In May 1940, Nazi Germany attacks in the West.
The Allied armies of France, Britain, Belgium, and the Netherlands have more men, guns,
and tanks than the Germans do – and the French army is considered the best in the
world. But in just 6 weeks, German forces shock the world and smash the Allies. So how
did Germany win so convincingly, so fast? When Germany invaded Poland in 1939,
Britain and France declared war. But the Western Allies do little as the
German and Soviet armies crush the Poles, and German Chancellor Adolf Hitler is al-ready
planning his next move. He’s in a hurry, since his alliance of convenience with the USSR
might be short-lived, and the Allies aren’t yet ready for war . On September 27, Hitler tells
the High Command he wants to attack France in a month. Nearly all German generals, like
Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb, are stunned: “The French will not be surprised. They know
very well that if the Germans attack they must do so through Belgium. So [the French]
will be vigilant. Our bloody sacrifice will be great […] an attack on France cannot
be done like the attack on Poland, rather it will be arduous and very costly.” (Leeb 184)
Hitler ignores his generals’ warnings and orders them to start planning an offensive to capture
neu-tral Belgium and the Netherlands, and occupy enough of northern France to be able to strike at
Britain. The start date is moved to November 25. Chief of the Army General Staff Franz Halder
quickly prepares a cautious plan , with the main German advance through central
Belgium. But Hitler is frustrated: “This is just the old Schlieffen Plan
with a strong right wing along the Atlantic coast – one cannot get away with such
an operation a second time.” (Görlitz, S. 226) The back-and-forth between army
planners and Hitler lasts for months, during which time the of-fensive is delayed
29 times. Hitler leans ever more towards the idea of concentrating the relatively few German
armoured and motorized divisions for a strike through the thickly-forested Ardennes region,
cutting off Allied forces if, as expected, they enter Belgium. Army brass think it’s too
risky. Unbeknownst to Hitler, General Erich von Manstein also favours the Ardennes route for
what comes to be known as the Sichelschnitt or sickle cut plan but the army command throttles it.
Then, in January 1940, a German Messerschmitt 108 “Taifun” carrying the plan crashes in Belgium,
forcing the Germans to change it yet again. Finally, on February 24, 1940, the final plan
is approved – one that weakens Manstein’s idea of a double pincer from north and south : Army
Group B will simply pin the Allies in the north, while the southern Army Group A will
lead the attack through the Ardennes, cross the Meuse river at Sedan, and race for the
town of Abbeville, where the river Somme meets the sea. This is a risky plan, with precious armour
moving through dangerous narrow forest roads, and advancing with long vulnerable flanks.
Army Group B commander General Fedor von Bock tells Halder the plan is dangerous:
“You will be creeping by 10 miles from the Maginot Line with the flank of your breakthrough
and hope the French will watch inertly! You are cramming the mass of the tank units together into
the sparse roads of the Ardennes mountain country, as if there were no such thing as air power! And
you then hope to be able to lead an operation as far as the coast with an open southern
flank 200 miles long, where stands the mass of the French Army?” (Frieser Cambridge
- “The War in the West 1939-1940” - 297) Meanwhile, the French and British are making
plans as well, though international politics make things difficult. French and British planners
are confident in the Maginot Line, and expect the Germans will attack through neutral Belgium and
the Netherlands. The Dutch and Bel-gians though refuse to make detailed plans for Franco-British
forces to enter their territory and cooperate with their armies in the hopes of not provoking the
Germans. Nonetheless, this is still the focus of the Allies’ Plan D. The best French units
and the British Expeditionary Force will move into the Low Countries if the Germans attack, and
try to stop them along the Dyle river, the Albert Canal and forts like Eben Emael. Plan D is also
risky: Allied forces won’t have the initiative, they will be advancing into the teeth of an
enemy offensive, and the hinge of their line, the Ar-dennes, remains thinly defended since they
consider it impassable for large armored forces. French intelligence reports point to the Ardennes,
but the High Command does nothing. There is also no strategic reserve since the 7th French Army
is to advance into the Netherlands – politically useful but militarily questionable.
