The Battle of Arras took place during the Battle of France, in the early stages of World War II. Today, Arras is a city of some 40,000 and is the capital of the Pas-de-Calais Department. It had been the site of at least three major battles during The Great War. In May 1940, German Forces were moving rapidly toward the Northeast Coast of France. In an attempt to shore up
Allied defenses against the rapidly approaching German advance, the British Expeditionary Force reinforced the town of Arras in north-eastern France.
    The plan was to counter-attack the Germans to delay any further advance and prevent the British from being overrun. The counter-attack was conceived by Lord Gort, Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Forces (BEF). King George VI would award him the Field Marshal’s baton on June 20, 1943, in Malta.
    The attack was led by Maj. General Harold Franklyn. His forces, codenamed Frank Force, consisted of two divisions, the 5th and the 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division, plus 74 tanks from the 1st Army Tank Brigade, led by one of Britain's tank pioneers, Maj. General Giffard le Quesne Martel, known as “Q Martel.”
    The forces were divided into two columns, with attached field and anti-tank artillery batteries. The French also provided 60 tanks in support. A serious situation had developed in the south where the German spearheads had pierced the Perone - Cambrai gap and were threatening the French ports of  Boulogne and Calais, cutting the BEF's line of communication and separating it from the main French Armies.
    A plan by French Commander-in-Chief, General Maxime Weygand, to close the gap, included an attack by Frank Force, with the British 5th Infantry Division holding the line of the River Scarpe to the east of Arras, while the other two formations attacked to the south of that city. The 73 year-old general had only arrived in France, from Syria, a few days previously. He had been recalled to replace the 68 year-old Maurice Gamelin.
    During the afternoon of 21 May, the attack by the 50th Division and the 1st Tank Brigade was progressing south from Arras. This was the only large scale attack mounted by the BEF during the campaign. The attack was supposed to be mounted by two infantry divisions, comprising about 15,000 men. It was ultimately executed by just two infantry battalions, the 6th and 8th Battalions of the Durham Light Infantry Regiment supporting the 4th and 7th Royal Tank Regiments, totaling around 2,000 men and reinforced by 74 tanks. The infantry battalions were split into two columns. The right column initially made rapid progress, taking a number of German prisoners, but they soon ran into German infantry and SS, backed by air support, and incurred heavy losses.
    The left column also enjoyed early success, before running into opposition from infantry units of Erwin Rommel's 7th Panzer Division. The defending forces, elements of motorized SS regiment "Totenkopf" - later expanded into SS "Totenkopf" Division - were overrun as their standard 37mm PaK anti-tank guns were ineffective against the heavily armoured British Matilda tanks. Totenkopf means “Death’s Head,” and the regiment was composed of concentration camp guards and led by Theodore Eicke.
    "Generalmajor" Erwin Rommel, commanding the 7th Panzer Division committed some of his armour to local counterattacks, only to find that the guns of the Panzer II and Panzer III tanks could not penetrate the Maltildas' armour. Desperate to prevent a British breakthrough, Rommel ordered the division's 88mm FlaK 18, and 105mm field guns be formed into a defensive line and fire anti-tank and HE rounds in a last ditch effort to stop the Matildas. The BEF's advance was halted with heavy losses. Then, with Luftwaffe support, Rommel launched a successful counter-attack, driving the British back. Frank Force had been repulsed. Rommel would receive his Field Marshal’s baton on June 22, 1942, for the capture of the Libyan port of Tobruk.
    The Germans pursued the British, but were halted by French armour from the 3rd Light Mechanized Division. The heavier armour of the French stopped the Germans cold. This enabled the British to withdraw to their former positions. Frank Force took around 400 German prisoners and inflicted a like number of casualties as well as destroying a number of German tanks. A second counter-attack was planned, but due to German air cover and reinforcements it never came to fruition.
    The original attack was so fierce that the 7th Panzer Division believed it was attacked by five infantry divisions. The attack made the German commanders very nervous. It is historically credited with shaking the confidence of the German High Command (OKW). Erwin Rommel is noted to have written a report of being attacked by hundreds of Allied tanks, which was surely a contributing factor to the halt of the German offensive. That, and the fact that Luftwaffe Chief, Field Marshal Hermann Göring said the Luftwaffe, by itself, would finish the British at Dunkirk.
    The main British force consisted of only 58 machine gun armed Matilda tanks and supporting light armoured vehicles. The British lost around 100 men killed or wounded in the attack. It is unknown the number of French casualties, as their participation was small, so the assumption is their casualties were light. The Germans lost 700 men, of which 400 were captured.
    While Rommel learned the value of the 88mmFlaK guns against armour and other ground targets, the Battle of Arras influenced Army Group “A” commander, Col. General Gerd von Rundstedt to halt the German armour advance on May 24th, and allowed the French to establish defensive lines west of Dunkirk, permitting British forces to escape via the Channel port. Later he would say that, “A critical moment in the drive came just as my forces had reached the channel. It was caused by a British counter-stroke, southward from Arras, on May 21st. For a short time it was feared that the Panzer Divisions would be cut off before the infantry divisions could come up to support them. None of the French counter-attacks carried any serious threat such as this one did.”
    General von Rundstedt would receive his Field Marshal’s baton, on July 19,1940, along with eight other Army generals and three Luftwaffe generals.
    British Historian, Sir B. H. Liddell Hart, opined that, “It may well be asked whether two battalions have ever had such a tremendous affect on history as the 4th and 7th Royal Tank Battalions achieved by their action at Arras.  Their effect in saving the British Army from being cut off from its escape port provides ample justification for the view that if two well-equipped armored divisions had been available, the Battle of France might also have been saved.”
    As the "Defense of Arras", the counterattack was awarded as a British honour to the British units in action.