The Need for Organisational Resilience Chapter-6

The Challenge: Racing to the Channel

Hitler’s constant flank panic led to a brief stop in the advance of the Germans breaking out of

the bridgeheads in the area of Sedan. Notwithstanding, they covered considerable ground

once the first halt-order was lifted. The race to the channel, sealing the encirclement of the

Allies, would not only lead to the breakdown of Allied operational latitude but also to the

Allies’ destruction. On May 17 th , the 4 th Armoured Division, under the command of Colonel Charles de

Gaulle was dispatched to finally put a halt to the enemy’s intentions. Georges told him:

There, de Gaulle! For you who have for so long held the ideas which the enemy is putting

into practice, here is the chance to act.

Such commitment could not have come at a worse time, as it dawned on De Gaulle that

it was already too late to turn the tide, with only some elements of a motorized division at his disposal. By dawn of May 17 th , he could only muster three battalions of tanks, of which two

were equipped with light Renault R35s. Only one included heavy Char-Bs as well as a

company with modern D-2 light (16 tons) tanks, both types mounting a potent 75mm gun. In

light of his meagre forces he commented:

Miserable processions of refuges crowded along all the roads coming from the north. I

saw, also, a good many soldiers who lost their weapons. They belonged to the troops

routed by the Panzers during the preceding days. Caught up, as they fled, by the

enemy’s mechanized detachments, they had been ordered to throw away their arms and

make off to the to the south so as not to clutter up the roads. “We haven’t time” they had

been told, “to take you prisoners!” … Then, at the sight of those bewildered people and

those soldiers in rout, at the tale, too, of the contemptuous piece of insolence of the

enemy’s, I felt myself borne up by a limitless fury. Ah! It’s too stupid! The war is

beginning as badly as it could. ( The Complete War Memoirs of Charles de Gaulle 1972,

39)

The attack by De Gaulle’s 4th Armoured Division took the Germans by surprise. They

managed to punch into the rear echelons of the German 1st Panzer Division, and started to

create mayhem as de Gaulle was approaching Montcernet. Graf von Kielmansegg, a supply

office in 1st Panzer recounted:

Leaving Montcornet and continuing along the main highway – the Division’s only route of

advance – I saw several Germans running back toward me. They were engineers who

said that there were French tanks coming after them! I did not want to believe that

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