Battle of Arras (1940)

Background

By 20 May 1940 the German breakthrough at Sedan had become a race to the sea. Guderian's panzers entered Amiens that morning and reached the coast near Abbeville that night, cutting the Allied armies in Belgium off from their supply lines and from the French armies to the south. The British Expeditionary Force still held Arras, a road and rail centre on the Scarpe, with a small garrison that the Germans had been trying to bypass. On 19 May General Ironside, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, met Lord Gort and urged an attack south towards Amiens; the same day Weygand replaced Gamelin and called for a counter-offensive against the German corridor from north and south.

What Gort actually ordered was smaller. His order to Major-General Harold Franklyn early on 20 May told 'Frankforce', built round Franklyn's 5th Division and the 50th Motor Division, to support the Arras garrison and block the roads south of the town. It said nothing of a counter-attack or of the French. Ironside and Pownall then won General Billotte's agreement to a French attack towards Cambrai the same day, but the French put it off to the 22nd, and Franklyn was never told that GHQ saw his operation as the first move of something bigger. Billotte was fatally injured in a road accident, leaving the First Army Group without a commander for three days.

On the German side, Rundstedt had meant to rest his armour on 21 May but by mid-morning ordered it to swing north. Rommel's 7th Panzer Division, with the SS Totenkopf Division on its left, was to wheel round the west of Arras and seize the Scarpe crossings at Acq, while the 5th Panzer Division went east of the town. The British blow landed on their flank as they moved.

The armies

Frankforce looked strong on paper, but only a fraction of it attacked. The 5th and 50th Divisions had only two brigades each. The 13th Brigade held the Scarpe and the 150th reinforced Arras, so Major-General Giffard Martel of the 50th Division led the attack with the 151st Brigade, keeping one of its three battalions back. The striking force was two Territorial battalions, the 6th and 8th Durham Light Infantry, about 2,000 men, and the 1st Army Tank Brigade's 4th and 7th Royal Tank Regiments with 58 Matilda Is and 16 Matilda IIs, many in need of overhaul after long road marches. Field and anti-tank batteries and motorcyclists of the 4th Royal Northumberland Fusiliers completed the two columns. The Matilda I carried only a machine-gun; the Matilda II had a 2-pounder gun. Both were slow, but their thick armour was proof against the German 37 mm anti-tank gun. The tank battalions' wireless was practically useless, artillery support was thin, and there was no air support. Part of the French 3rd Light Mechanised Division, with Somua cavalry tanks, covered the right flank.

Rommel's 7th Panzer Division had begun the campaign with mostly light tanks: Panzer Is and IIs, Czech-built Panzer 38(t)s and two dozen Panzer IVs, with breakdowns and losses since. Its real strength at Arras proved to be its guns: the 78th Artillery Regiment, the 42nd Anti-Tank Battalion, light flak, and a troop of 88 mm anti-aircraft guns, all deployed well forward. The SS Totenkopf Division marched on its left.

The battle

CDB90 records the whole action as one engagement, number 659 (ARRAS), from 21 to 23 May.

The approach (21 May, morning to 14:30). Each column was a tank battalion, an infantry battalion, field and anti-tank batteries and motorcyclists. Both were to cross the start line, the Arras–Doullens road, at 14:00, after an eight-mile approach march and with little time for orders or reconnaissance. The infantry never reached the start line on time; the right column left Maroeuil at about 14:30 under shellfire.

The right column (7th RTR, 8th DLI). It fought through Duisans, Warlus and Berneville, leaving garrisons in Duisans and Warlus, while its tanks pushed on towards Wailly. Its advanced guard met the German 7th Rifle Regiment and Totenkopf troops on the Doullens road, was pinned down, endured a twenty-minute air attack, and fell back to Warlus.

Rommel at Wailly (about 15:00–16:00). At about 15:00 Rommel sent his 25th Panzer Regiment on towards the Scarpe and drove back to hurry up his lagging infantry. East of Wailly he came under fire and found troops jamming the village with their vehicles, while the crew of a howitzer battery abandoned their guns. On a rise about 1,000 yards west of the village, with his aide Lieutenant Most, he brought every anti-tank and anti-aircraft gun he could find into action and, in his own account, personally gave each gun its target, overruling gun commanders who said the range was too great. The leading tanks were stopped; one British officer climbed out and surrendered. Most was mortally wounded beside a 20 mm gun. Frieser's account has 88s knocking out several Matilda Is while some Matilda IIs passed through unscathed, and some of the SS men attacked fleeing.

