Some of the French combat divisions nevertheless held stubborn defenses, especially in the eastern region, where the 14th Infantry Division under General Muratel confronted the German 41st Panzer Corps. A little west in the area of Reiter, the French 2nd Division repelled a German attack in a single day.

Eventually, the Germans did not attack these positions again, but found gaps in the middle of them, broke through them, and turned to Reims.

Even the lower echelons of the French corps do not seem to understand the use of static defenses that cannot be implemented against powerful and high-speed maneuverable armored forces. There was also an armored battle during the war. During a counterattack by a French B heavy tank formation, Guderian was very worried when he saw anti-tank shells ricocheting off the "thick deck of French tanks", and the B tank was the strongest tank in the world at that time.

The French armoured troops drove north into a small village called Poses to rescue an infantry regiment that had been surrounded there - but they themselves were encircled and ran out of fuel!

Elsewhere, however, the French army was all suppressed or cut off, and the command lost control of the troops. As German armoured units advanced deep into the French hinterland, the German infantry columns that followed them occupied more villages and towns. The morale of the French people plummeted and #队逐步走向瓦解.

As early as June 9, Weygand stated, "Our army is fighting for the last defensive operation." If this effort fails, the army is doomed to rapid destruction. ”

Two days later, he moved the headquarters from Paris to Briar-sur-Loire. There, the last joint meeting of Britain and France was held. Churchill was present at the meeting, accompanied by Generals Aiden, Ismay and Spears; On the French side, Wei Gang was accompanied by Marshal Petain.

The meeting began with Weygand's statement that "the last line of defense has been broken by the Germans, and all reserves have been exhausted." We're on the knife edge, and we don't know where to go. ”

When the heated discussion and controversy finally subsided, the meeting ended with Weygand's warning: "Once our deployment is disrupted, and it won't be long, we will have no hope of reorganizing the deployment because we lack reserves." In this case, I could not prevent the German invasion of the whole of France. ”

The "shame" that Weygand reads from this proposal is difficult to understand, especially since only eight days later, when he ordered the approximately 400,000 French troops deployed in and around the Maginot Line to "ask the Germans for an armistice, while preserving the honor of the war." In the French text, the "greatest crime" refers to the act of "surrendering while still capable of defending", so what the French commander-in-chief did in June 1940 is as mysterious as it gets. //

On 16 June, Reynaud resigned, and Marshal Pétain succeeded him as Prime Minister of France, and immediately sued Germany for peace as soon as possible, and formed a government according to Hitler's wishes. By 20 June, the army had extended its clutches to the French cities of Lyon and Grenoble in the south, the French-Swiss border in the east, and the coast of Biscay in the west and the Royan region in the south. Mussolini, who had declared war on Britain and France 10 days earlier, was also sending Italian troops to France in large numbers and preemptively capturing Nice before the Germans arrived.

A series of events the next day finally caused the fascists to stop the offensive. At 3:30 p.m. on 21 June, the French delegation, led by General Huntsger, was taken to the same train car used by Compiègne to sign the armistice in 1918. Hitler, accompanied by Goering, Keitel, Ribbentrop and Hess, also came to Compiègne.

Hitler read the inscription denouncing the "war crimes of the German Reich" carved on the monument in the Compiègne Museum, and his face was a mixture of "expressions of anger, contempt, revenge, and victory." He left the carriage after listening to the preface to the terms of the armistice, and made a rare joke with his subordinates in a very humorous way. …,

There was no negotiation, because Hitler knew very well that he had won and that any proposal made by Huntsger would be sent back to Chancellor Pétain, and that Petain would accept Hitler's terms in full. As a shrewd politician, Hitler was very good at grasping the scale of retraction. For the sake of face, he had to convince the French people that the French national pride had been saved, even in the event of defeat.

Article 3 of the Armistice recognized the government of Pétain as the government representing all French suzerainty and its overseas possessions, allowed France to retain its imperial rights, recognized French nominal national sovereignty≡ and promised that the French combat fleet in Toulon and other Mediterranean ports would remain under French wielding. Hitler was very pleased with this, because one of his greatest fears was the merger of the French Mighty into the Royal Navy!

By 7 p.m. on 22 June, both sides had signed the armistice agreement and agreed on the demarcation of the boundaries of the German-occupied zone. However, these terms were nothing more than a disguise in which Hitler intended to punish France. The agreement did not specify a specific date for the release of the 2 million French soldiers held by the Germans. The Vichy government did not allow more than 100,000 men in its army, which was a reflection of the Treaty of Versailles. The French people had to bear not only war reparations to Germany, but also the costs of the German occupation forces.

Hitler was generally not interested in visiting the regions he conquered, but Paris was an exception.

