The Battle of Abbeville took place from 27 May to 4 June 1940, near Abbeville during the Battle of France in the Second World War. On 20 May, the 2nd Panzer Division advanced 56 mi (90 km) to Abbeville on the English Channel, overran the 25th Infantry Brigade of the 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division and captured the town at 8:30 p.m. Only a few British survivors managed to retreat to the south bank of the Somme and at 2:00 a.m. on 21 May, the III Battalion, Rifle Regiment 2 reached the coast, west of Noyelles-sur-Mer.
The 1st Armoured Division (Major-General Roger Evans) arrived in France from 15 May without artillery, short of an armoured regiment and the infantry of the 1st Support Group, that had been diverted to Calais. From 27 May to 4 June, attacks by the Franco-British force south of the Abbeville bridgehead, held by the 2nd Panzer Division, then the 57th Infantry Division, recaptured about half of the area. The Allied forces lost many of their tanks and the Germans much of their infantry, some units running away over the River Somme bridge. On 5 June, the divisions of the German 4th Army attacked out of the bridgeheads south of the Somme and pushed back the French and British, depleted by their counter-attacks, to the Bresle with many casualties.
In 1953, the British official historian, Lionel Ellis, wrote that the Allies lacked battlefield co-ordination, which contributed to the Allied failure to defeat the Germans and magnified the cost of lack of preparation and underestimation of the German defences south of the Somme. In 2001, Peter Caddick-Adams also wrote of the chronic lack of battlefield liaison in and between the British and French divisions, caused by a shortage of radios and led to elementary and costly tactical errors. The lack of communication continued after reinforcement by the 51st (Highland) Infantry Division (Major-General Victor Fortune) and French armoured and infantry divisions. The Germans had committed substantial forces to the bridgeheads, despite the operations in the north, that culminated in the Dunkirk evacuation (26 May – 3 June). The Somme crossings at Abbeville and elsewhere were still available on 5 June, for Fall Rot (Case Red), the final German offensive, which brought about the defeat of France.
Background
Battle of France
After the Phoney War, the Battle of France began on 10 May 1940 when the German armies in the west commenced Fall Gelb. The German Army Group B invaded the Netherlands and advanced westwards. General Maurice Gamelin, the Supreme Allied Commander, initiated the Dyle Plan (Plan D) and invaded Belgium to close up to the Dyle river with the French First and Seventh armies and the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). The plan relied on the Maginot Line fortifications along the German–French border to economise on troops and enable a mobile battle to be fought in Belgium. The Breda variant of Plan D required the Seventh Army to advance swiftly into the south-western Netherlands, to link with the Dutch army but the Germans advanced through most of the Netherlands before the French forces arrived. The attack into the Low Countries by Army Group B was a decoy, intended to attract the bulk of the most powerful French and British forces, while Army Group A advanced through the Ardennes, further to the south, against second-rate French reserve divisions. The Germans crossed the Meuse at Sedan on 14 May, far too quickly for the Allies to react, then attacked down the Somme valley.
On 19 May, the 7th Panzer Division (Major-General Erwin Rommel) attacked Arras but was repulsed and during the evening the SS Division Totenkopf (Gruppenführer Theodor Eicke) arrived on the left flank of the 7th Panzer Division. The 8th Panzer Division, further on the left, reached Hesdin and Montreuil, the 6th Panzer Division captured Doullens after a day-long battle with the 36th Infantry Brigade of the 12th (Eastern) Infantry Division; advanced units pressed on to Le Boisle. On 20 May, the 2nd Panzer Division covered 56 mi (90 km) straight to Abbeville on the English Channel. Luftwaffe attacks on Abbeville increased, the Somme bridges were bombed and at 4:30 p.m. a party from the 2/6th Queens of the 25th Infantry Brigade of the 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division, ran into a German patrol and managed to report that the Germans had got between the 2/6th and 2/7th Queens. The British infantry were short of equipment and ammunition and were soon ordered to retreat over the river; the 1/5th and 2/7th Queens found the bridges had been destroyed in the bombing. The Germans captured the town at 8:30 p.m. and only a few British survivors managed to retreat to the south bank of the Somme. At 2:00 a.m. on 21 May, the III Battalion, Rifle Regiment 2 reached the coast west of Noyelles-sur-Mer.
