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In just two weeks,

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the German Army storms
across France and Belgium,

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pushing hundreds of thousands
of British and French soldiers

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to the sea at Dunkirk.

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They have revolutionized warfare.

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They've realized that speed of movement
is now the key,

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so you create these armored formations
that move fast.

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They are harnessing new panzer techniques
with radio technology,

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and the support of the Luftwaffe.
That's the new thing.

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A brutal aerial bombardment…

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fast-moving tanks…

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a superhuman infantry.

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This is Blitzkrieg, lightning war.

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"Blitzkrieg", it means speed.

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Maneuver Warfare.

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A campaign which is focused
on a very quick decisive battle.

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Blitzkrieg is one of the most

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extraordinary events of World War II.

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Now, rare footage
from around the world,

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expertly restored in full color,
tells the story

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as you've never seen it before.

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After their defeat in World War I,
the fiercely proud German people

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are utterly humiliated.

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The punishing terms
of the Treaty of Versailles

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rub salt in the wounds.

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The global industrial power

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is limited to an army
of only 100,000 men,

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and loses territory.

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The Germans feel very put-upon
by the Treaty of Versailles,

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because it essentially says
that the Germans are guilty

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of starting the war.

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There's no question
that most Germans felt outraged

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by the provisions
of the Treaty of Versailles,

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the shrinking of the army
to just 100,000,

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and the loss of territory,
and these massive reparations,

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which everybody knew were gonna have
serious economic consequences.

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And the reason they objected
was because it implied

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that Germany was responsible
for the First World War,

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and this was their punishment.

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How could
their powerful nation have lost?

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And why are they made to cede land
to lesser nations?

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The territorial losses
are quite significant.

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They lose territory in the East,
to the Poles and the Czechs,

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and they are forced
to demilitarize their islands

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so they can't use it as a launch pad
for renewed invasion

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of Belgium and France.

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Feeding on the resentment,
a populist rabble-rouser

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taps into wounded German pride
and promises to take back

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what has been lost.

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Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party
start to build a mass following.

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The German people see him
as a savior,

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a man to restore their once-great nation.

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There was a feeling in Germany
that most Germans felt

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when the Versailles Treaty was passed,

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that the provisions
were unnecessarily draconian,

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both the loss of territory,
and also these massive war reparations.

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And what the Versailles Treaty did,
in effect,

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is blame Germany for the First World War,
whereas many Germans felt that, actually,

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they were no more responsible
than any of the other countries.

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And so, this rankled.

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Sieg Heil! Seig Heil! Sieg Heil!

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Hitler correctly diagnoses
that the Germans are suffering

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a great deal of political
and economic insecurity.

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What they need most of all
is a sense of unity

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and a sense of economic security
as kind of a floor underneath them.

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And the Nazis provide this
by talking about, you know,

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state intervention in all sorts
of areas to create employment.

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Building the autobahns,
things like that.

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In the first years of Hitler's reign,

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most Germans consider it a success.

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Hitler manages to suspend

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the regulations of the Versailles treaty
step by step.

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In violation of the treaty,
Hitler builds up his army,

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testing the tolerance of the Allies,

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gambling that no one wants to start
another war.

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He introduces compulsory military service
in 1935

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and marches back into the Rhineland
the following year

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with 30,000 troops.

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If you think about Hitler's
long-term plan,

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it's to consolidate his position
on the European continent,

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defeat the Western powers,
France and Britain,

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and then he's gonna turn
his attention to the east,

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which he sees as the natural field
for German expansion,

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a place where that he can then build out
the German population,

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gather in resources,
and defeat the monster of Bolshevism,

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which he sees as being
kind of the blood enemy of fascism.

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When the Nazis
brazenly march into Austria

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on the 12th of March 1938,

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they are greeted with open arms
by the Austrian people.

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The Western Allies do nothing.

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The Western Allies pretty much stood by
and let it happen,

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and one of the reasons they did that
is because they felt

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that the Austrians probably wanted
to join with the Germans,

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therefore they weren't
actually being forced.

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The breaches
of the Versailles treaty are always grave,

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but the Allied forces never react.

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Many of them think that they perhaps
humiliated Germany

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too much with the Versailles treaty.

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They can understand that Germany
wants to be a major player again.

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On the other hand, the Allied countries
don't want to risk another war.

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From the First World War,
they know that a war would mean

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thousands, if not millions, of casualties,
and they want to prevent that.

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With Austria
now in German hands,

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Hitler makes public his goal
to incorporate areas of Czechoslovakia

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into the growing German footprint.

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It's a country rich
in natural resources like iron.

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The statements alarm the Allies,
but still, they want to avoid conflict.

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In September 1938,

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the British Prime Minister
Neville Chamberlain

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flies to Germany three times

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to attempt to dissuade Hitler
from invading Czechoslovakia.

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I used to repeat…

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"If at first you don't succeed,

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try, try, try again."

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That's what I'm doing.

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On his third visit,

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he joins French Prime Minister
Édouard Daladier

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and Benito Mussolini of Italy,

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at what becomes known
as the Munich Conference.

