Collapse of France

Genre:.....................WWII Documentary
Language:.................English - No Subs
Picture:...................Colour - B&W
Runtime:..................47mins
Size:........................2.09Gb

During the winter of 1939-40 the French army and the German Wehrmacht faced one another in what was regarded satirically as the sitzkrieg, or sit-down war. The world waited in anticipation of a major conflict between two powerful forces. On May 13, 1940, a bridgehead was established at Sedan, considered the gateway to France, and then suddenly, on May 16, a day after the Dutch capitulation, the German blitzkrieg was released on northern France. German mechanized forces outflanked the Maginot Line, surprised the Allies by attacking through the wooded Ardennes rather than the Belgian plain, and drove the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from the Continent at Dunkirk ( Dunkerque). On June 5 the Germans launched another offensive southward from the Somme. They entered Paris unopposed on June 14 and forced France to sign an armistice at Compiègne on June 22, 1940.