Case Red

‘It is humiliating to remain with our hands folded while others write history. It matters little who wins. To make a people great it is necessary to send them to battle even if you have to kick them in the pants. That is what I shall do.’

Mussolini was an opportunist and when he saw that Fall Rot was succeeding, he decided that the time was ripe for Italy to enter the conflict so it could gain some of the ‘spoils of war.’ In addition to territorial gains at France’s expense, Mussolini sought military glory for his Fascist regime in a short, successful campaign. At 1645 hours on 10 June, Italy declared war on France, although no real justification was provided. Mussolini announced the declaration to a large, cheering crowd of young Fascists in the Piazza Venezia in Rome. Yet after declaring war, Mussolini was unable to make war at once because his military was at such a low state of readiness. Indeed, Marshal Pietro Badoglio informed Mussolini that the Italian Army would need 25 days to prepare for an offensive against southern France. Despite Mussolini’s pre-war rhetoric about Fascist Italy possessing ‘eight million bayonets’, the Italian military suffered from serious material and training deficiencies, as well as incompetent senior military commanders.

When France went to war in 1939, it was still able to keep 550,000 troops on the Alpine front, which was more than enough to deter Italy. However, the exigencies of Fall Gelb had caused the GQG to draw upon the forces in southern France to reinforce the northern front, so only 185,000 troops remained by early June 1940. Général René-Henri Olry’s Armée des Alpes had three mountain infantry divisions, all Reserve B units, plus five fortified sectors of the Alpine Line. Three French divisions were insufficient to deter 22 Italian divisions. In terms of support weapons, the Armée des Alpes had four groups of 155mm howitzers and a battalion of obsolete FT-17 tanks, but very little anti-aircraft weapons. However, the mountainous terrain on the Franco-Italian border heavily favoured the defence and the French government had wisely invested the time and effort during the 1930s to construct the fortifications of the Alpine Line, which were similar to the Maginot Line ouvrages. Most of the ouvrages in the Alpine Line were quite modern and heavily armed; altogether, the French had 32 75mm, four 95mm and four 135mm guns plus 68 81mm mortars mounted in the line facing Italy.

In southern France, the AdA had very limited airpower to commit against the Italians because it was fully engaged against the Luftwaffe. The GC III/6 had only about six operational D.520 fighters at Le Luc near Toulon, but its pilots were all veterans, including Sous lieutenant Pierre Le Gloan, who had already shot down four German aircraft. The AdA also had 12 LeO 451 and four MB.210 bombers, plus nine reconnaissance aircraft in southern France. In addition, the AdA had one fighter group equipped with MS.406 fighters in Tunisia, which would see action against the Italians. The AéroNavale also had a presence around Toulon, including a naval fighter squadron with nine MB.151s, two attack units with about 12 Vought 156F dive-bombers and a small number of Farman long-range bombers. Altogether, at the start of hostilities with Italy, the French had a total of only about 60 combat aircraft in southern France.

In contrast, the Italians could commit nearly the full weight of the Regia Aeronautica (Italian Air Force) against France, approximately 600 bombers and 450 fighters. On paper, this gave the Italians a decisive numerical advantage in the air, but lack of training and preparation made it difficult for the Regia Aeronautica to commit more than a small part of its strength to operations in June 1940. The Italians began the campaign with token raids against French air bases in Tunisia. On the morning of 11 June, a flight of SM 79 bombers from Sardinia bombed the AéroNavale base at Karouba in northern Tunisia, destroying four of six Loire 70 flying boats. The next day, the Italians attacked Karouba in greater strength, with 21 SM 79 bombers, but one-third were damaged by French air defences. A third raid followed on 13 June, with 3 bombers; French fighters tried to intercept but the MS.406 fighters only had a small speed advantage over the SM 79 bombers, which frustrated these attempts.