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They agree with Hitler
that Germany can annex

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the German-speaking Sudetenland,
but not make an attempt

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to invade the rest of Czechoslovakia.

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The following morning, Chamberlain signs
a separate agreement with Hitler;

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a peace deal between Britain and Germany.

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Chamberlain is greeted as a hero.

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Chamberlain returns
to Heston Airport in London

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and waves this piece of paper,
sort of talks about peace in our time.

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And this is a separate deal
that he has done privately

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with Hitler.

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This morning…

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I had another talk…

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with the German chancellor,
Herr Hitler.

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And here is the paper…

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which bears his name upon it,
as well as mine.

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He's averted war.
There's absolutely no question

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that Hitler is absolutely
chomping at the bit

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to go in all guns blazing
into Czechoslovakia.

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That has been avoided.

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We regard the agreement
signed last night,

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and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement
as symbolic of the desire

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of our two peoples never to go to war
with one another again.

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As Chamberlain
delivers his speech,

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German forces prepare to march
into the Sudetenland.

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March 1939, Hitler invades
the rest of Czechoslovakia.

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It is clear that Hitler's plan
isn't just to regain territory…

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but to expand Germany's borders
further east.

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Hitler's intention, ultimately,
is to create a huge German empire

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in Central and Eastern Europe.

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Are they prepared to go to war?
So, he's just got to keep pushing,

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slowly but surely,
and one after another

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these crucial countries,
Austria, Czechoslovakia,

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slowly the dominoes will fall,
and he's gonna be able

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to carve out for himself
this huge new empire,

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this living room for the German people.

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France and Britain
become increasingly anxious

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that Hitler's next move will be Poland.

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They draw a line in the sand;
if Hitler invades Poland,

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they will declare war.

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Hitler doesn't believe them.

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The German chancellor is more worried
about how his avowed enemies,

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the Soviets, will react.

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August 1939, Hitler declares
a non-aggression pact

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with his ideological enemy, Stalin,

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in which they agree
not to attack each other.

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While the Western Allies struggle
to understand this unlikely alliance,

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on September the first,
the two countries reveal their hands

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when Hitler invades Western Poland.

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The Polish army on their horses
are no match for the German panzers,

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but they put up a valiant fight.

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Sixteen days later,
the Soviet Union invade Poland

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from the east.

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It's a very cynical deal.

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What the Russians are gonna get out of it
is a free hand and a lot of the east,

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including the recovery of some
of the territories that they'd lost

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at the end of the First World War.

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And what the Germans
are gonna get out of it

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is a free hand to invade Poland

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without worry that the Russians
are gonna react against that.

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In fact, they've done a deal to divide
the country up between them.

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True to their word,
on the third of September 1939,

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Britain and France declare war on Germany.

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It's a move Hitler didn't see coming.

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When he actually hears
that the United Kingdom's

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declared war on him in particular,
he's horrified,

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and he says to one of his advisers,
"What next?"

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Because all along, he hadn't believed

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that they would actually go to war
over an issue in Eastern Europe.

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The next day,

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troops from the British
Expeditionary Force, the BEF,

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set sail for France

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to join forces with
the world's most powerful army.

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They move up to the Belgian border

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where they prepare for any German attack.

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Royal Engineers Private
Percy Taylor Beaton,

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who was called up in London
and was soon on a boat

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bound for Cherbourg in France.

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People cheered,
and they made a fuss and that.

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There was bags of tears and things
like this at people going away.

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The people in the streets, you know,
when they saw us and that they cheered us,

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you know, when the coach left
Bethnal Green,

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the people there,
they turned out in their thousands,

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and they were cheering us
and waving us off.

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Everybody didn't think about the war,
I don't think.

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They thought "Oh, it's gonna pass over."

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And then of course, once we got to France,
it was like a holiday at the beginning.

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Hardworking holiday, it was.

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In fact,
Hitler is far from ready

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to fight the combined
British and French armies.

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It takes his army over 20 days
to defeat the Poles.

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Polish resistance has given
Hitler's armed forces

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a major battering,
and they have lost a substantial number

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of their armored vehicles.

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It becomes evident
that Germany isn't equipped for this war.

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The German forces do have tanks
and tank divisions,

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but they only account for
a small part of the Wehrmacht.

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We have not well-trained soldiers,
we have no supply,

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no ammunition, whatever.

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Poland was the proof that we possibly
are not able

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to fight against a proper army,
and France is a proper army.

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France is the best-trained,
best-equipped army in Europe.

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How can we, as Germans, win?

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No way. We're going to lose.

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In reality, the Wehrmacht is an army

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that will become very dependent
on horses for transportation

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and their whole logistics.

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Only about ten percent
of the German divisions

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are motorized.

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The French Army
has a formidable artillery

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and over 3,000 tanks
on the northeast front,

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800 more than the Germans.

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Despite facing a weakened German Army

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and holding an overwhelming
military advantage,

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the Allies choose to dig in,
not to attack.

