Panzer Grenadier: 1940 The Fall of France
Scenario Preview, Part Eight
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
October 2022

Poor strategy and weak national leadership (both military and political) helped lead to France’s stunning defeat in just six weeks during the spring of 1940. That didn’t stop individual soldiers, officers and formations from fighting the Nazi invaders with the heroism that had been a French hallmark since the nation’s founding in 987 A.D. Nearly 50,000 Germans would be killed in the campaign and over 110,000 wounded; the cheese-eating surrender monkeys had teeth.

Panzer Grenadier: 1940 The Fall of France highlights some of the heroism of France’s defenders, men like tank ace Capt. Pierre Dunoyer de Segonzac or Gen. Gusatve Mesny of 5th North African Division. The new Playbook edition’s chapter structure puts their actions in context of the larger campaign, making their stories even more stirring, and heartbreaking. Good men are not always enough to defeat evil.

Let’s have a look at the scenarios of Chapter Six:

Chapter Six
La Forêt de Mormal
The collapse of the Ninth Army had opened a yawning gap in the French lines through which the Germans poured their panzer divisions. The high-speed advance threatened to encircle all of the northern armies engaged in Belgium, as the panzer divisions rushed forward heedless of the wishes of their Supreme Leader, the (self-anointed) Greatest Commander of All Times.

In the north, the 5th and 7th Panzer Divisions crossed the Franco-Belgian border and confronted a fortified zone south of Maubeuge. The French reacted by urgently sending the 1st DLM, which had returned from Holland, to defend the Sambre river. But it would be mostly local forces that tried to hold the river line and the Mormal Forest, a large oak wood with few roads, re-planted after the devastation of the Great War.

Scenario Thirty
Sambre et Meuse
17 May 1940
Berlaimont, east of the Mormal Forest, France
Unable to cover his entire front along the Sambre River, Gen. Louis-Ernest Béjard of the 101st Fortress Infantry Division elected to only defend the bridges. His 87th Fortress Infantry Regiment had been formed from excess reservists called in for both infantry and tank units, and had trained together since August 1939. Together with some motorcycle platoons of the 8th Cuirassiers (the 2nd DLM’s recon regiment), he sent them to re-capture the bridges at Berlaimont that had been taken by the Germans.

Conclusion
Despite their best efforts the French could not muster enough anti-tank guns to do anything about the panzers patrolling the Mormal Forest. But then two Somua tank platoons of the 4th Cuirassiers (from 1st DLM) arrived from Le Quesnoy. Thus reinforced, the French drove through the forest, destroying a few light panzers on the way, and reached the outskirts of Berlaimont in the evening. A short and violent firefight erupted between the French tanks, some light panzers and German anti-tank guns. The Germans managed to damage three Somuas before the French called a retreat. Combat the following day would be even more difficult, and 4th Cuirassiers ended up withdrawing to Jolimetz.

Notes
Motorcycles! An entire French battalion of motorcyclists is on the attack. Their tank support greatly outclasses that of the Germans, and they are well-crewed and well-led. Unfortunately for the French, they’re after a specific objective (a bridge) and so their great mobility isn’t that much of an advantage. But anytime you get to play with this many motorcycles, it’s a fun scenario.

Scenario Thirty-One
Knightly Combat
18 May 1940
Jolimetz, northwest of the Mormal Forest
On the edge of the Mormal forest, Capitaine Pierre Dunoyer de Segonzac, the son of a naval officer who traced his noble patent to 1558, awaited the Germans with the Somua S35 cavalry tanks of his First Squadron of 4th Cuirassiers. Major Theodor Graf Schimmelmann von Lindenburg, the aristocratic commander of the 15th Panzer Regiment’s Second Battalion, had received the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross just four days previously. Their commands would fight a deadly duel on the road to Le Quesnoy.

Conclusion
Dunoyer de Segonzac graduated from the St. Cyr military academy at the age of 19, and after service with the horsed cavalry had become an expert instructor on the Somua S35 cavalry tank. He had trained his men thoroughly in their use and tactics. When the Germans attacked the French position near Jolimetz with a full panzer regiment supported by a motorized infantry regiment, some of the Somuas charged them and drove the panzers back while destroying several German tanks and anti-tank guns. Not one Somua was lost, and firing ceased at noon when the Germans realized that a continued frontal assault would cost them far too dearly. Dunoyer de Segonzac would command a training school under the Vichy regime. Charged with creating a “new elite” of young men to serve as the vanguard of the National Revolution, he instead organized them into Resistance cadres, hid Jews on the school grounds and later took up arms himself.

Notes
Each side comes to this battle with a mixed tank-infantry force and strong morale. The victory conditions force them to fight for towns, but given the long board and each side’s limited mobility (both have more foot units than transports) there’s going to be a tank-on-tank free-for-all to determine the winner. And this time the French get Algerians, even if it is only one platoon’s worth.

Scenario Thirty-Two
They Shall Not Pass!
18 May 1940
East of Maubeuge, France
The Maubeuge fortified sector, part of the old Great War era fortress line along the Belgian border, had been re-built along the Sambre River as a kind of secondary extension of the Maginot Line. Following the Allied Dyle plan’s failure and subsequent German moves southward to cut off the French armies’ retreat, some utterly exhausted French troops filed into the Maubeuge fortifications to join those garrisons that had not been drawn off into the fighting elsewhere. Hopefully, they could delay the German advance long enough to help the French form a new line of resistance.

