General Elster (left) surrenders to U.S. Generals Robert C. Macon and Otto P. Weyland, 17 September 1944The military situation in France in September 1944. Elster was south of the Loire River with Allied forces between him and other German armies.
The surrender of Major General Botho Elster and more than 19,000 German soldiers to the United States Army during World War II took place on 17 September 1944 at Beaugency, France. Elster and his soldiers were attempting to escape from France which was rapidly being freed from occupation by Nazi Germany by Allied military forces. With his escape route to Germany cut off by Allied armies, surrounded by French Resistance fighters, and attacked by Allied air forces, Elster negotiated a surrender to the United States Army. Members of the French Resistance criticized the surrender as it did not give credit to the Resistance for its contribution to Elster's surrender.
After the Normandy Invasion of France, General George Patton and U.S. Third Army's rapid advance in August 1944 had the Loire River as its southern boundary. To protect Third Army's flank, the 83rd Infantry Division commanded by Major General Robert C. Macon was ordered to deploy along the north bank of the Loire for 300 kilometers (190mi) from the Atlantic Ocean to a point east of the city of Orleans. While the Allied armies were advancing through northern France, the U.S. Army invaded southern France near Marseilles in Operation Dragoon and advanced northward rapidly. By early September nearly all of France was under the control of the Allied forces.[1][2]
In southwestern France the German commander at Mont-de-Marsan Major General Botho Elster had brutally suppressed the French Resistance by the "most ruthless and harshest means." On 23 August, it was clear that Elster would soon be surrounded by the Allies in southwestern France and the first elements of his 20,000 men left Mont-de-Marsan to attempt to march across France and escape to Germany. His force was a motley group of soldiers, sailors, policemen, customs officials and others, many of them transported in horse-drawn wagons or riding bicycles or walking. They were more interested in escaping than fighting and feared reprisals from the resistance forces. The shortest route to Germany was via Dijon to the Belfort Gap, but that route was closing by the advance of Allied forces. Elster initially headed north toward Poitiers, then turned eastward to Issoudun in Indre Department. To minimize the impact of Allied air raids, Elster's force was spread out over many miles of road.[3][4]
Elster's retreat was harassed by the Resistance allied with and supplied by clandestine Jedburgh teams and British Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents, and Allied air forces. The aggressive and effective French Resistance forces in Indre Department consisted of about 6,000 fighters in several different organizations loosely affiliated to the Charles Martel Brigade, and supplied with arms by SOE agent Pearl Witherington. The 83rd Infantry blocked Elster's way north by occupying the north bank of the Loire River. A French army of 30,000 men, called the "Schneider Column" moved into place on 7 September blocking Elster from continuing eastwards. On the same day, the U.S. Army Air Force and the Royal Air Force bombed Elster's men near the city of Châteauroux killing 400 Germans and 300 horses and destroying 70 vehicles. Elster was effectively surrounded by the French Resistance, although not in immediate danger of a ground attack by the U.S. Army which had no large forces nearby.[5]
The French Resistance demanded Elster's surrender on August 29, but there was no response from the Germans.[5]
Sam Magill and negotiations
Lieutenant Samuel Wallace Magill was the 24 year old commander of the Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon of the 329th Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Army. His platoon consisted of 24 American soldiers plus volunteers from several European countries. The platoon, whose members spoke 12 European languages, was called the Platoon International. Magill's regiment was sparsely scattered along the north bank of the Loire River between the cities of Blois and Orleans to guard the flank of the U.S. Army. Although the 329th had been ordered not to cross the Loire, Magill, a driver, a radio operator, and a Belgian interpreter, Felix van de Valle, crossed the river by raft on 7 September to reconnoiter the area. Magill was informed by the French Resistance that a German force wished to surrender and he proceeded with two French captains and Tommy Macpherson,[6] a kilt-wearing Jedburgh operative, to Issoudun, flying a white flag and encountering thousands of German soldiers. In Issoudun Magill and his colleagues met with General Elster who outlined the terms for his surrender, which included a show of force by at least two battalions of the American army to justify his capitulation. Elster insisted that he would only negotiate with and surrender to the Americans, not to the French Resistance.[7][5]
Magill returned to his base and reported to General Macon, commander of the 83rd Infantry. Macon declined to stage an infantry show of force, his units being widely scattered. Instead, he arranged for a show of force by the U.S. Army Air Force and the next day, 8 September, Magill journeyed back to Issoudun to meet again with Elster. At 2:47 p.m. that day, sixteen Republic P-47 Thunderbolts overflew the German army at treetop level. Magill offered Elster alternatives: negotiate a surrender or be bombed by the Thunderbolts. Elster chose to negotiate.[8]
Surrender
Lt. Sam Magill at the surrender.
