Armistice of June 22nd, 1940

The convention of armistice of June 22nd, 1940 is a treaty which was signed between the representative of IIIe Reich German and that of the French government in order to put an end to the hostilities and to establish the conditions of the occupation by Germany, the fate of the people captured, moved or occupied, the neutralization of the French forces, and the payment of economic compensations in Germany.

France is divided into two parts by a Line of demarcation, the occupied Zone which is under the German authority, and the zone known as “free”, with all the departments and Overseas territories which remains under the authority of new the French government. In the occupied zone, one distinguishes the North which is attached to the Gouvernorat military German in Belgium, the " zone réservée" Alsace-Lorraine in the east, the " zone interdite" , along the coasts of the Handle and the Atlantic and it (small) zone of Italian occupation at the end of 1942.

The armistice marks the end of the Bataille of France, the Drôle of war and the Exode.

Conditions of the armistice of Rethondes

The French delegation is led by the general Huntziger and includes/understands a civilian, the ambassador Leon Christmas; she received from the general Weygand, new Minister for Defense the formal instructions to refuse three German requirements: total occupation of the metropolitan territory, delivery of the Fleet and the installation of the Germans in the Empire.

The conditions of the Armistice are justified by the concerns of Adolf Hitler at that time: is needed of course, to prevent in a durable way that France does not become a military great power, but in the short run, it should be taken care that its fleet does not join the United Kingdom which remains the last country to be overcome or allure, because an peace agreement with the United Kingdom remains wished in this end of June. Lastly, froisser is needed neither the Italian ally, nor the Spanish allied potential. Hitler met Mussolini on June 18th in Munich to convince it to take the instructions of Weygand, which he had guessed: Duce wanted to occupy France to the Rhone, to seize the Fleet and to annex Nice, Corsica and Savoy. These are these complex considerations which will determine the contents of the convention of armistice, a short text of twenty four articles, which contains in particular the following clauses:

the prisoner of war (more than 1,5 million men) remain in captivity to the signature of an peace agreement.
the northern half, as well as the Atlantic coast, pass under German occupation: it is the occupied zone, which covers about the three fifths of the territory. The remainder constituting the “free zone”, i.e. nonoccupied, primarily gathered in the south of the Loire. Two zones being separate between them by the Line of demarcation.
France must provide for maintenance with the occupying army. It proved that the rising one of these allowances was going to be fixed in a quasi-discrétionnaire way by the Germans, and their amount will rise, on average, to 400 franc million per day.
In the free zone , the French Army is limited to 100.000 men and the troops are disarmed.
French sovereignty is exerted on the whole of the territory, including the occupied zone, the Alsace and the the Moselle, but in the occupied Zone, it is stipulated that Germany exerts the rights of the occupying power , which implies that the administration collaborates with her in a correct way.

the colonial Empire French also remains under the authority of the French government.

the men-of-war join their home ports of the time of peace, of which some, like Brest, were in occupied zone (" The designation of these ports will be made according to the home ports of the ships in times of paix") .

France must deliver the German or Austrian refugees political present on its ground.

The choice of Hitler to leave in overcome France its empire can appear today completely surprising. At the time, in a letter in Duce, Hitler justified this choice (like that to maintain a zone nonoccupied), by the concern of not pushing France and its powerful fleet to continue the war starting from its colonies. German marine not being with measurement to conquer the vast colonial empire in addition to-Mediterranean, and the sending of troops in regions distant not entering the strategy from Hitler. In the facts, except for the French equatorial Africa and of the New Caledonia, the French colonies will join neither in De Gaulle nor in Alliés in the months which will follow the armistice, in spite of the Bataille of Dakar.
Of dimensioned sound, Churchill, vis-a-vis the unbearable risk seeing the French fleet joining its home ports now occupied by the enemy, in accordance with conventions of armistice sends on July 3rd, 1940, a British fleet to summon the French fleet of Mers el Kébir to join it, or to join the French West Indies. The French admiral rejected the ultimatum, without informing Vichy of all the potential of this one, of which that to join the French West Indies to take cover from Germans. He followed a naval action, during which the principal French units are destroyed.
The admiral Darlan, by advance, had refused to direct towards Brest, the units which had their base there and ordered with the totality of the Fleet to fold up himself in North Africa. The attack of Kébir Seas-El encouraged it to make it station with Toulon with the end of the year 1940.
Moreover, the Italy although asserting old the County of Nice and the Savoy, which she did not manage to seize, must be satisfied with Menton (the Alpes-Maritimes). The other asserted territories will be occupied by the Italian army only later on, on November 11th, 1942, during the invasion of the nonoccupied zone before.

Controversies

The de Gaulle general reproached Pétain, which it respected and, especially in Weygand which it hated, the principle even armistice which delivered France feet and fist related to Reich. In her Appel of June 18th, de Gaulle informs the French that " this war is not limited to the territory of our country; this war is a world war. " and thinks, rightly, that the the United States will return in war and that the cumulated resources of the French and British empires will make it possible to crush Germany. It is particularly the last condition (France must deliver the refugees political German or Austrian present on its ground) which is, in general, regarded as opposite with the honor.

See too

Second world war
France under the mode of Vichy
Coach of the armistice

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