THE COUNCIL OF WAR OF
JUNE 14, 1940
Which
Took Place
at Fort Schoenenbourg
I hear from young people an
acknowledgement that would have surprised us ten years ago. They
affirm that the first resistance fighters were the fortress crews
[of the Maginot Line]. The title "Resistance" has taken
on, since 1940, and above all since 1944, a particular meaning
stemming from clandestine operations; here we must abstract from
this somewhat.
The Maginot Line could have enabled us
to take the initiative, but our leaders didn't use it as a
hardened defensive position from which a mobile army could
assault various enemy weakpoints. The operations at Narvik, in
Belgium, and in Syria failed because they were improvised; if
they had been planned and launched in time, they might have had
good results.
The month of June, 1940, brought on
unanticipated, extreme situations in the midst of which many
French looked for a means of forecasting the Germans' maneuvers
and thrusts, in order to avoid them. I am thinking in particular
of the industrialists who had concealed strategic stockpiles.
General de Gaulle wasn't the only one to resist.
Our feelings as Frenchmen were what
infused our hearts during a short Council of War held at Fort
Schoenenbourg, and during which we decided to stand and fight.
That day, we knew what the radio had
told us about the thrust through the Ardennes, about the race of
the Panzers through Amiens and Abbeville, and about the
embarkation at Dunquerque. We did not know the extent of the rout
and of the "exodus" [by the British, from the beaches
at Dunquerque]. This was not the time for us to abandon our
position, but at the same time we knew that [the Line] would be
stripped of troop elements being called up to fight elsewhere.
During the night of 13-14 June, most of the troops occupying the Fortified Sector of Haguenau as it stood in 1939 (70,000 or 80,000 men) acknowledged their [pullback] orders, saying they understood:
In comparison to the set-up of the
Sector in 1939, when, the preceding August, 23,000 men had been
stationed there, we were now not more than 6,000 men, comprised
of Fort and casemate crews, plus a small reserve force of
infantry and engineers, hardly fielding any artillery other than
the fortress guns of the Maginot forts. All that remained of the
Sector command staff was located at Fort Hochwald, under the
command of Lt. Col. Schwartz, a disabled veteran of World War I,
who walked with a cane, bent over and limping, in the hope that
his handsome face and his large mustache would give him some
measure of prestige.
On 14 June, around 2 PM, Schwartz, the
new Commandant of the Sector came to Fort Schoenenbourg to
inspect our positions. He clearly wanted to make a show of being
visible to his subordinates, checking their morale, and
encouraging them
Thus took place in the quarters of the
Fortress Commander at Schoenenbourg a brief Council of War, about
which not enough has previously been said. There were no records
kept, but I can remember, as though it had taken place yesterday,
that the following attendees were present:
Captain Gros, Fortress Major, arrived in
the barracks at the end of the meeting; the Lt. Col. didn't have
the time to wait for him.
We had to choose between two solutions
put forward to us by Lt. Col. Schwartz:
After an exchange of views, it was time
to express our opinions, and being the youngest, it was up to me
to go first. The second possibility was agreed to
unanimously-that of accomplishing the mission historically
entrusted to fortress troops. We based our choice on the
following factors:
In the course of his inspection, Lt.
Col. Schwartz verified that all the defenders of the Fort had the
same determination, and that evening confirmed the order to stand
fast to the last man and to fire without any intention of falling
back.
The following days were calm enough.
Although barely audible, the broadcasts from Radio France were
what we were listening for; their news agreed with that from
Radio Stuttgart [in Germany], where the traitor Ferdonnet, in a
booming voice, reported on the armistice negotiations. This
stirred unhealthy thoughts in the feeble-hearted among us, but
did not distract them from the common goal of resistance. Neither
Ferdonnet nor Radio France had mentioned "the call from
London of 18 June". It was Adjutant Gruais, our chief of
Communications, the monitoring expert, who informed me of it.
Right away I informed Commander Reynier that a General in London
with a strange name was pulling together French people who wanted
to go on fighting. That same day we began to undergo the German
bombing and shelling, and a few of us knew that we had a
comrade-in-arms on foreign soil; the name "General de
Gaulle" was not known to us until later.
We need to back up to 14 June to
appreciate the value of our decision [to remain in the Fort and
fight]. One must understand that we could not foresee the rapid
rate at which events would unfold:
We would have had full latitude to
execute the undistinguished delaying mission conceived by some
none too aggressive or realistic general from Supreme
Headquarters, but we preferred stand fight. If I report here on
the Council in which I participated, the reader should be aware
that our leaders did not act alone; I know that our Fort
Commander got together by telephone with his neighbors (in other
fortified positions):
As all these colleagues remember it, we
had a universally high level of esprit to prevail over our
attackers (and they acknowledged this in July). The six thousand
men of the Fortified Sector of Haguenau tied up two German
divisions with a strength five or six times greater than their
own, supported by a squadron of dive-bombers, and by the largest
artillery of the Wehrmacht. These means of attack gave
Schoenenbourg the sad privilege of b ecoming the most heavily
bombarded fort on the Maginot Line.
Our resolve showed on the ground. At the
time of the armistice on 25 June, 1940, the forts and casemates
of the Line hoisted the French flag on the shell-pocked
outerworks from Lembach to Fort-Louis. It flew until 1 July, the
day on which, stunned and discouraged, we had to turn our
unbeaten fortifications over to the Germans, under orders from
the French government.
P. STROH. 18 juin 1984