The prospect of the surrender of 20,000 Germans excited the interest of the media and journalists accompanied American liaison officers to Elster's headquarters in Issoudun to record the surrender on film and in print. On 10 September, General Macon journeyed to Issoudun to negotiate and sign a preliminary surrender agreement. Major Arthur H. Clutton of the Jedburghs signed the agreement on behalf of the British and for French Resistance leader Raymond Chomel, who had arranged the ceremony. [9] The atmosphere of the negotiations was described as one of "two great gentlemen making an agreement in circumstances only marred by the presence of some troublesome Frenchmen." Negotiations between Elster and Macon were in English, which Chomel did not understand.[10][11]
Elster persuaded Macon that the Germans were in danger of being attacked by the French Resistance if they surrendered their weapons and Macon agreed that the Germans could maintain their arms while marching 120 kilometers (75mi) through territory controlled by the Resistance to Beaugency for a formal surrender on the north side of the Loire River in American-controlled territory. The danger of reprisals from the resistance fighters was probably real as the Germans had committed numerous atrocities during their march northward.[12]
The U.S. Army Air Force took its share of the credit for the surrender. "For the first time in history," said one author, ignoring the existence of the Resistance and the fact that the airforce presence was mainly a pro forma show of force, "airplanes, unaided by ground troops, had forced the surrender of a large enemy force."[13]
The surrender terms were not universally acclaimed. Resistance leader and SOE agent, Philippe de Vomécourt, feared that a battle would break out between the Germans and the Resistance during the march to Beaugency, and journeyed to meet with General Patton to try to get the terms of the surrender agreement changed. De Vomécourt claimed that the agreement with Elster violated the unconditional surrender policy of the Allies. Vomécourt said that Patton agreed with him, but, while returning to his base, de Vomécourt was injured in an automobile accident and was unable to deliver Patton's order to renegotiate the surrender.[14]
The German march from Issoudun to Beaugency through territory controlled by the Resistance was more of triumph than humiliation. "They swaggered, they flaunted their standards and flags. They even sang German marching songs as they went through the villages where...only one week before, they had murdered local people."[15] Clutton and his Jedburgh team and Sam Magill and his platoon were among those who escorted the Germans to Beaugency.[16] A worry during the march was that the Germans might loot the Château de Valençay where art treasures from the Louvre such as the Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Venus de Milo were hidden for safekeeping. Magill's platoon laid down land mines in the entrance road to the Chateau to ensure that no German soldiers passed that way.[17]
On September 17, 1944, with newsreel cameras rolling in what was described "as the best covered surrender of this, or any war," a formal surrender ceremony was conducted on the Beagency bridge over the Loire River with Generals Elster, Macon, and Otto P. Weyland of the Army Air Force presiding. No representatives of the French Resistance were invited to the ceremony. Sam Magill was belatedly invited to stand among the colonels and generals, causing some consternation that a mere lieutenant was "gate-crashing." Magill was later invited to Paris and allotted four minutes to tell the story of his platoon to the media.[18][19][20]
The French Resistance was excluded from the surrender and its "most tangible contribution" to the liberation of France "was not even registered in the annals."[21]
Elster surrendered 754 officers, 18,850 men, and two women.[22] The equipment surrendered included 400 trucks, 1,000 wagons, 2,000 horses, and 4,000 automatic weapons, plus armored cars, artillery and small arms.[19]
Aftermath