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What you then get,
after the outbreak of war in 1939,

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is this long period
known as the Phoney War

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in which the Germans are deciding
what to do next

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and the Allies are waiting.

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One of the reasons the Allies
were acting on the defensive

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is because the French had built
this huge defensive system,

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the Maginot Line,
on the Franco-German border

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to prevent the sort of bloodshed
that had happened in the First World War.

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While the Allies wait,
Hitler assesses how to respond.

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His sights had been set on the east.

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Now, he had to deal with
an unexpected threat from the west.

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00:15:20,280 --> 00:15:23,240
Hermann Göring leads the generals
in a campaign

246
00:15:23,320 --> 00:15:26,280
to convince him not to start a war
with France,

247
00:15:26,640 --> 00:15:30,480
so they present him
with a plan destined to fail.

248
00:15:31,320 --> 00:15:33,880
All the generals were against it.

249
00:15:34,480 --> 00:15:38,560
They said "No, don't negotiate.
Do something,

250
00:15:38,640 --> 00:15:42,640
but we can't solve that problem

251
00:15:43,160 --> 00:15:44,400
with military means."

252
00:15:46,800 --> 00:15:49,400
And then they presented
a rather boring war plan to Hitler,

253
00:15:49,480 --> 00:15:51,680
and Hitler said, you know,
"Look, what's that?

254
00:15:51,800 --> 00:15:54,520
I mean, that's the same thing as 1914.

255
00:15:54,680 --> 00:15:57,400
Where are new ideas?
Where are fresh ideas?

256
00:15:57,640 --> 00:15:59,720
Uh… This is not going to work."

257
00:16:00,280 --> 00:16:04,120
German military leadership
doesn't want to have that war.

258
00:16:04,520 --> 00:16:07,160
Their vision, in the end of 1939,

259
00:16:07,440 --> 00:16:10,120
Hitler is pushing
for an attack on France,

260
00:16:10,280 --> 00:16:13,240
and their perception
is, "We're going to lose."

261
00:16:13,360 --> 00:16:17,000
I mean, look, in the First World War,
we fought four years against France

262
00:16:17,160 --> 00:16:21,000
with a huge army, a much
better-trained army, and we lost.

263
00:16:23,440 --> 00:16:27,560
The original plan drawn up
by Hitler's conservative generals

264
00:16:27,640 --> 00:16:30,120
follows the playbook
from the First World War,

265
00:16:30,200 --> 00:16:32,880
to invade Holland and Belgium
from the north

266
00:16:32,960 --> 00:16:34,800
as well as Northern France.

267
00:16:37,200 --> 00:16:40,320
It is a plan that plays
to the strength of the Allies,

268
00:16:40,400 --> 00:16:43,880
deliberately designed to end in disaster.

269
00:16:48,000 --> 00:16:51,160
How can you persuade
a dictator not to do it?

270
00:16:51,280 --> 00:16:54,720
You can't say, you know, "You're an idiot
and you have to negotiate."

271
00:16:55,800 --> 00:16:57,120
But if you…

272
00:16:57,920 --> 00:17:01,760
persuade him from a military side,
"It's not possible,

273
00:17:01,840 --> 00:17:03,120
we're going to lose,"

274
00:17:03,680 --> 00:17:06,720
that was, in the end, somehow the plan.

275
00:17:08,520 --> 00:17:10,440
Don't offer him a plan which might work.

276
00:17:11,600 --> 00:17:13,440
But one ambitious general,

277
00:17:13,520 --> 00:17:18,080
the Prussian aristocrat
Erich von Manstein, falls out of step.

278
00:17:18,360 --> 00:17:22,200
He suggests a plan
with a far greater chance of success.

279
00:17:22,720 --> 00:17:26,680
The conservative generals
move quickly to shut him down.

280
00:17:27,960 --> 00:17:31,600
Manstein feels very strongly
that they will be able to take advantage

281
00:17:31,680 --> 00:17:35,920
of the sort of disorienting effects
of driving quickly into the French lines.

282
00:17:36,000 --> 00:17:39,040
By attacking them much faster
than they expect,

283
00:17:39,120 --> 00:17:41,280
they'll be able to push the French back

284
00:17:41,360 --> 00:17:44,320
and completely disorganize
their command arrangements.

285
00:17:44,480 --> 00:17:47,280
And sow so much confusion that
they'll be able to make great progress,

286
00:17:47,360 --> 00:17:50,320
and the infantry will follow,
and they'll literally rip

287
00:17:50,400 --> 00:17:52,320
the French Army apart from the inside.

288
00:17:57,440 --> 00:18:01,840
With Manstein's plan shelved,
Hitler makes use of the Phoney War

289
00:18:02,080 --> 00:18:05,040
to secure a supply of iron ore
for weapons.

290
00:18:05,160 --> 00:18:08,240
His forces invade Denmark
and Southern Norway.

291
00:18:08,360 --> 00:18:10,680
The British spot the danger.

