Fall Rot

Fall Rot
Part of The Battle of France
Fall Rot (Case Red)
Location	France
Executed by	German army
Outcome	Decisive German victory

During World War II, Fall Rot (Case Red) was the plan for the second phase of the conquest of France by the German Army and began on 5 June 1940. It had been made possible by the success of Fall Gelb (Case Yellow), the invasion of Belgium in the Battle of France and the encirclement of the Allied armies in the north on the Channel coast. Powerful forces were also to advance into France.

Fall Rot consisted of two sub-operations, a preliminary attack began on 5 June, in the west over the river Somme in the direction of the Seine; the main offensive by Army Group A started on 9 June in the centre over the river Aisne.

Background

French defensive preparations

War refugees on a French road.

By the end of May 1940, the best and most modern French armies had been sent north and lost in the resulting encirclement; the French had also lost much of their heavy weaponry and their best armoured formations. Overall, the Allies had lost 61 divisions in Fall Gelb.{ Weygand was faced with the prospect of defending a long front (stretching from Sedan to the Channel), with a greatly depleted French Army now lacking significant Allied support. Weygand had only 64 French and one remaining British division (the 51st Highland) available. Weygand lacked the reserves to counter a breakthrough or to replace frontline troops, should they become exhausted from a prolonged battle on a front of 965 kilometres (600 miles). The Germans had 142 divisions to use and total control of the air except over the English Channel.

The French also had to deal with millions of civilian refugees fleeing the war in what became known as L'Éxode ("The Exodus"); automobiles and horse-drawn carts carrying possessions clogged roads. As the government had not foreseen such a rapid military collapse, little planning existed. Between six and ten million French fled, sometimes so quickly that they left uneaten meals on tables, even while officials stated that there was no need to panic and that civilians should stay. The population of Chartres declined from 23,000 to 800 and Lille from 200,000 to 20,000, while cities in the south such as Pau and Bordeaux rapidly grew in size.

Italy

Italy declared war on France and Britain on the evening of 10 June, to take effect just after midnight. The two sides exchanged air raids on the first day of war but little transpired on the Alpine front, since both France and Italy had adopted a defensive strategy. There was some skirmishing between patrols and the French forts of the Ligne Alpine exchanged fire with their Italian counterparts of the Vallo Alpino. On 17 June, France announced that it would seek an armistice with Germany. On 21 June, with a Franco-German armistice about to be signed, the Italians launched a general offensive all along the Alpine front, with the main attack in the northern sector and a secondary advance along the coast. The offensive was conducted by 32 Italian divisions and penetrated a few kilometres into French territory against the Army of the Alps (General René Olry) with three divisions. The coastal town of Menton was captured and on the Côte d'Azur the invasion was held up by a French NCO and seven men. On the evening of 24 June, an armistice was signed at Rome and came into effect just after midnight on 25 June, at the same time as the armistice with Germany, which had been signed on 22 June.

Prelude

Main article: Battle of Abbeville

The Battle of Abbeville took place from the 28 May to 4 June 1940 near Abbeville during the Battle of France in the Second World War. While the Operation Dynamo, the Dunkirk evacuation was under way, General Maxime Weygand attempted to exploit the immobilisation of German forces to attack northwards over the Somme and rescue the trapped Allied forces in the Dunkirk pocket. The Allied attack was carried out by the French 2e Division cuirassée (2nd DCR) and 4e Division cuirassée (4th DCR) and the British 1st Armoured Division, constituted the largest attack sustained by German forces until the Battle of Kursk. It comprised 500 tanks and 4 Infantry divisions. In spite of Allied success which shattered German defences on the ground, the battle was ultimately a failure due to the general breakdown of the French and British armies.

Battle

Weygand line

The German offensive to the Seine from 4–12 June

The Germans renewed their offensive on 5 June on the Somme. During the next three weeks, far from the easy advance the Wehrmacht expected, they encountered strong resistance from a rejuvenated French Army. It had fallen back on its interior lines of supply and communications, and had closer access to repair shops, supply dumps and stores. Moreover, 112,000 evacuated French soldiers were repatriated via the Normandy and Brittany ports. It was some substitute for the lost divisions in Flanders. The French were also able to make good a significant amount of their armoured losses and raised the 1st and 2nd DCR (heavy armoured divisions). De Gaulle's division—the 4th DCR—also had its losses replaced. Morale rose and was very high by the end of May 1940.