Conclusion
A cluster of casemates at Marpent defended the south bank of the Sambre, while on the north bank a mixed collection of French units under Lt. Col. Eugène Marioge of the 6th Tirailleurs Marocains fought desperately to defend the few bridges which had not yet been destroyed. The Germans attacked the southern casemates on the morning of the 18th and took them one by one that afternoon despite powerful defensive fire from the nearby fort at Boussois. Meanwhile, Germans coming from the city of Maubeuge hit the French from another direction. On the Assevent bridge, scattered infantry and several tanks resisted repeated German attempts to cross the river and held the bridge until nightfall. Groupement Marioge held out for several days, but their fate was sealed from the outset. The fort at Boussois, the last of the Mauberge Line to fall, capitulated under massive bombardments and engineer attacks on 21 May.

Notes
It’s not always about the tanks. This is a fairly large scenario featuring a German infantry assault on French fortified positions. The Germans have sky-high morale and some very limited tank support, plus a great deal of artillery. The French have reasonable morale given their situation, even more artillery than the Germans, and entrenchments to protect their troops. This is going to be tough on the Germans.

Scenario Thirty-Three
For God, France and Joan of Arc
18 May 1940
Jolimetz, northwest of the Mormal Forest, France
Repelled by Dunoyer de Segonzac and his Somuas in their first assault, the Germans regrouped and tried again in the early afternoon. This time the heavier Panzer IV tanks took point while the light Panzer I and II tanks made a wide flanking movement to come at the village from the north. “Twelve Somua tanks,” Segonzac wrote in his diary, “supported by skirmishers and cavalry, awaited the assault of some hundred and eight panzers of different types . . . We did not imagine in our most pessimistic calculations having to face such disproportionate forces.”

Conclusion
The badly-outnumbered Somua tanks fought hard but fell to the Germans one by one, and when the crew of a destroyed tank called for a retreat Segonzac replied calmly, “Go back into your tank and continue to fight!” But German numbers began to tell as their infantry began to take the village despite fierce close-quarters resistance by Algerian infantry. At 1600 several shells penetrated Segonzac’s tank, and the rest of the Somuas began withdrawing from the village toward Le Quesnoy. Panzers ambushed them at the village exit and set the Somuas afire, and in the end only one Somua escaped. With their tank support gone, the Algerians left Jolimetz at 1700.

Notes
This is the sequel to Knightly Combat, in which the Germans mount the attack they should have made the first time. They have big advantages in numbers and firepower; the French have no artillery but they do have a great deal of fighting spirit, some Algerians, and a teenaged farm girl cheering them on.

Scenario Thirty-Four
Night of the Arabs
21 May 1940
West of the Mormal Forest, France
By the third week of May the situation in the Mormal Forest had turned to disaster. Rommel’s raid through the French lines towards the Sambre River scattered French units, and panzers rushed about in an orgy of breakthroughs and encirclements. Ordered to clear the forest of Germans, Gen. Gustave Mesny of 5th North African Infantry Division knew that to be impossible and tried for an orderly withdrawal instead. Mesny gathered what forces he could and made his move in the middle of the night.

Conclusion
Mesny moved out with the lead French units at midnight and soon ran into enemy columns in the dark. Unexpected encounters with enemy minefields and anti-tank obstacles slowed his progress further, and the now-alerted 4th Panzer Division began to send infantry, engineers, tanks, artillery and even FlaK units to intercept the French. At 0600 the avant-garde had reached the Escaut River with only minimal losses, but the rear guard faced intense fighting. A company of Moroccans went back to help their comrades but 88mm and tank fire between Louvignies and Englefontaine blocked them. At 0745 the Tunisians and Moroccans assaulted the German defenses while singing a prayer for the dead. Their attack collapsed under the fire of tanks, machine guns and AA guns, with most of them killed or captured. Only small, scattered groups eventually reached the Escaut during the night of May 21st.

Mesny himself escaped the Mormal Forest to lead the remnants of his division fighting in the Lille Pocket; he was captured at the end of the month and spent the next four and a half years in German prisons. In December 1944 French guards killed an imprisoned German general, Fritz von Brodowski, who they held responsible for the massacre of 643 French civilians at Ouradour-sue-Glane and 117 more at Tulle, among other atrocities. In retaliation, Adolf Hitler personally selected Gustave Mesny for murder; Mesny was told that he would be transferred to another prison, and instead his guards shot him by the side of a highway. Mesny had helped Henri Girard escape in 1942, and this seems to have marked him for death.

Mesny had declined an opportunity to escape only days before his murder, as he feared that the Germans would murder his son, Louis, if he did so. Louis, also a prisoner of the Germans, was murdered by his captors anyway in April 1945.

Notes
This is a huge scenario, with six maps in play and a large force of crack Tunisian and Moroccan colonials squaring off with a German mechanized force of equally high morale. The French are trying to force their way across the long axis of the board, and the Germans show up from various edges to try to cut them off and stop them

And that’s Chapter Six! Next time, we look at Chapter Seven.

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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published a great many books, games and articles on historical subjects; people are saying that some of them are actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children, and new puppy. He misses his lizard-hunting Iron Dog, Leopold.

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