292
00:18:11,360 --> 00:18:14,040
Germany,
to secure its northern flank

293
00:18:14,120 --> 00:18:15,920
and its route out of the Baltic,

294
00:18:16,000 --> 00:18:19,880
decided to invade Norway and Denmark

295
00:18:20,080 --> 00:18:22,400
on 9th of April 1940.

296
00:18:28,760 --> 00:18:31,280
And the British
in particular responded

297
00:18:31,360 --> 00:18:34,120
by trying to land troops in Norway.

298
00:18:38,360 --> 00:18:40,480
It's gonna give
a lot of valuable resources,

299
00:18:40,560 --> 00:18:43,800
iron ore and other resources
in Norway to the Germans,

300
00:18:43,960 --> 00:18:45,760
and they need to forestall this.

301
00:18:48,200 --> 00:18:50,560
Ill-prepared
to respond to the attack,

302
00:18:50,680 --> 00:18:52,960
the Allies land troops in Norway,

303
00:18:53,160 --> 00:18:56,080
but their operation
is half-hearted and incompetent.

304
00:18:57,080 --> 00:18:59,640
The Germans deploy
their powerful new force,

305
00:18:59,720 --> 00:19:01,600
the Luftwaffe, to great effect.

306
00:19:02,520 --> 00:19:06,600
Its Stuka dive bombers wreak havoc
with the Allied forces.

307
00:19:10,120 --> 00:19:12,680
It's a kind of terrible humiliation
for the Western Allies,

308
00:19:12,760 --> 00:19:15,320
and by the beginning of May 1940,

309
00:19:15,440 --> 00:19:19,640
all Allied troops have left Norway,
and it's firmly in German hands.

310
00:19:29,920 --> 00:19:32,920
Meanwhile,
the persistent General Manstein

311
00:19:33,000 --> 00:19:36,360
finds a moment
to unveil his plan to Hitler.

312
00:19:36,560 --> 00:19:39,520
He knows he will only get one chance.

313
00:19:39,600 --> 00:19:42,080
Manstein sees an opportunity
to change Hitler's mind,

314
00:19:42,160 --> 00:19:44,400
and so he says, "Look, we need to do
something different.

315
00:19:44,480 --> 00:19:46,440
Let's do this, let's take full advantage

316
00:19:46,520 --> 00:19:48,560
of our Panzer divisions
and the Luftwaffe,

317
00:19:48,640 --> 00:19:51,576
and let's use the element of surprise.
Do something they will never expect."

318
00:19:51,600 --> 00:19:54,240
And so, Hitler endorses his plan.
It seems much bolder.

319
00:19:54,320 --> 00:19:57,400
It seems much more likely to bring
a rapid success

320
00:19:57,600 --> 00:20:00,960
than the more ponderous plan agreed upon
by his general staff.

321
00:20:04,000 --> 00:20:07,000
On the tenth of May,
the British Prime Minister,

322
00:20:07,080 --> 00:20:11,120
Neville Chamberlain, is forced to resign
over the Norway debacle.

323
00:20:12,720 --> 00:20:15,400
He is replaced by Winston Churchill.

324
00:20:17,640 --> 00:20:20,280
Churchill's a maverick,
he's got a checkered political career,

325
00:20:20,360 --> 00:20:22,960
but he was the one,
right the way through the 1930s,

326
00:20:23,040 --> 00:20:25,360
who was insisting that
we shouldn't appease Hitler.

327
00:20:25,440 --> 00:20:27,240
We needed to stand up against him.

328
00:20:27,320 --> 00:20:30,800
And now, finally, Churchill is given
his chance to lead the British in war.

329
00:20:33,960 --> 00:20:36,160
In his first speech
to the House of Commons,

330
00:20:36,240 --> 00:20:38,320
the new premier announces…

331
00:20:39,480 --> 00:20:41,080
I would say to the House

332
00:20:41,160 --> 00:20:43,800
as I had said to those
who joined the government…

333
00:20:45,160 --> 00:20:47,720
I have nothing to offer but blood,

334
00:20:47,960 --> 00:20:51,360
toil, tears and sweat.

335
00:21:02,080 --> 00:21:05,160
On the day
Churchill becomes prime minister,

336
00:21:05,240 --> 00:21:09,120
Germany launches a devastating attack
on Belgium and Holland.

337
00:21:11,360 --> 00:21:15,440
German parachutists capture
strategic bridges in Holland.

338
00:21:21,600 --> 00:21:23,560
The Luftwaffe bombs airfields.

339
00:21:24,680 --> 00:21:28,840
The airborne troops drop
to overwhelm its tiny neighbors.

340
00:21:31,440 --> 00:21:35,680
It seems clear that Hitler
intends to grab the Channel ports

341
00:21:36,000 --> 00:21:40,600
and acquire bases from which he could
eventually invade Great Britain.

342
00:21:42,920 --> 00:21:45,880
They have to seize those Channel ports,
because otherwise,

343
00:21:45,960 --> 00:21:47,760
the German Navy is in a backwater.

