6. This was shrewd foresight, though only partly true. What was true was that twenty-four days later, after the complete collapse of France, Hitler chose to offer terms to France that gave the latter a constrained way out of the war—which was why Sir R. Campbell, then the last British ambassador to France, would call them “diabolically clever.” But these terms were of course much harsher than Churchill had imagined on 27 May: the Germans retained the entire Channel and Atlantic coasts of France, with all the French ports there.