622. The Nazis at War: The Fall of France (Part 3)

14:24Dominic Sandbrook:And he immediately complained to headquarters and said, the order must be changed, quote, otherwise the English will transport whatever they want under our very noses from Dunkirk. And that afternoon, the commander-in-chief of the army, Walter von Brauchitsch, arrives in Charleville. Now, you'll remember him. He's a man with no spine who's basically massively in debt to Hitler. And even he says, I just can't understand why the tanks aren't advancing on Dunkirk to finish the job. And Hitler and Rundstedt say, there is no need. The Luftwaffe are going to finish this off. We'll leave it to Goering and his pilots.

14:58Dominic Sandbrook:And this turns out to be one of the greatest mistakes in military history because Goering has completely misled them. The Luftwaffe are not up to the job. Part of this is because it's very cloudy, but it's also because Goering consistently underestimates the RAF and he overestimates his own planes and pilots. So in the next 10 days or so, the RAF, the British Air Force, fight manfully to keep the Luftwaffe at bay. It was often said, and you see this actually in the Christopher Nolan film, you see this played out of the argument. It is sometimes said, oh, the Air Force didn't help us at Dunkirk.

15:36Dominic Sandbrook:Where were the Air Force? There's a scene in the film where someone shouts, where were the bloody Air Force? But actually, Christopher Lennon's film shows the Air Force were there. They flew 3 ,000 individual sorties. So they did give the troops air support. The British lost almost 180 planes, but the Germans lost far more planes. They lost 250. And as we will see next time, because German factories are much slower to build planes, these are losses that they can ill afford.

16:03Tom Holland:And Dominic, I mean, actually, there's a pretty continuous process of attrition for the Luftwaffe. So, I mean, they end up losing almost 2 ,000 aircraft during the Battle of France. And as you say, it wins them France, but it loses them Britain in the long run.

16:20Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So Hitler doesn't rescind the halt order until the evening of the 26th of May. And the next morning, the tanks start moving in. But those three days have been absolutely crucial and the damage has been done because that gives the British a chance to finalize their evacuation plans. So on the evening of the 26th of May, the same moment that Hitler is changing his mind, Churchill gives the order, start taking men off the beaches. And in the next few days, the ships keep on coming. And to quote General von Bock again, he's horrified. At Dunkirk, the English are continuing to leave.

16:56Dominic Sandbrook:When we finally get there, they will be gone. the supreme leadership's halting of the tank units has proved to be a serious mistake and he's right because they then do not capture dunkirk for another 10 days and by then 900 allied ships including the famous little ships the fishing boats the pleasure cruisers all of those the steamboats all of that they have rescued 338 000 men far more men than churchill or even the most optimistic Allied commander had ever thought possible.

17:30Tom Holland:So that's out of 400 ,000. Yeah. The rest are killed or taken prisoner. But even so, I mean, it's not exactly a victory, as Churchill goes on to point out. But it is a Philip, isn't it? Oh, it's massive. It's redemption from seeming disaster.

17:45Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah. It's not just the British who get rescued, by the way. It's sometimes thought the British get rescued and they leave the French behind. This is not right. Of those men, about 100 ,000 of them are French, Belgian, Senegalese, Moroccan, and so on. So they're the kind of colonial troops of the Allied forces. So it's not all British troops. But the rearguard who defended Dunkirk to the end were French, and there was a lot of bitterness because they, of course, had been left behind. Now, as you say, the funny thing about it is this is an amazing German victory. The British have been driven off the mainland of Europe just as Hitler wanted.

18:19Dominic Sandbrook:And Churchill says in his common speech, which is quoted at the end of the film. Wars are not won by evacuations. Our thankfulness at the escape of our army must not blind us to the fact that what has happened in France and Belgium is a colossal military disaster. And he's right. It is a disaster. But then the point of Dunkirk, the importance of it, is that it allows him to say what he says next, which is, there was a victory inside this deliverance, which should be noted. A miracle of deliverance achieved by valor, by perseverance, by perfect discipline, and so on, blah, blah, blah. And this is the remarkable thing about it, that Hitler's folly in endorsing the halt order and Goering's mad boasting about the Luftwaffe have combined to turn a total British disaster into, weirdly, a kind of psychological and moral victory.

19:10Tom Holland:And I suppose the role played by the little ships, the sense that this is properly a national effort, that everyone is rolling up their sleeves and getting stuck in, this will kind of stiffen the sinews of the mass of British people that this is a war worth fighting. And that is something that Hitler will never properly get a handle on, is it?

19:29Dominic Sandbrook:He never understands that, I think, because he thinks that the British will come to terms after this. But after Dunkirk, it's clear they never will. And I think there's a couple of elements to it. So one of them is purely practical. As Ian Kershaw says in his biography of Hitler, imagine a world in which, you know, the 200 130 ,000 British troops who got away had not got away, but had been captured. So a quarter of a million men in a prison camp. That would have made it very difficult, you know, maybe for Churchill not to do a deal with Hitler at some point. You know, they've had to raise an entirely new army.

20:01Dominic Sandbrook:They'd have lost all their equipment. And they'd have all these men on the other side of the channel in a Nazi prison. And their families in Britain. Of course. Imagine the difference in the public mood. but I think you are totally right that the mystique of the little ships you know the people's war the people coming to the rescue of their troops you know that symbolized at the end of the Christopher Leland film when the troops arrive and there are people clapping them and giving them tea and sandwiches and stuff you know that really happened that absolutely happened there's a wonderful quote I think it's in Max Hastings's book from an officer called John Horsfall and he says basically was only when we got home and we were draggled and defeated and there were people giving us cups of tea that we sensed, and I quote, the national mood of defiance which brought down Napoleon and would destroy Hitler too.