On the eve of battle, the Germans have 2.8 million men, 7500 guns, 4000 planes, and
2700 tanks and self-propelled guns on the Western Front. But only 16 of 157 German divisions are
motorized. The Allies, including the still-neutral Dutch and Belgians, have 3.7 million men,
14,000 guns, 3000 planes, and 3700 tanks. So with the Germans hoping
for a daring Sichelschnitt, the Allies plan an uncertain advance
into the Low Countries. On May 10, 1940, the Germans launch Case Yellow, a campaign that
would shock the world and the Germans themselves. The Germans pour across the border into the Low
Countries. They want to give the impres-sion their main strike is in the Netherlands, and they
even use troops in Dutch uniforms to seize bridges by surprise. German paradrops at Dutch airports
mostly fail though thanks to the Dutch army. But in general, the Dutch offer little resistance.
On May 14, the Luftwaffe bombs the port city of Rotterdam to terrify the Dutch into surrendering,
and it works. The attacks kill 800 civil-ians (though in the chaos the Dutch government thinks
30,000 have been killed), and leave parts of the city in ruins – the Dutch government
flees and the army surrenders on May 15. Belgian troops also pull back quickly, though a
few Belgian units don’t receive the retreat order, and manage to hold up German tanks for several
hours, a lesson Allied commanders miss in the confusion. When Franco-British troops belatedly
start to move in the evening, their progress is slow on roads choked with fleeing refugees. The
Belgians hope that Fort Eben Emael will hinder the Germans, but despite the Belgians giving
the German air- and glider-borne troops a tough fight, the attackers prevail on May 11.
Further south, in the critical Ardennes, the Germans advance but encounter problems. The
panzers are held up by blown bridges and road blocks, and form massive traffic jams up to 250km
behind the front. Only now do the French realize the scale of the attack in the Ardennes. Local
commanders requested reinforcements days ago, but none came . Now, French Commander in Chief
Maurice Gamelin quickly sends 3 divisions to help. Some Allied commanders fear their ar-mies
might be walking into a trap in Belgium , but Gamelin expects it will take the horse-drawn
German artillery nine days to reach the Meuse, and that it's too late to shift major forces
south . On May 12, while a major tank battle rages at Hannut in which 630 German tanks defeat
a French force of 470, the Germans reach the river farther south. General Erwin Rommel’s 7th
Armoured Division and Heinz Guderian’s XIX Corps both prepare to cross. In an ominous sign,
French units facing Guderian withdraw without a fight. Many German tanks are the relatively
weak Panzer I, II, and 38t’s, but they’re arrived en masse with the element of surprise.
Oberstleutnant Hermann Black notes the mindset of French some prisoners: “The French are per-forming
worse than poorly. When asked why they are at war with us, prisoners say ‘Because Eng-land
and the rich want war. We’re not waging war, war is being waged with us.’ Their eyes glow
with hate when they speak of England. The French were never this bad before.” (Tagebuch Black)
On May 13, German infantry and recon cavalry cross the Meuse at Dinant and Sedan. The French
can’t deal with the speed of the German advance, as one captured French general frankly admits:
“You are much too fast, much too fast for us. It’s everything.” (Frieser 278) Even before
the crossing, rumours spread amongst French troops that the Germans are already behind
them, causing some units to break and flee. German success is due not only to the
armoured punch through the Ardennes, but also air power. The Luftwaffe consistently
hits Allied columns, although air losses are very heavy on both sides. Aircraft like the
Ju-87 Stuke dive bomber pound French defences on the Meuse before ground troops get across.
