Darkest Hour

Historical Note

On the whole, the British Expeditionary Force performed rather well in France in 1940, even though it was forced to evacuate at Dunkirk. Most of the troops were bewildered by the rapid series of withdrawals that took place in order to keep in line with the French and Belgians as they fell back, but as the German net closed around them, the British fought with considerable gallantry and determination despite the enemy's superior numbers and fire-power. As the Germans would discover later in the war, fighting on the ground when the enemy commands the skies is not much fun.

Most of the characters depicted at BEF Headquarters were real and, thanks to diaries, testimonies and copies of messages and conferences, it has been possible not only to gather a fairly clear picture of what was going on at Gort's command post but also to use words spoken verbatim. I have, however, probably been a bit generous to General Lord Gort. He had many fine qualities, and it must have been an exasperating and extremely depressing time, but he also had his faults, not least his insistence on having far more staff officers than were necessary. Both GHQ and his advance headquarters were heaving with them, which made for a slow dissemination of orders and did nothing to improve the already parlous state of Allied communications. Nonetheless, his decision to act swiftly and unilaterally to evacuate as much of the BEF as possible, and his system of maintaining strongpoints as the bulk of his force fell back towards Dunkirk, was courageous and deftly handled.

I'm conscious I have been quite hard on the French, although I should make clear that any criticism applies more to the commanders than to the fighting men. Unfortunately, however, the French commanders have a lot to answer for. In May 1940, France had a bigger army, navy and air force than Germany, and when one considers that accepted military doctrine suggests you should not attack unless you have at least a three-to-one advantage in manpower and materiel, it seems incredible that the Germans should have rolled over the French so easily. Furthermore, it was an extraordinary gamble on the part of Germany to launch such an attack against not only France, but Belgium, Holland and Britain as well. There is not the space here to explain why the German panzer thrust was so successful, but it is certainly true that France - and, indeed, many German commanders - thought the war would soon become largely attritional just like that of 1914-18. Only a few on the German side ever envisaged the kind of fast-paced highly mobile campaign that became the reality: as has been proved convincingly by the German historian Heinz Frieser, there was no 'blitzkrieg' concept as an agreed and fully formed strategy at this time.

It was because the war was expected to be attritional that most of France's aircraft were spread out across the country and held in reserve rather than being near the front. It is also why the French went to such lengths to build the infamous Maginot Line. No one (apart from one French government minister) suspected that Sedan, the hinge between the end of the Maginot Line and the manoeuvrable front that was to enter Belgium the moment the Germans attacked, would be the point of the German spearhead. As a result, it was horribly under-defended, with no active minefields whatsoever, poorly trained troops and incomplete, scarcely manned bunkers.

Despite this, all the French really needed to do was stand firm at the key nodal points - bridges, key road junctions and so on - and the German lines of supply would have been cut off, isolating the thrusting panzer divisions. As it happened, just six German panzer divisions and four motorized divisions were largely responsible for defeating a French Army of some two million men; panicking commanders, unable to move their cumbersome, defensive-minded troops quickly enough, and lacking sufficient radio sets, became like rabbits caught in headlights. General Gamelin, the French commander-in-chief until he was sacked, General Billotte, commander of First Army Group, General Blanchard, Commander of First Army, and General Altmayer, Commander of French V Corps, were all reported to have broken down in tears at various points. General Ironside, the British chief of the Imperial General Staff, even grabbed Billotte's jacket and shook him to try to knock some steel into him. What was needed was resolve, determination and clear thinking;

blubbing was certainly not the answer. I have made the point in the novel about the comparative ages of the British and French commanders and I think it's valid. Most of the French commanders were a bit long in the tooth, and not only far too ingrained with the military thinking of the First World War, but physically and mentally too old to deal with the enormous stresses of commanding a modern army. Few generals have won decisive battles aged sixty-five plus.

