The Battle of Saumur occurred during the last stages of the Battle of France during World War II, when officer cadets from the Cavalry School at Saumur, led by superintendent Colonel Charles Michon, made a defensive stand along the Loire River at Saumur, Gennes, and Montsoreau. For two days the Cavalry School, and other assorted units which had fallen back before the German Wehrmacht advance, held off a German attack. Since the battle occurred after the message by Marshal Pétain which called for an end to fighting (on 17 June 1940), the event is often considered one of the first acts of the French Resistance.
Prelude
In the first week of June 1940, in accordance with instructions by General Maxime Weygand to delay German Wehrmacht army units, Colonel Michon issued contingency orders for the cadets to take up defensive positions along the southern bank of the Loire, not that there was any likelihood of Germans getting to the Loire.
On 8/9 June there was an air raid against Saumur railway station, which killed three people. A further air raid at nearby Souzay took place on 13 June.
On 13 June Paris was declared an open city and a meeting of the Anglo-French Supreme War Council with Churchill and the French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud was taking place in Tours, on the Loire. On 14 June the French government left Tours and fled to Bordeaux, Wehrmacht troops entered Paris. On 15 June Reynaud resigned and Philippe Pétain became prime minister. Next morning, through the Spanish ambassador, Pétain asked Germany for a cease fire and announced this fact over the radio.
Forces
The Wehrmacht troops advancing south across France into the area of Saumur were from the 1st Cavalry Division. The battle therefore set graduates of the German cavalry school against cadets from the French cavalry school. They had advanced at 45–60 miles a day. The Germans had 10,000 troops, some motorised, armoured cars, artillery and the usual divisional equipment, whereas the French troops comprised 800 of the younger cadets who had joined the school three months earlier (older cadets having been assigned as junior officers of regiments); teachers who had not already joined their normal units; and any retreating men that could be collected.
One of the annual war games played by the students at the Cavalry School was to organise a defence along the Loire River, covering four bridges and a front of . The 1940 game would be at this location, but with live bullets. The French army manual required 80,000 men and several divisional artillery units to cover a 40 km front, the students comprised just 780, although they had acquired rifles, ten old 25 mm guns, 35 machine guns, three World War I-era armoured cars, four 81 mm mortars, seven 60 mm mortars, and two 75 mm artillery pieces by 18 June 1940. By the time battle took place, by acquiring retreating soldiers and some additional units, including 200 Algerian riflemen, 450 men from an armoured warfare training centre, and 210 men from the 1st Groupe Franc under Capitaine Robert de Neuchèze who arrived with five Hotchkiss H39 tanks and three Panhard 178 armoured cars, Michon had 2,190 men lined up to face 10,000 German troops.
Defences
The front comprised to the west, the town of Gennes on the south bank, with double suspension bridges connecting the north via an island. The north bank comprised a levee, which extended east for the whole of the 40 km front, behind which is a lower old flood plain. Small villages built into the southern bank cliffs, overlooking the river and a number of islands in the river, filled the 20 km until Saumur which had another double bridge of stone via the Offard island which is 1.5 km by 0.5 km and was covered in buildings, overlooked by the ancient Château de Saumur. A rail line over a bridge just to the east of Saumur entered a tunnel into the cliffs on the south bank. Another 20 km further east, along which there were a number of small villages, also built into the cliffs overlooking the river and more small islands is the town of Montsoreau with a truss road bridge across the river.
Preparations were made to destroy the four bridges, over which refugees were streaming south. Sappers from 6th Engineers based at Angers arrived with lorries loaded with explosives. Barricades were set up and fighting pits dug. The students and troops were allocated into groups of around 20 students called a Brigade. Four or five brigades made a Troop. Each Brigade had a task, some being static and others in reserve were given transport so they could rush to threatened areas. Each bridge was given one Brigade, a section of tirailleurs, a 25mm cannon, two mortars and a heavy machine gun. Between each bridge were two Troops. Communications were established using the civilian telephone system and some old radios. Sadly for the defenders, the river level had recently fallen revealing multiple sand banks and small islands.
Men and materials not required for the defence were evacuated south, as were 800 horses belonging to the Cavalry School and the world-famous Cadre Noir, together with their saddles and ceremonial harnesses. Refugees crossing the river were also sent further south. A reconnaissance unit was sent north to try to locate the enemy. The Mayor of Saumur was not sure they wanted to be defended; all towns with a population of over 20,000 had been declared open. Saumur, now full of refugees, possibly qualified, but the army would not countenance making the town open or allowing the population to evacuate. Petain had not received a reply from the Germans and sent a message contradicting a previous message, saying that France had not abandoned the struggle nor laid down arms. Saumur therefore prepared for a siege. On 18 June at 9pm a telephone call was received at the HQ Les Grandes Brises, 800m east of the Chateau de Saumur, warning that the Germans were 20 km north of Saumur.