German tanks cross the Meuse on the 14th, but have taken losses – some units are down
to ¼ strength, and lack ammunition and fuel. French forces prepare to counterattack the still
fragile bridgeheads, and if they don’t succeed, half of the Allied troops – and their best,
motorized units – will be cut off to the north. The crisis at the front is being felt
in London and Paris as well. On May 10, Prime Minster Neville Chamberlain resigns and is
replaced by Winston Churchill. A few days later, French Premier Paul Reynaud recalls General
Maxime Weygand from Syria to take over command of the army, and ap-points Charles De Gaulle
Deputy Minister of Defence. But he also asks First World War hero Philippe Petain to be deputy
premier – even though Petain thinks the war is lost and blames Britain for starting it. Reynaud
desperately requests 10 more British fighter squadrons be sent to France. Churchill wants to
send them but the British cabinet is worried about home defence and only agrees to 4. Some in London
have lost hope in the French army, especially when Gamelin ad-mits he has no strategic reserve.
On the 15th, the Germans break out of their bridgeheads and advance up to 65km by
even-ing . Gamelin recognizes the danger, and orders Allied troops in Belgium to retreat.
General von Bock wants to press his Army Group B’s advantage in Belgium, but Army High Command
wor-ries that might ruin the Sickle Cut. Both Army Groups stop for three days, to keep the
northern Al-lied armies in the developing pocket and so infantry can catch up to protect the
flanks against ex-pected French counterattacks: a problem Manstein’s version of the plan
had foreseen. Al-lied commanders though, don’t take advantage. When a French general admits
he has no idea what to do against the panzers, British General Henry Pownall loses his
cool: “My God, how awful to be allied to so temperamental a race.” (Jackson 86)
On the other hand, an engagement at the village of Stonne shows what French armour is
capable of, and why German commanders hesitate: Captain Pierre Billotte’s Char B1 bis destroys 11
Panzer IIIs, 2 Panzer IVs, and 2 anti-tank guns, one of the most remarkable single tank actions of
the war. Despite Billotte’s heroics and the delay, on May 20, the 2nd Panzer Division reaches the
sea at Abbeville. They catch many French troops unprepared, or in shock from contin-uous
air attack. Leutnant Alexander Stahlberg marvels at the destruction: “[The streets
were] lined with the wreckage of a defeated French army. Shot up vehicles, pierced
and burnt out tanks, abandoned cannon, a neverending chain of destruction.” (Beevor 114)
More than 1 million British and French troops are trapped north of the Somme, and
the RAF has lost 1/4 of its strength. The Allies desperately organize a double
counterattack to hit the German flanks, but it’s not clear who is in command of the cut
off forces, and the Germans are moving fast. Anglo-French forces do manage an effective
attack near Arras on May 21 and 22 including Matilda tanks, but the hard-pressed Germans
hold them off. Allied forces begin a fighting retreat to the port of Dunkirk for evacuation –
a British decision that many French resent. The Germans are worried about more counterattacks
from the south, so von Rundstedt asks Hitler to pause the advance on Dunkirk, and on May 24
Hitler agrees. This is a much-debated decision. Later in the war, Hitler will try to cover up this
mistake and say he wanted to avoid humiliating Brit-ain in view of peace talks. After the war,
von Runstedt will say Hitler gives the order, but this is a lie – in reality, von Rundstedt
gives the order to stop but tells his subordinates the order came from Hitler so they will obey.