20:51Dominic Sandbrook:And you may say, well, this is, of course, romantic, patriotic fantasy after the fact. But we know from people's diaries at the time that they felt like this. The most famous one, there's a woman who wrote one of the longest diaries in history. She's called Nella Last. Her diaries were quite a big publishing sensation a few years ago. She's from Barrow. And she wrote in her diary just the day after the operation ended. She said, I read the story and I forgot I was a middle-aged housewife who sometimes got up tired and had backache. The story made me feel part of something that was undying and never old.

21:24Dominic Sandbrook:Somehow I felt everything to be worthwhile. And I felt glad I was of the same race, meaning nationality, as the rescuers and the rescued. And that sort of very moving, routing stuff, which is easy to sneer at, was obviously psychologically so important in those weeks in the summer of 1940.

21:43Tom Holland:And which Hitler will not, I mean, he doesn't appreciate it. He doesn't appreciate the effect it's had on British morale. So he will find it puzzling that the British decide to fight on.

21:53Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah, can't get his head around it.

21:54Tom Holland:But this is kind of probably the key explanation. But also, of course, there is a massive contrast with France, because Britain and France were both very divided countries in the 30s. But in Britain, the miracle of Dunkirk and the little ships and everything helps to solidify national resolve, whereas in France, defeat fractures society there even wider.

22:16Dominic Sandbrook:I think you're dead right. I think someone would be remiss of me not to point out that Britain was much more consensual than 1930s France, thanks not least to the wise and gallant leadership of Stanley Baldwin. Stanley Baldwin. Stanley Baldwin, who presides over a much more settled and united country than French prime ministers do in the 1930s. But you're right. The obvious contrast is with France. Now, interestingly, in Britain, most accounts of this, kind of in the popular imagination, they skip from Dunkirk straight to the Battle of Britain. In fact, there's nothing in between. But that's not right.

22:49Dominic Sandbrook:The Germans are now heading south towards Paris. And in the next couple of weeks, the French fight quite hard. So the Germans actually lose more men per day after Dunkirk than they did beforehand because the French are fighting desperately to defend their capital.

23:02Tom Holland:Can I just cite one French colonel who leads a counterattack? And this is a colonel called Charles de Gaulle. He's in charge of the French 4th Armoured Division, and he launches a counterattack at Abbeville on the Channel Coast. And the battle, he fails to dislodge the Germans, but it does succeed in halting the German advance at least for a day or two. And this is actually very important for Dunkirk because it serves to distract German forces that otherwise might have added to the pressure on the front line at Dunkirk. So let's not forget de Gaulle.

23:39Dominic Sandbrook:Well, here's the thing. If you're de Gaulle, right, or if you're somebody, a French patriot, looking at this story, you say it's very nice the way these British podcasters tell the story, which is the way that people always tell us in Britain. And from a French perspective, this is a story of the British running away, as they had threatened to do in 1914 when things went badly.

23:56Tom Holland:And as they had been doing throughout the war, right? I mean, it happened in Norway. Right.

24:01Dominic Sandbrook:The British have run away, saved their army. They've run away. And we are fighting desperately to defend our capital. And basically, everyone laughs at us and says, you know, the French trophy cabinet is bare. But the truth is, we fought very well against overwhelming odds and all the rest of it. Because actually, they are against overwhelming odds. The Germans have more divisions now because the French army is disintegrating. The Germans are better at using their tanks. The Germans have far more air power. And of course, the Germans have the discipline and morale that comes with being an advancing army.

24:29Dominic Sandbrook:So by the 6th of June, the Germans have broken the French line and crossed the River Somme. By the 9th, they're in Rouen. By the 10th, they've crossed the River Aisne. So all these places that would have had such resonance in 1940, because these are all the place names from the First World War. and the Germans are just steamrollering past them.

24:49Tom Holland:Yeah, I remember when I went to Ypres where my grandfather was gassed and they had rows and rows of graves, I think of Canadians, and they were peppered with bullet holes that had been fired in 1940. Wow, yeah. I just thought, oh my God, I mean, just imagine all that, here we go again.

25:09Dominic Sandbrook:This is, I think, what's underappreciated possibly in the English-speaking world, that for the civilians in Belgium and France, this is happening for the second time in a generation that's imagine the sense of crushing misery you know as you realize it's happening all over again on a greater scale than ever before and that is why you know as we said last time people remember 1914 they've read the stories about poland they've read about things like guernica and the sack of chinese cities by the japanese in the late 1930s they're terrified of what will happen to them when the Germans get into their cities.

25:45Dominic Sandbrook:And that is why these extraordinary stories of places like Lille, Lille, nine-tenths of the population took to the countryside, fled the city. Chartres, Chartres with its famous architecture and stuff, 23 ,000 people lived in Chartres. By the time the Germans get there, there are only 800 left. Everybody else has gone. And this is the biggest refugee crisis in Western European history. I don't know if some listeners have read the Suite Francaise books by Irene Nemirovsky. These books capture the scene of total chaos and terror. Carts in the streets, families rushing to find sanctuary and being pounded from the air by the Luftwaffe.

26:28Dominic Sandbrook:You know, bodies everywhere.

26:29Tom Holland:Yeah, the kind of Nazgul-esque descent of the Stukas with their terrifying wine. Yeah, just horrific.

26:36Dominic Sandbrook:So imagine being the people at the top. So to remind people, the prime minister who's only been there for a matter of months, Paul Reynaud, very clever guy. But very, I was about to say, but very short, very clever and very short, I should say.

