June 27, 2023 - France
Sedan
Originally, the plan was to go on a private tour of Sedan with Tucker Tours. The Battle of Sedan on May 14, 1940 was key and I wanted to hear about it from an expert. Despite the Meuse River in Sedan being an excellent defensive position, the Germans were able to fight their way across the river. Having done so, the German general Guderian immediately sent his panzers west in a sprint to the channel coast cutting off the British and French armies to the north. The result was Dunkirk and the fall of France. But the Germans might have been stopped here at Sedan had the French put up a better defense or if the German attack was inept. Anyways, the tour sounded like just what I was looking for.
"Maginot Line Tours / Tuckertours are sightseeing tours arranged with my visitors typically weeks or months in advance. The tours last a complete day and are usually based on the German attack at Sedan in May 1940 and the French Maginot Line defences in the area. The tour includes a private underground visit of a Maginot Line ouvrage( Fort). We visit the battlefield that is the area around Sedan, in the conflicts of 1640 (leading to Sedan being annexed by France), the 1870 Franco-Prussian War (the battle of Sedan was militarily the defining battle in the Franco-Prussian War), WWI (the German attack through Sedan in 1914 and in 1918 the furthest point of advance reached by the US Army), and of course the 1940 Blitzkrieg attack at Sedan through the Ardennes, and the French Maginot Line defenses in the area). We see and visit sites of Historical (military) and Heritage interest. From the medieval castle at Sedan, the old town of Sedan, fortified churches, the Maginot Line and the beautiful Ardennes countryside. All of this in the area where these battles took place. Usually the tour is based on the events in 1940, however we take in elements from the previous battles (1870 and WWI) because it is all in the same area, and the preceding battles help explain in part what happened here in 1940."
Unfortunately Mr. Tucker was having health issues and was not able to do tours for most of 2023.
Having arrived in Sedan, we soon found out that the Castle is pretty much all there is. It's not a touristy town. But that was OK. I declared the full day allotted to the tour as a "day of rest". Lynnette and I walked around the town, drove to and from Stonne, but took it easy for most of the day. Which isn't a bad idea on a trip like this.
Here Lynnette is on the Pont de Meuse looking east into the center of Sedan.
A close-up of Turenne (1611 – 1675), who was a native-son of Sedan; born in the Castle. I had no idea who he was and was surprised when I learned that he is considered one of the great Captains in history.
Turenne's most eloquent countrymen wrote his éloges, and Montecuccoli himself exclaimed, "A man is dead today who did honour to Man". His body, taken to St Denis, was buried with the Kings of France. Even the revolutionaries of 1793 respected it, and, while they reburied the bodies of the monarchs in a mass grave, they preserved the remains of Turenne at the Jardin des Plantes until 22 September 1800, when Napoleon had them removed to the church of the Invalides at Paris, where they still rest.
Napoleon recommended all soldiers to "read and re-read" the campaigns of Turenne as one of the great captains of history, placing him among Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Frederick the Great, Prince Eugene of Savoy, Gustavus Adolphus, and Julius Caesar. His fame as a general rivalled that of any other in Europe at a period when the populace studied war more critically than ever before.
A few blocks to the south of Town Hall is the Monument to the Dead of 1870 near Sedan's botanical garden.
We checked out the small but pretty botanical garden which was established in 1875 upon the demolition of the Bourbon bastion, with its plan drawn up by René Richer. Today it contains mature trees (beech, maple, chestnut), magnolias, a rose garden with more than 50 varieties, a collection of hydrangeas, a bandstand, and a pool with fish, swans, and ducks.
During the Franco-Prussian War, on 2 September 1870, French emperor Napoleon III was taken prisoner with 100,000 of his soldiers at the First Battle of Sedan. This war made the unification of Germany possible. Sedan was occupied by the Germans for four years during World War I.
