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The speed of their surrender remains stunning.
After several months of “phoney war”, the German army finally attacked France and the Low Countries on May 10, 1940. In less than a fortnight, the Wehrmacht swept through the country from the north.
The French army was one of the most powerful in the world, but it seems that it was unable to hold out – leading to France’s great debacle of the 20th century, when on June 22, 1940, Marshall Philippe Pétain’s government signed the armistice with Nazi Germany and started the ignominious story of French collaboration.
How did this happen? And why so quickly? FRANCE 24 spoke to historian Michaël Bourlet, a former professor of history at the Saint-Cyr Coëtquidan military academy, who deconstructed some of the myths about the egregious failure of the Battle of France.
There’s a common perception that the French army was badly prepared for the German attack – is it reflective of reality?
The idea that the army was badly prepared, poorly motivated and ill-equipped against the invincible Wehrmacht is a myth constructed by Pétain’s Vichy regime. Unfortunately, it’s still used today, because it makes a good excuse: it’s so much easier to admit defeat if you say you had a weak army facing a much stronger one.
The French army had the equipment and personnel – five million men, more than they had in 1914 – to really take the Germans on. Defence spending had been rising since the mid-1930s, making it possible to bolster the air force, to build a powerful naval fleet, ensure a well-equipped army and to build the Maginot line, a fortified boundary on France’s eastern borders.
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