…The Germans entered an empty Paris on the 18th and what’s left of French morale completely collapse. Units began to surrender en mass and the German advance began to accelerate. The Maginot Line was completely cut off by the 25th, three days after the Germans began to reach the Atlantic coast. Even the Maginot Line itself was not immune, with token attacks from Army Group South achieving surprising success as defenders decided that there was no point in dying for France if the war was lost, and the entire depth of the line was penetrated in multiple places for minimal losses. Tunisia was not quite as big of a disaster, but the Italian outflanking of the Mareth line on the 24th did nothing at all to improve the French position.
By the 25th it had become obvious to the French government that there was no point in further fighting and it was time to ask for an armistice. There was no longer any hope of stopping the Germans before they overran all of metropolitan France and eventually turning things around, and even if there was the costs of doing so would be worse than giving up now. Churchill and the British attempted to persuade them to fight on from Algeria but were dismissed as simply trying to fight the Germans to the last Frenchmen to improve the British bargaining position when it came time for them to throw in the towel.
At 9PM on the 25th the Chautemps government sent out a request for an armistice, something that Hitler agreed to just before midnight. At noon on the 27th at the site of the armistice of May 31st 1919 that ended the fighting in WWI, in the same exact railway car, the French agreed to the ruinous terms asked of Germany. 3/5ths of France would be occupied, all German political refugees surrendered, the French Army in Europe reduced to a police force and the French would pay all costs the Germans incurred in occupying them. These were terms far harsher than Germany had been given in 1919, and the French complained about this but the German response was simple. Germany had been undefeated in the field in 1919, the same could not be said about France in 1941. In the end the French had no choice and accepted the terms to go into effect at noon the next day.
A similar armistice was signed with the Italians to go into effect at the same time shortly afterwards, but this was much more generous. The Italians would only occupy Nice, Savoy, Corsica and Tunisia and would not demand exorbitant occupation costs be paid.
At noon on June 28th the French campaign officially ended…
…The Germans had suffered 50,000 dead and missing in the battle of France and the low countries, along with 130,000 wounded. 1350 aircraft and 900 tanks were also lost. In return however they had killed 100,000 French, wounded 150,000 more and captured over 1.6 million, with 1300 aircraft and 2000 tanks destroyed or captured. The British lost a further 15,000 dead, 20,000 wounded and 150,000 taken prisoner when the dust settled, with the loss of 3,000 guns, 1,000 tanks and 1100 aircraft. The Free Poles suffered 5,000 dead and wounded and 10,000 prisoner.
It was an incredible victory by any standards, Hitler himself expected a million deaths in 6 months overrunning France, not 50,000 in little over 6 weeks, and he was more optimistic than most. However defeating France was merely half of the battle, as Britain still remained in the fight, though for how long was the question on everyone’s minds…
…Shortly after the armistice the French government moved from its temporary location in Bordeaux to a more permanent location in the spa town of Vichy. There the National Assembly voted to give Marshal Phillipe Petain and his supporters the power to write a new constitution to deal with the situation that France had found herself in by a margin of 588 to 70. This would be a more conservative, authoritarian state focused on traditional values, an answer to the excess liberalism and instability of the Third Republic that was blamed for the recent defeat. The slogan Work, Family, Fatherland replaced the traditional Liberty, Equality, Fraternity and Joan of Arc replaced Marianne as the personification of the state, all parts of a rejection of the decadence of the Third Republic.
Petain while nominally the head of state of the new Fourth Republic was too old and beginning to show signs of mental degradation, so was convinced to serve as President of the new Republic while another was Prime Minister.. The new Prime Minister was former Prime Minister Pierre-Etienne Flandin, a well established conservative politician who had served as the youngest prime minister in French history during the 30’s. Flandin however was in large degree outmaneuvered by his deputy Pierre Laval who often ended up setting the policies for the regime…
…While the French were forming the Fourth Republican government in Vichy the British formed a rival government in London. The leader of this government was Georges Mandel, Clemenceau’s right hand man and a former holder of multiple ministerial posts in multiple governments during the 30s. Mandel was the only choice, being the only French politician of ministerial rank to be willing to work with the British, he was however still a poor choice, being considered a natural deputy rather than a leader, lacking political weight and often being compared to a fish. He was also prominently a Jew, born with the name Rothschild, and was considered an aggressive warmonger by the French populace.
Mandel’s decision to go against the political consensus of the French establishment saw him lose what little political influence he had. He and his government immediately became the butt of jokes and propaganda and of the 140,000 French troops in Britian less than 4,000 agreed to join him, with the rest asking to be repatriated…
…In Belgium the government sheepishly returned to Brussels following the French armistice and begrudgingly admitted that the King had been right. King Leopold, having a good relationship with the Germans, was thus authorized to personally negotiate a deal with Germany…
…The Belgian agreement with Germany was simple. Germany would end its occupation of Belgian territory and free all Belgian prisoners. It would be allowed to maintain whatever troops on Belgian territory were needed for the air and naval defense of Germany, however these troops would be guests and under limited Belgian oversight. Belgium would further receive compensation for the damage caused by the German invasion, in the form of payments from France…
…About a third of Van Zeeland’s cabinet resigned rather than accept the agreement with Germany. Most of them simply withdrew from politics but Colonial Minister Vleeschauwer did not. He took a ship to the Congo and effectively went rogue as a one man government in exile, running the colony with a pro-British slant. King Leopold did not try to reign him in particularly hard as he was well aware that the Congo could not be reinforced and that Britian could take it if they wanted it enough. Allowing Vleeschauwer to act as he did thus allowed Belgium to keep a foot in both camps…
…Following the Belgian deal with the Germans Prime Minister Dirk Jan de Geer argued that the Netherlands should attempt to do the same thing. Queen Wilhemina and her daughter both refused to consider it, preferring to stand with the British. De Geer and his cabinets then decided to return home in early July to negotiate a deal on their own. Queen Wilhelmina then dismissed him and ordered that Parliament be dissolved.
De Geer ignored that and called a meeting of Parliament to declare that Wilhelmina was unable to exercise the functions of the monarchy due to being under the control of a foreign power. This motion was passed with a large majority, admittedly due to a degree of intimidation and De Geer attempted to negotiate a similar deal to Belgium. He however lacked an army and received no such consideration…
…The Dutch East Indies attempted to hold a neutral position in the dispute between the Amsterdam and Hague governments. On the one hand the London government could produce the most hard power and had control over access to the international financial system. On the other hand the Hague government was actually elected and controlled the homeland, and no one thought that the British had any chances of winning the war. Therefore the government in Batavia did as little as possible and simply worked to maintain Dutch authority and power in the colony for when the war ended…
-Excerpt From The Fall of Europe, Scholastic American Press, Philadelphia, 2005
…The problem of the numbering of the French Republics began with the second set of postwar elections in France and consisted of two parts. The first was whether or not the regime based in Vichy counted as a proper Republic or not, the second was whether the provisional government and its successor counted as a proper Republic or not…
…By the present the first part of the issue has been settled, the Vichy Regime, being legally authorized by a majority of the legitimately elected French National Assembly is counted as the Fourth Republic by all reputable scholars and government sources. The answer to the second part of the problem has also been settled, but the opinion of the French government and academic community differs with that of the rest of the world on the issue…
-Excerpt from Historiography of the 20th Century, Columbia University Press, New York, 2020
