(3 of 4)
The majestic tragedy of France came to its end here and there with bitter ludicrousness. One French unit marching along a highway south of Paris met a German column unexpectedly at an intersection. Surprised, both stopped but no one shot. Finally the German commander ordered the French to stack their arms at the roadside. "Now run along," he said.
Then, as suddenly as a dam gives way to an inexorable flood, or armies give way to inexorable force, hope vanished. On Monday panic-stricken evacuation began and in one hectic night it grew from a trickle to a torrent, as suddenly all Paris became obsessed with a single thought—to get away.
An endless cavalcade jammed the highways, soon becoming an incredible confusion of cars, taxis, busses, trucks, fire engines, ambulances, traveling circuses and motorcycles, interspersed with bicycles, horse carts, wagons, barouches and pedestrians pushing wheelbarrows or carrying packs on their backs. Collisions at night littered the roadside with wrecks, and the law of the survival of the fittest soon left ancient jalopies stranded by the wayside. Food and cigarets became practically unobtainable and, as gasoline pumps went dry, occupants of cars doubled up to save fuel. Hotel rooms were rented only for a night because other homeless refugees claimed them during the day. Most people slept along the road, and with water scarce and the smoke pall from the battlefield settling upon them, they soon became as black as Senegalese. The people of Paris, leaving their homes and lives behind them, were in utter black, desperate depression as they passed through their own city gates.
Capitulation Preferred. The Government left for Tours, but true to a tradition set by American Ambassador Elihu Benjamin Washburne in 1870 and Myron Herrick in 1914, glossy-pated William C. Bullitt announced that he and nine of his staff would remain "as the representative of the Diplomatic Corps." The eleventh hour arrived with the city emptied of two-thirds of its 2,800,000 inhabitants.
Would Paris choose destruction to becoming an undamaged gem in Warlord Hitler's sceptre? In 1870 it had preferred resistance to the Prussian Bismarck and was besieged and shelled for 132 days while Parisians, reduced to starvation, devoured the animals of their zoo and paid 40¢ each for rats. Last week, as barricades were being erected in the suburbs and Nazi planes were dropping leaflets warning that the only alternative to destruction was capitulation, the decision came. To tense reporters in Tours a white-lipped official announced that Paris would become an undefended, open city.
At the request of General Henri Fernand Dantz, commander of the Paris area, Ambassador Bullitt telephoned to the American Legation in Bern for forwarding to Berlin the message that "Paris has been declared an open city. General Hering ... is withdrawing his army which has been defending Paris. . . . The gendarmerie and police are remaining and the firemen are also." For the first time since the days of Napoleon I Paris had elected not to fight.