to be stopped. But later that night Air Marshal Barratt reported that the French people near the airfields had dragged all kinds of country carts and lorries onto them, and that it had been impossible for the bombers to start on their mission.
Presently, when we left the dinner table and sat with some coffee and brandy, M. Reynaud told me that Marshal Pétain had informed him that it would be necessary for France to seek an armistice, and that he had written a paper upon the subject which he wished him to read. “He has not,” said Reynaud, “handed it to me yet. He is still ashamed to do it.” He ought also to have been ashamed to support even tacitly Weygand’s demand for our last twenty-five squadrons of fighters, when he had made up his mind that all was lost and that France should give in. Thus we all went unhappily to bed in this disordered chateau or in the military train a few miles away. The Germans entered Paris on the 14th.
* * * * *
Early in the morning we resumed our conference. Air Marshal Barratt was present. Reynaud renewed his appeal for five more squadrons of fighters to be based in France, and General Weygand said that he was badly in need of day bombers to make up for his lack of troops. I gave them an assurance that the whole question of increased air support for France would be examined carefully and sympathetically by the War Cabinet immediately I got back to London; but I again emphasised that it would be a vital mistake to denude the United Kingdom of its essential Home defences.
Towards the end of this short meeting I put the following specific questions:
(1) Will not the mass of Paris and its suburbs present an obstacle dividing and delaying the enemy as in 1914, or like Madrid?
(2) May this not enable a counter-stroke to be organised with British and French forces across the lower Seine?
(3) If the period of co-ordinated war ends, will that not mean an almost equal dispersion of the enemy forces? Would not a war of columns and [attacks] upon the enemy communications be possible? Are the enemy resources sufficient to hold down all the countries at present conquered as well as a large part of France, while they are fighting the French Army and Great Britain?
(4) Is it not possible thus to prolong the resistance until the United States come in?
General weygand, while agreeing with the conception of the counter-stroke on the lower Seine, said that he had inadequate forces to implement it. He added that, in his judgment, the Germans had got plenty to spare to hold down all the countries at present conquered as well as a large part of France. Reynaud added that the Germans had raised fifty-five divisions and had built four thousand to five thousand heavy tanks since the outbreak of war. This was of course an immense exaggeration of what they had built.
In conclusion, I expressed in the most formal manner my hope that if there was any change in the situation the French Government would let the British Government know at once, in order that they might come over and see them at any convenient spot, before they took any final decisions which would govern their action in the second phase of the war.
We then took leave of Pétain, Weygand, and the staff of G.Q.G., and this was the last we saw of them. Finally I took Admiral Darlan apart and spoke to him alone. “Darlan, you must never let them get the French Fleet.” He promised solemnly that he would never do so.
* * * * *
The morning was cloudy, thus making it impossible for the twelve Hurricanes to escort us. We had to choose between waiting till it cleared up or taking a chance in the Flamingo. We were assured that it would be cloudy all the way. It was urgently necessary to get back home. Accordingly we started alone, calling for an escort to meet us, if possible, over the Channel. As we approached the coast, the skies cleared and presently became cloudless. Eight thousand feet below us on our right hand was Havre, burning. The smoke drifted away to the eastward. No new escort was to be seen. Presently I noticed some consultations going on with the captain, and immediately after we dived to a hundred feet or so above the calm sea, where aeroplanes are often invisible. What had happened? I learned later that they had seen two German aircraft below us firing at fishing-boats. We were lucky that their pilots did not look upward. The new escort met us as we approached the English shore, and the faithful Flamingo alighted safely at Hendon.
* * * * *
At five o’clock that evening I reported to the War Cabinet the results of my mission.
I described the condition of the French armies as it had been reported to the conference by General Weygand. For six days they had been fighting night and day, and they were now almost wholly exhausted. The enemy attack, launched by one hundred and twenty divisions with supporting armour, had fallen on forty French divisions, which had been outmanoeuvred and outmatched at every point. The enemy’s armoured forces had caused great disorganisation among the headquarters of the higher formations, which were unwieldy and, when on the move, unable to exercise control over the lower formations. The French armies were now on the last line on which they could attempt to offer an organised resistance. This line had already been penetrated in two or three places; and, if it collapsed, General Weygand would not be responsible for carrying on the struggle.
General Weygand evidently saw no prospect of the French going on fighting, and Marshal Pétain had quite made up his mind that peace must be made. He believed that France was being systematically destroyed by the Germans, and that it was his duty to save the rest of the country from this fate. I mentioned his memorandum to this effect, which he had shown to Reynaud but had not left with him. “There could be no doubt,” I said, “that Pétain was a dangerous man at this juncture: he had always been a defeatist, even in the last war.” On the other hand, M. Reynaud had seemed quite determined to fight on, and General de Gaulle, who had attended the conference with him, was in favour of carrying on a guerrilla warfare. He was young and energetic and had made a very favourable impression on me. I thought it probable that, if the present line collapsed, Reynaud would turn to him to take command. Admiral Darlan also had declared that he would never surrender the French Navy to the enemy: in the last resort, he had said, he would send it over to Canada, but in this he might be overruled by the French politicians.
It was clear that France was near the end of organised resistance, and a chapter in the war was now closing. The French might by some means continue the struggle. There might even be two French Governments, one which made peace, and one which organised resistance from the French colonies, carrying on the war at sea through the French Fleet and in France through guerrillas. It was too early yet to tell. Though for a period we might still have to send some support to France, we must now concentrate our main efforts on the defence of our island.