The Regia Aeronautica began striking targets in metropolitan France on the night of 12/13 June, when eight BR 20 medium bombers tried to bomb the Toulon naval base. On 13 June, the Italians conducted two raids near Toulon. The first, with ten BR 20 bombers tried to bomb the AéroNavale base at Hyères but was intercepted by the D.520 fighters of GC III/6 and Sous lieutenant Le Gloan shot down two of them, which scattered the remaining bombers. A larger group of 28 BR 20s tried to attack the Toulon naval base again but was intercepted by naval fighters from AC 3, which claimed three. Although CR.42 fighters were sent over France, they failed to protect the bombers or engage French fighters.¹

Since before the Italian declaration of war, the Allies had been planning retaliatory strikes against industrial facilities in northern Italy. After the Italian bombing of Toulon, the French Mediterranean Fleet decided to activate Operation Vado, a contingency plan to attack Italian industrial facilities near Genoa. During the night of 13/14 June, Vice-Amiral Émile Duplat sortied from Toulon with four heavy cruisers and 11 destroyers and sailed at high speed towards Genoa. Splitting into two groups, the French warships opened fire at 0427 hours on 14 June and conducted a ten-minute bombardment of three industrial targets; a total of 500 8in rounds and 1,100 smaller shells were fired. Italian coastal batteries succeeded in hitting the destroyer Albatros with a single 6in shell that mortally wounded 11 French sailors, but efforts by Italian motor torpedo boats to attack the French cruisers were ineffectual. Having checked off the box on retaliation, Duplat retired at 25 knots towards Toulon, having killed nine Italian civilians and injured 34.² The AdA and AéroNavale also supported Operation Vado with fighter cover and about 25 bomber sorties against the same targets in the Vado–Genoa area. Overall, Operation Vado was a symbolic action, conducted so that the French Navy could claim to have struck a blow before the armistice, but with no military value.

After the Italian declaration of war, as part of a contingency known as Haddock, the RAF moved a dozen Wellington bombers from No. 3 Group to two airfields near Marseille, in order to be within range of Italian industrial targets. However the French were initially unwilling to allow Haddock Force to bomb Italian cities out of fear of retaliation, so the airfields were blocked with cars to prevent British bombers from taking off. Consequently, Bomber Command decided to use No. 4 Group in England to mount the first raids against Italy. In an amazing display of faulty navigation, several Whitley bombers managed to drop bombs on Geneva and the suburbs of Lausanne – an error of 185km – which caused the death of four Swiss civilians and injured 80. Night-bombing was still very rudimentary and this error demonstrates the hollowness of Bomber Command’s claims about what it was doing to German lines of communication in June 1940. After Toulon was bombed, the French allowed Haddock Force to conduct two night raids in northern Italy, then shut it down.

MAP KEY

1)14 June, Operation Vado: a French naval squadron bombards industrial targets near Genoa.

2)20 June, the German 10. Panzer-Division occupies Lyon, which is an open city.

3)21–24 June, the Italian 1st Army attacks across the French border in order to seize the town of Menton. Despite fierce French resistance, the Italians manage to capture the town after three days of fighting.

4)21–24 June, the Italian 1st Corps attacks to capture the town of Modane but fails to accomplish its objective before the armistice.

5)21–24 June, the Italian Alpini Corps is stopped by French resistance and adverse weather.

6)Night 21/22 June, the Italian Regia Aeronautica bombs Marseille, inflicting 279 casualties.

7)24 June, the French 14 CA scrapes up sufficient forces to block 3. Panzer-Division from reaching Grenoble before the armistice. The German pursuit ceases north of Valence.

On the morning of 15 June, a group of 27 Italian CR. 42 fighters attacked two AdA air bases near Toulon and succeeded in destroying three D.520 fighters from GC III/6 on the ground. However, Sous lieutenant Le Gloan took off in pursuit with two other pilots and succeeded in shooting down four of the retreating CR. 42s. En route back to his base, Le Gloan came across a wandering BR. 20 bomber, which he also shot down. Amazingly, Le Gloan had shot down five Italian aircraft in 45 minutes – the most successful AdA sortie of the entire 1940 campaign. However, another group of Italian fighters and bombers raided the AéroNavale base at Hyères and destroyed six Vought 156 dive-bombers on the ground. French MB.152 fighters tangled with this Italian group, but lost two of their number against four Italian aircraft damaged. After these actions, the Regia Aeronautica became more circumspect about operating near French air bases in daylight. The AdA bomber force also became more aggressive, attacking both Turin and the port of Tripoli in Libya.