SOE agent Pearl Witherington was furious at the lenient treatment of Elster's Germans and the exclusion of the Resistance from the surrender. She said that "General Macon was completely ignorant of the fact that the capitulation of the Germans was due entirely" to the French Resistance. Moreover, she complained that the Americans showered the German soldiers with oranges, chocolate, and American cigarettes, luxuries denied the French population during the war. "Her boys," she said, "were not soldiers but freedom fighters" but "we [the Resistance fighters] liberated France south of the Loire." On 21 September she was ordered to return to London with the British agents she led.[23]
Arthur Clutton of the Jedburghs tried to get the terms of the surrender agreement enforced. The agreement had called for the French Resistance to be given the surrendered German arms, but Charles de Gaulle, head of the French provisional government, blocked that, fearing that the arms would fall into the hands of resistance groups, especially communists, opposed to his government. Clutton also tried to get the captured German vehicles and horses, most of them stolen, returned to French civilians. The horses, he said, were dying of neglect. Instead, on 25 September, his mission was terminated and he was ordered to Paris.[20]
Their exclusion from the surrender agreement and its spoils was a bitter pill to the French Resistance. Local French citizens burned American flags and sent outraged letters to local and national newspapers.[24]
Sam Magill was deemed "irreplaceable" as the leader of the Intelligence and Reconnaissance platoon and he ended World War II still a lieutenant. France awarded him a Croix de Guerre and the U.S gave him a Legion of Merit. He rejoined the army about 1950 as an intelligence officer, retired a lieutenant colonel in 1969, and lived in Munich, Germany until his death in 2013. After his military retirement, he worked as a technical adviser for many movies about World War II.[25][26] Botho Elster was sentenced to death (in absentia) by a Nazi military court on 7 March 1945 for surrendering without permission. He died of a heart attack in Germany in 1952 and was exonerated in 1998.[27]
Operation Torch was an Allied invasion of French North Africa during the Second World War. Torch was a compromise operation that met the British objective of securing victory in North Africa while allowing American armed forces the opportunity to begin their fight against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy on a limited scale. It was the first mass involvement of US troops in the European–North African Theatre and saw the first large-scale airborne assault carried out by the United States.
Operation Dragoon was the code name for the landing operation of the Allied invasion of Provence on 15August 1944. Although initially designed to be executed in conjunction with Operation Overlord, the Allied landing in Normandy, a lack of available resources led to a cancellation of the second landing. By July 1944 the landing was reconsidered, as the clogged-up ports in Normandy did not have the capacity to adequately supply the Allied forces. Concurrently, the High Command of the French Liberation Army pushed for a revival of the operation that would include large numbers of French troops. As a result, the operation was finally approved in July to be executed in August.
From 1939 to 1940, the French Third Republic was at war with Nazi Germany. In 1940, the German forces defeated the French in the Battle of France. The Germans occupied the north and west of French territory and a collaborationist régime under Philippe Pétain established itself in Vichy. General Charles de Gaulle established a government in exile in London and competed with Vichy France to position himself as the legitimate French government, for control of the French overseas empire and receiving help from French allies. He eventually managed to enlist the support of some French African colonies and later succeeded in bringing together the disparate maquis, colonial regiments, legionnaires, expatriate fighters, and Communist snipers under the Free French Forces in the Allied chain of command. In 1944, after the Allies had landed in Normandy and the southern front moved from North Africa across the Mediterranean into Italy and Provence, these forces routed the German Army, and Vichy officials fled into Germany.
The 8th Armored Division was an armored division of the United States Army that served in the European Theater of World War II.
