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[[File:French Prisoners 1940.jpg|thumbnail|300px|left|French Prisoners,1940]]
The fall of France in 1940 was sudden and shocking. French leaders believed that they had prepared for a potential war with Germany and were well prepared. Tragically, they were not. Within months of the German invasion, France collapsed. Why did France surrender so quickly?
In September 1939, the German war machine invaded Poland, and World War II began. France and its Britain declared against Germany in 1939. The French army was in theory as strong as Germanys. It had a vast Empire and a sophisticated arms industry. It had also established a series of fortifications along the country's eastern border of the country along with Germany, known as the Maginot Line. The Line was designed to keep German forces out of France. Initially, France and Great Britain appeared to be a match for Germany.
However, in weeks in the late spring and early summer of 1940, it became clear that France was woefully unprepared for the German onslaught. France suffered a humiliating defeat and was quickly occupied by Germany. Its failure was a result of a hopelessly divided French political elite, a lack of quality military leadership, rudimentary French military tactics. On the battlefield, France faced a vastly more prepared German army that utilized both more advanced weapons and sophisticated tactics. It was a mismatch.
Having successfully made their way into France, German forces then employed a tactic known as the ‘sickle stroke’. Sweeping across the northern plains of France at great speed, they divided the French and British forces into two parts. The British army was left isolated in Belgium and the French were left to bear the brunt of the German forces. <ref>Blatt, Joel, <i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EDY69LI/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00EDY69LI&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=98a5e102ae32052fa58ceb0d44dbe87b The French Defeat of 1940: Reassessments]</i> (Providence, RI, Berghahn, 1997), p. 111</ref>
The German army was substantially better than the French and the British. Hitler had built up the German army and , in particular , the air force (Luftwaffe). The Germans had developed superior weapons. In particular, they had developed superior aircraft such as the Stuka dive bomber and the Messerschmitt ME fighter plane, that wreaked havoc on the allies.<ref> Blatt, p. 117</ref> The Germans placed a great deal of emphasis on mobile and armored warfare. They had superior tanks, such as Panzer Mk iv, which easily overcame the allies in almost every tank engagement in the Battle of France. Even though the German army was superior to the French in many ways the Fall of France was not inevitable.
====Was France prepared for the German invasion?====
====Why did France have Poor Military and Political Leadership?====
In 1940, the French general staff was led by General Maurice Gamelan, an officer widely respected. A veteran and war hero of the First World War, he was credited with developing the strategy that led to the decisive French victory at the Marne in 1914. He had also tried unsuccessfully, to modernize the army. But Gamelin was suffering from a serious illness, whose symptoms included poor concentration levels, memory loss and other cognitive difficulties. Gamelin’s memoirs, published after the war , showed symptoms of paranoia and delusions of grandeur.<ref>Jackson, Julian T. <i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0192805509/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0192805509&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=aa6895f6029c163adf1d3e187d64e538 The Fall of France: The German Invasion of 1940]</i>. (Oxford UP, 2003), p. 234</ref> The military leadership below Gamelin was generally poor. They were slow to respond to the Germans, and there was a marked reluctance to take any initiative and go on the attack. The political leadership of France was also very poor. According to one French commentator during the war, they could not inspire the French people, they were more interested in fighting among themselves that the Germans.<ref>Jackson, p. 235</ref>
France was bitterly divided between the left and the right. This lack of unity in France was crippling at a crucial juncture in the war. The division also extended to the relationships between the military and political leadership of France. The French Generals were rights wing and distrusted the left -wing politicians who ran France. French ministers also did not trust the judgment of their generals. The French officer corps was more worried about a Communist revolution than a German invasion.
For example, General Weygand was more concerned with maintaining social stability in the wake of the German invasion than actually fighting the Germans. Many later accused some French Generals of being traitors. Perhaps the greatest weakness in the French leadership was that they did not have a true war leader; as one Frenchman stated in 1942 they ‘had no Churchill’. If France had a leader of the caliber of Clemenceau in 1940, perhaps the outcome of the Battle of France could have been different. <ref> Why Did the French Army Collapse So Quickly? – <i>Omnibooks Magazine</i>, (London July, 1942), p. 6</ref>
