The Need for Organisational Resilience - Chapter 7

The next three weeks were characterised by successful rear-guard actions by the

French in that they inflicted substantial losses on the Germans. Nonetheless, despite the

attrition to German armour and men, these actions only delayed the German forces; they did

not stop them altogether:

Memorandum for the Prime Minister

The enemy may succeed in seizing the crossings of the lower Seine and in advancing

on the Paris area from the south; his armour may break through in Champagne on a

wide front; it may be that our divisions, worn out by fatigue and reduced in strength by

their losses, will, under pressure of an enemy three times as strong, no longer be able to

hold the Paris-Marne sector of the line.

If any of these contingencies materialize our armies will go on fighting until the means

and their strength are exhausted, but it will only be a question of time before their

cohesion is at an end.

(Signed) Weygand (Baudouin 1948, 92)

On June 10th, Paris was declared an open City; it was occupied by June 14th.

The Parisian population watches the arrival of the German occupiers in disbelief. (BArch, n.d.)

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