Voices of WW2(@VoicesofWW2):In the spring of 1940, France had the largest army in Western Europe. More tanks than Germany. More artillery. A defensive line that had cost two and a half percent of national GDP to build. Nine days into the German invasion, the Allied supreme commander, Maurice Gamelin, was running the entire war from the Château de Vincennes outside Paris. The chateau had no radio. Not "limited radio." No radio at all. Orders to the front were carried by motorcycle courier. Gamelin learned about the German breakthrough at Sedan hours after it happened, by telephone, after his staff had already heard about it from the BBC. On May 16, Churchill flew to Paris and asked one question: "Where is the strategic reserve?" Gamelin replied, "Aucune." There is none. Churchill later wrote that it was one of the most stunning moments of his life. He had assumed every army in Europe kept a reserve. The French had committed everything to a single line and had nothing behind it. On May 19, Prime Minister Paul Reynaud fired Gamelin and summoned his replacement: Maxime Weygand, age 73, born during the American Civil War, currently commanding French forces in Syria. Weygand flew over 4,000 miles back to a country he barely recognized. He landed on the 19th and took command on the 20th. His first official act was to cancel Gamelin's planned counterattack and announce that he required 48 hours to "study the situation." Those 48 hours were the war. While Weygand studied, German panzers reached the English Channel at Abbeville, cutting the Allied armies in half. The British Expeditionary Force was now trapped. Within ten days they would be evacuating from Dunkirk. Within five weeks, Paris would fall. The plan Weygand eventually unveiled was, in substance, the same one Gamelin had drafted before being fired. Gamelin spent the rest of the war as a prisoner. The Vichy regime put him on trial at Riom in 1942 to blame him for the defeat. He defended himself so effectively that Pétain shut the trial down, handed him to the Germans, and had him sent to Buchenwald, then to Itter Castle in the Austrian Alps, where American troops liberated him in May 1945. He never spoke publicly about the chateau with no radio.

2026.05.19 19:30

In the spring of 1940, France had the largest army in Western Europe. More tanks than Germany. More artillery. A defensive line that had cost two and a half percent of national GDP to build. Nine days into the German invasion, the Allied supreme commander, Maurice Gamelin, was running the entire war from the Château de Vincennes outside Paris. The chateau had no radio. Not "limited radio." No radio at all. Orders to the front were carried by motorcycle courier. Gamelin learned about the German breakthrough at Sedan hours after it happened, by telephone, after his staff had already heard about it from the BBC. On May 16, Churchill flew to Paris and asked one question: "Where is the strategic reserve?" Gamelin replied, "Aucune." There is none. Churchill later wrote that it was one of the most stunning moments of his life. He had assumed every army in Europe kept a reserve. The French had committed everything to a single line and had nothing behind it. On May 19, Prime Minister Paul Reynaud fired Gamelin and summoned his replacement: Maxime Weygand, age 73, born during the American Civil War, currently commanding French forces in Syria. Weygand flew over 4,000 miles back to a country he barely recognized. He landed on the 19th and took command on the 20th. His first official act was to cancel Gamelin's planned counterattack and announce that he required 48 hours to "study the situation." Those 48 hours were the war. While Weygand studied, German panzers reached the English Channel at Abbeville, cutting the Allied armies in half. The British Expeditionary Force was now trapped. Within ten days they would be evacuating from Dunkirk. Within five weeks, Paris would fall. The plan Weygand eventually unveiled was, in substance, the same one Gamelin had drafted before being fired. Gamelin spent the rest of the war as a prisoner. The Vichy regime put him on trial at Riom in 1942 to blame him for the defeat. He defended himself so effectively that Pétain shut the trial down, handed him to the Germans, and had him sent to Buchenwald, then to Itter Castle in the Austrian Alps, where American troops liberated him in May 1945. He never spoke publicly about the chateau with no radio.