After the fall of Paris and Lyon, Mussolini was worried that France might collapse at any moment, yet his army had not yet struck a single blow. He told his son-in-law, foreign minister Count Ciano, that he needed 1,000 dead in order to sit at the peace table with France. Consequently, he pressed Badoglio to begin a ground offensive against France as soon as possible. At 0530 hours 21 June, the Italian 1st and 4th Armies attacked at multiple points along the border. The weather was awful, with snow at higher altitudes and rain along the coast, which greatly impeded mobility. In the south, the 1st Army pushed towards its objective, the town of Menton, exactly 3km inside the border. The French defences of the Alpine Line were very strong along the coastal sector and just 200 fortress troops within the Ouvrage Mont Agel were able to repulse the Cosseria infantry division. Mussolini was enraged that his troops were stopped so easily and ordered the Cosseria Division and the rest of the 15th Corps to take Menton at all costs. Eventually, the French strongpoints were bypassed and the Italians fought their way into Menton just before the armistice – the only significant French town to be captured by the Italian Army.

In the north, the Italian 4th Army managed to advance through the Little St Bernard Pass with its Alpine Corps, but in four days of fighting its advance was held up by a French company in Fort de la Redoute Ruinée and failed to take their objectives. The 1st Corps mounted an attack through the Mont Cenis pass, which spent four days fighting its way past the French border defences, but was halted once the armistice was announced. Overall, the Italian ground offensive was hindered by poor weather and the strength of the French border defences. The Italian troops had been told that morale in the French Army had collapsed, but found the French Alpine troops highly motivated to defend their soil. Altogether, the Italian Army admitted that it suffered 6,029 casualties, including 631 killed. Mussolini did not get his 1,000 dead or the opportunity to sit at the peace table with France. In contrast, Olry’s reservists had fought very well, limiting Italian gains and suffered only 274 casualties.

Air operations continued at a low tempo until the armistice, but one incident that enraged the French was the Italian bombing of Marseille on the night of 21/22 June. Ten Italian SM. 79 bombers dropped 4 tonnes of bombs on the city, which killed 143 civilians and injured another 146. After the Germans signed their armistice with Huntziger’s delegation, the French were required to sign a separate armistice agreement with Italy on 24 June. Italy received very little for its role in the campaign, since it had not seized much territory and the Germans were unwilling to concede any additional territory coveted by Mussolini, such as the city of Nice. Instead, the Italian Army was allowed to occupy the fortifications of the Alpine Line, to a depth of 5km.

By the morning of 18 June, most French military personnel and civilians had heard Pétain’s broadcast, but there was a dearth of information about what would come next. Weygand was more focused on politics – Pétain had made him the new minister of national defence – so the GQG issued no orders or directives. During the day, Pétain broadcast another statement that said ‘France had not abandoned the struggle,’ which probably confused everyone. Without clear guidance, most units simply continued following the last orders received, which were to withdraw to the Loire. Lacking centralized direction from the High Command, the two remaining French army group commanders (Huntziger’s GA 4 had been dissolved) tried to hold their forces together, but unit cohesion quickly unravelled. On the German side, the OKH learned of the French request for an armistice from Spain, but the only real modification to the guidance issued in Führer Directive 15 was to reduce the size of the pursuit force since German logistics were strained. Kluge’s 4. Armee was to proceed and mop up the French forces in Normandy and Brittany, while Küchler’s 18. Armee pushed all the way down the Atlantic coast to the Spanish border. The rest of the field armies were ordered to conduct mop-up operations, forcing the surrender of isolated French units.

MAP KEY

1)14–15 June, British ground forces evacuate Le Mans and begin withdrawing to the coast. The RAF’s AASF also begins evacuating.

