The Western Front
The Battle of France, 1st -15th of July 1940
As June ended and the soldiers dug in along the front, the Generals on both sides started planning the offensives to come. Having understood that the German Army wasn’t as bad and incompetent as they had first thought, the French High Command had decided that a different approach was needed. From now they would not attack German positions without a numerical advantages as well as the great use of artillery to destroy the German lines. What the French still hadn’t understood was the importance of the tank and other motorized units. For Lord Gort, having understood the importance of fast moving motorized unit, the French plans were like looking into a history book. As Gort told the Norwegian Lieutenant-General Steffens in a meeting between the two:
“It is like the French are still living in 1916, the Great War is long gone, and the French High Command isn’t bright enough or don’t want to understand that reality has caught up to their old fashion ideas.”
The Norwegians and British had witnessed the supremacy of the tank in the fighting in Ghent, and they understood the importance of motorized units in modern warfare, the only problem was that Norway had no tanks, and the British very few so at the moment the only tank units on the Allied side was the few French tanks deployed along the frontline. But in England Winston Churchill was determined to change this and he had ordered the deployment of BEF Motorized Corps, this all motorized unit was to be sent to France in September and would then be made up of 3 motorized infantry divisions, there was also plans to send more British tanks to the West Front as they were ready to be deployed.
In July however these units was still in training in Britain and at the moment the BEF and NEF had to do with what they had. It was 6 infantry divisions and 1 motorized infantry division. And on the 1st of July these divisions were digging in along just north of the French city of Lille.
Allied Infantry digging trenches
The BEF and NEF had been ordered by the Governments in Oslo and London not to take part in any French hurried offensive. Therefore the soldiers were doing a very good job with their trenches, they were pretty certain they were going to stay there for some time, and it was though smart that the trenches were well made and strong. Although the British and Norwegian commanders weren’t planning any offensive at the moment, they knew that the Germans most certainly were, and therefore they made certain that the trenches were strong enough to stand against a well co-ordinated German assault.
The French High Command was planning for an assault on the German positions to be carried out on the 9th of July, the French were bringing forward great numbers of troops and artillery to the frontline and for the German scout planes it was as easy as it had been during the Great War to understand the French intentions just by flying one quick trip over the French lines. Knowing that they would be able to catch the French off guard and not prepared the Germans decided to strike at once. The German plan was simple but brilliant. A quick attack against Dunkirk would draw away French attention and then after a couple of hours launch the main attack on Lille. So on the early morning of the 5th of July three German divisions attacked the French lines outside Dunkirk. Outnumbered the Germans had little gains, but it caused panic in French High Command, and units on their way to Lille was quickly ordered to march for Dunkirk instead.
Three hours after the first attack on Dunkirk, at just after 7 in the morning the German attack on Lille commenced. Without any warning German panzers moved quickly forward through the woods. The panzers soon found themselves inside the Allied defences. Having taken a group of Belgian soldiers completely off guard the Belgians had started running away leaving their trenches undefended. The panzers were quickly followed by large formation of German soldiers on motorcycles, trucks, bikes and on foot pouring forward trying to capture the city of Lille.
German Motorcyclists on a road in northern France
Along the BEF/NEF sector of the frontline the soldiers also suffered from the German panzers, but having dug better trenches than the Belgians further south the Norwegians and British defended their trenches and kept the Germans away. Seeing that the trenches were well defended the Germans brought up more and more infantry, sending them forward against the Allied lines. But the use of mines and machineguns as well as rifle fire routed German attacks all during the 5th. Further south the French had managed to bring in reinforcements and had plugged the gap in the lines created by the retreating Belgians. As the 5th ended the Germans had made few gains and had suffered great casualties in their continued attacks on the Allied trenches. To the north the German attack on Dunkirk had ended and the French was sending reinforcement towards Lille all during the night. On the morning of the 6th of July the Germans restarted their attacks, but having seen the great casualties suffered on the 5th the German Generals sent their Hungarian and Slovakia allies first to see if the Allies were still in their trenches and to save German lives. A Norwegian soldiers serving with the 4th Infantry division would later write of the attack.
”It was like a scene from hell. The bastards were coming at us again and again; one didn’t have to aim at all. I just closed my eyes and pulled the trigger on the machinegun backwards, I didn’t want to look, but after some moments I felt I had to see. It was horrifying.
All along the lines were huge piles of bodies, dead and injured men everywhere. I couldn’t stop myself from thinking for some seconds why am I doing this, why do I kill all these people. Then I remembered. They attacked us, they killed my friends in Stavanger, after that I felt no mercy, I just pulled the trigger backwards and sent burst after burst into the groups of men running against us. It went on and on, I felt nothing, but afterwards, as I let go of my machinegun I started to think and feel again, I turned around and felt sick. It was the worst scene I have ever seen. It had only lasted for about an hour, but for me it felt like years. Afterwards they would tell us that just outside the trenches defended by our company the piles of dead numbered several hundred, all of them Hungarians and Slovakians.
I can still hear their screams today, it still makes me sick. I will never forget 6th of July.
After the slaughtering of the German allies during the morning of the 6th of July the attack started to die out, along the front fighting continued during the day, but not on the same scale as on the 5th and the early hours of the 6th. As night fall on the 6th of July the Germans had ended their attack on Lille, having suffered horrific casualties, especially among their allies.
The work of burying the dead started at once. French civilians and Prisoners of War were commanded to start digging huge graves and the bodies were put in the graves in their hundreds. At the same time the Allied soldiers were digging in and improving their trenches.
The Western Front on the 10th of July
In Paris French High Command had postponed their planned attack until the 18th of July and on the 9th it was decided to halt any preparations on the attack and use the soldiers to dig better and stronger trenches instead. So instead of the Allies going on the offensive it was decided to be defensive instead. On the 15th of July the Allied trenches were improved and strong all along the frontline, and it was thought to be able to hold the Germans back. The French Generals were saying the war of offensive seemed to have ended, and in Paris they talked about new trench warfare. Any hope of ending the war by Christmas was forgotten and the Allied soldiers were now ready for a long and hard war on the Western Front.
