A Lightning War: France
Paul Reynaud, the French Premier, telephoned Churchill early on 15th May, to tell him that the Allies were beaten. This was unusual talk from, it later transpired, one of the very few French leaders determined to stand against Hitler's tyranny and the capture of France. Churchill, who immediately flew over to France to find out the reasons for the call, found the government a mass of defeatism, and the generals full of reasons for not acting.
With many honourable exceptions among politicians, fighting men and soldiers, the French people were not prepared to endure the hardships that they knew would come from resisting the German armies. The blitzkrieg through their north east region and the losses experienced by their armies, had already brought on the dangerous defeatism that was to be so cleverly exploited by Petain, Lavalle and others. By 15th May, after 5 days of conflict, 16 French generals had been dismissed for failing in their duty. Of the already long exposed flanks of Guderian's panzers, where they had broken through between the French 9th and 2nd Armies, Gamelin, the French Commander-in-Chief present at the 15th May conference, could only acknowledge that they were vulnerable but could offer nothing constructive about counter-attacking. The 3rd Tank Division, under General Flavigny, had been sent to do just that on 14th May but, after looking at the situation, the General decided to call off the attack until the next day. Then he gave up the idea altogether. When asked, after the war, why he had not attacked an enemy who had no support troops, had no artillery except the tanks' guns, and was negotiating three water courses at once on pontoons, he said the counter-attack was "bound to fail" and he wished to "avoid disaster." With such thinking in the army from the Commander-in-Chief down, there was not much that they could blame ordinary soldiers for if they did not do their duty.
Now, on 5th June, after the BEF owed much of its survival to the bravery of French troops, and many of those French troops owed 5 years in Nazi prisoner of war camps to the cowardice of the French troops who hid in the ruins of Dunkirk, the same dichotomy could be seen throughout the army and the civilian population of France. There were those who wanted no part of Hitler's plans for them and were prepared to fight until it was no longer possible. And there were those, like the mayor of Vienne who brought the town's women to the bridge to stop its destruction by French engineers, leaving it intact for the Germans to use; and those like people in various places who tried to stop their soldiers from fighting so that the Germans would not destroy their homes; and those like the people of Royan who welcomed the Germans knowing that they would bring law and order back, after the uncertainty of the days of battle.
Latest Articles