The 1st Panzer Division captured Amiens and established a bridgehead on the south bank, over-running the 7th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment of the 37th (Royal Sussex) Infantry Brigade. Of the 701 men in the battalion, only 70 survived to be captured but the operation deterred the Germans from probing further. The 12th (Eastern) Infantry Division and 23rd (Northumbrian) Division had been destroyed, the area between the Scarpe and the Somme had been captured, the British lines-of-communication had been cut and the Channel Ports were vulnerable to capture. The Army Group A war diarist wrote,
Now that we have reached the coast at Abbeville, the first stage of the offensive has been achieved.... The possibility of an encirclement of the Allied armies' northern group is beginning to take shape.
— Kriegstagebuch
At 8:30 a.m., RAF Air Component Hawker Hurricane pilots reported a German column at Marquion on the Canal du Nord and others further south. Fires were seen in Cambrai, Douai and Arras which the Luftwaffe had bombed but the Air Component was moving back to bases in England. Communication between the Advanced Air Striking Force (AASF) in the south, the remaining Air Component units in the north and the Air Ministry was disorganised; the squadrons in France had constantly to move bases and operate from unprepared airfields with poor telephone connexions. The AASF was cut off from the BEF; the Air Ministry and England-based squadrons were too far away for close co-operation. Two squadrons of bombers in England reached the column seen at 11:30 a.m. and bombed transport on the Bapaume road, the second squadron finding the road empty. After midday, Georges requested a maximum effort but only one more raid was flown, by two squadrons from 6:30 p.m., around Albert and Doullens. During the night, Bomber Command and the AASF flew 130 sorties and lost five bombers.
BEF
During the winter of 1939–1940, BEF brigades had been detached for a period in the Maginot Line, to gain experience of conditions close to German troops. Saar Force was composed of the 51st (Highland) Infantry Division (Major-General Victor Fortune) and attached mechanised cavalry regiment, machine-gun battalions, artillery, French troops and a composite RAF squadron of fighters and army co-operation aircraft. From 30 April to 6 May, the force took over a line on the Saar from Colmen to Launstroff, between the French 42nd and 2nd divisions. In early May, German patrolling and skirmishing died down but on the night of 9/10 May many German aircraft flew overhead. On 13 May, the divisional front was bombarded and German infantry attacks were repulsed. More attacks followed on the Franco-British positions and on 15 May, the division was ordered back to the ligne de reçeuil, before being relieved by the night of 22/23 May to concentrate at Étain, 25 mi (40 km) west of Metz.
Soon after the end of Operation Dynamo, the Dunkirk evacuation, 100,000 British fighting and lines-of-communications troops south of the Somme were reinforced, losses in the three AASF fighter and six bomber squadrons in France were replaced and another two fighter and four bomber squadrons were sent from England. Advanced parties of the 1st Armoured Division (Major-General Roger Evans) arrived at Le Havre on 15 May and moved to Arras. The German advance made operations in the area impossible and Luftwaffe bombing and mining of Le Havre made the port unsuitable for more landings. On 19 May, the War Office agreed that the rest of the division should land at Cherbourg and then concentrate at Pacy-sur-Eure, about 35 mi (56 km) south of Rouen. The rest of the division began to disembark on 19 May but had no artillery, was short of an armoured regiment and the infantry of the Support Group, which had been diverted to Calais. The division lacked wireless equipment, spare parts, bridging material and there were no tanks in reserve for the 114 light tanks and 143 cruisers in the armoured brigades.