26:53Tom Holland:Yeah, I'm glad you corrected yourself.

26:55Dominic Sandbrook:Now, since the 19th of May, they've had a new military chief who is Maxime Weigand, who we described last time. He's in his early 70s. He's been recalled from retirement. And another man who Reynaud has recalled in France's Hour of Need is the great hero of the First World War. And this is the man who had rallied the troops, French troops, at the defense of Verdun in 1916. He is now 84 years old, piercing blue eyes, ramrod straight.

27:24Tom Holland:And with very much a First World War moustache still, hasn't he?

27:28Dominic Sandbrook:A proper, yeah, 1910s moustache. He is Le Vieux Maréchal, the old Marshal Philippe Pétain. And they've recalled him because they think he will be a symbol to the people of French defiance. Pétain had been serving as ambassador to General Franco's regime in Spain. And Reno says, I want you to come back to France and be my deputy in our hour of need. Pétain went to see Franco and said, I'm off to France. Franco said, don't bother. You've lost. No point in going. and paytown perhaps rather ominously some listeners may think said to him my country has been beaten they're calling me back to make peace and to sign an armistice this is the work of 30 years of marxism they're calling me back to take charge of the nation now that might sound a bit ominous to people who are hoping that paytown is going to stiffen the sinews to stand up to fascism so as early as the 8th of june they discuss asking the germans for terms reino is against it he says um We agree with London that we would never seek an armistice, an independent armistice.

28:34Dominic Sandbrook:We promised we wouldn't sign a separate peace. General Weyland says, what? The British have totally let us down. They've left our rear guard behind. Both Weyland and Pétain agree. It's all up. France is lost. We've lost the war. And Weyland says, listen, do you remember what happened when we lost to the Germans before in 1870-71? Paris was taken over by the revolutionary left-wing commune. There was then basically a little civil war. Thousands of people died as the army turned on the commune and the streets ran with blood. And all the animals in the zoo got eaten. Wow, no one wants that. Will no one think of the animals in the zoo?

29:12Dominic Sandbrook:Exactly, and the animals in the zoo. And Weigand says, listen, that should be our priority. It's making sure that doesn't happen again. We can't have anarchy. We must keep order. And basically, we need to deal with the Germans, Otherwise, everything will collapse in chaos. And Pétain says, I agree with Aigle. I don't think we should ask London. I think basically the British dragged us into this war and we spent too much time kowtowing to the British. And basically, France should come before anything else.

29:38Tom Holland:And I would have thought also a consideration is the future of Paris, right? Because bombs have already been dropped on the air ministry and the citron works. Not the citron works. On the citron works. But suppose the fate that was inflicted on Rotterdam is inflicted on the City of Light. So the French government decide to declare Paris an open city, don't they? And on the 10th of June, the government flees Paris. And there's this famous description by an American broadcaster, Edward Severade. And he wrote, Paris lay inert, her breathing scarcely audible, her limbs relaxed, and the blood flowed remorselessly from her manifold veins.

30:17Tom Holland:Paris was dying. Like a beautiful woman in a coma.

30:22Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah. Now, I'll tell you who's left Paris. Two million people, including the government. So they have fled Paris on the 10th of June. Reynaud and Co., they head towards the Loire. And Reynaud establishes himself in the Chateau de Chisse, which is just outside the very beautiful city of Tours. And he's brought not his wife, from whom he is estranged, but in very Gallic style, he's brought his mistress. So actually quite Nelsonian style. I guess so. This is Countess Hélène de Porte. And Hélène de Porte has quite a baleful influence on what happens next. Now, I hate to be seen to be mean about a woman on the show, Tom, as you know.

31:05Tom Holland:Yet another mistress.

31:07Dominic Sandbrook:The object of Sandbrookian ire. She has had the most terrible press, I think, of almost any woman we've ever done on the show. Charles de Gaulle used to call her the turkey. Churchill called her the parrot. And Churchill's chief diplomatic advisor, Sir Robert van Sittart, called her, and I quote, a poisonous and promiscuous troll. That's a phrase to remember. Even the American correspondent Vincent Sheehan wrote afterwards, she was not chic, she was not charming, and she was not intelligent. But she behaved as if she had some vested right, whether constitutional or divine, in the government of the French Republic.

31:46Dominic Sandbrook:Now, why does all this matter? It matters because she's a massive anti-Semite. She's also massively pro-fascist. And she is constantly, you know, by night, she's constantly urging Reno, sack all your generals and do a deal with the Germans as quickly as possible. Well, the Germans aren't that bad. So that's a bit of a problem, I think. So what does he see in her? God knows. I mean, who can say? Remember Napoleon with Josephine? there was something called the zigzags, wasn't there? Yeah, the zigzags.

32:15Tom Holland:Nobody knows what that was, but it was great fun and involved them going to bed together.

32:19Dominic Sandbrook:Maybe the zigzags have made their reappearance. I don't know. Anyway, so this is a slightly awkward environment. And the next day, the 11th of June, Winston Churchill joins the Merry Party. Well, it's never a party unless Churchill's there. Exactly. Loads of champagne and Dundee cake. So he flies to a chateau near Orléans where the French leadership are waiting to meet him. And for the next day and a bit, they tried to hammer out a strategy. And Churchill says, I have an excellent idea. Why don't you go to Brittany? Hold out in Brittany. Make it a redoubt. Like Asterix. And Weigand says, you're mad.