2)15 June, the British forces attached to the French 10e Armée withdraw toward Cherbourg without permission.

3)15 June, the French 10e Armée manages to form a thin line between Caen and Alençon, effectively covering the retreat of the BEF. The French armies on their right retreat to the Loire.

4)16 June, the pursuing Germans succeed in capturing a bridge over the Loire at Orléans.

5)17 June, Operation Ariel begins with evacuation of 52nd (Lowland) Division and other BEF units from Cherbourg.

6)17 June, the RMS Lancastria is sunk by the Luftwaffe off St Nazaire with over 3,000 British military personnel lost.

7)17 June, Hoth’s Panzers attack and punch through the thin front held by the 10e Armée. The 5. Panzer-Division heads for Rennes, the 7. Panzer-Division for Cherbourg.

8)18–20 June, the French 7e Armee defends Tours against attack, but the city is devastated by a Luftwaffe fire-bombing raid.

9)19 June, the 7. Panzer-Division captures Cherbourg.

10)19 June, the 5. Panzer-Division captures Rennes and overruns the 10e Armée headquarters.

11)19 June, the 5. Panzer-Division, 2. Infanterie-Division (mot) and 11. Schützen-Brigade capture Brest.

12)19 June, the 32. Infanterie-Division captures Nantes and bridge over the Loire.

13)19–20 June, French forces mount a two-day defence of Saumur.

14)21 June, St Nazaire is occupied by the 11. Schützen-Brigade.

15)21 June, St Malo is occupied by 7. Panzer-Division.

Hoth’s Panzers had already split Altmayer’s 10e Armée and the 5. and 7. Panzer-Divisionen swept past its fragmentary units. At St Lo, Hoth divided his corps: Rommel’s 7. Panzer-Division was ordered to capture Cherbourg and Lemelsen’s 5. Panzer-Division and the 11. Schützen-Brigade were to head for Brittany. Although each was opposed by only a single enemy division, Group Duffour simply dissolved and Général de corps d’armée Marie Fagalde’s 16e CA was encircled and forced to surrender before it could reach Rennes. Rommel then rushed into the Cotentin Peninsula towards Cherbourg. The French could barely muster 2,000 lightly armed troops in the Cotentin, mostly small groups of French soldiers and sailors (and a few armed civilians) resisted Rommel’s vanguard at several points – it was not a parade. After marching 75km on 18 June, Rommel’s vanguard reached the outskirts of Cherbourg in the afternoon. Amiral Jean-Marie Abrial called on the battleship Courbet for support, which fired 105 rounds from its 12in guns against Rommel’s approaching columns, then departed for Plymouth. Rommel shelled the harbour area with his artillery and requested the Luftwaffe to bomb the port. Although Abrial had 30,000 military personnel in the city, few were armed and his ground defences were antiquated. Rommel was able to seize Fort des Couplets on the west side of the city by the next morning. After further softening up by German artillery and bombers, Cherbourg surrendered at 1430 hours on 19 June. Before turning over the port, the French destroyed three fleet submarines under construction in the harbour; one of them, the Roland Mourillot, had just been commissioned.

Altmayer made for Rennes, but was captured there with his headquarters when 5. Panzer-Division overran the city on 19 June. Capitaine Marcel Bloch was one of the fortunate ones evacuated from Dunkirk and his unit was trying to reform in Rennes when the Germans arrived. Bloch was out walking on the street when he unexpectedly saw a German column moving towards him. He later wrote, ‘Had I believed that I might, even now, be of the slightest use, I could have screwed myself to the necessary pitch of courage to remain at my post. But now that all show of resistance had melted away, there was obviously no point in carrying on with my duties.’ Bloch turned away from the Germans and returned to his quarters, where he discarded his uniform, donned civilian clothes and checked into a hotel. Bloch said he thought about trying to reach French lines or England, but quickly gave up on that thought. Thus, Bloch selfishly chose to shirk his duty as an officer and simply opted out. He was not alone on adopting this course of action, but it tends to render his criticisms of others’ behaviour rather asinine.³