On 21 May, Evans was ordered to capture crossings over the Somme from Picquigny to Pont-Remy and then be ready to operate to the east or north depending on circumstances. The area south of the lower Somme was the Northern District of the BEF supply system (Acting Brigadier Archibald Beauman) with sub-areas at Dieppe and Rouen. Beauman had received intelligence that the Germans had already captured the Somme crossings and were moving on the Seine bridges near Rouen. Beauman ordered the crossings to be secured by part of the divisional Support Group and next day part of the division concentrated in the Forêt de Lyons, east of Rouen as a flank guard on the lower Andelle and to protect the arrival of the rest of the division, due on 23 May. Early that day, part of the 1st Armoured Division advanced to the Bresle on a line from Aumale to Blangy, as reports were received that the German forces on the southern flank were on the defensive, only reconnoitring south of the river as they attacked St Omer and Arras in the north. The French Seventh Army had closed up to German positions from Péronne to Amiens, ready to cross the river on 23 May. GHQ ordered an attack by the 1st Armoured Division, to combine with the Anglo-French operations at the Battle of Arras which had begun on 21 May.
Lines of communication
On the night of 22/23 May, Allied forces north of the Somme were cut off by the German advance to St Omer and Boulogne, which isolated the BEF from its supply entrepôts in Brittany, at Cherbourg in Normandy and at Nantes. Dieppe was the main medical base of the BEF and Le Havre the principal supply and ordnance source. From St Saëns to Buchy, north-east of Rouen, lay the BEF ammunition depot; infantry, machine-gun and base depots were at Rouen, Évreux and l'Épinay. A main railway line linking the bases and connecting them with bases further west in Normandy and with the BEF in the north, ran through Rouen, Abbeville and Amiens. Brigadier Beauman was responsible for base security and guarding 13 airfields under construction by troops drawn from the Royal Engineers, Royal Army Ordnance Corps, Royal Corps of Signals and older garrison troops.
Further south, in the Southern District, were three Territorial divisions and the 4th Border Regiment, 4th Buffs and the 1st/5th Sherwood Foresters, lines-of-communication battalions, which were moved into the Northern District on 17 May as a precaution. Rail movements between the bases and the Somme quickly became difficult, due to congestion and German bombing, the trains from the north mainly carrying Belgian and French troops and the roads filling with retreating troops and refugees. Beauman lost contact with GHQ and was unable to discover if Allied troops were going to dig in on the Somme or further south. On 18 May, Major-General Philip de Fonblanque, commanding the lines-of-communication troops, ordered Beauman to prepare defences in the Northern District. Beauforce was improvised from the 2nd/6th East Surrey of the 12th (Eastern) Infantry Division, 4th Buffs, four machine-gun platoons and the 212th Army Troops Company RE.
Vicforce (Colonel C. E. Vickary) took over five provisional battalions, created from reinforcement troops in BEF infantry and general base depots, which held plenty of men but few arms and little equipment. Beauforce was sent by road to Boulogne on 20 May but the Germans had already cut off the port and it returned to the 12th Division near Abbeville. When German troops captured Amiens on 20 May and then began patrolling south of the river, their appearance caused panic and alarmist reports, in the absence of reliable information. Beauman ordered the digging of a defence line along the Andelle and Béthune rivers, which were the most effective tank obstacles south of the Bresle river, to protect Dieppe and Rouen from the east. Bridges were prepared for demolition and obstacles placed on their approaches.
Prelude
German preparations
On 21 May, Panzergruppe von Kleist prepared the Somme bridges for demolition and outposts were pushed as far south as Moyenneville, Huppy, Caumont and Bailleul, where anti-tank guns had been dug in and camouflaged among the woods. Later in the day orders arrived for the advance to resume northwards towards the Channel Ports but parts of the group were held back in reserve on 22 May, due to the Allied counter-attack at Arras on 21 May, until reinforced by the XIV Corps and the 2nd Motorised Division, which began to take over the defence of the Somme bridgeheads the next day. The staff of Engineer Regiment 511 (Colonel Müller) and Engineer battalions 41 and 466 were added to the 2nd Motorised Division, ready to blow the Somme bridges in an emergency as the division probed south to the Bresle, Aumale and Conty. When the XIV Corps arrived it was to continue to expand the bridgeheads on the south bank.