344
00:21:47,840 --> 00:21:50,600
They're in the North Sea and the Baltic,
and they can't get out.

345
00:21:50,920 --> 00:21:52,760
Whereas if they can get
those Channel ports

346
00:21:52,840 --> 00:21:54,520
and they can get
the French Atlantic ports,

347
00:21:54,600 --> 00:21:56,400
they can then have access
to the open seas.

348
00:21:58,120 --> 00:22:01,920
The Allies are well prepared
for this move and respond quickly,

349
00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:05,680
pushing their best forces
into Belgium to meet the attack.

350
00:22:07,120 --> 00:22:12,160
At this point, reconnaissance planes
send back confusing news from the south.

351
00:22:12,560 --> 00:22:17,840
They report a huge military traffic jam
along the road to the Ardennes,

352
00:22:18,040 --> 00:22:21,840
stretching all the way back
across the German border.

353
00:22:23,760 --> 00:22:25,920
The problem is,
is the French refuse to believe

354
00:22:26,120 --> 00:22:28,760
what they're being reported
by reconnaissance pilots.

355
00:22:29,360 --> 00:22:32,040
General Gamelin,
commander in chief of all French forces,

356
00:22:32,160 --> 00:22:34,600
said, "That's impossible.
That can't be true."

357
00:22:34,880 --> 00:22:35,960
And so, it was ignored.

358
00:22:38,080 --> 00:22:43,160
It was a terrible mistake
as Manstein's master plan unfolds.

359
00:22:43,600 --> 00:22:45,640
The reconnaissance was correct.

360
00:22:45,720 --> 00:22:49,080
The Germans had been amassing
in the Ardennes, and now,

361
00:22:49,160 --> 00:22:52,640
they plunge through the woods
and thunder across the River Meuse

362
00:22:52,720 --> 00:22:54,240
on the French border.

363
00:22:55,120 --> 00:22:57,401
The French are gonna have
just a skeleton force

364
00:22:57,480 --> 00:23:00,216
on the Meuse beyond the Ardennes,
because they're never gonna expect us

365
00:23:00,240 --> 00:23:01,400
to come through here.

366
00:23:03,760 --> 00:23:06,440
The invasions
of Holland and Belgium

367
00:23:06,520 --> 00:23:09,760
were designed to lure the Allies north.

368
00:23:10,600 --> 00:23:13,320
They want to draw the cream
of the Allied armies

369
00:23:13,400 --> 00:23:17,480
in Northern France into Belgium,
and also into Southern Holland,

370
00:23:17,560 --> 00:23:19,360
so that the actual attack
through the Ardennes

371
00:23:19,440 --> 00:23:21,920
can come through behind them
and cut them off.

372
00:23:24,120 --> 00:23:27,880
This is our cunning plan.
We are going to encircle them in Belgium.

373
00:23:27,960 --> 00:23:32,840
We also secretly attack
in the Ardennes, in this difficult area.

374
00:23:32,920 --> 00:23:37,520
We will be crossing the Meuse
and then dashing through the Channel

375
00:23:37,600 --> 00:23:41,120
and encircling
the British Expeditionary Force

376
00:23:41,200 --> 00:23:43,640
and the French Army in Belgium.

377
00:23:44,560 --> 00:23:48,280
We have to take the Allies by surprise.

378
00:23:48,360 --> 00:23:53,160
This is always a major aspect
of winning a war: surprise your enemies.

379
00:24:01,320 --> 00:24:05,600
The operation
will also use time, speed and daring

380
00:24:05,800 --> 00:24:09,160
to make up for the inferiority
of the German military.

381
00:24:12,880 --> 00:24:15,960
It uses all of these
modern technologies.

382
00:24:16,080 --> 00:24:18,440
It promises a quick victory.

383
00:24:18,800 --> 00:24:22,040
And it suggests that he might
not only defeat the French Army,

384
00:24:22,120 --> 00:24:24,600
but annihilate the entire British Army.

385
00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:27,920
The new
British prime minister, Churchill,

386
00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:32,360
has been plunged into a nightmare
as German tanks rampaged

387
00:24:32,440 --> 00:24:35,320
towards the French border city of Sedan.

388
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:41,120
Had the French taken
their own reconnaissance seriously,

389
00:24:41,520 --> 00:24:44,160
they would've had the German Army
at their mercy.

390
00:24:44,760 --> 00:24:47,880
The military bottleneck had left
the German artillery

391
00:24:47,960 --> 00:24:49,840
incredibly vulnerable.

392
00:24:51,920 --> 00:24:55,920
It turns into the biggest gridlock
in the history of gridlocks.

393
00:24:56,000 --> 00:24:58,560
Now, a French reconnaissance plane
flies over and sees this.

394
00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:02,080
Now, at that point,
it would've been perfectly possible

395
00:25:02,160 --> 00:25:04,720
to organize every single
French and British bomber available

396
00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:05,800
and go and bomb it.