32:54Dominic Sandbrook:That's an insane idea. That will never work. And Churchill says, a campaign of guerrilla resistance. And Pétain says, that would destroy France. That can't work either. And Weigand says to Churchill, now is the decisive moment in the war. The British ought not to keep a single fighter in England. They should all be sent to France. And Churchill then says to him, No, this is not the decisive moment. The decisive moment will come when Hitler hurls his Luftwaffe against Britain. If we can keep the command of the air over our island, then we will win it all back for you. Whatever happens here, we are resolved to fight on forever and ever and ever.

33:36Dominic Sandbrook:And actually, Churchill is right. That's actually how Britain wins the war. Like, he's not wrong. the trouble is that's really not what a frenchman wants to hear basically you know you have to fight on to the end you'll lose but eventually we'll win it all back for you so don't worry i don't

33:52Tom Holland:think any patriotic frenchman wants to hear that does this conversation determine reynaud's decision

33:58Dominic Sandbrook:that yeah it's over do you think no because even at this stage reynaud has not quite given up because after he's gone churchill goes and some of them clearly are very pleased to see the back of him and then reynaud and co sit around and reynaud says you know clearly we are going to lose but we could go into exile and continue the fight from london very much like the norwegians have done let's say or the dutch and wegan says that's that's pointless that old fool churchill is talking rubbish because once hitler is finished with us then he will take britain he will get he'll be in london before you know it there's no point in us hiding in london the british are doomed he famously

34:34Tom Holland:Wesley says, doesn't he, that Britain will have her neck rung like a chicken.

34:38Dominic Sandbrook:Yes.

34:38Tom Holland:To which Churchill later responds, some chicken, some neck.

34:43Dominic Sandbrook:Exactly, exactly. And Vagon keeps going on. We have to stay here in France and stop the anarchy and revolution. And actually, Vagon is telling Reno things that are not true. So Vagon is telling him at this point, revolution has already broken out in Paris. The specter of a left-wing commune has awoken from the grave. and that's actually not right. That hasn't happened. Anyway, the next day, Churchill comes back. They can't get rid of him. He flies back to France. This time he goes to tour. There's been some amusing airfield action in earlier episodes, so I'm glad to have some more. He arrives at the airfield.

35:21Dominic Sandbrook:There's nobody to meet him. They've all gone to lunch splendidly. So eventually Churchill and his entourage find two French air force officers who agree to give them a lift. And of course, Churchill being Churchill, they go straight to the Hotel Grande Bretagne to have lunch themselves. There are refugees outside staring through the windows and kind of rattling the doors. And Churchill is completely unperturbed by this. And he says, you know, let them stare. It's very good for them to see the Prime Minister of Great Britain having his lunch. It should inspire them. And all this kind of thing. Whether it does, I'm not sure.

35:52Dominic Sandbrook:Anyway, he goes to the town hall to see Reynaud. By this point, Weygand and Peter are no longer coming to these meetings, which tells its own story because they basically think it's pointless. And Churchill is very emotional. He says to Reynaud, we ask you to fight on as long as possible, if not in Paris, at least behind Paris, in the provinces down to the sea. Then if need be in North Africa, the alternative is the destruction of France. And that, of course, is the rhetoric that Churchill is coming out with later about Britain, right? Yeah, we'll fight on the landing grounds, all of that.

36:23Tom Holland:But Petain has already said that actually that strategy would be the destruction of France because it would see her cities and her monuments destroyed. Churchill would, of course, said, I know what Churchill would have said to that.

36:36Dominic Sandbrook:He would say nothing will ensure the destruction of France more than the collapse of her spirit and her morale. You can rebuild cathedrals, but the stain of defeat can never be wiped away.

36:47Tom Holland:But he can say that because he has a strip of water between him and the Germans, I guess.

36:52Dominic Sandbrook:But there's another man who agrees with him, who is French, who is there. And that is then you, you mentioned him earlier. He's just been appointed the Under Secretary of State for war. And he is an officer called Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle is the only person who seems to agree with Churchill at these meetings. And Churchill kind of responds to him, doesn't he? He says, l 'homme du destin, the man of destiny. Yeah, he whispers it, the man of destiny, to De Gaulle on the way out. And de Gaulle says nothing. He's just impassive as he always is. I mean, that would make a great film, actually. People have done loads of Churchill films, but they've never done Churchill and the French as a film.

37:29Dominic Sandbrook:So there's one other amazing bit of high drama at this meeting. I mentioned Countess de Porte, the promiscuous troll or whatever she was described as being. The fascist troll. The worst kind of troll. She bursts into this meeting and she shrieks at the top of her voice, Mr. Churchill, my country is bleeding to death. And then she launches herself at him and tries to scratch his face. And a French officer shouts, get that woman out of here for the dignity of France. And basically, Churchill's bodyguard, who's called Walter Tommy Thompson, he sort of has to wrestle this woman away from Churchill and drags her out of the room.

38:06Dominic Sandbrook:And then when he searches her, he finds that she has a knife on her person, which is a very low moment, I think, in the history of the Entente Cordiale between our two great nations.

38:15Tom Holland:And Dominic, meanwhile, on the very same day, so the same afternoon at three o 'clock, the Germans have reached the River Marne. And people who listened to our series on the First World War will remember that that was the key turning point in the early campaigns in the First World War, but not on this occasion. And from the River Marne, the Germans can see the Eiffel Tower in the distance. and Paris has already been declared an open city. And at dawn the next day, Friday, the 14th of June, 1940, the first German units start entering the center of the French capital. And the fall of Paris is the most emblematic symbol around the world of the catastrophe that has befallen the Allies, right?

