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"Germany does not intend, therefore, to lend to the armistice conditions or armistice negotiations the character of abuse of so valiant an opponent."
At 3:42 p.m. Adolf Hitler rose, saluted again, and left the car. With him went all the German leaders but General Keitel. As they passed the guard of honor, a band struck up Deutschland über Alles, followed by the Horst Wessel Lied. A moment later they were in their cars, driving under the beeches and oaks of the Forest of Compiégne back toward victorious Germany. In Car 2419D, across the green baize table, General Keitel continued to read terms to four men of conquered France.
The Tent. At 4:26, as the sun lay behind the trees of the forest and most of the clearing was in shadow, the French delegates left the dining car and were conducted to a small tent which had been set up on the edge of the glade. Inside were a table, four chairs and a washstand. Telephone and telegraph lines had been strung through to Bordeaux, where old Marshal Henri Philippe Péain and his Government waited anxiously for news of the terms. Those terms were laid down in detail in a 30-page manuscript, in French, which General Keitel had given the delegation. As the delegates sat down to confer, General Keitel left the dining car and went for a stroll in the forest.
The Defeat. For 26 hours France waited. In Bordeaux, Marshal Péain broadcast word to his people that France would not accept "shameful" terms, but made it clear that if the terms were honorable, France must accept them. In their new humiliation, some Frenchmen blamed their misfortune on the nation's Godlessness, greed, irresponsibility, blindness, softness—and many other things. They spoke bitterly of their erstwhile leaders, many of whom fled the country. Events suggested more & more that the formation of the Péain Government had been a coup, engineered by the Army, Rightists and appeasers, against the Reynaud Government, which had wanted to move to Algeria.
Appeaser Pierre Laval became Vice Premier in the Péain Cabinet. In defeat, France turned to those men who might wring mercy from her enemies.
Truth was that France was not conquered. France collapsed. The French had defeated themselves, and they knew it.
They had defeated themselves because for too long they had tolerated a bureaucratic, corrupt, slothful leadership. The debacle began the day the Government fled Paris, leaving the people to take care of themselves. After that officers deserted their men, soldiers deserted their regiments, factory managers deserted their plants, civil authorities deserted their cities. The virus of flight infected all France, until Frenchmen stampeded in panic; and, far from having to attack refugees, the Germans circulated freely among them. Cried one soldier when news of peace was first heard: "We've been led by men with the hearts of rabbits!" Against men with the hearts of rabbits France was ripe for revolution. Perhaps old Marshal Péain knew it, when he submitted his country to the Germans.