From Dunkirk to Benghazi

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Text originally published in 1941 under the same title.

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Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

FROM DUNKIRK TO BENGHAZI

BY

STATEGICUS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

DEDICATION 4

PREFACE 5

MAPS 7

CHAPTER 1—THE BATTLE OF FRANCE 8

The Battle of the Somme 9

The Battle of France 15

Breakdown 20

CHAPTER 2—FRANCE SURRENDERS 23

CHAPTER 3—THE FALL OF FRANCE 34

CHAPTER 4—THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN 42

The French Fleet 44

Preparations for Invasion 46

The First Air Raids 47

Guns in the Straits 48

Invasion—German Propaganda Barrage 49

The August Air Offensive 50

CHAPTER 5—MARE NOSTRUM 57

Fall of Kassala 63

Capture of Moyale 64

‘Bartolomeo Colleoni’ Sunk 64

The Conquest of British Somaliland 65

CHAPTER 6—THE ATTACK UPON LONDON 68

CHAPTER 7—ITALY INVADES EGYPT 77

CHAPTER 8—THE BRITISH COUNTER-AIR OFFENSIVE 82

CHAPTER 9—THE WORKING OF SEA POWER 93

The Dakar Episode 99

CHAPTER 10—INTERLUDE 102

CHAPTER 11—ITALY INVADES GREECE 106

The Attack on Taranto 114

Admiral Somerville’s Appendix to Taranto 115

CHAPTER 12—THE ATTACK ON ENGLISH CITIES 117

Attempt to Fire London 119

Army and Air Force Co-operation 121

CHAPTER 13—THE PROGRESS OF THE BRITISH COUNTER-OFFENSIVE 124

The Invasion Ports 130

CHAPTER 14—GENERAL WAVELL STRIKES 133

Sidi Barrani 135

Bardia 138

Recoil in Abyssinia 142

Tobruk 143

CHAPTER 15—THE OUTLOOK 147

CHAPTER 16—CYRENAICA EPILOGUE 152

Benghazi 153

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 157

DEDICATION

To M.

but for whom this book would never have been written

PREFACE

This book is a sequel to The War for World Power and proceeds on the same method. It is an attempt to select, now, what will prove to be the significant features of the war and, dealing with them episodically, to group about them the events which are logically connected with them. It carries the story of the war from the tragedy and glory of Dunkirk across the Libyan desert to Benghazi, where the latent promise of Dunkirk justified itself.

Its theme has almost a secular importance. In the months it covers, Hitler’s threat to the present world economy was more openly disclosed. In them, too, was fought out the most novel battle in the history of the world, a long-drawn out, skilful and most pitiless attack upon this country, by means of the weapon upon which the real architect of Germany’s armed might had lavished all his great powers of organization and upon which he depended for success in the enslavement of Europe and ultimately the world. A memorable conflict, summed up memorably by the Prime Minister.

This aspect of the war is more difficult to describe than any other. It seems to carry the art of warfare back to the barren matter of machines, mass and momentum which, in the teaching of all the great masters, are subsidiary to the real dominant, morale, upon which the decision of this battle turned. When all credit is paid to the honest craftsmanship and the old-fashioned prejudice for solid work, it must be admitted that it was the human skill and the human courage of a comparatively small number of men that proved decisive. They very rarely fought, if at all, except at great odds, and they never failed to inflict more damage than they received. If only for that episode, this would, indeed, deserve to be recorded as Britain’s most perfect hour.

But while this episode is the central feature of these months, they have a variety, a colour and movement, they traverse such strange deeps of emotion, that it seems to lose itself in the background of our thoughts, though it makes so big an impression on the printed page. The problem of Sea Power, without which the strategy of Britain and her allies cannot be conceived, makes hardly any impact on our thoughts; while the occasional battle at sea which is, after all, merely a small part of its overt effect, fires the imagination and satisfies the mind. The air war would be similarly disregarded were it not that the nightly raids of the enemy keep it on the threshold of consciousness.

There may, however, be some justification for the tendency to relegate these fundamentals to the background of the mind in a period that has witnessed the eclipse of the nation that for centuries had appeared to be recognized as the shrine of our civilization. Many books have been written to disclose to a wondering world why France fell; but the secret remains hidden from our eyes, and the present writer cannot pretend to reveal any convincing explanation. The reason for the defeat of the French Army is a different matter. Much more is now known about the immediate antecedents of the surrender. They do not serve to make the amazing any more credible; but they tend to throw back the decision to the events that produced the disaster of Dunkirk. It was then that the real battle of France was fought and lost; the battles which began on June the 5th and ended with the Armistice simply recorded the decision.