39:09Dominic Sandbrook:It is indeed. So by the evening, the Germans have hoisted a swastika over the Arc de Triomphe, and they have climbed. The French cut the lift cables to try to stop the Germans getting to the top of the Eiffel Tower. So do you know what the Germans did? They climbed 1 ,665 steps of the tower to raise the swastika flag over the Eiffel Tower. Very soon that tower would be decorated with a vast banner, the words of which read, Deutschland siegt auf allen Fronten. Germany is winning on every front.

39:48Tom Holland:So one month and four days after the first German troops crossed the frontier into France, Paris has fallen. And we will find out what happens next after the break. Hi, this is Gary Lineker from Goalhangers. The rest is football. This episode is brought to you by WISE. It's only when you start moving money between currencies that you really think about the exchange rate, the fee, and what might be hidden away in the small print. Whether you're living abroad, paying someone overseas, or just trying to manage your money across borders, you want a fair exchange rate, an easy transfer, and no surprises along the way.

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44:03Tom Holland:Hello, welcome back to The Rest is History. Paris has fallen to the Nazis and Dominic now for the leadership of France, the democratic leadership. The end is just days away, isn't it?

44:16Dominic Sandbrook:Yes. So Paul Reynaud and his ministers have now arrived in Bordeaux. They're going further and further south. Bordeaux is a city in total and utter panic, crowded with hundreds of thousands of refugees. But Reynaud and his mistress, the Countess de Porte, check into the Hotel Splendide. That's a great name for a hotel. Yeah. So they're normally in France, so they're not. There's the Splendide, the Bristol, and the Grande Bretagne. Those are the kind of traditional names for French hotels, aren't they? So on, I don't know why Bristol. What is it with Bristol? I think that's one of the most famous hotels in Paris.

44:52Dominic Sandbrook:I mean, mad. There's no Hotel Norwich. Bristol is a fine city, though. Yeah, it is. Okay, so on Saturday the 15th of June, the French cabinet again discussed whether to surrender. And Reynaud really does want to fight on from abroad. He does not want to give up. but he is outvoted by his cabinet. Most ministers agree with Weygon and Pétain that they should ask Hitler for terms. Reynaud at this point wants to quit at once, but he's persuaded out of it. And that night at dinner, he has the most blazing row with Hélène de Porte. He is found in her bed. She's been hiding secret telegrams from London.

45:30Dominic Sandbrook:She's clearly been reading them.

45:31Tom Holland:Oh, I see. So it's not secret telegrams that have been sent to her from spies in London.

45:35Dominic Sandbrook:No, no. She's going to the stenographer's office and basically grabbing telegrams. Nicking crucial communications. Exactly. They have a massive row and he throws water over her at dinner in front of everybody to sort of punish her. So it's an awkward situation. No one knows where to look.

45:52Tom Holland:I suppose it's keeping people's minds off the fall of Paris.

45:55Dominic Sandbrook:It is, I suppose, yeah. So the next day is Sunday, the 16th of June, an incredibly dramatic day. 7.30 that morning, Churchill is at Chequers in the English countryside and he is woken by his aide. Churchill hates being woken up early because of his ludicrous hours. And he's told Reynaud is about to quit as French Prime Minister and he's going to be replaced by his deputy, Marshal Pétain. Churchill eats his breakfast very quickly. I mean, he still has his breakfast, fair play to him. And then he rushes to London. And there, an amazing thing actually, which is actually weirdly little known, I think, among the British public, that the British cabinet approve a plan to merge Britain and France into a single country, a Franco-British union, which would have common citizenship, common defense, and common foreign and economic policies.

46:46Dominic Sandbrook:And the point of doing this is not because they want to rebuild the empire of Henry II or something. It's because they think this will give them the legal powers to take the whole French army to Britain and to take control of the French Mediterranean fleet. and they sort of think that it might maybe stiffen some people in France's nerve. You know, that the British are really so committed they're going to merge their country with France. Anyway, they put this to de Gaulle, who has flown to London as Reynaud's representative. And amazingly, de Gaulle agrees. So you would think that de Gaulle, of all people, the man who vetoed Britain's attempt to join the common market, would be against this.

47:28Dominic Sandbrook:But he says, fine, you know, an extremist, let's do it. And he rang Reino that day and dictated it over the phone. And Reino said, fine. So that evening, Reino puts this plan to his cabinet. It's meant to be a surprise, but actually, Countess de Porte has been up to her old tricks. Oh, goodness. She has seen the stenographer's copy of the telegram of the sort of document, and she's leaked it to all Reino's ministers. Look at this. This is terrible.

47:57Tom Holland:Do you know, we've had loads of mistresses on the rest of history, but I think she's the worst.

48:02Dominic Sandbrook:She's bad, isn't she? She's not great. Raynaud's ministers hate this idea. They say, come on, this just makes us an appendage of Britain, we'll be a British dominion. And Pétain says, you are asking us to agree fusion with a corpse. They've got it very clear in their heads that Britain is dying. Pétain's clearly a bad man, Tom. And it's very clear, I think, that a lot of them deep down would rather have an armistice with the Germans than they would be a British Dominion or anything of that ilk.

48:32Tom Holland:Yes, because an armistice with the Germans will enable those on the right to come down hard on their compatriots who are on the left. So they're still, to a degree, thinking in terms of party politics rather than of national survival.