In Brest, Vice-Amiral Gabriel Brohan organized transport for both France’s gold reserves as well as a large portion of the Polish forces in France. He assembled five passenger liners and requisitioned trucks abandoned by the BEF. On 16–18 June, French sailors loaded 736 tonnes of gold from the Bank of France, which left for Dakar just before the Germans arrived.⁴ Another French vessel transported 198 tonnes of Belgian gold from Lorient to Dakar. General Władysław Sikorski had no intention of stopping the war against Germany and he ordered all Polish military personnel in France to head for England. Altogether, 27,000 Polish soldiers and airmen managed to reach England before an armistice was imposed. The French Navy did its best to save its warships from the advancing Germans as well. At Brest, the new battleship Richelieu had just finished sea trials in May. On 18 June, the Richelieu sailed with two destroyers for Dakar.⁵ The incomplete battleship Jean Bart in St Nazaire was evacuated on the morning of 19 June and sailed to Casablanca under her own power. However, the French were forced to scuttle four submarines at Brest and a number of auxiliary vessels. The port itself was sabotaged, with fuel stockpiles set on fire and naval stores destroyed. On the evening of 19 June, the 5. Panzer-Division and 11. Schützen-Brigade reached Brest, which surrendered.

After the fall of Nantes, Hoth’s mechanized units advanced across the Loire towards La Rochelle, where a number of Allied units had withdrawn in the hope of evacuation. Around 1900 hours on 22 June, Luftwaffe bombers raided the airfield south of the city where the remnants of Contre-amiral Jean Lartigue’s Aéronautique Navale had assembled. Lartigue was killed in the raid, along with 20 others, and many French naval aircraft were destroyed on the ground. Rochefort was occupied the next morning.

Manstein’s XXXVIII Armeekorps pursued the fragments of the 3e CA and Langlois’ Cavalry Corps to the Loire. On 19 June, the Germans captured Nantes and an intact bridge over the Loire. Angers also fell without a shot – the retreating French were too weak to make a stand. In most places, the French were not able to establish a solid defence behind the Loire. Surprisingly, Colonel Charles Michon and 560 of his cadets from the cavalry school in Saumur, along with some survivors of the 3e CA, managed to mount a determined defence of four widely spread crossing sites in their area against the German 1. Kavallerie-Division from 19-20 June. Michon’s command was reinforced by five H39 tanks and three Panhard armoured cars from Major Robert Neuchèze’s 1ère GFC, but he had very little artillery. Nevertheless, Michon and his cadets managed to repulse several German attempts to cross the Loire for 48 hours, before his flank was finally turned and his ammunition ran out. During the Battle of Saumur, the cavalry cadets suffered 22 per cent casualties, including 79 killed. After the Germans occupied Saumur on 21 June, the surviving cadets were allowed to leave for the unoccupied zone in southern France rather than being treated as POWs. By 22 June, Besson’s GA 3 was reduced to fewer than 65,000 combat troops.

After the quick loss of Orléans, the Armée de Paris, 6e Armée and 7e Armée, which amounted to fragments of 20 divisions, paused only briefly behind the illusory safety of the Loire. On 19 June, all three French armies retreated to the Cher River, then the Indre River the next day. A few units, such as the 11e DI, were still cohesive bodies but most of the French infantry divisions were reduced to mixed battlegroups equivalent to just a few battalions. Once it was obvious that an armistice was imminent, the German pursuit slowed, with only a few motorized units still pressing on. On the evening of 18 June, Pétain’s new minister of the interior, Charles Pomaret, announced on the radio from Bordeaux that all cities with a population of more than 20,000 were declared open cities, but the army in the field paid little attention. The remnants of the 2e DLM, about 2,500 troops with a few tanks and armoured cars, established themselves in Tours and refused to leave. When the Germans approached the city on the evening of 18 June, the French troops resisted and enemy artillery began to bombard the city. The next morning, the Luftwaffe fire-bombed Tours, devastating the city centre. Eventually, the Germans forced their way into the smouldering city on the morning of 21 June.

