11 May 1940 — Facsimile of the front page of Paris-Soir (Public domain).

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The phoney war and the fall of France

The phoney war and the fall of France

Chapters

1. Before
2. Origins
3. The participants
4. Daily life
5. ”A school unlike any other”
6. Fighting
7. Twilight
8. The aftermath
9. Today

After eight months of “phoney war”, during which everyone kept a close eye on each other, the Germans invaded the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. The Battle of France began and ended in defeat. The first Cyprian Norwid Polish High School closed. The Polish government in exile moved to London.

After invading Poland, the Russians attacked Finland and Germany attacked Norway. Entrenched behind the Maginot Line, France waited for the Germans to attack, who were entrenched behind the Siegfried Line.

The “Phoney War” ended in May 1940 with the Battle of France. The reconstituted Polish army fought alongside the French forces. The campaign is a rout. The Germans arrived at the gates of Paris.

In the early days of June, the Polish high school students, with the exception of those in their final year, were evacuated to the Pyrenees. The final year students took their written baccalaureate exams from 5 to 8 June, and their oral exams on 13 June, to the sound of cannon fire. On 14 June, the Germans entered Paris. As soon as they received their diplomas, the young graduates fled the terrified capital. They retreated to Angers, then to Château d’Agnos, near Oloron-Sainte-Marie. They later reached Saint-Jean-de-Luz and some of them boarded a boat bound for England.

The first Cyprian Norwid Polish High School ceased to exist.

On 16 June, the presidency of the government was entrusted to Philippe Pétain, who was in favour of an armistice. On 18 June, from London, Charles de Gaulle called for the fight to continue. On 19 June, the Polish government in exile left for London. On 22 June, the armistice was signed. It does not include the Polish army, which regrouped in Great Britain.

2.3.1 “Defeat has wings. It descends like darkness.”

Juin 1940 — German soldiers in the streets of Paris (Public domain).

—Stéphane Malbos. Polish Resistance fighters in the Vercors. 2011.

“Defeat has wings,” wrote Zygmunt Lubicz-Zaleski in his Memoirs. “It descends like darkness. Paris is emptying by the hour.” It was all the more ignominious because it occurred with lightning speed; an inconceivable event for these Poles who believed that France was invincible. Yet in the space of ten days, it had became irreversible. For the Poles, it was like reliving, just a few months later, the nightmare of September 1939. The Polish soldiers in General Wladysław Sikorski ‘s three divisions – infantry, cavalry and the Polish air force – fought alongside the French forces on the battlefields of Lorraine and Alsace valiantly and tenaciously, but this was no longer anything more than a last stand. Some of these brave young fighters from June 1940 would meet up again a few months later in Villard-de-Lans to continue their education and obtain their “Matura” (equivalent to the baccalaureate), the key to entry to officer training colleges when they reached Great Britain.

2.3.2 “Our two Polish divisions were sent to Alsace and Lorraine.”

3 May 1940 — Review of the First infantry division (Public domain).

—Tadeusz Wojciechowski, student. Our school, 2017, after Nasza Szkola, 1998.

In Coëtquidan, I was posted to the Third Battalion of the First Grenadier Division of the Polish Army, which was reforming at that time. Intensive manoeuvres took place. When the Germans attacked Belgium and the Netherlands and entered France, our two Polish divisions were sent to Alsace and Lorraine.

On 16 April 1940, the First Grenadier Division was transferred to the front line in Lorraine, south-east of Nancy. On 16 May 1940, my Third Battalion was moved to Lunéville. On 6 June, in good order, we began a march to occupy our positions. In three nights, we covered a hundred kilometres. We often passed areas that had been abandoned, their inhabitants having fled from the Germans. Our mission was to defend the Altviller-Domfessel line. The front on the Marne had been breached and the rear of the French army was threatened. We received orders to withdraw to the line of the Marne-Rhine canal and to attack. A long and violent battle ensued. The enemy approached the canal and tried to cross it. The terrain was in their favour, but the Polish fire forced them to retreat. One of the bloodiest battles took place in the Lagarde region, with a high concentration of machine guns and armoured units. There was also fighting near Montigny and La Trouche, but the encirclement of the French army made further fighting pointless. Our division’s losses amounted to 900 dead, 2,800 wounded and 1,500 missing.

The survivors went on to Switzerland, Spain, and many to England, but the majority were taken prisoner by the Germans at Saint-Dié on 22 June 1940. German soldiers armed with machine guns led us in an endless column of unarmed soldiers, most of them French, from Saint-Dié to Strasbourg. Our march lasted several days, during which the Germans left us without food. The French supported us a little by leaving food and buckets of water by the roadside. The German soldiers would knock them over or shoot holes in them. We were crammed into barracks in Strasbourg, then into Stalag 7A near Magdeburg. Underfed, I fell ill and I would not have survived long in those conditions, but luckily I had given an address in Nice as my home address. As a result, by decision of a Franco-German medical commission, I was sent back to the south of France, to the free zone, at the end of June 1941, after a year ‘s detention.

2.2The first Polish high school

The fight continues2.4