48:47Dominic Sandbrook:And also, of course, they think the Germans are going to win the war at this point. None of them think that Britain can win the war. They just assume the Germans are going to win. So the next day, the 17th of June, two more very dramatic developments. So overnight, Reynaud quits, as had been advertised, and Peyton becomes prime minister. And at 11.30 that morning, Peyton broadcasts to the French people, and he says, I'm going to ask Hitler for terms. He says, I've sent a message to the enemy commander to ask him if he would meet with me as one soldier to another after the fight and honorably seek a way to put an end to hostilities but you know what's not

49:23Tom Holland:honorable is that he basically tells the french army to put down their weapons even before the

49:28Dominic Sandbrook:armistice has been agreed yeah and as soon as people hear that broadcast they stop fighting a lot of them they're like well what's the point why why carry on if we're going to lose anyway now meanwhile de gaulle who had once been peyton's protege i mean this is the thing yeah he had loved he had looked up to Pétain as a mentor. He's come back from London. And when he comes back and he hears we're asking for peace, de Gaulle is totally devastated. You know, he'd wanted to fight on. And de Gaulle knows that basically Pétain is taking power and that he, de Gaulle, as a hawk, will probably be arrested because that's what happens to Pétain's other critics and opponents within the regime.

50:08Dominic Sandbrook:He goes to see Reynaud, presumably the Hôtel Esplandide. and Reynaud has not yet handed over this sort of, I don't know whether it's a briefcase or something, that has the prime minister's secret buns in it. And Reynaud gives de Gaulle 100 ,000 francs and says, take the money, go to London, do what you can. And that's what de Gaulle does. Even as Pétain is speaking to the French people, de Gaulle is in a plane going back to London. And when he gets to London, there he makes the very famous radio appeal to the French people that all French schoolchildren are now very familiar with. He basically says to them, we appear to have lost, but it's not final.

50:52Dominic Sandbrook:France is not lost. I, Général de Gaulle, appeal to the French people to join me. The flame of French resistance must not be extinguished and will not be extinguished. it's a you know one of the most stirring and defining moments in modern French history and now a huge part of French identity but almost nobody hears it right yeah let's rain on that

51:17Tom Holland:French parade nobody's listening is they're all listening to Marshall Pater I don't think it's raining on their parade because I think it's you know it's an acorn from which a mighty oak grows and it actually makes the story of of the free French all the more dramatic that nobody hears it But it is a single candle that is blowing in an almighty tempest.

51:36Dominic Sandbrook:Yes, I think that's a nice way of putting it. Because, I mean, an almighty tempest, my God, this is the most traumatic moment in French history, without a doubt. And how it happened has been argued about ever since the French collapse in the face of the German invasion. And Pétain and his allies, right from the moment he takes office, say, we lost because we were sick, because there was a sickness in French society. And some historians have said that since, that France was fatally divided and demoralized even before the war began. There are others. So there's a great historian called Julian Jackson, who has written a brilliant book on the fall of France.

52:16Dominic Sandbrook:And Julian Jackson says, everything that you say of France, you could say it of other countries too. The truth is they lose on the battlefield because of bad intelligence and bad tactics.

52:25Tom Holland:Yeah, I think that's clearly the case. Because had they bombed, for instance, the tanks as they were going through the Ardennes, then Germany would have lost. And we'd probably be having these discussions about the sickness in German society. Well, I mean, we do have discussions about the sickness in German society. But you know what I mean. I do know what you mean.

52:42Dominic Sandbrook:Exactly. I think it's true that the British and French generally are too cautious and they're too hesitant throughout the whole war. I mean, that's what a lot of military historians say. that basically the value of human life matters a lot to a British or a French general. They're very conscious of the lessons of the First World War. They don't want to be the butchers who send men advancing towards machine guns. The Germans are gamblers, and that comes from the top. And the French and the British are very reluctant to take decisions in 1940. And I think there's also a sense, though, that the French lack a bit of solidarity when things are going badly.

53:17Dominic Sandbrook:You know, this is a massive question, so any short take on it will be a bit simplistic. But even in the early days of the campaign, General Gamalin, who was Weygand's predecessor, said, it's clear that some of our soldiers don't really believe in the war. They're not massively fired up. They don't really believe in their leaders. Julian Jackson, in his book on the fall of France, quotes a young sergeant who had been, perhaps tellingly, on the far right in the 1930s, who said, what will really annoy me in this war is if I end up dying for values in which I do not believe. And Dominic, what is the name of that young officer?

53:54Dominic Sandbrook:That young officer's name was François Mitterrand. So the future socialist president of France. But there are other examples. Jackson also quotes a philosopher called George Friedman who was serving as a lieutenant. And Friedman said, when I look at the people around me, I don't detect a huge amount of pain at the misfortunes of our country. more a kind of relief that it's all over. Thank God that's done. I mean, maybe you could say there would have been people in Britain who would have acted similarly had they been defeated. Thank God that's over. I mean, I'm sure there would have been actually a few.

54:29Dominic Sandbrook:But I think France is much more divided than Britain in the mid-1930s. And that lack of ideological cohesion, I think, does actually play a part, especially when things go badly. They find it harder to fall back on a sort of patriotic solidarity, I would say. Richard Evans, in his books on the Third Reich, points out that there are French conservatives who had always despised French democracy, much as German conservatives had despised the Weimar Republic. French conservatives had often admired Hitler and Mussolini and spoken of the lessons that could be drawn from fascism. And so when they are beaten, they say, you know, actually, this might be quite a good thing.

55:10Dominic Sandbrook:We can rebuild our country. We can purge the left. You know, this is actually a necessary lesson for us. And we can, you know, learn from it. Which suggests that they haven't properly understood what the Nazis are about, right? Yeah. Or that they have and they're just terrible people.

