Their Finest Hour by Winston Churchill Page A

intercepted a German message sent in clear at 11.42 A.M. on May 24, to the effect that the attack on the line Dunkirk-Hazebrouck-Merville was to be discontinued for the present. Halder states that he refused, on behalf of Supreme Army Headquarters, to interfere in the movement of Army Group Rundstedt, which had clear orders to prevent the enemy from reaching the coast. The quicker and more complete the success here, he argued, the easier it would be later to repair the loss of some tanks. The next day he was ordered to go with Brauchitsch to a conference.
    The excited discussion finished with a definite order by Hitler, to which he added that he would ensure execution of his order by sending personal liaison officers to the front. Keitel was sent by plane to Army Group Rundstedt, and other officers to the front command posts. “I have never been able,” says General Halder, “to figure how Hitler conceived the idea of the useless endangering of the armoured formations. It is most likely that Keitel, who was for a considerable time in Flanders in the First World War, had originated these ideas by his tales.”
    Other German generals have told much the same story, and have even suggested that Hitler’s order was inspired by a political motive, to improve the chances of peace with England after France was beaten. Authentic documentary evidence has now come to light in the shape of the actual diary of Rundstedt’s headquarters
written at the time.
This tells a different tale. At midnight on the 23d orders came from Brauchitsch at O.K.H., placing the Fourth Army under Rundstedt for “the last act” of “the encirclement battle.” Next morning Hitler visited Rundstedt, who represented to him that his armour, which had come so far and so fast, was much reduced in strength and needed a pause wherein to reorganise and regain its balance for the final blow against an enemy who his staff diary says was “fighting with extraordinary tenacity.” Moreover, Rundstedt foresaw the possibility of attacks on his widely dispersed forces from north and south; in fact, the Weygand Plan, which, if it had been feasible, was the obvious Allied counter-stroke. Hitler “agreed entirely” that the attack east of Arras should be carried out by infantry and that the mobile formations should continue to hold the line Lens-Béthune-Aire-St. Omer-Gravelines in order to intercept the enemy forces under pressure from Army Group B in the northeast. He also dwelt on the paramount necessity of conserving the armoured forces for further operations. However, very early on the 25th a fresh directive was sent from Brauchitsch as the Commander-in-Chief ordering the continuation of the advance by the armour. Rundstedt, fortified by Hitler’s verbal agreement, would have none of it. He did not pass on the order to the Fourth Army Commander, Kluge, who was told to continue to husband the Panzer divisions. Kluge protested at the delay, but it was not till next day, the 26th, that Rundstedt released them, although even then he enjoined that Dunkirk was not yet itself to be directly assaulted. The diary records that the Fourth Army protested at this restriction, and its Chief of Staff telephoned on the 27th: “The picture in the Channel ports is as follows. Big ships come up the quayside, boards are put down and the men crowd on the ships. All material is left behind. But we are not keen on finding these men, newly equipped, up against us later.”
    It is therefore certain that the armour was halted; that this was done on the initiative not of Hitler but of Rundstedt. Rundstedt no doubt had reasons for his view both in the condition of the armour and in the general battle, but he ought to have obeyed the formal orders of the Army Command, or at least told them what Hitler had said in conversation. There is general agreement among the German commanders that a great opportunity was lost.
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    There was, however, a separate cause which affected the