So why does von Rundstedt stop the tanks before Dunkirk? He wants his tanks to prepare for an
Allied counterattack from Dunkirk; he wants his infantry to have time to move up to the Somme line
in case the French counterattack from the south; Panzer commander von Kleist thinks the area
around Dunkirk isn’t suitable for tanks; he wants 4th Army to secure Arras before
attacking Dun-kirk; and von Rundstedt, Hitler and the Navy high command all think a
speedy evacuation of the BEF is impossible. This means there’s no need to waste precious
Panzer IIIs or IVs on Dunkirk when they can be used against the French in the south –
and the Germans have already lost 600 tanks. The Germans ex-pect the artillery and Luftwaffe
can destroy Allied forces in the pocket and 4th Army can then mop up. But the German pause is not
the only reason the BEF makes it out . On May 25, British troops capture a German staff vehicle
carrying documents detailing the location of the next Ger-man attacks. Lord Gort promptly
sends reinforcements, which prevent the Germans from cutting off most British forces from
Dunkirk – a move that may have saved the BEF. Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of the BEF and
French forces from Dunkirk, begins May 26 – and the BBC’s call for private boats to help follows
the next day. On the beaches and in the ships, there is chaos as German aircraft pound the
helpless men below. Quartermaster Frank Hurrell is among the wounded: “I got on a boat just after
seven that evening, and in the course of loading, an air raid came in. The ship got struck and I
found myself blown into the water. There were about 30 of us in the water. I could only
doggy paddle because of my wounded leg, but I trod water, and got myself back on the
beach [to] wait for my chance again.” (Levine 187) Around the town, British and French units
fight sacrificial rearguard actions to keep the Germans at bay. The last men escape on June
4, and in all about 700 British and 160 French vessels of all types manage to evacuate 193,000
British and 145,000 French troops. 88,000 mostly French troops defending the evacuation route are
forced to surrender. German aircraft manage to sink 20 Allied warships and damage dozens more.
Saving the BEF is an even more remarkable feat given the sudden surrender of the Belgian army
on May 28 – without consulting the British or French. King Leopold controversially decides to
give up and become a prisoner of the Germans. Even though the Allies do not plan to evacuate
Belgian troops, they’re outraged: Reynaud calls King Leopold a pig, and former British
Prime Minister David Lloyd George calls his actions “[a] sample of perfidy and poltroonery.”
The collapse of the Allied front also worsens tensions in London and Paris. Weygand and Petain
pressure Reynaud to pursue a separate peace with Germany, but he refuses. British Foreign Minis-ter
Halifax suggests peace talks via neutral Italy, but Churchill won’t hear of it: “Even if
we are de-feated, we won’t be any worse off than if we stop fighting now. We must avoid being
dragged into the abyss with France.” (Beevor 133) With the BEF and best French units either
evacuated without their heavy weapons or captured, the Germans now turned their
attention to the rest of the French army. South of the Allied disaster at Dunkirk, the
front line runs along the Somme and Aisne rivers, and the Germans already have several bridgeheads.
The Abbeville bridgehead threatens the remaining ports which the 2nd BEF needs for supply.
Churchill has ordered 300,000 fresh British troops to France despite the risks, to, as he says, give
the French the feeling they’re not alone . General Alan Brooke is not impressed: “It’s impossible
to give a corpse any kind of feeling, and the French army is in fact dead.” (Beevor 143)
But there is some fight in the French yet. On May 27, the French 7th Army attacks
the Abbeville bridgehead – a battle that includes units of Charles de Gaulle’s
division and Manstein’s corps . The B1 bis tanks cause some German units to panic, but
several 88mm German anti-aircraft batteries used in a ground role stop the piecemeal Allied
armoured attacks and pre-serve the bridgehead. The Germans launch Case Red on June 5. Their
plan is to cross the Somme and the Aisne, and quickly drive south to break the French army
before it can reorganize. First, Army Group B’s three armies will advance to the Seine, Oise and
Aisne rivers near Paris. Then, Army Groups A and B will strike the main blow east of Paris towards
Troyes and Saint-Dizier. Army Group C will then start the third phase by breaking the Maginot
Line at Saarbrücken and continue the fourth phase by crossing the Rhine at Colmar.