55:27Tom Holland:I think the former, because I think that the French right are patriotic. I mean, Pétain was the great hero of France. He thinks that what he's doing is for the best for France, but it's mad to think that the Nazis will cut France any slack at all, because for them, their triumph is so transcendent. I mean, they're interpreting it in racial and cultural terms, aren't they?

55:55Dominic Sandbrook:Of course they are. Of course they are. Transcendence is the word. I mean, Hitler, when he heard Petain's broadcast, he was described by people there as literally slapping his thighs with joy. I mean, that's not an image anyone wants to see. These tight leather trousers. So Hitler assumes the war is over. The next day, he flies to Munich to meet Mussolini. The Italians, I mean, I know we've got some Italian listeners, actually. I mean, I'm sorry to say this, but the Italians absolutely disgraced themselves in both world wars for different reasons. So in this world war, they've done their traditional thing of sitting on the sidelines at first.

56:30Dominic Sandbrook:Mussolini, he's not really interested in the West. His ambitions are in the Adriatic kind of Yugoslavia and Greece. But Mussolini is a total snake. And he declared war on Britain and France on the 10th of June. I mean, it's literally like, you know, taking part in a football match in the 85th minute or something. Do you know who would agree with you that Mussolini disgraced himself with his declaration of war? Oh, don't compare me with some hideous Nazi.

56:55Tom Holland:Hitler.

56:56Dominic Sandbrook:Right back. I knew that was coming.

56:59Tom Holland:To quote my brother in War in the West, he thought that Mussolini declaring war was pathetic. As far as the Fuhrer was concerned, one didn't make a declaration of war. One just got on and fought it. So Mussolini had really let himself down there.

57:14Dominic Sandbrook:So Mussolini didn't even, I mean, he declares war just before the Germans capture Paris. And he said to his cronies, He said, basically, what I'm hoping is that 2 ,000 Italians will be killed, and that will be enough for me to claim Corsica and Nice for Italy. I mean, he also said, Mussolini, what kind of an ally is Mussolini? He said, I hope Britain doesn't surrender too quickly, because I'd like to take some of the credit for it. I'm worried Hitler will get all the credit. And he also said, I hope that Hitler does end up attacking Britain and does invade Britain, because I think he'll lose a million men.

57:49Dominic Sandbrook:and that would be good for him. It'll mean the Germans aren't too cocky after the war when they've won. Anyway, they meet in Munich. And now this is interesting, I think about Britain, because we know from the Italian foreign minister, Count Ciano, what Hitler thought was going to happen. He said, Hitler really wants to end this quickly now. He's like a gambler. He's bet all his chips. He's had a big winning and he wants to scoop everything up. Hitler says to Ciano, I really don't want Britain to fall apart completely and lose its empire. because Britain losing its empire would be great news for our other rivals, the United States, Japan, and the Soviet Union.

58:28Dominic Sandbrook:They would be the big winners, not Germany. So basically, I want Britain to keep its empire. Now, we will see how that plays out next time. But for the time being, Hitler's priority is to give the war in France the ending that he feels he deserves. Remember, I mean, you mentioned at the beginning how important the experience of defeat in 1918 had been to Hitler. You know, the scene when he's in the sanatorium in Passavalk or wherever it is, and he's sobbing like a baby when he hears the news. Now he's going to have his revenge. And as soon as the German tanks had reached the Channel Coast, you know, the beginning of the invasion, he'd said to his aides, when we win, I want to have the armistice negotiations in the Compiègne Forest, in the same spot where we surrendered in 1918.

59:17Dominic Sandbrook:And not only that, we surrendered in a railway carriage in 1918 to Marshal Foch. I want to get the same railway carriage, and then we'll force the French to be on the receiving end this time. And they did. They tracked it down to a museum. A German demolition crew broke down the walls of this museum with a kind of JCB type thing. They dragged out the railway carriage, and they took it all the way to this forest and dumped it in the forest. And the ceremony is set for the 21st of June. Three o 'clock that afternoon, Hitler turns up with all the gang, Göring, Ribbentrop, Hess, all these characters.

59:56Dominic Sandbrook:He had a look at the French War Memorial, which was in the forest, and he went into the carriage. The French had already arrived. They're sitting there in absolutely glum silence. Hitler sat exactly where the Supreme Allied Commander, Marshal Foch, had sat in 1918. and the American reporter William Shira, who saw Hitler that day, said, I've seen that face many times at the great moments of his life, but today it is a fire with scorn, anger, hate, revenge, triumph. General Keitel read the preamble to the armistice, which said that basically the German people have been suffering and humiliated for 20 years, but that's over now, and justice has been restored.

1:00:37Dominic Sandbrook:and then Hitler just walked out a gesture of contempt for the French I will leave the rest

1:00:44Tom Holland:to my underlings that's again what Foch had done to the Germans isn't it so again and again it's

1:00:50Dominic Sandbrook:treating the French how they had treated the Germans exactly and I mean Hitler and his cronies don't disguise how personal this is because that evening Hitler rang Goebbels in Berlin to talk it through and Goebbels wrote in his diary afterwards the disgrace is now extinguished it's a feeling of being born again. This sort of sense of vindication and revenge after the First World War.

1:01:14Tom Holland:So what terms are the French able to get?

1:01:18Dominic Sandbrook:Well, the French don't have a leg to stand on. They just have to take what they're given effectively, much as they sort of beg for better. So they lose Alsace and Arrain. Germany takes them back. Northern and Western France becomes a German military-occupied zone. And then the southern two-fifths of France will be governed by Marshal Pétain from the spa town of Vichy. We know that the Nazis love spa towns. And Marshal Pétain ends up presiding over this very reactionary, repressive, anti-Semitic regime, which is a subject for another day, I guess. And when Hitler heard the news that the French had signed, I mean, again, it's the sign of the sort of, almost like the malevolent teenage boy in Hitler, I think.

