10 May in military history: Germany invades France and the Low Countries, 1940

10 May 1940 · 86 years ago

Alarm in the night

According to the Belgian government’s official account, the Belgian military attaché in Berlin reported on the evening of 9 May that the Germans meant to attack the next day, and at ten minutes past midnight General Headquarters gave the alarm. The British official historian, L. F. Ellis, gives the German zero hour as 5.35, when troops began the invasion of France, Luxembourg, Belgium and Holland.¹

Bombs fell first. Lord Gort, commander of the British Expeditionary Force, records enemy aircraft over his headquarters at Arras at about 4.30 a.m. and bombs on nearby aerodromes and on towns including Doullens and Abbeville; Ellis places the raid just before daybreak. The Belgian account dates the bombing of Belgian aerodromes, stations and communication centers to four o’clock.²

“I will speak first”

In Brussels the sirens sounded at 5.17 a.m., by the Belgian account. The American ambassador, Cudahy, told his colleague in Paris by telephone that German bombers had struck the city at 5:15, without any note or warning. The German ambassador called on the Belgian Foreign Minister, Spaak, at 8.30 by the Belgian account and at 8:40 by Cudahy’s. The official account has Spaak stop him: "I beg your pardon, Mr. Ambassador. I will speak first"; Spaak then read the government’s protest, which began: "Mr. Ambassador, the German Army has just attacked our country. This is the second time in twenty-five years that Germany has committed a criminal aggression against a neutral and loyal Belgium". Cudahy, citing the Foreign Office, reported that Spaak refused to hear the ambassador’s statement read.³

Gliders on the roof

Ellis writes that the loss of the bridges just west of Maastricht and of Eben-Emael "gravely prejudiced" the Belgian defense of the Albert Canal. Glider troops landed behind the bridges at Vroenhoven, Veldwezelt and Briedgen, the Belgian account says, and "A few gliders, taking advantage of the dark, landed on the roof of the fort" of Eben-Emael, where their crews used explosives to put its armament out of action or damage it. Ellis writes that the airborne troops seized the bridges and put the fort out of action "almost before the defenders realised that the battle had begun", though the Belgians won back and destroyed the bridge at Briedgen.⁴

Thomas Gukeisen, in a 2004 U.S. Army staff college thesis, writes that the gliders were to land at 0525, "five minutes before the main German attack west", and that the first landed on the fort at 0525. The fort held out into the next day: the Belgian account records its fall under 11 May, and Gukeisen dates its surrender to Colonel Melzer of the German 151st Infantry Regiment to 1227 on 11 May. By his count 700 defenders faced 62 attackers; the Belgians lost 23 men and had 59 wounded, and Oberleutnant Rudolf Witzig’s platoon six killed and fifteen wounded.⁵

Five days in the Netherlands

At 5 a.m. the American minister in The Hague cabled that the Netherlands "considers itself in a state of war with Germany" and that anti-aircraft fire had begun "shortly after 4:00 this morning". Queen Wilhelmina’s proclamation that day, as quoted by the Netherlands Institute of Military History (NIMH), spoke of a sudden German attack in the night "without the slightest warning" (our translation).⁶

According to Germany’s Deutsches Historisches Museum, the air landing at three airfields near The Hague failed with heavy losses, but the road and railway bridges at Moerdijk fell to paratroopers undamaged. Rotterdam was bombed on 14 May. That day, according to the Dutch Ministry of Defence and the NIMH, the commander-in-chief, General H. G. Winkelman, decided to lay down arms; Ellis writes that on 14 May the Commander of the Dutch Army ordered a cease-fire. Gort dates the Dutch Army’s laying down of arms to 15 May. The ministry adds that fighting went on for a few more days in Zeeland.⁷

The ministry gives two death tolls of different scope. One counts more than 2,300 servicemen killed between 10 and 17 May 1940 or dead later of their wounds, out of 280,000 under arms. A 2025 announcement gives nearly 2,200 Dutch soldiers and 2,500 civilians dead.⁸

Plan D

Gort writes that at 5.30 a.m. his mission with General Georges passed on the order "Alertes 1, 2 and 3," instant readiness to move into Belgium, and that at about 6.15 he was told to put Plan D into effect. Ellis puts the first message at about a quarter to six and the second half an hour later. Plan D was the advance to the River Dyle. Ellis writes that at one o’clock the armored cars of the 12th Royal Lancers crossed the Belgian frontier, and Gort that at 10.30 p.m. they reached the Dyle unopposed. "The Belgian population received the allied armies in the most cordial manner," Gort wrote.⁹

The blow they did not expect

The French High Command expected the main German effort between Namur and Antwerp and had concentrated strong forces there, Ellis writes. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum likewise says British and French commanders expected an attack through central Belgium, as in World War I. Farther south, where the French thought the Ardennes and the Meuse made an armored attack impracticable, stood the French Second and Ninth Armies, in Ellis’s account; the Belgian account places the Ninth on the Meuse from Namur to Mézières by 12 May.¹⁰

Ellis counts 44 German divisions, seven of them armored, in Army Group A facing Luxembourg and the Ardennes, against 28 in Army Group B to the north. The main thrust came through the Ardennes. By 13 May, Ellis writes, German troops who had crossed the Meuse in rubber dinghies held small bridgeheads near Sedan and Dinant.¹¹

“In the name of God, go”

In the Commons debate on the conduct of the war on 7 May, Amery turned on Chamberlain’s ministers with Cromwell’s words to the Long Parliament: "You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go". The next day the House divided 281 to 200.¹²

Chamberlain resigned in May 1940 after the failure in Norway, and Churchill succeeded him at the head of an all-party coalition, the British government’s history of its prime ministers records. Ellis dates the resignation and the new National Government to 10 May. Churchill told the Commons on 13 May: "On Friday evening last I received His Majesty's Commission to form a new Administration." In the same speech he said: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat".¹³

Eighteen days and six weeks

The Belgian account speaks of eighteen days of campaign and records that firing ceased along the Belgian front at 4 a.m. on 28 May, except in one sector whose units had not been told of the capitulation. Ellis counts 338,226 men, British and "our Allies", brought away by the time Operation Dynamo ended on 4 June; see our article on the Dunkirk evacuation. On 14 June the Germans were entering Paris. According to the Holocaust Memorial Museum, France signed an armistice on 22 June, and the campaign against the Low Countries and France lasted less than six weeks.¹⁴