DEFENSE OF FRANCE

 

The Polish forces in France, just prior to the German attack, consisted of the ready-for-combat First Grenadier Division and Second Infantry Fusiliers Division. One armored cavalry brigade and two infantry divisions were in the process of formation. Also, the Polish Independent Carpathian Brigade was formed in Syria (a French protectorate at that time), where many Polish soldiers had fled from Romania. The Polish air force in France consisted of eighty-six aircraft in four squadrons. One and a half squadrons were fully operational, and the rest were in various stages of training.

On May 10, 1940, Hitler launched his attack against France, Belgium and Holland. He attacked with 114 infantry divisions, 10 panzer divisions, 6 motorized divisions, 1 cavalry division and 1 airborne division - in all, with 2,700 tanks and 3,800 aircraft. Against those forces, the Western Allies manned the Maginot Line and in addition deployed 122 infantry divisions, 3 infantry brigades, 3 armored divisions, 3 light tank divisions - in all, with 3,200 tanks, 400 armored cars and 1,924 aircraft. It is evident that the German forces did not have an overwhelming materiel superiority over the Allies. What they did have, however, was the Blitzkrieg strategy which they had used for the first time in Poland seven months earlier. This demonstrably successful German strategy had been ignored by the general staffs of the Western Allies, who superficially dismissed Poland's defeat as clearly unavoidable. In actuality, French, British, Dutch and Belgian resistance against the German attack lasted thirty-nine days, from May 10 until June 18, when General Henri Petain asked the Germans for an armistice. At Compiegne, on June 22, France capitulated to Hitler. Seven months earlier, Poland had fought alone against the Germans and, since September 17, against the Soviets. The struggle lasted thirty-six days, from September 1 until October 6, when General Kleeberg's group laid down their arms in eastern Poland. German sources report that in the 1939 campaign against Poland, they used 400 million rifle bullets, 2 million artillery shells and 70,000 aerial bombs. In their campaign against France in 1940, the Germans used less than half of that amount to induce France to capitulate.

In 1940 the First Polish Grenadier Division was deployed southwest of Nancy, France, where in a two-day battle at Lagarde on June 17 and 18 it defended successfully its sector but had to withdraw because retreating French divisions exposed both of its flanks to the enemy. On June 18, Marshal Petain approached the Germans for an armistice. On June 19, a radio bulletin from General Sikorski announced that Poland would continue to fight as an ally of Great Britain. Sikorski ordered the Polish units to reach the French ports in the north, west and south - or if that would prove impossible, to cross the Swiss frontier. The Second Infantry Fusiliers Division was deployed in the vicinity of Belfort, near the Swiss frontier.

 
     
 
 
     
  The division stopped the advancing Germans in a two-day battle on the hills of Clos-du-Doubs; but again, in view of the ongoing French-German armistice talks and General Sikorski's order, the division crossed the Swiss frontier in the evening of June 19. From June 13-16, the 10TH Armored Cavalry Brigade, still being formed, fought in the area of Champaubert and Montbard, approximately sixty miles northwest of Dijon. On the night of June 16, realizing the futility of continuing the battle, the brigade destroyed its equipment and moved south in small groups to reach Atlantic ports and escape to England.  
     
 
 
     
  After the French surrendered, the Polish Carpathian Brigade in Syria moved to the British Protectorate of Palestine to continue the fight against the Germans alongside the British. In August 1941, the Brigade was moved to Tobruk where, together with the Australians and the British, they successfully defended the fortress until January 1942 when they were relieved by the British Eighth Army. From there, the brigade was withdrawn to Egypt and then to Palestine for reorganization into a division. The Polish air force in France, with its eighty-six fighter planes, shot down fifty German aircraft during the campaign, losing eleven of its own pilots in the air and fifteen on the ground. Most of the pilots and ground crews, despite opposition from French authorities, managed to escape to England by air directly from France or by sea through North Africa.