1:02:02Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah. He said, turn out all the lights in the headquarters, everything in darkness, and open all the windows. I want nothing to disturb the sound of the trumpeter marking the moment of the French surrender. He just wants to absolutely wallow in that moment of vindication. So the same day, which is the 22nd of June, the Wehrmacht organized this huge victory parade in Paris. You can see it on YouTube, actually, on German newsreels. Troops marching down the Champs Elysees, cavalry riding past the Arc de Triomphe. I mean, imagine being a German, you know, a nationalistic German, back in Cologne or Hamburg or Stuttgart or whatever, watching this in the cinema with your compatriots.

1:02:48Dominic Sandbrook:You know, that sense that Hitler has of vindication and revenge, that's what lots, millions of ordinary Germans thought at that moment.

1:02:55Tom Holland:But also, presumably, they're thinking Hitler was right. Everything he promised us has come to pass. Of course they are.

1:03:03Dominic Sandbrook:So the bells ring across the Reich for a week. The flags are hoisted for 10 days. You know, there had been massive celebrations with the reports of things like the fall of Paris. And we've talked many times in this series about how anxious Germans were about another world war. But all their anxieties, it seems, have been put at rest. I mean, Hitler, you're exactly right, Tom. What they think is even people who doubted Hitler now say, do you know what? He was right. He accomplished everything that he said he would. SS reports, we know from SS Security Service reports, that even among people who were skeptical of the regime, who were even perhaps on the more dissident side of things, now are just full of admiration for what has been achieved in France.

1:03:54Dominic Sandbrook:There's a brilliant example, Richard Evans in his great books on the Third Reich. He has a number of diarists that he cites again and again. One of them is this woman called Louisa Solmitz. I think we mentioned her in previous series. She was a school teacher. She was conservative, but her husband was Jewish. So she was quite conflicted, as you would expect, about the regime. But now she writes in her diary, she says, I feel exhilarated by happiness and enthusiasm. It's an unbelievably great national change of fortune, the fulfillment of our long-held dreams. And Dominic, if she is feeling like that, how does Hitler feel?

1:04:30Dominic Sandbrook:Oh, I mean, like that, but only more so. You know, the way that, again, I compared him rather flippantly to a sort of teenage boy. But, you know, what does Hitler do? He spends the next couple of days visiting battlefields in Flanders with old comrades, with his old company sergeant from the First World War and a fellow dispatch runner, and then that thing of the boyhood dream, visiting Paris. So as Speer described in that reading that he did at the beginning, he flew in with his favourite architects and his photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann. They went to the opera first, and they were showed round by a caretaker, and they offered the caretaker a tip, but the caretaker wouldn't accept it.

1:05:09Dominic Sandbrook:Obviously, he doesn't want to take German gold. they went to all those places that Speer mentioned the Arc de Triomphe the Avélie the Pontillon and so on tomb of Napoleon interesting thing is Hitler said afterwards to Goebbels you know Paris wasn't as good as I thought it would be I thought it would be more impressive and then he said to Speer that evening he said I'd always thought we'd have to destroy Paris but now I've realized that basically when we're done in Berlin Berlin will be much better and Paris will only be a shadow so we don't need to destroy it so weirdly if paris had been more impressive hitler would have destroyed it yeah and then at last he makes his triumphant return to germany choreographed by goebbels on the afternoon of the 6th of july and this really i mean we were talking at the beginning weren't we about what was the happiest moment was the high point of hitler's life this has got to be up there massive crowds hundreds of thousands of people they've strewn the streets with flowers he goes all the way from the station to the reich chancellery in the center and there general keitel introduces him as the greatest warlord of all time and people are screaming and sobbing and hitler comes out again and again to salute the crowds and he is at the summit he is at the zenith now because there's only one enemy left britain he is preparing his final peace offer to britain If Churchill refuses that, then he will bring the British to their knees.

1:06:39Dominic Sandbrook:And as the operations chief of his army, General Jodl, writes in his diary, the final German victory over England is now just a question of time. Or is it?

1:06:54Tom Holland:We will find out in our final episode of this series. it's the great duel between Hitler and Winston Churchill between the Luftwaffe and the RAF as we look at the Battle of Britain the Blitz and the build-up to Operation Barbarossa and members of the Rest is History Club can of course hear that episode right now and if you would like to join them and hear about Britain's finest hour then please do sign up at therestishistory.com Au revoir Auf Wiedersehen Throughout time, celebration has meant giving. So the Romans at Saturnalia handed out all kinds of gifts. The three Magi handed out gold, frankincense and myrrh.

1:07:41Tom Holland:And the Victorians absolutely loved wrapping things up in paper and then tying it up in string.

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1:09:37Dominic Sandbrook:But not just here in Britain. It's also Father's Day on the 21st of June in the United States, in Canada, and in the Republic of Ireland. So those are four countries that are united by dads who love to listen to the rest as history.

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1:10:39Dominic Sandbrook:about the first world war yeah that's what most fathers want so head to the rest is history.com and click on the word gifts. And that gift, membership of our much-loved Rest is History Club, will land straight in your father's inbox on Father's Day itself.

1:11:00Tom Holland:So if you want to give the best Father's Day gift there's ever been in history, ever, and we say this as the presenters of the Rest is History, you know what to do.