Read Online Their Finest Hour by Winston Churchill - Free Book Online

Certainly this was my mood. But here was no considered military opinion. 4 It must be remembered that this was the first realisation we had of the magnitude of the disaster or of the apparent French despair. We were not conducting the operations, and our army, which was only a tenth of the troops on the front, was serving under the French command. I and the British officers with me were staggered at the evident conviction of the French Commander-in-Chief and leading Ministers that all was lost, and in anything that I said I was reacting violently against this. There is, however, no doubt that they were quite right, and that the most rapid retreat to the south was imperative. This soon became obvious to all.
    Presently General Gamelin was speaking again. He was discussing whether forces should now be gathered to strike at the flanks of the penetration, or “Bulge,” as we called such things later on. Eight or nine divisions were being withdrawn from quiet parts of the front, the Maginot Line; there were two or three armoured divisions which had not been engaged; eight or nine more divisions were being brought from Africa and would arrive in the battle zone during the next fortnight or three weeks. General Giraud had been placed in command of the French army north of the gap. The Germans would advance henceforward through a corridor between two fronts on which warfare in the fashion of 1917 and 1918 could be waged. Perhaps the Germans could not maintain the corridor, with its ever-increasing double flank guards to be built up, and at the same time nourish their armoured incursion. Something in this sense Gamelin seemed to say, and all this was quite sound. I was conscious, however, that it carried no conviction in this small but hitherto influential and responsible company. Presently I asked General Gamelin when and where he proposed to attack the flanks of the Bulge. His reply was: “Inferiority of numbers, inferiority of equipment, inferiority of method” –and then a hopeless shrug of the shoulders. There was no argument; there was no need of argument. And where were we British anyway, having regard to our tiny contribution – ten divisions after eight months of war, and not even one modern tank division in action?
    This was the last I saw of General Gamelin. He was a patriotic, well-meaning man and skilled in his profession, and no doubt he has his tale to tell. 5
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    The burden of General Gamelin’s, and indeed of all the French High Command’s subsequent remarks,. was insistence on their inferiority in the air and earnest entreaties for more squadrons of the Royal Air Force, bomber as well as fighter, but chiefly the latter. This prayer for fighter support was destined to be repeated at every subsequent conference until France fell. In the course of his appeal, General Gamelin said that fighters were needed not only to give cover to the French Army, but also to stop the German tanks. At this I said: “No. It is the business of the artillery to stop the tanks. The business of the fighters is to cleanse the skies
(nettoyer le ciel)
over the battle.” It was vital that our metropolitan fighter air force should not be drawn out of Britain on any account. Our existence turned on this. Nevertheless, it was necessary to cut to the bone. In the morning, before I started, the Cabinet had given me authority to move four more squadrons of fighters to France. On our return to the Embassy and after talking it over with Dill, I decided to ask sanction for the despatch of six more. This would leave us with only the twenty-five fighter squadrons at home, and that was the final limit. It was a rending decision either way. I told General Ismay to telephone to London that the Cabinet should assemble at once to consider an urgent telegram which would be sent over in the course of the next hour or so. Ismay did this in Hindustani, having previously arranged for an Indian Army officer to be standing by in his office. This was