397
00:25:05,840 --> 00:25:08,336
It would've stopped the German advance
in its tracks, that would've been

398
00:25:08,360 --> 00:25:10,656
the end of the. war and the whole thing
would've been avoided. I mean,

399
00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:12,760
it makes me so cross
every time I think about it.

400
00:25:12,840 --> 00:25:15,800
I mean, it was just such
a missed opportunity.

401
00:25:19,120 --> 00:25:21,160
The Germans
push home their advantage

402
00:25:21,280 --> 00:25:23,360
with an astonishing display of speed.

403
00:25:23,800 --> 00:25:28,560
Before the French can react, they charge
towards the French border town, Sedan.

404
00:25:29,520 --> 00:25:34,080
Infantry, tanks, and artillery
show incredible levels of stamina,

405
00:25:34,160 --> 00:25:36,520
outrunning the enemy defense forces.

406
00:25:36,680 --> 00:25:40,200
Barely stopping,
they reach Sedan in three days.

407
00:25:40,280 --> 00:25:44,520
Many German soldiers haven't slept
since the start of the campaign.

408
00:25:44,800 --> 00:25:47,160
The French can't quite believe it.

409
00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:52,160
The German tanks roll into Sedan
without opposition.

410
00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:55,480
The French defenses
are unexpectedly confronted

411
00:25:55,560 --> 00:25:58,440
by 60,000 rampaging Germans

412
00:25:58,520 --> 00:26:03,360
in 22,000 vehicles
and 850 tanks.

413
00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:05,480
After three days on the march,

414
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:08,120
the Germans have no intention
of stopping.

415
00:26:08,360 --> 00:26:12,120
They prepare to cross the River Meuse
in three places.

416
00:26:15,480 --> 00:26:19,520
The plan is a textbook example
of Bewegungskrieg.

417
00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:23,720
A warfare maneuver the Germans
are already well-known for.

418
00:26:26,760 --> 00:26:29,240
The architect is Heinz Guderian,

419
00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:32,680
a general who knows
how to combine new technology

420
00:26:32,840 --> 00:26:35,440
with the traditional German approach
to warfare,

421
00:26:35,840 --> 00:26:38,520
attacking the enemy
with overwhelming force

422
00:26:38,760 --> 00:26:40,960
and encircling them
before they can react.

423
00:26:44,080 --> 00:26:46,680
What Guderian
is very good at doing

424
00:26:46,760 --> 00:26:52,040
is harnessing new methods,
the Luftwaffe as aerial artillery;

425
00:26:52,120 --> 00:26:56,680
new mobile equipment,
trucks, mobile artillery,

426
00:26:56,760 --> 00:27:00,600
and of course, panzers, tanks,
but also radio technology, too.

427
00:27:01,360 --> 00:27:04,200
French Commander General
Maurice Gamelin

428
00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:07,320
orders that Sedan
must be defended at all costs,

429
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:11,200
but he has prepared his troops
for a repeat of the grinding attrition

430
00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:12,840
of the First World War.

431
00:27:13,320 --> 00:27:15,960
When they're suddenly confronted
by the need to be mobile,

432
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:17,360
they don't know what to do.

433
00:27:17,920 --> 00:27:20,960
No one expects the nightmare
about to unfold.

434
00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:27,360
Wave after wave of dive bombers
pummel the French defensive positions.

435
00:27:28,400 --> 00:27:31,320
Hardly a single bunker
suffers a direct hit,

436
00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:35,600
and only 56 casualties are taken,
but the psychological effect

437
00:27:35,760 --> 00:27:40,960
of the screaming bombers
and the whistling bombs is devastating.

438
00:27:41,640 --> 00:27:43,280
These German attacks

439
00:27:43,360 --> 00:27:46,200
were an absolute catastrophe
for the French defenders.

440
00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:48,200
It becomes evident rather quickly

441
00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:51,480
that the French morale
is broken by these attacks

442
00:27:51,560 --> 00:27:56,320
and the French do not manage
to organize proper counterattacks.

443
00:27:57,560 --> 00:28:00,480
I can only conclude that this is a legacy
of the First World War,

444
00:28:00,560 --> 00:28:05,120
those four long, brutal years of fighting
in which enormous quantities

445
00:28:05,240 --> 00:28:07,680
of Frenchmen have died,
and there's a feeling among Frenchmen,

446
00:28:07,760 --> 00:28:10,720
just a generation later, that they don't
want to go through it again.

447
00:28:13,200 --> 00:28:17,280
In the confusion,
German infantry flood across the Meuse.

448
00:28:17,400 --> 00:28:19,000
It's a dangerous move.

449
00:28:19,080 --> 00:28:22,840
The German forces are isolated
and open to counterattack.

450
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:27,240
By the evening of the 13th of May,
although a certain number of Germans

451
00:28:27,320 --> 00:28:29,920
have got across the river,
they are very vulnerable.

452
00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:32,360
No tanks have actually got across
at this point,

453
00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:35,960
and this is an opportunity for the French
to actually counterattack.

454
00:28:38,040 --> 00:28:41,680
But, shell-shocked,
the French tank drivers

455
00:28:41,800 --> 00:28:43,320
are slow to react.

