{"id":16855,"date":"2024-06-17T10:18:55","date_gmt":"2024-06-17T08:18:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/defeat-of-1940\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T16:24:05","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T14:24:05","slug":"defeat-of-1940","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/en\/defeat-of-1940\/","title":{"rendered":"Defeat of 1940"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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On September 3, 1939, England and France declared war on Germany, which had invaded Poland. In May 1940, Germany launched a major offensive against Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and France. The French fought on all fronts but were quickly overwhelmed. On June 17, Marshal P\u00e9tain ordered the soldiers to cease fighting against the German enemy. It was a defeat. A few days later, the armistice was signed. <\/div>
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On September 3, 1939, England and France declared war on Germany, which had invaded Poland. Young French men were called up. <\/div>

Many foreigners\u2014including activists from the Jewish section of the M.O.I.\u2014then enlisted in the R\u00e9giments de Marche des Volontaires \u00c9trangers (RMVE) or in other foreign volunteer units serving France, but the armies remained at a standstill. For eight months, it was the \u201cPhoney War.\u201d <\/p>

Hitler’s Germany went on the offensive on May 10, 1940, during the “Battle of France.”<\/p>

Before long, the French army was in full retreat. Defeat is inevitable.<\/p>

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers were taken prisoner. In the RMVE, a large number of foreigners\u2014including Jews who were immigrants and who were poorly equipped and ill-prepared\u2014were killed or captured.<\/em> <\/p>

The exodus was massive. It began affecting Parisians as early as June 1940. <\/p>

Beginning on June 6, 1940, the French army\u2019s lines were breached and the troops were surrounded in the Dunkirk region. More than 300,000 French and British soldiers were evacuated to Great Britain. On June 10, 1940, Fascist Italy, an ally of Germany, entered the war and deployed troops in the Alps. <\/p>

On June 14, German troops entered Paris, which had been declared an \u201copen city.\u201d<\/p>

On June 16, Marshal P\u00e9tain became President of the Council.<\/p>

On the 17th, he called on the French to cease fighting and requested an armistice from the Germans.<\/p>

On June 18, General de Gaulle issued his Call to the Resistance from London.<\/p>

On June 22, the armistice was signed.<\/p>

The military refused to accept a surrender that would imply a failure on the part of the French army. P\u00e9tain opted for an armistice, thereby placing the blame for the defeat on the political class. A majority of the French people longed for an end to the fighting, but the decision to accept the armistice would lead France into a regime of collaboration with the Nazi occupiers. <\/p>

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References:<\/p>

\u2014 Dominique Lormier, 2020, May\u2013June 1940: The Causes of Defeat\u2014A New Perspective on Political and Military Responsibilities<\/em>. Published by <\/strong>Alisio <\/p>

\u2014 Marc Bloch, 1940, *The Strange Defeat<\/em>*. Published by Gallimard <\/p>

\u2014 Philippe Nord, 2017, France 1940: Defending the Republic<\/em>. Perrin. <\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On September 3, 1939, England and France declared war on Germany, which had invaded Poland. In May 1940, Germany launched a major offensive against Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and France. The French fought on all fronts but were quickly overwhelmed. On June 17, Marshal P\u00e9tain ordered the soldiers to cease fighting against the German enemy. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[155],"tags":[],"salle":[183],"source":[],"zone-geo":[],"class_list":["post-16855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-notes","salle-3-1-the-involvement-of-jews-immigrants-in-the-war"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16855"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16858,"href":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16855\/revisions\/16858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16855"},{"taxonomy":"salle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/salle?post=16855"},{"taxonomy":"source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/source?post=16855"},{"taxonomy":"zone-geo","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/zone-geo?post=16855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}