And the Germans now have twice as many divisions as the Allies. Weygand calls on French
troops to defend their positions to the death, since the fate of France depends on the coming
battle. He also introduces a new defensive tactic to defeat deep penetrations of German
armour. French troops build so-called Hérissons, or Hedgehogs – fortified village and forest
positions meant for all-round defence. These are to hold up German infantry, while Allied tanks are
to take on German armour when it breaks through. At first, the Hedgehogs work, as Luftwaffe
General von Richthofen writes in his diary: “What looked this morning like a success, turned
out to be nothing. The French are hard and tough. They’ve forti-fied all villages. Our tanks drive
through [but] the French lay low and pop up when our infantry tries to follow the tanks. The
infantry can’t screen for the tanks, so the tanks just drive on without them. […] [The infantry]
can’t make progress against the all-round defence of the villages. That’s how everything
bogs down.” (Tagebuch Richthofen, BA-MA) On June 5 and 6, there’s heavy fighting south of
the Somme – many French troops obey Weygand and fight to the death. In some places, the Germans
also murder French African colonial soldiers after they’ve surrendered – overall in the campaign,
SS ad Wehrmacht troops kill at least 3000 French African and nearly 200 British and French
prisoners, and several massacres of civil-ians like at Vinkt and Oignies . (Scheck, S. 11, 63,
169 ) At one of the massacres of African troops, a German officer explains his actions to
a French counterpart: “An inferior race does not deserve to fight such a civilizing
race as the German race.” (Fargettas 457) On June 6 though, the Germans break through along
the Chemin des Dames and cross the Aisne, and cross the Somme in two places. Allied units
along the Somme estuary retreat to the river Bresle. Again, the German tanks are too fast,
and they outflank the new Allied position by nightfall. On the 7th, General Hermann Hoth’s
panzers reach the crossroads at Forges-les-Eaux, a move that splits the French 10th Army in two.
Hoth wants to press on towards the river Seine and Rouen, but his superiors are nervous about
his flanks, since Allied resistance holds up Germa-ny infantry . Rommel, however, orders
his 7th division to race to the Seine without waiting for permission – not the only time German
commanders improvise aggressively in the campaign. The French blow the Rouen bridges in time, but
Hoth’s breakthrough forces a general retreat which damages Allied morale. The Germans note that even
French armoured units that could have caused them problems avoid engagements, like at Haute Epine:
“[The] regiment met several lone enemy tanks, which retreated as soon as fired upon. Some
crews left their vehicles without defending themselves.” (Bericht der 1. Kavallerie-Division
über den Feld-zug im Westen, BA-MA) On June 9 the second phase of Case Red begins.
Here as well, the Germans find many French fight hard – Army Group A reports mention effective
French artillery fire and organized defences. But other parts of the French army are
crumbling, as a French staff officer notes: “A stunned and haggard herd, complete mixture
of units, regiments, and services […] it’s not so much a question of morale […] these
people are disoriented, they don’t know what’s happening to them. The sight of an
airplane terrifies them.” (Crem Bril 294) Soon, the Germans break through everywhere.
Guderian’s panzers race south from the Aisne into the French rear, Manstein’s infantry cross
the Seine, and 9th Army reaches the river Marne, which they cross the next day. The British decide
the military situation is hopeless and withdraw the 200,000 men of the 2nd BEF. Weygand declares
the war is lost and France must make peace, but Reynaud tells him to fight on: “You are
taking Hitler for Wilhelm I, the old gentleman who took Al-sace-Lorraine from us, and that was
that. But Hitler is Genghis Khan.” (Jackson 103) The Germans enter Paris on June 14, the same day
the 3rd and 4th phases of the German offensive begin. Verdun, symbol of French resistance
in the First World War, falls on the 16th; and the Ger-mans reach the river Loire and the
Swiss border. The French army is in tatters. Politically, the news is all bad for the
Allies. On June 10, Italy declares war on them, and Norway surrenders. By the 16th, most
French cabinet ministers want an armistice, and Petain threatens to resign if Reynaud doesn’t
ask for one – a fatal blow to the government. Rey-naud asks President Roosevelt for help, but
receives only empathy. London proposes that France and Britain unite as one state to continue the
war, but Petain suspects it’s a British plot to take French colonies and calls it a marriage to a
corpse. He also wants peace to avoid a potential Com-munist uprising. Reynaud resigns, Petain
becomes Premier and asks for an armistice the next day. Some Frenchmen do want to resist – like de
Gaulle, who makes a radio broadcast from Eng-land calling on his countrymen to continue the fight.
