Word: commandant
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Dates: during 1940-1940
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...Britain had to offer -reached the front, the front itself was disintegrating. French units, broken by battle and fatigue, were disjointed and out of touch. Between them German motorcycle scouts and armored units penetrated at will. Until that time there had always been an off chance that the German command would make a misstep, that the German supply system under severe strain for five weeks might crack. But the point had come when the disorganization of the French Army, and the condition of all the roads behind its lines blocked with refugees, meant that General Weygand could no longer issue...
...This unprecedented German achievement constitutes simultaneously the greatest military defeat that any military forces ever suffered. A great many lives may have been saved by 'tie British naval forces, but the booty captured is so enormous that no estimate can yet be given. ..." The German High Command claimed 1,200,000 French, English, Belgian and Dutch casualties and prisoners. It claimed seizing or destroying weapons and materiel for 75 divisions. It claimed destruction of 3,500 enemy a; Dianes, sinking of 24 warships and 66 tiisports, damages to 59 warships, 117 transports...
This strategic fact was not immediately realized. The French High Command hoped it would be able to close the gap. The Armies of the north were under their orders. Moreover, a retirement of that kind would have involved almost certainly the destruction of a fine Belgian Army of 20 divisions and abandonment of the whole of Belgium...
Therefore, when the force and scope of the German penetration was realized and when the new French Generalissimo, General [Maxime] Weygand. assumed command in place of General Gamelin, an effort was made by the French and British Armies in Belgium to keep holding the right hand of the Belgians and give their own right hand to the newly created French Army which was to advance across the Somme in great strength...
Suddenly, without any prior consultation ar . with the least possible notice, wither the advice of his ministers and on his own personal act, he sent a plenipotentiary to the German Command surrendering his Army and exposing our flank and the means of retreat...