The Western Front
The Battle of France, 20th -30th of June 1940
As the Allied Armies retreated from Belgium other Allied Armies had just managed to re-conquer Vincennes from the Germans, and now the front seemed stable along the French border. The Germans stood in Belgium and in Germany while the Allies controlled France. In Paris the press wrote about the strategic retreat from Brussels, it was said that the French Army had thought it necessary to retreat from Belgium as to defend France better, in the Belgian, Norwegian and British Staffs they knew the situation was very different. The French Army had suffered a great defeat in Belgium and this had cause the other Allies to lose as well, and therefore the Allied Armies now stood in France. Although knowing the French hadn’t given all to defend them, the other Allied commanders and the Allied soldiers were determined to defend France as long as possible. So as they arrive back in France the soldiers immediately started digging in.
Norwegian soldiers digging in and placing machine guns in their trenches
The work on the trenches was continued all through the 21st and 22nd of June. The BEF and the NEF had taken up positions in the area around Dunkirk, and finding their old trenches in pretty good shape there was little work needed. In the French and Belgian sectors of the front more work was needed and therefore the work took several days to get the trenches ready, but on the 22nd of June the first set of trenches was ready and the front should be easier to defend against the Germans. But around noon on the 22nd of June the Germans had prepared and rested since their attack on Ghent and in a well co-ordinated attack the panzers, motorized infantry and infantry rushed forward, not against Dunkirk, but against Lille. The Germans had discovered the weakest point in the Allied defences, the trenches just north of Lille.
The Western Front on the 22nd of June
Seeing the danger of this attack Prime Minister Churchill decided, without consulting the French Government he had lost all faith in the French Government after their terrible decisions in Belgium, to send the BEF forward to aid the defenders in Lille and he asked the Norwegian Prime Minster Nygaardsvold if he would allow for the NEF to march with the BEF. The Norwegian Government agreed to Churchill’s request and in the evening of the 22nd of June the BEF and the NEF left their trenches around Dunkirk and march against Lille.
The British and Norwegian armies march quickly during the night and in the early morning of the 23rd of June they had reached the frontlines. The Germans had pushed through the French/Belgian defences during the night, but now the British and Norwegian soldiers attack them in the flank. The Germans were tired after long and hard fighting, while the British and Norwegians had high morale and spirits. Rushing forward they managed to take the Germans by surprise and by nightfall on the 23rd of June the Germans had retreated from Lille.
The Allies had won the Battle of Lille, but much of the Belgian and French divisions that had originally defended Lille had retreated during the battle, and now the frontline around Lille was very weak. This caused the French High Command to decide to withdraw units from Dunkirk to defend Lille.
British soldiers resting after having pushed the Germans back from Lille
The stress of frontline work was having a great impact on the Allied soldiers and as the Germans launched an assault on the few remaining units in Dunkirk on the 25th of June the French units left behind was quickly pushed back. Most the units had been ordered away from Dunkirk to defend Lille and therefore the battle was very quick and one-sided. The German panzers rushed forward and captured Dunkirk during the 25th and 26th of June. Lord Gort and Lieutenant General Steffens saw this as a danger to their position. Knowing that they were dependant on the support from the sea and from the Royal Navy and the Norwegian Navy, they decided the Germans in command of Dunkirk were a great threat to their supply lines. Although Calais, where most of the British and Norwegian supplies were shipped through, was still in Allied hands, the presence of German units in the area was seen as a great danger to the BEF and the NEF.
The Western Front on the 26th of June 1940
Understanding the danger of having German units on their west flank even the French High Command decided that it was impossible to allow for the Germans to stay in Dunkirk. Therefore a large scale operation was planned against the German units in Dunkirk. The area was to be re-taken whatever the cost.
On the early hours of the 28th of June the Allied attack began. Both from land and from the sea a barrage was fired against the German lines and then the Allied soldiers moved forward.
When the barraged lifted the Allied soldiers moved forward
The soldiers rushed forward finding the German frontline trenches without an efficient defence. The artillery had forced the Germans back to take cover and many German soldiers were taken prisoner. Some of them were so disorientated from the artillery that they didn’t even know where they were. All in all 18 Allied divisions were committed against 13 German and Hungary divisions. The Hungarians were the first to break, having never been subjected to an artillery barrage before the Hungarian soldiers wasn’t aware off the danger of the artillery and many of them were killed or injured by the artillery. The surviving Hungarians had no morale for fighting and they started running away the moment they saw the Allied soldiers advancing.
The battle was a very one-sided affair, after the first artillery barrage had taken many German and Hungarians by surprise and forced the Hungarians to retreat, a huge opening in the lines were left undefended and the Allied soldiers rushed forward. Many German units were taken prisoners when they found themselves surrounded; other managed to retreat just before the Allies managed to surround them.
On the evening of the 29th of June the Germans and the Hungarians had been defeat in Dunkirk and forced back into Belgium. The Norwegian and British soldiers once again occupied their trenches around Dunkirk. As June ended the front was stable, the Germans had suffered some defeats in the end of the month, while the Allies had suffered defeats in the early part of the month. As July approached both sides started to dig in once again, improving their trenches. Some of the soldiers started thinking that they had to stay in the trenches for a long time, and therefore it was best to make sure the trenches were easy to defend. The High Commands on both sides still didn’t want to admit that this war was going to be a trench war as well, so as June ended the Generals on both sides were planning the July Offensives.