456
00:28:44,160 --> 00:28:46,440
By the time
they finally sorted themselves out

457
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:48,680
and the attack is put in on the 14th,

458
00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:53,480
Guderian's got enough armor over the river
on pontoon bridges built by his pioneers

459
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:56,080
to actually knock out those French tanks.

460
00:28:59,080 --> 00:29:02,240
What they don't have
is any kind of tactical nous whatsoever.

461
00:29:02,320 --> 00:29:05,480
The biggest failure of all for the French
is that

462
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:09,240
they haven't thought
about communications at all.

463
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:11,720
So General Gamelin,
who is the commander in chief

464
00:29:11,800 --> 00:29:14,320
of all French forces,
is at the Chateau de Vincennes

465
00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:17,320
just on the edge of Paris,
and he doesn't even have a telephone

466
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:19,160
because he thinks
it will be a security risk.

467
00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:20,920
I mean, it's just insane.

468
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:27,120
The French are dependent
on field telephone lines,

469
00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:30,400
which get cut by Stukas,
and on dispatch riders

470
00:29:30,480 --> 00:29:32,840
who take ages to get messages through

471
00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:35,760
because the roads are clogged
with refugees.

472
00:29:42,120 --> 00:29:45,000
The French believed
it would take the Germans two weeks

473
00:29:45,080 --> 00:29:46,560
to reach Sedan.

474
00:29:48,160 --> 00:29:49,440
Not three days.

475
00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:51,240
In three days and nights,

476
00:29:51,360 --> 00:29:54,880
the fearless, relentless onslaught
never stopped.

477
00:29:57,120 --> 00:29:59,320
The soldiers performed like supermen.

478
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:02,800
It became increasingly clear
that this German army

479
00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:05,520
was unlike anything seen before.

480
00:30:07,520 --> 00:30:10,600
What the French didn't know
is that the German army

481
00:30:10,680 --> 00:30:12,240
had a secret weapon.

482
00:30:12,520 --> 00:30:17,280
The weapon was manufactured by the Berlin
drug company called Temmler.

483
00:30:18,680 --> 00:30:22,000
Pervitin is a powerful methamphetamine

484
00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:24,840
known on the streets today
as crystal meth.

485
00:30:25,640 --> 00:30:29,040
Already sold as an over-the-counter
pick-me-up in Germany,

486
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:32,960
the drug proves invaluable
in the theater of war.

487
00:30:38,200 --> 00:30:43,960
Pervitin is seen as
the ideal drug to combat fatigue.

488
00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:48,320
In the Second World War, it is used
especially for the Panzer troops

489
00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:50,000
and the night fighters.

490
00:30:50,080 --> 00:30:53,320
Troops that are always close
to the enemy

491
00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:55,440
and have to remain active
for a long time.

492
00:30:57,920 --> 00:31:00,376
Pervitin had been used
by German civilians, you know.

493
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:03,000
They'd get it in a pharmacy,
and it would be used to be alert

494
00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:04,960
and stay awake
and get a lot of stuff done.

495
00:31:05,280 --> 00:31:07,600
And as the war drags on,
you'd start seeing Pervitin

496
00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:10,400
being issued to German troops
and airmen like candy.

497
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:15,680
Methamphetamine
can dull feelings of empathy

498
00:31:15,760 --> 00:31:17,800
and make you feel superhuman,

499
00:31:18,040 --> 00:31:22,040
the very qualities needed
to create a near-perfect soldier.

500
00:31:23,480 --> 00:31:25,960
There are many reports
that just before the attacks

501
00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:29,160
started on May 10th, 1940,
there were a lot of soldiers

502
00:31:29,240 --> 00:31:31,600
who were depressed,
who didn't want to fight,

503
00:31:31,840 --> 00:31:34,680
who remembered the First World War.

504
00:31:36,080 --> 00:31:38,320
So the morale of the Germans
was quite low,

505
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:40,360
but once you take methamphetamine,

506
00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:42,720
your morale actually becomes quite high.

507
00:31:44,800 --> 00:31:46,760
The German tactic of Blitzkrieg

508
00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:51,160
relied on overwhelming air superiority,
super-fast tanks,

509
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:56,360
up-to-the-minute communications,
and a tireless and fearless militia.

510
00:31:57,080 --> 00:31:59,840
For the first time in military history,

511
00:31:59,920 --> 00:32:02,320
an army did not have to rest at night,

512
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:04,840
but could go on for three days
and three nights.

513
00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:08,480
So without Pervitin,
this obviously wouldn't have worked.

514
00:32:12,480 --> 00:32:17,400
It really helps a person
to become a fighting robot.

515
00:32:17,720 --> 00:32:20,840
Imagine this on the scale
of a couple of hundred thousand people,

516
00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:23,720
heavily armed,
storming into enemy territory.

517
00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:27,560
It just becomes
a completely crazy situation.

518
00:32:32,160 --> 00:32:34,976
The side effects of Pervitin is that
it does make you a little bit reckless.

