Bodange — Bricart and the Chasseurs Ardennais

At dawn on 10 May 1940, the German army poured into Luxembourg and the Belgian Ardennes. Belgian doctrine did not envisage holding there: the covering units of the Chasseurs Ardennais were to delay the enemy briefly, then fall back on the main position further west. But communications were severed, and several detachments never received the order to withdraw.

At Bodange, on the Sûre, a company of some sixty men commanded by Commandant Maurice Bricart found itself facing the spearhead of the 1st Panzer Division: armour and around 3,000 infantry pressing towards the bridges that opened the road to Sedan.

Bricart had not received the order to withdraw. He could hold the position and blow the crossing, inflicting a delay on an entire armoured division, but at the almost certain cost of his isolated and unsupported company. He could withdraw on his own initiative, in keeping with the spirit of the doctrine, to preserve his men. He could also surrender in the face of an overwhelming enemy. Every hour gained here delayed the arrival of the Panzers on the Meuse — but no one, at Bodange, yet knew how much that delay would weigh.