ABSTRACT
On 10 May 1940, eight months of Phony War gave way to just six weeks of Blitzkrieg, during which Germany achieved a quick victory over the Benelux countries and France. Advancing through the Ardennes, the German army avoided the heavily fortified Maginot Line along France’s eastern border and managed to cut off French and British forces stationed in Belgium from their main army corps. While large numbers of British troops could do no more than evacuate at Dunkirk, abandoning large amounts of materiel, the German army quickly advanced into northern France. The approaching German armies caused six to eight million French citizens to flee southwards, making it even harder for the French military to regroup. By this time, the failing French general Maurice Gamelin had been replaced by Maxime Weygand as supreme commander. Paying frequent visits to frontline troops and trying to restore morale, but also calling off a counter-offensive strategy proposed by his predecessor, Weygand unsuccessfully attempted to reorganise French defence lines. On 10 June, Paris was declared an open city, while the French government established itself in Bordeaux. To Fabre-Luce and Jouvenel, who had been just too young to fight for France in the First World War, the Battle of France offered the first opportunity to defend their country against foreign invasion. Although both were mobilised during early stages of the Phony War, they saw no combat. Jouvenel spent a few months in Alsace as ‘the oldest and by far the clumsiest soldier’ in his battalion, before being wounded in an accident and sent home. Fabre-Luce served in Paris at the ‘Second Passive Defence Regiment’, charged with demonstrating the use of gas masks to protect the city’s population from an attack that never came. 1