Operation Jedburgh was a clandestine operation during World War II in which three-man teams of operatives of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the Free French Bureau central de renseignements et d'action and the Dutch and Belgian armies in exile were dropped by parachute into occupied France, the Netherlands and Belgium. The objective of the Jedburgh teams was to assist allied forces who invaded France on 6 June 1944 with sabotage and guerrilla warfare, and leading local resistance forces in actions against the Germans.
The 83rd Infantry Division ("Thunderbolt") was a formation of the United States Army in World War I and World War II.
Beaugency is a commune in the Loiret department, Centre-Val de Loire, north-central France. It is located on the Loire river, upriver (northeast) from Blois and downriver from Orléans.
The Battle of Beaugency took place on 16 and 17 June 1429. It was one of Joan of Arc's battles. Shortly after relieving the siege at Orléans, French forces recaptured the neighboring district along the Loire river.
Cecile Pearl Witherington Cornioley,, code names Marie and Pauline, was an agent in France for the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War. The purpose of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in occupied Europe against the Axis powers. SOE agents allied themselves with French Resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England.
The Polish Armed Forces in the West refers to the Polish military formations formed to fight alongside the Western Allies against Nazi Germany and its allies during World War II. Polish forces were also raised within Soviet territories; these were the Polish Armed Forces in the East.
Major General Robert Chauncey Macon was a senior United States Army officer who commanded the 7th Infantry Regiment and the 83rd Infantry Division during World War II in Western Europe and later served as military attaché in Moscow.
Colonel Sir Ronald Thomas Stewart Macpherson was a highly decorated British Army officer during and after the Second World War. He fought with the No. 11 Commando unit and French Resistance forces, becoming infamous among Axis forces as the "Kilted Killer". He caused so much damage to enemy military infrastructure, a bounty of 300,000 francs was placed upon his head. Three times he received the Croix de Guerre, the Military Cross, and the Légion d'honneur.
The Loire Campaign was a campaign launched by Joan of Arc during the Hundred Years' War. The Loire was cleared of all English and Burgundian troops.
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Philippe Albert de Crevoisier, Baron de Vomécourt, code names Gauthier and Antoine, was an agent of the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) organization in World War II. He was the organiser (leader) of the Ventriloquist network from May 1941 until the liberation of France from Nazi German occupation in September 1944. The purpose of SOE in occupied France was to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance. SOE agents allied themselves with French Resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England. The primary area of Vomécourt's activity was in the Sologne region about 160 kilometres (99 mi) south of Paris. Philippe's older brother Jean and younger brother Pierre were also members of the French Resistance.
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The battle of the Mons pocket was an engagement fought between Allied and German forces during late August and early September 1944. It formed part of the final stages of the rapid Allied advance across France and Belgium. During the battle United States Army forces, assisted by the Belgian Resistance, encircled a large number of retreating German Army and Waffen-SS troops near the town of Mons in Belgium. The German forces were disorganised and unable to counter the Allied forces. Around 3,500 Germans were killed and 25,000 made prisoners of war. Allied casualties were light.
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↑ Craven, Wesley Frank; Cate, James Lea (1951). The Army Air Forces in World War II: Volume Three, Europe: Argument to V-E Day. University of Chicago Press. pp.265–266.
↑ Jones, Benjamin F. (2016). Eisenhower's Guerrillas. New York: Oxford University Press. pp.239–231. ISBN9780199942091.
↑ Dupuy, Robert G. "La Capitulation de la Colonne Elster"(PDF). Retrieved 8 February 2021. 368 of the Indre Resistance fighters had been killed in the 1943–1944 period, Jones, page 235.
↑ The question of who among the British and Americans deserves credit for negotiating Elster's surrender is by no means settled history. Macpherson gives himself a lot of credit and says Magill was a late arrival to the negotiations. Another British Jedburgh operative, John Cox, also participated in the negotiations. See Bevan (2006), Operation Jedburgh, New York: Viking, pages 285–288, 363.
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