This volume, therefore, begins with an anti-climax, one of the most tragic anti-climaxes in the history of the world. It ends perforce with a question. When Hitler failed in his attempt to break the strength and spirit of Britain in the autumn, he saw the writing on the wall. He, or the brain that thinks, decides and organizes for him, at once began to prepare an alternative plan. He realized that his main chance of winning the war had failed. It had depended upon preparing so great a force that the unprepared democracies would be certain to be crushed by it at once. When France fell, he thought he had won; so also did France. When he realized that he had still to win, he carried out the attack upon Britain, at first with confidence then with desperation. When he saw that he had failed, he recognized the possibility that the British Empire, with the assistance of the biggest industrial unit in the world, would rearm at full speed. The formidableness of Germany is shown by the rapidity with which Göring set himself to rearm more quickly.

It is this factor of time that poses the question. Will the United States be able to turn her industrial machine over to war production in time to provide us with greater numbers of aeroplanes of all sorts, and with sufficient destroyers and munitions before Hitler strikes again? Will America, that is to say, be able to assist us effectively before we have endured the greater suffering which the new German attempt is likely to inflict upon us?

One thing this period has shown that may be of enduring value, may, indeed, last long after Hitler has passed to the shades. It has shown something of what the human spirit is capable. Under the incessant and most brutal hammering of Hitler, the spirit of Britain has toughened. That, perhaps, contains the suggestion of the reply to all the heady, primitive, militarist theories that if sufficient preparation is made and the blow is struck unexpectedly with sufficient violence, the spirit of the attacked will falter and fail. Military history, this past century, has been revolving about how to make the preparation, how to deliver the blow. Göring is merely the latest to think he has found the prescription. It seems almost certain that we can now say he has failed; and with that failure may pass the evil tradition of an epoch.

MAPS

1. The Position at the opening of the Battle of the Somme

2. The Situation in France on 13th June 1940

3. The Division of France

4. The Campaign in Africa

5. A Map to illustrate the Campaign against Greece

6. The Battle of Sidi Barrani

7. The Advance upon Benghazi

All the maps in this book have been reproduced by kind permission of the Editor of the Daily Telegraph.

CHAPTER 1—THE BATTLE OF FRANCE

There are events in history which attract little notice at the time but draw their importance from the effects they produce. There are others which focus worldwide attention but are seen later to have produced singularly little effect. There are a rare few which, though rapid in their development, hold everyone’s mind in painful suspense, are recognized as certain to have a profound influence but, of which the full quality is not known till long after they have run their fatal course. Of such is the Battle of France.

The evacuation of the Allied troops from Dunkirk was complete on June the 4th; and it is probable that few if any divined its full meaning. It came at the end of a series of great German victories and seemed to throw all in the shade. It was, as Mr. Churchill said, with his extraordinary facility for choosing the just phrase, ‘a miracle of deliverance’ and at the same time a colossal military disaster. But it was impossible to grasp the full implication of that event. The Prime Minister hinted at the possibility of invasion; and, if the Germans had what they above all things lack, then was the time to cross the Channel. The magnitude of the events had stunned everyone; and the returning troops, with the sensation of man to man ascendancy, seemed to be inclined to think that now was the time to take a rest. They had lost almost all their equipment, and there had to be a pause before they could be prepared for battle. The units had also to be made up to full strength. The flower of the army was in disorder; and no-one can say what would have happened if the Germans had made an attempt to land. The odds are that it was the best chance they are ever likely to have.

It is possible now to see that no-one had reacted to the crisis with sufficient rapidity. The size, the speed and ruthlessness of the campaign had numbed everyone’s feelings; and it was impossible to estimate, while the result was of value, the precise nature of the immediate foreground. General Smuts said, later on, what was the general feeling of the more reflective: Dunkirk had shown the limitations of the German machine. The armies of General von Kluge, who had commanded the German army in Pomerania, and General von Blaskowitz, who was in charge of the army which marched upon Warsaw from the south-west, with two armoured units, had had the sole duty of surrounding and destroying the Belgian, British and French group of armies in the north, while General von Witzleben and General von Bock, who had commanded the northern group of armies in the Polish campaign, held off the French right flank on the Somme and Aisne. The four armies were under the command of General von Rundstedt who had commanded the southern and much larger of the two army groups in Poland. In pursuance of the Schlieffen plan the two first armies would have been the stronger; and yet with all the advantage of surprise, of immense superiority in armoured units and in aeroplanes they could not destroy the British Army though they put it out of action for the critical time.