A central explanation for the high morale was threefold: most French soldiers that knew about the defeats, and were now joining the line, only knew of German success by hearsay; surviving French officers had increased tactical experience against German mobile units; increased confidence in their weapons after seeing their artillery, which the Wehrmacht post-battle analysis recognised as technically very good, and their tanks perform better in combat than the German armour. The French tanks were now known to have heavier armour and armament. Between 23 and 28 May, they reconstituted the French 7th and 10th Armies. Weygand decided on hedgehog tactics, which were to implement defence in depth operations and use delaying tactics, to inflict maximum attrition on German units. He employed units in towns and small villages, as well as major towns and cities and fortified them 360° along their perimeter. Behind this, the new infantry, armoured and half-mechanised divisions formed up, ready to counter-attack and relieve the surrounded units, which were ordered to hold out at all costs.

French prisoners are marched into internment

Army Group B attacked either side of Paris. Of its 47 divisions it had the majority of the mobile units. In fact, after 48 hours into the offensive, the Germans had not made any major breakthroughs. The Germans had been "stopped in their tracks". On the Aisne, Erich Hoepner's XVI Panzerkorps employed over 1,000 AFVs, two Panzer Divisions and a motorised division against the French. The assault was crude, and Hoepner soon lost 80 out of 500 AFVs in the first attack. The German 4th Armee succeeded in capturing bridgeheads over the Somme river, but the Germans struggled to get over the Aisne. Weygand had organised a defence in depth and frustrated the crossing. In a series of examples at Amiens, the Germans were repeatedly driven back by powerful French artillery concentrations and came to recognise improved French tactics.

Once again, the German Army relied on the Luftwaffe to provide decisive assistance in silencing French guns and enabling the German infantry to inch forward. German progress was made only late on the third day of operations, finally forcing crossings. The French Air Force attempted to bomb them, but failed. German sources acknowledged the battle was "hard and costly in lives, the enemy putting up severe resistance, particularly in the woods and tree lines continuing the fight when our troops had pushed passed the point of resistance". South of Abbeville, the French 10th Army under General Robert Altmayer had its front broken and it was forced to retreat to Rouen and south along the Seine river. The rapid German advances were the sign of a weakening enemy. Rommel and his 7th Panzer Division headed west over the Seine river through Normandy and captured the port of Cherbourg on 18 June. On the way to Cherbourg, Rommel forced the surrender of the British 51st (Highland) Division on 12 June. In close-quarter combat, the Luftwaffe was struggling to have an impact. However, in an operational sense, they helped disperse French armour. The German spearheads were overextended and vulnerable to counter strokes, but the concentration of the Luftwaffe denied the French the ability to concentrate, and the fear of air attack negated their mass and mobile use by Weygand.

German troops in Paris

On 10 June, the French government declared Paris an open city. The German 18th Armee now deployed against Paris. The French resisted the approaches to the capital strongly, but the line was broken in several places. Weygand now asserted it would not take long for the French Army to disintegrate. On 13 June, Churchill attended a meeting of the Anglo-French Supreme War Council at Tours. He suggested a Franco-British Union. It was rejected. On 14 June, Paris fell. Those Parisians who stayed in the city found that in most cases the Germans were extremely well mannered.

On top of this added danger, the situation in the air had also grown critical. The Luftwaffe established air supremacy (as opposed to air superiority) as the French air arm was on the verge of collapse. The French Air Force (Armée de l'Air) had only just begun to make the majority of bomber sorties; between 5 and 9 June (during Operation Paula), over 1,815 missions, of which 518 were by bombers, were flown. The number of sorties flown declined as losses were now becoming impossible to replace. The RAF attempted to divert the attention of the Luftwaffe with 660 sorties flown against targets over the Dunkirk area, but losses were heavy; on 21 June alone, 37 Bristol Blenheims were destroyed. After 9 June, French aerial resistance virtually ceased; some surviving aircraft withdrew to French North Africa. The Luftwaffe now "ran riot". Its attacks were focused on the direct and indirect support of the German Army. The Luftwaffe subjected lines of resistance to ferocious assault, which then quickly collapsed under armoured attack.

Maginot line

The Maginot Line

Meanwhile, to the east, Army Group C was to help Army Group A encircle and capture the French forces on the Maginot line. The goal of the operation was to envelop the Metz region, with its fortifications, in order to prevent a French counter-offensive from the Alsace region against the German line on the Somme. Guderian's XIX Korps was to advance to the French border with Switzerland and trap the French forces in the Vosges Mountains while the XVI Korps attacked the Maginot Line from the west, into its vulnerable rear to take the cities of Verdun, Toul and Metz. The French, meanwhile, had moved the French 2nd Army Group from the Alsace and Lorraine to the 'Weygand line' on the Somme, leaving only small forces guarding the Maginot line. After Army Group B had begun its offensive against Paris and into Normandy, Army Group A began its advance into the rear of the Maginot line. On 15 June, Army Group C launched Operation Tiger, a frontal assault across the Rhine river and into France.

