MAY 28, 1940
DOUDELAINVILLE, FRANCE
1500 HOURS
Charles de Gaulle is already a general.
It is Tuesday. The introverted loner and his armored division are halfway between Paris and Dunkirk. A long cigarette dangles from the corner of his mouth. He is now the youngest general in the French army, but the euphoria of being promoted five days ago has passed. It is once again time to fight. De Gaulle stands outside a village cemetery where granite tombstones are etched with the names of World War I British dead reposing with Doudelainville’s ancestors. The scene is anything but restful.
The 4th Armored Division numbers more than one hundred tanks of all sizes and speeds, but it is the thirty-three thickly armored Char B1 bis tanks now lining the narrow country road in single file that form the backbone of his tank corps.*
Each weighs thirty-three tons and carries three powerful guns: a 47mm SA 35 anti-tank weapon on the rotating turret, a Reibel machine gun, and a forward-facing 75mm howitzer poking from the main body. The exterior is painted camouflage. The interior is six feet by six feet wide, four feet high, and painted mustard yellow. The crews number four men: commander, driver, loader, and Morse code operator. There are no seats except that of the driver; the commander stands in his narrow hatch while the rest crouch on the steel floor. Each tank carries 50 rounds of ammunition for the commander’s 47mm, 250 for the machine gun, and 74 rounds for the 75mm. In case of engine trouble, a mechanic also squeezes into the crew compartment. And while there is an escape hatch in the floor of the engine room, every man will perish simultaneously if an enemy round pierces the hull.
This horrible, fiery death befell dozens of Allied soldiers at a battle near here yesterday. The road ahead is a cemetery unto itself, lined with the charred turrets and twisted cannon barrels of those mangled British tanks. The metallic fatty-pork stink of burning flesh lingers in the air.
De Gaulle’s armored division, which existed only on paper two weeks ago, has traveled from one side of France to the other in six days. Atlantic Ocean has replaced pastoral farmland. Now the 4th Armored Division prepares to destroy the bridges over the river Somme at Abbeville. Ninety-seven miles north of that port city lies Dunkirk, where the German army is giving all its attention to strafing and bombing the trapped British Expeditionary Force. Once the BEF is annihilated, the Nazis will turn south for Paris. De Gaulle’s orders are to blow the bridges and stop them.
The 4th Armored Division will roll out at five o’clock sharp. The men prepare for battle, shouting to be heard above the din of engines and a friendly artillery barrage dropping rounds on the village of Huppy, just two miles up the road.
Other tankers relieve themselves behind cemetery walls. This is a necessity before spending an unknowable number of hours confined with three other men in a bumping, grinding, steel-bottomed berth the width of two coffins with absolutely no knowledge of when that side panel alongside the treads will once again open to allow relief. The piss bottle has remained a constant in the short history of tank warfare, but no man likes to foul the cabin with the stench of excrement lowered into whatever container he can find as his brethren look on.*
Loaders arm weapons. Commanders study maps of the route that will guide the attackers through Huppy, which must be taken by force, then through the crossroads at Les Croisettes before moving on to Abbeville. The weather is cool here near the coast. Open turret hatches bring sorely needed fresh afternoon air into each hull but cannot displace the pungent aromas of oil, gunpowder, and stale sweat that have worked their way into every crevice. The mood is eager, pensive, anxious, professional.
General de Gaulle takes in each detail. “You saw him everywhere—that leather jacket, his casque, and the inevitable cigarette,” one French journalist will write. “Tough, ruthless, inhuman, letting nothing and nobody count except the battle.”
It has been a week of crushing heat and de Gaulle is exhausted from the long days and nights of travel. He is gruff and sarcastic when he deigns to speak at all. The general continues to eat and sleep little, preferring to spend nights smoking Gitanes, sipping coffee, and obsessing about battle maps. By personal preference, he is almost always alone. The men do not love him but respect his aloof behavior. “All those who have done something worthwhile and lasting have been solitary and silent,” de Gaulle reminds the division chaplain when questioned about his arrogance.
De Gaulle’s initial brush with the Germans at Montcornet, as well as a secondary attack two days later, earned him a modest level of fame in France. The general gave a radio interview on May 21 that was broadcast around the nation, in which he proclaimed: “The leader who speaks to you has the honour to command a French armored division. This division has had a hard fight, and we can say very directly, very seriously—without any bragging—that we have dominated the battlefield from the first to the last hour of battle.”
So popular was this statement of triumph, the first the French people had heard after ten days of defeat, that de Gaulle was quickly promoted to brigadier general. He also became a symbol of hope—so much so that during the push westward from Laon, with his tanks lacking radios to establish their proper location, worried Paris newspapers reported him missing in action. Throughout his life, the general’s great height and haughty demeanor have made him accustomed to being recognized, so this minor celebrity is nothing new. Nonetheless, de Gaulle is pleased, thinking this respect his proper due.
Tomorrow will certainly put the general’s new reputation to the test. The battle for Abbeville will be completely different than Montcornet. The French 4th Armored Division will not enjoy the element of surprise. Instead, they will be expected. The 88mm cannon the enemy hides in the hills above Abbeville can punch a hole through three inches of steel from a mile away. The 37mm Pak 36 anti-tank guns lining the road between here and there are no less lethal. Whether the Germans destroy the 4th Armored Division in the same devastating fashion they eviscerated the British 10th Hussars yesterday depends upon the tactical leadership of General de Gaulle.
Yet, win or lose, bridges demolished or left intact, Abbeville may be de Gaulle’s last battle.
In Paris, General Maxime Weygand, the seventy-three-year-old World War I veteran now in charge of the French military, secretly wishes to launch one last great attack against the Germans to restore battered French dignity.
After that, having no faith whatsoever in General de Gaulle’s chances of triumph, Weygand plans to surrender Paris to Adolf Hitler.
De Gaulle suspects the end is near. In his heart, the general is beginning to believe France “virtually lost.” He once again writes Yvonne, gently demanding her to flee if she hasn’t already, and reminding her to bring the good silver lest it fall into the hands of looters.
Yet as the general’s popularity grows, so do expectations. And unlike men who find such pressure crushing, de Gaulle believes challenge to be one and the same as destiny.
At 5:00 p.m., General Charles de Gaulle gives the order to attack. As his Char B1s roll forth, each tank commander pokes his head out of the turret hatch, touching a brow in salute as the procession passes the tall figure standing on the side of the road.
On to Abbeville.
But first Huppy.