It was natural, but it was a mistake to rest content with that lesson. It is quite true that the German machine, having pushed the British and French remnants into an intolerable position, after the surrender of the Belgian Army, could not finish off the work. At the final test, human moral had beaten the machine. But these reflections served at the time to conceal the immediate problem. What was not grasped at that moment was the great disparity between the residue of the French Forces and the Germans; and although too much emphasis is commonly placed upon numbers, it was evident that, even during the defence of the Channel ports to cover the evacuation, the French armies could not clear the German bridgeheads south of the Somme. That was an admission of gross effective inferiority that could not be concealed. The development of events overtook everyone’s thoughts. For, instead of attempting an invasion of Britain, the Germans, on the very morrow of the completion of the Dunkirk evacuation, launched their blow against France on the Somme and the Aisne; and there began that series of hopeless struggles that was to lead to the debacle of June the 16th.

But the spectacle that was seen was much less poignant than the real struggle, since in reality all the fighting was wasted. The tragedy of the Battle of France was that it was all over before it began. It was an ironic anti-climax. This was not appreciated for a long time, because the usual band of critics at once set about to prove that the defeat was due to immense superiority of numbers, of ‘power units’, of both; whereas it was later obvious that all these matters had been decided, as far as they could be decided, in the battles in Flanders.

The Battle of the Somme

The evacuation had just been completed when the Germans opened the next phase by mass attacks upon aerodromes and factories in the Paris area which caused a great deal more damage than was announced at the time. It was glorious summer weather, and at high noon the Parisians were taking life as easily as they could under the strain of preoccupation with the war when the German aeroplanes appeared high overhead and unloaded their bombs. They were challenged and there were many spirited battles in the air; but they were soon over and then it was realized how great was the damage. It was at dawn on June the 5th that the ground attack opened on the French positions between the sea and the Laon-Soissons road, a front of about 110 miles. In its initial stage, the attack appeared to revert to the battles of the nineteenth century. There was a short artillery bombardment, directed mainly on the front lines, and then massed infantry pressed forward to the assault, assisted in some places by dive-bombers.

The positions upon which the Allies then stood were popularly known as the ‘Weygand line’. They were, in fact, little more than the resultant of the two pressures of the opposing armies, a line of unstable equilibrium which the Allies had not dared and the Germans had not wished to challenge during the fortnight in which the German right wing had been trying to surround and capture the Belgian-British-French Armies of the north. General Weygand had devoted his energies to the task of giving depth to his position and extracting from it its full natural strength.

The line of demarcation was strong in itself. It rested on the Channel coast, at the estuary of the Somme; and, south of Abbeville, the French commanded the southern shore of the estuary. A week before, they had attempted to capture the bridgehead at Abbeville; but had been able to do no more than reduce it, though at one time they had held a precarious footing on the north bank. From Abbeville the line followed the Somme. The marshy river-bed and the canal, which is its shadow, provided a strong double line on this sector. At Amiens the Germans still held the bridgehead across the river from which they threatened Beauvais. Such a door in the defences was a critical weakness. Beauvais, lying on the main road running from Rouen to Compiègne, Soissons and Reims, was of capital importance since its capture would sever the lateral communications behind the front, and give possession of the important road junction for Paris, forty-five miles to the south.

From Amiens to Péronne the river continued its course through the marshy ground to the southward bend at Ham where the front left the river to follow the Crozat Canal to a point south-west of La Fère. There it met and followed the Oise in a south-westerly direction for a few miles to the Oise-Aisne canal which it followed in an easterly direction covering Compiègne and Soissons. Reaching the Aisne it followed the river to Attigny where it ran eastward to cross the Meuse north of Stenay. Thence it followed the Chiers to the Maginot Line at Longwy. From this town to Valery en Caux the line, as held, measured about 225 miles, most of the distance on the rivers Somme and Aisne. The sector from Attigny to the Meuse covered the hilly wooded country of the Argonne. Between the Somme and the Aisne lay thirty miles of important country which was also to some extent a weakness. At Péronne and Ham, as well as at Amiens, the Germans had succeeded in retaining bridgeheads south of the river and since, following the Schlieffen plan, this was the operative wing of the German thrust, these were of vital importance.