On May 10, 1940, German troops invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg. On May 13-14, they won the Second Battle of Sedan by crossing the Meuse River. By attacking through the Ardennes Forest and crossing the Meuse at Sedan and other sites further north, they bypassed the Maginot Line to the south, which was the French fortification system, and entrapped the Allied Forces to the north that were advancing east into Belgium. The German battle plan was called Case Yellow (Fall Greb), and was mostly devised by General Erich von Manstein. Sedan was the point of maximum German effort. The plan was aggressively executed by German generals like Guderian and Rommel. On 20 May, five days after consolidating their bridgeheads, the German Army reached the Channel.
This map shows the German crossing of the Meuse River at Sedan on 13 May, 1940 and subsequent breakout to the west toward the channel coast.
In the early hours of 13 May, the 10th Panzer Division slipped into position south of Sedan, ready to strike at its designated crossing point near the town of Wadelincourt. The 2nd Panzer Division moved into position to the west to cross at Donchery. The 1st Panzer Division prepared to strike in the middle, at the Gaulier bridgehead, just north of Sedan, on the northern bend of the Sedan-Meuse loop. The Luftwaffe made its maximum effort -- using every Stuka dive bomber it had -- between Gaulier and Wadelincourt.
All attempts by the 2nd Panzer Division to cross the Meuse near Conchery failed. Fortunately for 2nd Panzer, the 1st Panzer Division succeeded in crossing the Meuse in the centre. From there it headed into the right flank of the French at Donchery. With that, the units on the 2nd Panzer's left flank crossed the river and infiltrated the French positions opposite Donchery at 20:00.
The 10th Panzer Division's assaults failed all along the Meuse front. The only success came from a small 11-man team (five engineers and six infantrymen) of the 2nd Company, 49th Panzer Engineer Battalion. Unsupported and acting on their own initiative, this small force led by Feldwebel Walter Rubarth opened a decisive breach by knocking out seven bunker positions. Follow-up units from the 1st Battalion 86th Rifle Regiment had crossed over by 21:00 and stormed the remaining bunkers on Hill 246, where the main French defence positions were located. By the end of the day, the bridgehead had been consolidated and the objective taken.
By 01:00 on 14 May, a pontoon bridge had been erected. Afterwards, masses of lorries, armoured cars and other traffic passed through. The first Panzers (tanks) crossed at 07:20 on 14 May.
The capture of Sedan and the expansion of the bridgeheads alarmed the French who called for a total aerial effort against the bridgeheads at Sedan on 14 May, to isolate the three Panzer Divisions. The Germans were ready with fighters and flak guns. French and British aircraft losses were heavy and no bridges were knocked out. By nightfall, at least 600 tanks, including those of the 2nd Panzer Division which had to use the 1st Panzer Division's bridge at Gaulier (owing to theirs not having yet been constructed), were across the Meuse.
On 13–14 May, the Germans were vulnerable. A strong attack at this point by the French armoured units could have prevented Guderian from breaking out of the Meuse bridgeheads and changed the outcome of the campaign. But the French weren't able to make it happen.
Looking north up the Meuse River from the Pont de Meuse.
The Meuse north of Sedan and Pont de Meuse bridge. The 1st Panzer Division came across here.
Military historians agree that the Battle at Sedan sealed the fate of Belgium and France.
The German advance to the Channel trapped 1,700,000 Allied soldiers and resulted in the expulsion of the Allies from the mainland of Western Europe. The bulk of the British Army escaped from the port of Dunkirk but the Allies left behind large amounts of equipment. The German encirclement destroyed the best units of the French Army, resulting in 40,000 soldiers taken prisoner of war, but 139,732 British and 139,037 French troops escaped. French and British forces were dispatched from England and participated in the battles of June 1940, but the French armed forces ceased fighting on 25 June 1940, when the Armistice of 22 June took effect
Although the Maginot Line didn't extend to Sedan, there were fortifications on the west side of the river such as this one.