I have tried to depict the main events described in the book as accurately as possible and all the locations, dates and timings of events are written as they were. The Waffen-SS Totenkopf Division was one of only two SS divisions to see action in France, and both Eicke and his frustrations in trying to convince the Wehrmacht of his division's worth were much as depicted. The reconnaissance battalion's bulldozing through a retreating French column was also based on a similar episode, although it was a reconnaissance unit from 7th Panzer Division, rather than the Totenkopf, who were responsible. Timpke, however, is fictional, although the reconnaissance battalion is not. The real-life commander was Sturmbannfuhrer Heimo Hierthes, but I did not think it fair to give him Timpke's many disagreeable qualities when I could find out nothing whatsoever about him.

Actually, there were French troops in the area near Hainin where Tanner and his men stole the Totenkopf's trucks; that is, a part of the French 43rd Division had been trapped to the north of Mauberge after heavy fighting against the 5th Panzer Division on 17 May. Most of the division had fallen back to Bavay and then across the Escaut, but those trapped continued to fight on stubbornly while German troops advanced around them. This was not an uncommon scenario in the battle for France and it is quite possible that on 19 May, Timpke's reconnaissance battalion would have missed them entirely.

I have tried to recount the British counter-attack at Arras as accurately as possible, but it was complicated and the precise details are often contradictory. Although the British knew that the Germans were concentrating forces south of Arras and vice versa, neither Major- General Franklyn nor Major-General Rommel knew that the other was going to attack in precisely the same place. Thus, the 25th Panzer Regiment, Rommel's main tank unit in his 7th Panzer Division, had already thrust successfully north-west of Arras towards Acq by the time the two British columns were moving south. This was why German forces were spotted west and north-west of Maroeuil as they moved south; 25th Panzer hung around near Acq during most of the afternoon of 21 May, until Rommel ordered them south-east again at around seven p.m. so as to cut off the retreating British. This is why the 8th Durham Light Infantry, still in Duisans, and the accompanying artillery found themselves under renewed attack from the north-west that evening.

It is true that Rommel personally directed the German battery at Point 111. The guns were situated in an old quarry next to Belloy Farm, just north-west of the village of Wailly, and it is not only still there, but clear to see why they had positioned themselves in such an ideal spot. It is also true that Rommel's aide-de-camp, Oberleutnant Most, was killed while standing right next to him; also, Rommel, in his diary, expressed surprise as to how it had happened because he was not aware that the position was under direct attack - rather, the British tanks in front of them and on their right were aiming at the troops moving either side: the SS Totenkopf on their left and his artillery and 6th Rifle Regiment on his right.

Tragically, the massacre of the Royal Norfolks at Le Paradis also occurred much as described, although there was no Timpke egging Knochlein on to carry out such an appalling deed. There have been all sorts of suggestions as to why he ordered the executions. One - entirely unconfirmed, I hasten to add, and without any evidence at all - asserts that it was a revenge attack for the death of a number of Totenkopf prisoners at Arras. Two men survived and escaped, although wounded, and were later recaptured and spent the rest of the war in PoW camps. Afterwards, however, they revealed the truth of what had happened. Knochlein, who had survived the war, was tracked down, put on trial, found guilty and hanged.

One brief note about the weapons. Interestingly, an MP28 sub-machine-gun - almost identical to the Waffen- SS MP35 - was brought back from Dunkirk and handed over to the Admiralty. With the RAF, they decided to commission a new sub-machine-gun. The Lanchester, as it became known, was an almost like-for-like copy of the German model.

Had the French not lost their heads and panicked and instead dealt with the German attack logically and calmly, the Second World War would, no doubt, never have become a world war in the way that we think of it today and would very likely have been over that summer. Sadly, that did not happen. France was vanquished, and by the signing of the armistice on 22 June 1940, all of continental Europe, from the top of Norway in the Arctic Circle, all the way down to the southern tip of Spain, lay in Nazi or Fascist hands. Britain faced five more years of war and the men of the Yorkshire Rangers had many more battles to come. Jack Tanner and Stan Sykes were needed again all too soon.