June 25th, 1940
Alger - The staff meeting of the French forces in North Africa is heated and passionate. Generals Blanc, Poupinel and Bessières raise their arms to the sky when Noguès transmits the order from Toulouse: to attack in less than a month! "Attack? In this heat?" says Poupinel. "Attack? What will the horses drink?" says Bessières. "Attack? We lack arms and ammunition, and we need at least one more division!" says Blanc.
But in two days, Noguès had worked the question. He had an answer for everything. The attack would be motorized and not horse-drawn, the Italians would suffer at least as much from the heat as the North African troops or the Senegalese riflemen, the Fleet deprived the enemy of ammunition, the Air Force ravaged its communications, the British multiplied the spikes in its back (the departure of the two Black Shirt divisions for Cyrenaica did not go unnoticed), and the troops are currently receiving a large quantity of weapons, many of them automatic weapons. The commander-in-chief in NAF has decided on a vast reorganization of his troops. All the troops in Tunisia will remain under the command of Amédée Blanc, but the North Tunisian Front is replaced by the XIXth CA, commanded by Bessières, with the 83rd, 88th and 180th DIA and various units, including the 1st REI, regrouped for the occasion (the 181st and 182nd DIA, detached from the XIXth CA, remains in Algeria, while the 183rd DIA is deployed
to cover Tunis and Bizerte). The best division outside of Tunisia, Mordacq's 3rd DM, is reinforced and leaves Morocco to reinforce the P. Army Corps, commanded by Poupinel; this corps replaces the Tunisian Southern Front. It will also include the 81st DIA and various units. Finally, the mechanized forces will be concentrated in the south of the front, in the form of an independent grouping.
In the event that the diplomats' predictions proved inaccurate as to Franco's attitude, the Moroccan troops can be supported by large forces that would soon be arriving in the region to reorganize and prepare for further operations (these include the 1st DLC and the 3rd DLIP) [1].
- Your men are learning to handle machine guns and machine pistols which they would never have dared to dream of two weeks ago! Such Christmas gifts are being distributed in all your units, and your artillerymen still equipped with 65 mm guns are receiving 75s from America, don't tell me you don't know! And the best is yet to come, in the form of trucks, tanks, self-propelled guns.
But all this is nothing compared to one imperative: if France wants to continue to fight while, as you are all aware, the battle is lost on the other side of the Mediterranean, while the
Mediterranean, while the Boche will sooner or later take over the whole of the metropolitan territory, a clear and complete victory must be achieved here. Now, this victory will only be possible if we attack next month, the President of the Council was formal [NDE - Noguès speaks of Reynaud, although he only spoke directly with De Gaulle. He knows his men.
They would obey the head of the government more easily than a novice minister, a recent brigadier general]. I too would prefer to attack in October, but in October, we will be facing German aircraft in large numbers and perhaps even an expeditionary force; we can't ask the Fleet to build a wall in the middle of the Mediterranean!
- He wants to go down in the history books," Blanc whispers to Poupinel with a half-smile.
Then he stands up: "But if the government has thought of everything, it is probably proposing a battleplan?" [Blanc is not fooled, he suspects that De Gaulle is behind the project].
- Indeed. I saw an envoy of the minister arrive by plane yesterday, charged with explaining his views to us, and with whom my staff drew up the broad outlines of a plan, which we are going to refine very quickly, with your help, Gentlemen! It is moreover this envoy who will give you an idea of the offensive in preparation. I will add that he will be involved in this operation, since he will take command of a battalion of D1 tanks. But you are no slouch in this department, aren't you, Commandant de Hauteclocque?
- Thank you, General.
Philippe de Hauteclocque did not comment on Noguès' last sentence. The man had just received his commander's stripes. Wounded twice (he has to walk with a cane),
captured twice, escaped twice, he was called by De Gaulle to be part of his état-major. However, from his first meeting with the Minister of War, he begged to be sent back to the front! The General was not used to having his decisions challenged, but this time he gave in. However, in exchange for his appointment as head of an armored battalion, he charged Hauteclocque to be his spokesman at General Noguès' headquarters from June 24th to 28th.
The commander stands up, leaning on his cane. He makes a sign and a non-commissioned officer unfolds a map of the Tunisian-Libyan front. The officers present all know it in detail, but they discover unmistakable arrows to the south of the front, describing a wide envelopment of the Italian left wing by the sands of the Sahara. Hauteclocque then describes the main lines of the operation. He is careful to appear only as the spokesman for Noguès (and De Gaulle) and diplomatically avoidsgiving the impression that each unit already has its mission all planned out. "One of the most difficult moments of my career" he said after the war.
No sooner had he finished speaking than a major general stood up, as if moved by a spring. General Clouet des Perruches commands the 6th Light Cavalry Division: "Tell me, Hauteclocque, I suppose that this large arrow, south of the front, is not reserved for your future battalion?"
The commander hides a smile under his moustache: "I have full confidence in my men, General, and we will certainly be there, but this is the main axis of our motorized effort. We should find an armoured division there. This kind of unit is rare at the moment, I think that General Noguès will entrust the capital task of the breakthrough to a cavalry division, which the tank battalions will support as best they can at the time of the breakthrough."
Noguès then speaks again, as if in a well-adjusted duet: "It is true, it is time that the mechanized forces, the 6th DLC and the 61st, 62nd and 65th BCC in particular, would be grouped under the name of Groupement mécanisé Perruches. Of course, the vehicles arriving from the United States will be directed in priority to the still mounted units of the 6th DLC. I think there will be no problem mechanizing the 3rd RCA, but the 4th Cavalry Brigade will regroup the units that will have to remain temporarily "petrol-powered", it will be attached to the XIX CA.
Clouet des Perruches sits up straight. Does he think at this moment of the mockery that his name has earned him throughout his career? He addresses Noguès: "You will not be disappointed, General. What day do we finally go on the attack?"
The day before," Amédée Blanc recounts, "we were still contemplating, with despair, returning to France to maintain order in a defeated country. And suddenly, we were preparing an offensive, with naval, air and mechanical superiority. In the background, we said to ourselves that the desert sun had not prevented the Crusaders from fighting in their armor, why should it hinder our motorized horsemen?"
Only one detail remains to be settled. It is Noguès who had the idea of taunting the Italians by naming the operation after a general who had won in this region, but whom the Mussolini propaganda has often ignored: Scipio Africanus. Operation Scipion is launched [2].
[1] Contrary to the orders he had just given, Noguès had already envisaged reinforcing Morocco on June 15th. The decision to remove the Mordacq division from Morocco cost him, and only the promise of the imminent arrival of large units that were more or less fit to fight (such as those that would later be engaged in Operation Marignan) convinced him. He nevertheless planned to create, from the GIMO (Groupement d'intervention et manoeuvre Oranie) a 186th DIA which will go to support the defenses of Morocco. A 184th DIA (from non-endivisioned units in Tunisia, Richert group) and a 185th DIA (from evacuees from Metropolitan France) are also planned, while the 181st, 182nd and 183rd DIA, which are understaffed, will take in local recruits.
[2] Noguès cannot be unaware that scipions, or supions, are small cephalopods eaten as an aperitif on all the good zincs of North Africa. This detail will surely be noted by the North African troops.