The amateur architect worked in Albert. Speer and his favorite sculptor Arnault. Blake was accompanied by a tour of Paris, the capital of France. The city was desolate because the population had dropped from 3 million to 800,000 as the Germans attacked and a large number of its inhabitants had left. The Führer visited the Eiffel Tower, paid his respects to Napoleon's tomb at the Invalids, and made his own grand statement on the ugliness of the Templar. "If I had destroyed Paris, I would have been in great pain." He later said. He was amazed at the ability to defeat the arrogant and decadent France, and he believed that it was the French people's love of culture that weakened their martial spirit.

The humiliation suffered by France is comprehensive. France was betrayed by its leaders, who lacked the courage to stand up and fight. In Paris, when these terms of shame were posted, when they were broadcast on the German radio, the eyes of the French people filled with tears. In stark contrast, German citizens shared in Hitler's joy. When the Führer returned to Berlin, he was greeted by a Roman Empire-style victory welcome. The streets were littered with flowers, and adoring crowds greeted him as they praised the man who had changed the fate of Germany in just seven years. In 1933, Germany was just an inferior country that looked at people's faces, but now it has become the master of Europe.

The French rout of June 1940 was Hitler's most desired victory, because he believed that France should be condemned for the most retaliatory clauses of the Treaty of Versailles. However, the British Prime Minister Winston. Churchill's leadership now forcefully refused to accept defeat. Old Mk

The German High Command was well aware that Germany had to maintain pressure on Britain, first by air threat and secondly by threat of invasion by sea. On July 16, Hitler issued Directive No. 16, ordering the preparation of the "Sea Lion" battle plan and asking the engineers to begin converting the barge into a landing craft. However, the German war against Britain had to solve the problem that any army attempting to pass through the English Channel must first pass through the Royal Navy.

To deal with a strong British sea power, it was first necessary to win air superiority. The task of the Luftwaffe was to suppress the RAF. If the RAF could be eliminated, the Luftwaffe could join forces to hold the Royal Navy in tow, thus buying time for the German ground forces to cross the Channel. …,

The Air Force is one of the youngest and most attractive branches of the German army. Back in 1939, Hermann. Goering, the founder of Hitler's Air Force, made clear to his subordinates what his goals were. "Over the past few years, I've done everything I can to build the most powerful air force in the world," he said. In the year that followed, it was the air force, which had not existed five years earlier, that served as the vanguard of the invincible Wehrmacht on Germany's road to the conquest of Europe by force. Only the stubborn British are still struggling to hold onHowever, the defeat of the British seems to be only a matter of time.

At the outbreak of the war, the Luftwaffe consisted of 302 squadrons and 2,370 combat pilots, with 2,564 combat aircraft of various types. In the first year of the war, the Luftwaffe could be said to have tasted the joy of success. Compared to their opponents, the German pilots were not only well-trained, but also tactically masterful. At dawn on September 1, 1939, three "Junker" Ju87 planes of the 1st Squadron of the Luftwaffe Dwooping Wing roared down from the sky and dropped bombs on the Dirschu Bridge on the Vistula River in a near-vertical dive action. After 11, German panzer divisions flooded across the Polish border. In this way, Hitler's Nazis fired the first shots of the Second World War.

The first task of the 1600 aircraft belonging to the 1600th and 4th air forces of the Luftwaffe was to destroy the Polish Air Force. Polish air bases were indiscriminately bombed by German "Heinkel" and "Dornier" bombers, and the Polish army's obsolete PZL fighters were also vulnerable to the Luftwaffe Bf109 fighters. Within two days, the Luftwaffe had swept away all air threats!

Subsequently, German dive bombers began to carry out the tasks of attacking enemy units and key communications targets. The Stuka bombers were like flying cannons, bombing all military obstacles in the way of the German armored forces. This hideous bomber with inverted seagull wings is simply a flying machine that sows fear and chaos to enemy soldiers and civilians.

Although Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September, there were very few air battles between the two sides throughout the cold winter of 1939-1940.

Before the outbreak of the war, Britain, like many other countries, believed that Germany could be defeated by aerial bombardment alone. However, although the development of the Luftwaffe was more offensive, the German planners did not neglect the country's defense; As a result, the RAF finally discovered that defeating Germany was far from being as easy as they thought.

The British air raids on Germany in 1939 were not bombs, but ≡ orders. Combat operations were also limited to attacks on port and coastal targets. In a daytime air raid on the port of De'Lean in 1939, 24 British unescorted "Wellington" bombed a German radar-guided "Messerschmitt" Bf109 fighter, and 2 were shot down. This operation, along with similar previous experiences, forced the RAF to move the air raid to a nighttime operation.

In the spring of 1940, the Luftwaffe again went into action to support the German operations in Scandinavia.

The Luftwaffe played an important role in this coordinated land, sea and air operation, sending large numbers of troops to Denmark and Norway, providing a guarantee for a sudden air-to-ground attack, completing the most basic close support missions, and providing an anti-ship strike force to counter the expected intervention of the Royal Navy!