The Need for Organisational Resilience - Chapter 7

Prime Minster Paul Reynaud resigned on June 16 th , to be succeeded by Marshal

Philippe Pétain. The French government sought to negotiate an armistice. Adolf Hitler,

disdainful of a defeated enemy, selected the Forest of Compiègne as the site for the

negotiation. Compiègne had been the site of the 1918 armistice which marked the end of the

First World War and Germany’s defeat.

The French emissaries received the conditions for a cease-fire. The proceedings took place in the same railway carriage in which the surrender of Germany in 1918 was signed. (BArch, n.d.)

The armistice was signed on the next day at 6:36 pm, by General Keitel for Germany

and General Huntziger for France. The armistice and cease-fire went into effect two days

and six hours later, at 00:35 am on 25th June, once the Franco-Italian Armistice had also

been signed, at 6:35 pm on 24th June, near Rome.

The armistice is signed. It has averted the total occupation of the country, and it

maintains a Government whose duty it is to defend the French people against the

enemy. It saves North Africa, and it leaves us the custody of our colonies, and of our

fleet. It authorizes the maintenance of a small army, and it prevents the greater part of

the adult male population from being made prisoner. It permits the restoration of order in

the country by the return to their homes of several million refugees who are scattered on

the roads, and by the rapid demobilization of two million men.

The armistice was not an act of renunciation. It was a mournful deed, accomplished

with the faith of a son bent over his wounded mother. It was to allow us to take in hand

once again a country that had collapsed; to defend it against its own weakness and

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