Few hear him on that day, but that will change. While armistice negotiations begin,
Mussolini decides he wants an Italian victory before the war ends. On June 21,
22 Italian divisions attack in the Alps, but just 6 French divisions don’t let them
get far. To preserve Italian feelings, the Germans send air and ground forces to hit the
French from behind, and there is heavy fighting in the mountains June 23 and 24. Finally, on
June 25, 1940, the armistice takes effect. The Battle of France lasts 46 days and
takes the lives of 2900 Dutch, 7500 Belgian, 12,500 British, and 59,000 French, 45,000 German,
and 1250 Italian soldiers. Nearly 30,000 French, Dutch, and Belgian civilians die, while 8
million become refugees. Over 2 million French and Belgian soldiers become prisoners of war.
The material destruction reflects the scale of the German victory: The Germans
lose 1800 planes and the Allies 3020; the Germans lose 839 tanks and the Allies 3300.
Almost immediately, debates raged about why the German victory was so fast and so complete.
General Gamelin blames the cowardice of the soldiers, De Gaulle says that the army was
used improperly, and Petain that the country was spiritually weak. Officer, historian, and
later re-sistance fighter Marc Bloch emphasizes the incompetence of the High Command.
In the end, the Allies failed in the field because they could not react to the speed
and power of the concentrated German armour; they underestimated the effects of tactical
air power; they could not coordinate their actions to exploit German errors; and suffered
from infighting and partial loss of morale. The German victory shocks Allied governments
and publics – including the neutral US, which recon-siders its global security - and comes
as a welcome surprise at home. German propaganda cele-brates the triumph as a Blitzkrieg by the
tanks – an image that persist until today even though the infantry did most the fighting.
German leaders now overestimate their own abilities and military strength, and
since Hitler’s pres-tige is at its peak few will question him from now on.
German leaders overlook their mistakes, like exposing their flanks and lacking ammunition
supplies, because they got away with them. France is lost, but the war is not
over. Britain is determined to fight, as are De Gaulle’s Free French. Germany has
already begun its next offensives: the skies of England fill with German aircraft, and planners
in Berlin turn their attention to the East. Not even 5 years after the Battle of France, the
tide had turned dramatically for Nazi Germany. American, British and Free French troops were
crossing the German border and approaching the Rhine River while the Red Army was about to
cross the Oder and storm the Reich capital Berlin where Hitler holds out in his bunker.
If you are interested in these last weeks of the Second World War – which don’t always get
the attention in traditional documentaries that they deserve – we produced two series with a
total runtime of over 8 hours. Rhineland 45 covers the last set piece battle in the West, the
Allied advance into the lower Rhine region and the eventual crossing of the Rhine. 16 Days in Berlin
is a day-by-day retelling of the Battle of Berlin, the dramatic climax of World War 2 in Europe.
Both series use detailed maps and animations, feature expert interviews and were filmed
on original locations. Unfortunately, we can’t upload these documentaries to YouTube
because of their uncomprosing portrayal of the Second World War. So where can you watch 16 Days
in Berlin and Rhineland 45 ad-free and in 4k Resolution? On Nebula, a streaming service we are
building together with other creators and where we don’t have to worry about YouTube’s algorithm or
advertising guidelines. Nebula features many more original documentaries like the Battle of Britain
series by Real Engineering. I can highly recommend it if you are curious about the next phase of
World War 2 after the Battle of France. And that’s not all, on Nebula you can also watch all our
content ad-free and earlier than on YouTube – and it works in your browser, smartphone or Smart
TV. If you sign up at nebula.tv/realtimehistory you can get 40% off an annual subscription for
just $30. Again, that’s nebula.tv/realtimehistory As usual you can find all the sources for
this episode in the video description below. If you are watching this video on Nebula or
Patreon, thank you so much for the support, we couldn’t do it without you. I am Jesse
Alexander and this is a production of Real Time History, the only history channel that
is not a sample of perfidy and poltroonery.