In central France, where GA 4 had dissolved, the remnants of the 4e Armée were directly subordinated to the GQG, while the 2e Armée was assigned to GA 2. Both of these formations fell apart in a matter of days, under pressure of the German pursuit. The Colonial Corps was splintered, with the 3e DIM overrun on June 18, followed by the other two divisions by 21–22 June. Only a few motorized elements were able to escape, including the 4e BCC and 7e BCC, which managed to reach the Toulouse area with a few of their FCM36 tanks. Lyon was declared an open city and the 10. Panzer-Division reached it on 20 June.

Once Guderian’s Panzers reached the Swiss border, Prételat’s GA 2 died a slow death in the Vosges mountains. The bulk of the 3e Armée, 5e Armée and 8e Armée were trapped, with limited food and ammunition remaining. The Germans slowly squeezed the pocket and Reinhardt’s XXXXI Armeekorps (mot.) pushed into the exposed flank of Condé’s 3e Armée with the 6. and 8. Panzer-Divisionen near Epinal. After a brief resistance, the 3e Armée began to disintegrate. Organized resistance in the pocket came to an end by 1500 hours on 22 June. The only formation to escape the German dragnet was Général de corps d’armée Marius Daille’s 45e CA, which consisted of 29,000 French troops (from the 67e DI, 7e Régiment de Spahis and 16e BCC), 12,150 Polish troops from the 2e DIP and 99 British troops from the 51st Highland who had remained in the Saar. On the night of 19/20 June, the 45e CA managed to cross the border into Switzerland, where they were interned until January 1941, when the Swiss allowed them to cross into the unoccupied zone. The 45e CA brought 2,000 vehicles (including five R35 tanks from the II/16e BCC) and 100 artillery pieces across the Swiss border to deny them to the Germans. Other Polish troops from the 1ère DIP exfiltrated out of the Vosges pocket and simply walked across the mountains into Switzerland.

German troops continued to casually shoot French prisoners even in the later stages of Fall Rot. Oftentimes, such behaviour was due to French soldiers resisting longer than expected or inflicting casualties upon the Germans, which led to harsh treatment of prisoners. The SS-‘Totenkopf’ Division encountered a spirited defence by the 25e RTS (from 8e DIC) at Chasseley on 20 June, just north of Lyon. The French defenders were able to inflict at least 40 casualties upon SS-‘Totenkopf’ before they were overwhelmed. In retaliation, the Waffen-SS troops executed about 147 Senegalese tirailleurs. On the same day, a group of soldiers from the 3e Compagnie of the 146e RIF were captured by the II./IR 305 from the 198. Infanterie-Division in the village of Domptail, near Épinal. After stripping the prisoners of their valuables, the German soldiers lined them up and opened fire; 28 French prisoners died but four were only wounded and managed to survive the massacre.⁶

The Germans made no response to Pétain’s call for an armistice for 48 hours. Then, on the morning of 19 June, the Germans used the Spanish intermediaries to notify the French of their willingness to negotiate. Pétain’s cabinet selected Général Huntziger to lead the delegation that would meet with the Germans. Not surprisingly, Weygand wanted no part of the armistice negotiations, even though he had been the primary advocate. Huntziger’s delegation reached Tours late on 20 June and crossed German lines. The delegation was brought to Rethondes east of Compiègne, where the German surrender in 1918 had occurred. The session began in the afternoon of 21 June, when Hitler arrived, but there were no negotiations; the Germans simply read the 24 articles of the treaty. Huntziger was able to relay the terms by telephone to Bordeaux and Pétain’s cabinet met early on 22 June to discuss them. Even those who had argued for an armistice were shocked by the German terms and sought some amelioration, but Hitler had the upper hand and would not budge. At 1750 on 22 June, Huntziger signed the armistice, which would take effect after 0035 hours on 25 June.

•Article I, which required the French to cease all hostilities against the Third Reich, both in France and overseas.

•Article II, which stipulated which parts of France would be occupied and the unoccupied zone in the south.