Battle
Centre
The lead elements of the Wehrmacht 1st Cavalry Division, the only horsed cavalry division in the German army (all others having converted to armoured cars and tanks), arrived at the river at Saumur just before midnight on 18 June. Reconnaissance units riding motorcycles with sidecars arrived first, followed by armoured cars. A 25 mm gun manned by Cadet Hoube scored the first hit. It was the start of the battle that was to continue until 20 June. The French blew the Pont Napoleon at Saumur just after midnight, the Montsoreau bridge at 1:15 am and 1,700 kilos of melinite destroyed the railway bridge to the east of Saumur at 3:00 am.
At dawn on the 19th, a German staff car approached the destroyed Saumur bridge and a German and a French officer got out and approached the bridge under a white flag. The French opened fire for unknown reasons, the car was destroyed and the two officers lay dead. The Germans brought up artillery to bombard the town. 2,000 shells hit Saumur over the next two days. A number of ancient buildings were destroyed, the civil population suffered casualties and hid in the cellars and wine caves. Telephone lines were cut to the HQ and it was too exposed to shellfire, so that evening it relocated 3 km west to Auberge de Marsoleau, near the airfield. Fighting continued throughout the day with cadets on the island firing at any targets offered. The 25 mm gun on the island scored nine more hits on armoured vehicles.
The morning of the 20th was strangely quiet; some students crossed from the island to the north bank and found it deserted, the Germans were presumed to have gone east or west to effect crossings elsewhere. Several French died on the north bank taking the battle to the Germans, including Lt Gérard de Buffévent, who was posthumously awarded the Légion d'Honneur.
West
At Gennes, to the west of Saumur, there was no sign of combat troops until the 19th when Wehrmacht scouts arrived in the afternoon and early evening. As motor cyclists approached, the suspension bridge to the north of the island was blown. The 11th century church of St Eusèbe, on the high ground overlooking the bridge was an excellent view point and a good location for another of the 25 mm guns, however at 8pm on of 19 June, 50 German troop carriers arrived on the north bank packed with assault troops. Artillery began to bombard the island and Gennes, destroying the tower of St Eusèbe and setting buildings in the town on fire. The Wehrmacht then assaulted the island in the river using rubber boats but were repelled by the Cadets and Algerian riflemen by midnight. An engineer, worried that his charges might be damaged by another bombardment, without orders, blew the southern bridge, isolating the troops on the island. The wounded had to be evacuated by boat.
Early next morning on the 20th, having been reinforced and with more artillery, the Wehrmacht used rafts and boats to overwhelm the few defenders on the island when their ammunition had run out, but they were unable to cross from the island to the south bank of the Loire, which was still strongly defended by four units of cadets.
Moving westward downriver, the Germans looked for an alternative crossing point, identifying a gap that was only lightly held. There, despite students arriving and inflicting casualties on the Germans, the Wehrmacht managed to establish a small bridgehead on the south shore.
Other Wehrmacht moving further west towards Angers, managed to find a point at which they could force a crossing against a different French defending unit and captured the city of Angers.
Whilst reinforcements were approaching Gennes to repel the German bridgehead, yet another German bridgehead was established between Gennes and Saumur, threatening to take the town from the rear. The reinforcements were diverted to this new threat.
The cadets at Gennes, supported by two tanks, were ordered to take back the bridgehead west of them. By 3pm, the Gennes commander was able to report that they had been successful and the left bank of the Loire was in the hands of the French, but casualties had been high. The German casualties around Gennes were between 200 and 300, killed, wounded and captured.
East At Montsoreau, after the bridge was blown, it was quiet until dawn on 20 June when the Germans tried a 5:00 am crossing between Montsoreau and Saumur, and despite losses, managed to obtain a foothold on the south bank at Le Petit-Puy but were held back from advancing on Saumur by the cadets based around the railway viaduct. Three armoured cars patrolled the river road east of Saumur trying to keep the area clear of additional Wehrmacht reinforcements rowing across the river and driving them back to stop them assaulting Saumur. It was not possible to eliminate the Wehrmacht as they could shelter in the troglodyte houses in the cliff.