Fall of France

On May 10, 1940, Germany invaded the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. The main British and French armies moved north into Belgium, as the Allies expected the attack to come as in 1914. But the main German thrust, with seven armored divisions, came through the hilly Ardennes forest to the south, a route the French command had thought was unfit for tanks. German armor crossed the Meuse at Sedan on May 13 and drove west to the English Channel, reaching the coast on May 20 and trapping the Allied armies in the north.¹⁴

The plan, called Sichelschnitt (sickle cut) and based on ideas by General Erich von Manstein, relied on speed, tanks working with aircraft and radio coordination more than on numbers: France and Britain had about as many tanks as Germany, and some were better, but they were spread out and used slowly. Between May 26 and June 4, about 338,000 British and French soldiers were evacuated from Dunkirk, leaving their heavy equipment behind. German forces then turned south, took Paris on June 14, and the French government, which had left for Bordeaux, was unable to continue.¹²⁵

On June 17 the new head of government, Marshal Philippe Petain, asked for an armistice. General Charles de Gaulle, in London, called on the French to keep fighting in his radio appeal of June 18. The armistice was signed on June 22 in the forest of Compiegne, in the same railway carriage where Germany had signed in 1918. Northern and western France came under German occupation, and the south was governed from Vichy by Petain's regime, which collaborated with Germany. About 60,000 to 90,000 French soldiers died in the campaign. Britain, under Churchill, refused to make peace.¹²³