•Article V, which required the French military to hand over all undamaged tanks, artillery and aircraft to the Germans. No new weapons production was permitted.

•Article VIII, which stipulated that the French fleet would demobilize in ports under German or Italian control. However, the article stated that Germany would not attempt to utilize interned French warships for its own purposes.

•Article XVIII, which stated that the French government would bear the financial cost of the German occupation.

Once the Cabinet in Bordeaux learned the German terms, Darlan ordered all seaworthy units of the French fleet to head for North African or British ports, stating that he had no intention of handing over his warships to the Germans or Italians. Vuillemin also ordered some of his best bomber and fighter units to relocate to Morocco and Algeria, to save some kernel of the AdA. However, other Frenchmen acted on their own. After hearing De Gaulle’s appeal, 19 NCOs from the AdA took a Farman F.222 from the St Jean-d’Angély air base and flew it to England. The next day, another group of 115 pilot trainees crossed the Channel in a 22m fishing trawler to join De Gaulle. These men provided the nucleus of a Free French air force.

In France, the last real fighting occurred in the Rhône valley. The Germans sent a pursuit force down the Rhône, consisting of the 3. and 4. Panzer-Divisionen, the 13. Infanterie-Division (mot.), the SS-LSSAH and three infantry divisions. Even though the OKH knew that this advance would cross the demarcation line established by the armistice agreement, commanders were told that it was being done to help the Italian advance on the Alpine front.⁷ Concerned that his Armée des Alpes would be taken from behind, Général Olry decided to send a blocking force to the Rhône valley from Général de division Étienne Beynet’s 14e CA. Orly was also able to scrape together a mixed force of soldiers, naval gunners from the Mediterranean Fleet and AdA ground defence troops to augment Beynet’s troops. In addition, six brand-new Char B1 bis, straight from the FCM factory, were pressed into service to support the defence. Beynet’s troops fought delaying actions at almost every bridge and established some very strong blocking positions in the foothills of the Alps, at Chambéry and Voreppe, which managed to stop the 3. Panzer-Division on 24 June. Unlike northern France, the mountains and rivers of southern France were a significant obstacle for the German style of mechanized operations.

Having retreated to Nîmes and Avignon, the AdA committed its last remaining resources to try to delay the German push down the Rhône valley. On 23 June, 21 fighters strafed a German column near Chambéry, with two fighters lost to Flak. On the afternoon of 24 June, the AdA conducted its last offensive missions, sending over 30 fighters and nine bombers to attack German motorized columns north-east of Grenoble; two fighters were shot down by Flak. At this point, the German advance down the Rhône halted outside Valence, since the armistice was about to go into effect and this area would remain in the unoccupied zone.

After the armistice went into effect at 0035 hours on 25 June, Heeresgruppe C moved to pull its forces out of the Rhône valley and had to vacate Lyons, which lay within the unoccupied zone. Along the Atlantic coast, Bock’s Heeresgruppe B moved to complete the occupation of the littoral areas with the motorized units of the XIV and XV Armeekorps (mot.). On 27 June, Bordeaux was occupied. On the afternoon of 28 June, a reconnaissance unit led by SS-Sturmbannführer Wim Brandt from the SS-Verfügungs-Division was the first German element to reach the Spanish border, at Hendaye. Spanish border guards warmly greeted the German troops.

Despite the impressive operational success of Fall Rot, a substantial number of armed French troops remained in the isolated Maginot Line positions well after the armistice went into effect. Weygand sent envoys to Alsace-Lorraine to convince the Maginot Line defenders to surrender. On 30 June, the Germans allowed French officers to speak to the commanders of these isolated forts and one by one, they grudgingly surrendered. The fortress troops were angry that they had not been defeated in battle but were now to become prisoners of war – a clear indication that the morale of the French Army in 1940 was not as anaemic as has often been depicted. The last French troops of the Third Republic, over 1,000 soldiers from the 164e RIF, marched out of Ouvrage Hackenberg on the morning of 4 July and headed off to four years in German captivity.⁸