The left column (4th RTR, 6th DLI). It went from Dainville through Achicourt, where six Matildas overran anti-tank guns, to Agny and Beaurains, and a small party reached Wancourt on the Cojeul. It caught the 1st Battalion of the 6th Rifle Regiment on the move, overran its anti-tank guns, whose shells could not stop the Matildas, and forced nearby SS units back. Between Mercatel and Tilloy it ran into the divisional artillery and the 88s. Rommel claimed 28 tanks to the artillery and eight to the flak; Frieser credits the 88s with 24 between Mercatel and Tilloy.

The German riposte (18:00–nightfall). Just after 18:00 Stukas began some 300 attacks that lasted until 20:30. At about 19:00 Rommel ordered the 25th Panzer Regiment south-east to take the British in flank and rear. South of Agnez-lès-Duisans it met British and French tanks and guns; Rommel claims seven heavy tanks and six anti-tank guns destroyed for three Panzer IVs, six Panzer IIIs and several light tanks. Somuas and British anti-tank gunners also fired on each other near Warlus.

Withdrawal (21–23 May). Franklyn ordered both columns back that evening. French cavalry at Warlus were surrounded overnight; six French tanks and two carriers brought out the Warlus infantry, and the Duisans garrison left in Bren carriers after dark. The left column was bombed at Beaurains and Agny; one party missed its road and ended up in Boulogne. Only 28 of 88 tanks got back to the start line. The 150th Brigade raided across the Scarpe and the 13th Brigade held a bridgehead further east, but on 22 and 23 May Rommel worked round the west of Arras, and on the night of 23 May the garrison and Frankforce were withdrawn north to the canal line.

Aftermath

The 7th Panzer Division admitted 378 men killed, wounded and missing on 21 May, four times its losses in the breakthrough into France. British losses were heavy, including both tank battalion commanders, and some 60 tanks. Ellis, the British official historian, judged the attack bound to fail without a force to hold the ground taken, but a limited success: no concerted German attack on Arras that day, nearly 400 prisoners, the 6th Panzer Division diverted to defend west of Arras, and, in the XIX Corps diary's words, 'nervousness throughout the entire [Kleist] Group area'. Rommel's maps showed five British divisions.

How far that nervousness reached is argued over. Rundstedt later called the attack 'a critical moment' and said that for a short time it was feared the panzers would be cut off. Liddell Hart, editing Rommel's papers, traced a chain from Arras to Kluge's and Kleist's caution, the slowing of Guderian's drive on the Channel ports, and the halt order of 24 May that let the BEF reach Dunkirk. Others see the halt as having many causes: unsuitable marshy ground, the wish to save the armour for the drive south, and Göring's promise that the Luftwaffe could finish the pocket; Halder blamed Göring. Ellis notes that the attack's defeat actually eased Rundstedt's fears by 22 May. British units received the battle honour 'Defence of Arras'.

Wargaming it

Arras is one of the best tank actions of 1940 for the table: small, fast and full of surprises. The whole attack suits company or platoon level, one model per tank or section, turns of 15–30 minutes, from 14:00 to nightfall. Either column makes a good game on its own; the Wailly gun line or the Agny–Beaurains fight works at skirmish level.

The key terrain is open, rolling farmland cut by villages and small woods: the Arras–Doullens start line, Duisans, Warlus, Berneville, the Arras–Beaumetz railway and Wailly on the right; Dainville, Achicourt, Agny, Beaurains and the Mercatel–Tilloy ridge on the left; the Cojeul at Wancourt as the British objective.

The asymmetries make it work. The Matildas should be almost impossible to stop with 37 mm guns, and German infantry and anti-tank crews should test morale when they find this out. Against them, field guns and 88s firing over open sights, and Stukas from 18:00. The British player has no radios between tanks, scarce artillery, and infantry that lag behind; the German player has a commander who can move from gun to gun, but his panzers are away to the north-west.

What ifs: the attack starts on time with all the infantry, the French attack towards Cambrai goes in the same day, or the 25th Panzer Regiment does not come back. Could the 88s have been overrun before Rommel reached them?

Maps and pictures