German attempts to break open or into the Maginot line prior to Tiger had failed. One assault lasted for eight hours on the extreme north of the line, costing the Germans 46 dead and 251 wounded, while just two French were killed (one at Ferme-Chappy and one at Fermont fortress). On 15 June, the last well-equipped French forces, including the Fourth Army, were preparing to leave as the Germans struck. The French now holding the line were skeletal. The Germans greatly outnumbered the French. They could call upon the I Armeekorps of seven divisions and 1,000 artillery pieces, although most were First World War vintage, and could not penetrate the thick armour of the fortresses. Only 88 mm guns could do the job, and 16 were allocated to the operation. To bolster this, 150 mm and eight railway batteries were also employed. The Luftwaffe deployed the V Fliegerkorps to give air support.

The battle was difficult and slow progress was made against strong French resistance. However, each fortress was overcome one by one. One fortress (Schoenenbourg) fired 15,802 75 mm rounds at attacking German infantry. It was the most heavily shelled of all the French positions. Nevertheless, its armour protected it from fatal damage. The same day Tiger was launched, Operation Kleiner Bär began. Five assault divisions of the VII Armeekorps crossed the Rhine into the Colmar area with a view to advancing to the Vosges Mountains. It had 400 artillery pieces bolstered by heavy artillery and mortars. They drove the French 104th Division and 105th Division back into the Vosges Mountains on 17 June. On the same day Guderian's XIX Korps reached the Swiss border and the Maginot defences were cut off from the rest of France. Most units surrendered on 25 June and the Germans claimed to have taken 500,000 prisoners. Some main fortresses continued the fight, despite appeals for surrender. The last only capitulated on 10 July, after a request from General Alphonse Joseph Georges and only then under protest. Of the 58 big fortifications on the Maginot Line, just 10 were captured by the Wehrmacht in battle.

Aftermath

Second BEF evacuation

Further information: Operation Cycle and Operation Ariel

The evacuation of the second BEF took place during Operation Ariel between 15 and 25 June. The Luftwaffe, with complete domination of the French skies, was determined to prevent more Allied evacuations after the Dunkirk debacle. I Fliegerkorps was assigned to the Normandy and Brittany sectors. On 9 and 10 June, the port of Cherbourg was subject to 15 tonnes of German bombs, while Le Havre received 10 bombing attacks that sank 2949 GRT of escaping Allied shipping. On 17 June, Junkers Ju 88s—mainly from Kampfgeschwader 30—sank a "10,000 tonne ship" which was the 16243 GRT liner RMS Lancastria off St Nazaire, killing some 4,000 Allied personnel (nearly doubling the British killed in the battle of France). Nevertheless, the Luftwaffe failed to prevent the evacuation of some 190,000–200,000 Allied personnel.

Armistice

Main article: Armistice with France (Second Compiègne)

On 21 June 1940, near Compiègne in France, Hitler (hand on hip) staring at Marshal Foch's statue before starting the negotiations for the armistice, to be signed the next day by Keitel, Hitler being absent. Glade of the Armistice was later destroyed together with all commemorative monuments (except Foch's statue) by the Germans.

Discouraged by his cabinet's hostile reaction to a British proposal to unite France and Britain to avoid defeat, and believing that his ministers no longer supported him, Prime Minister Paul Reynaud resigned on 16 June. He was succeeded by Marshal Philippe Pétain, who delivered a radio address to the French people announcing his intention to ask for an armistice with Germany. When Hitler received word from the French government that they wished to negotiate an armistice, he selected the Forest of Compiègne as the site for the negotiations.

Compiègne had been the site of the 1918 Armistice, which ended the First World War with a humiliating defeat for Germany; Hitler viewed the choice of location as a supreme moment of revenge for Germany over France. On 21 June 1940, Hitler visited the site in order to start the negotiations which took place in the very same railway carriage in which the 1918 Armistice was signed (it had just been removed from a museum building and placed on the precise spot where it was located in 1918). Hitler sat in the same chair in which Marshal Ferdinand Foch had sat when he faced the defeated German representatives. After listening to the reading of the preamble, Hitler left the carriage in a calculated gesture of disdain for the French delegates, and negotiations were turned over to Wilhelm Keitel, the Chief of Staff of the OKW. The armistice was signed on the next day at 6:36 p.m. (French time), by General Keitel for Germany and General Huntziger for France. The armistice and cease-fire went into effect, two days and six hours later, at 00:35 on 25 June, once the Franco-Italian Armistice had also been signed, at 6:35 p.m. on 24 June, near Rome.

See also

• Battle of France
• List of Axis operational codenames in the European Theatre

External links

• Maginot Line at War