Nevertheless the line was one of considerable natural strength; and, in spite of the weaknesses implied by the German bridgeheads, it had been made as strong as time would permit by the skilful organization of natural features—river-lines, woods and hills; the digging of tank traps and the fortification of abandoned villages and quarries. It was a deep defensive though not the tactical defensive in depth, the essence of which was its dynamic, the use of fortified points as arrests and centres of manœuvre for immediate or organized counterattack. The French Army had not had time, and it no longer commanded the numbers to base its defence upon immediate, still less upon prepared, counterattack, though units here and there, drawing confidence from the resolution of the local command, reacted with a violence which, universally applied, would have saved France. The function of the depth was to permit of rounding up the tanks which might penetrate the forward infantry zone.

It is very difficult to say what force General Weygand disposed of to maintain the positions upon which he elected to stand. In a report which appears to bear the suggestion of official inspiration it is stated that the French Army had lost 24 divisions, 2 of cavalry and 1 armoured, between the opening of the western offensive and the Battle of France. If this number is subtracted from the total number of divisions with which France entered the offensive there were left 83 to face the German armies on the Somme. Of these 17 were fortress defence troops and older troops left on the eastern frontier. In addition there were three British (the 51st, 52nd and the armoured division) and two Polish divisions. There were therefore about 71 field divisions to oppose the 125 original German divisions on the western front, less casualties. As a number of new German divisions were thrown into the battle, divisions with but a few months’ training it must be admitted, the Germans may have had at one time a considerable superiority in numbers though nothing like the superiority which has been attributed to them.

The French had also at their disposal, still, over 1,000 tanks. General de Gaulle, on being asked for his advice, urged that these tanks should be withdrawn, divided into two sections with motorized detachments of all arms, and used as a general reserve. They should be placed at two selected strategic points south of the Somme and Aisne so that, when these positions gave way, they might be used in massive counterattacks. General Weygand saw the wisdom of the suggestion and agreed to carry it out; but it was never done. The critical battle, then, was joined on these positions and on such terms as I have described.

The attack was directed with greater intensity in the neighbourhood of Amiens and Péronne where attempts were made to advance from the bridgeheads across the river; and across the Ailette. In the last sector the main thrust was delivered along the Laon-Soissons road, and from the direction of La Fère down the Oise towards Compiègne. The attacks were pressed with characteristic resolution and supported from the air. But the Allied airmen were not slow to use their power on this day and the tactical application was superior to what it had been in earlier engagements. Near Péronne for instance, some fifteen tons of bombs were dropped on German concentrations, artillery and anti-aircraft batteries.

In the early exchanges of the day, it seems clear that the Allies held their own; but in the middle of the morning large numbers of German tanks, acting as usual in skilful liaison with dive-bombers, began to take a hand. Yet, at the end of the day, though the Germans claimed to have forced the line of the Somme from its mouth to Ham, as well as the Aisne-Oise canal, this meant very little more than the extension of the bridgeheads and the tactical readjustments consequent upon that extension. A river line which is breached by strong bridgeheads is a heavily mortgaged defence; and, though to lose it was a great disadvantage, reliance was placed upon numerous strong points to the south. During the night the Germans dropped parachutists behind the lines on the Chemin des Dames, so that when the French troops were defending the positions on the following day they found themselves being fired at from the rear. This was decisive for that important position, and the Germans were soon across the whole length of the canal and were early pressing at the gates of Soissons.

On this day, June the 6th, the second day of the battle, the Germans developed their greatest pressure against the lower Somme where the 51st Highland division were fighting. This part of the line was fatally thin to hold up the pressure to which it was subjected; and it was a vital sector of the front. The Schlieffen plan involved pushing in this flank and turning the whole French position by means of it. French light bombers attacked the German infantry continually throughout the day; but in the late afternoon German armoured divisions were again used. Considerable numbers were destroyed; but it was estimated that about 2,000 were employed, and, at a number of points, infiltration was successful. Units were submerged and outflanked; and, though the Allies held their ground with the utmost tenacity, the Germans succeeded in advancing towards the Bresle River. The south bank of the river is heavily wooded by dense forests which provided excellent cover; but the day’s advance meant that a deep stretch of country between the upper Bresle and the river Oise must either be abandoned or the troops to the north would be in a precarious situation almost at once, since they were outflanked on the west as well as on the east.

On Friday these troops were still stubbornly resisting south of Amiens and Péronne. The German infantry had been pinned to the ground, though the tanks were pushing their way south and south-west. Two armoured divisions, almost half the number of tanks engaged, attacked near Péronne; and violent attempts were made to cross the Aisne east of Soissons. Some elements, indeed, succeeded in penetrating to the southern bank; but they were destroyed. Throughout the day the fighting was of