

The memorial of the Battle of France volume 3 : 5-16 June 1940
On 5 June 1940, the Germans launched their second big offensive of the campaign against a greatly diminished French army. The fighting on the Somme and on the Aisne was very intense before the French troops, with the attackers out-numbering and out-gunning them, were gradually forced to fall back.
Weygand, whose fixation it was to save as much of the French army as possible, gave the order on 13 June, for them to run for their lives. One might have thought that was the end of the campaign ; not at all! Heavy fighting continued on the roads leading to the River Loire, in front of Verdun and in the Sarre and on the Rhine.
For a further twelve days the struggle raged between the partisans of carrying on the fight led by Reynaud and de Gaulle, and those backing an armistice, led by Weygand and Pétain. When the Reynaud Government collapsed on the 16th in the evening, the fate of the Cam- paign for France was sealed.
Twelve dramatic days to be discovered in this book.