519
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:36,960
It gives you what's…
You know, Dutch courage.

520
00:32:37,800 --> 00:32:40,240
On the 13th of May,
when they're crossing the River Meuse…

521
00:32:40,320 --> 00:32:42,160
Because these guys
have just got to keep going.

522
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:44,960
The fighting goes on
until dusk and beyond.

523
00:32:45,200 --> 00:32:49,280
How do you keep them going?
Well, you know, popping a Pervitin tablet,

524
00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:53,000
just on that one occasion,
is possibly not a bad idea.

525
00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:56,000
I mean, it's better to suffer
the aftereffects of Pervitin than be dead.

526
00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:04,080
To the north,
the decoy assault is gathering pace.

527
00:33:04,360 --> 00:33:06,760
The Germans bombard
the Port of Rotterdam,

528
00:33:07,040 --> 00:33:09,360
killing around 1,000 people.

529
00:33:12,520 --> 00:33:16,240
So shocked are the Dutch
by the number of casualties

530
00:33:16,320 --> 00:33:19,200
and the gutting of the center
of Rotterdam

531
00:33:19,280 --> 00:33:21,400
that it actually encourages them
to give up.

532
00:33:21,520 --> 00:33:25,880
So already, in just four days,
the Dutch are knocked out of the fight.

533
00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:33,160
With the French defenses
smashed at Sedan,

534
00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:37,960
Guderian is ordered to halt his advance
and wait for the infantry to catch up.

535
00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:39,880
He ignores them.

536
00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:45,400
Flanked by his officers on motorcycles,
he charges out in front of his tanks

537
00:33:45,760 --> 00:33:47,840
through the French countryside.

538
00:33:48,600 --> 00:33:51,640
Guderian is very dynamic.
He's smart, he's well read,

539
00:33:51,720 --> 00:33:52,920
he's hugely experienced,

540
00:33:53,040 --> 00:33:55,680
and he's not afraid of trying new things.

541
00:33:55,880 --> 00:34:01,040
And he's not one who's shy
of making decisions either.

542
00:34:01,120 --> 00:34:04,200
Do I just ignore
my superior officers' orders

543
00:34:04,280 --> 00:34:07,000
and go for it,
and potentially win Germany

544
00:34:07,080 --> 00:34:08,200
this amazing victory,

545
00:34:08,280 --> 00:34:11,920
or do I hold fire and wait
for the infantry just to catch up,

546
00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:15,280
thereby potentially losing momentum
and all the rest of it?

547
00:34:15,360 --> 00:34:18,160
And he thinks, "To hell with it.
I'm gonna go for it."

548
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:22,320
The prime minister of France,
Paul Reynaud,

549
00:34:22,400 --> 00:34:25,400
is shocked by the speed
of the German advance.

550
00:34:25,480 --> 00:34:29,120
He calls Britain's new prime minister
with terrible news.

551
00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:32,320
Reynaud, you could tell,
was in a terrible panic.

552
00:34:32,400 --> 00:34:35,040
He contacts Churchill,
he speaks to him on the telephone,

553
00:34:35,120 --> 00:34:36,800
and he basically says the battle is lost.

554
00:34:36,880 --> 00:34:40,280
Already, in just five days,
"I think the battle is lost.

555
00:34:40,360 --> 00:34:43,120
The Germans have broken through
in such numbers

556
00:34:43,200 --> 00:34:44,800
that I don't think we can stop them."

557
00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:50,000
The Germans are closing in
on the French capital,

558
00:34:50,240 --> 00:34:54,760
and Churchill fears that the French
are unable to respond quickly enough

559
00:34:54,920 --> 00:34:57,880
to mount the rapid counterattack
that is needed.

560
00:34:59,080 --> 00:35:01,360
Churchill saw that everything
was collapsing,

561
00:35:01,560 --> 00:35:04,800
and that very moment, it was important

562
00:35:04,880 --> 00:35:07,600
that the French are continuing to fight

563
00:35:07,680 --> 00:35:10,000
and reacting and fighting
and fighting and fighting,

564
00:35:10,080 --> 00:35:13,000
and counter-offensives,
and again and again,

565
00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:16,320
and not being
in this totally mental breakdown.

566
00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:21,640
On the 16th of May,
just six days after taking office,

567
00:35:22,040 --> 00:35:26,240
Churchill flies to Paris
to try and stiffen French resolve.

568
00:35:27,400 --> 00:35:29,280
What he's determined to do

569
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:31,440
is to somehow
keep the French in the fight,

570
00:35:31,520 --> 00:35:34,520
because if the French fall out,
it's Britain alone.

571
00:35:40,760 --> 00:35:43,360
On the 20th of May 1940,

572
00:35:43,440 --> 00:35:46,720
just ten days after setting out
from the German border,

573
00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:51,600
Guderian's decision to ignore
his superiors is vindicated

574
00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:54,080
as he reaches the Atlantic Coast.

575
00:35:55,240 --> 00:35:58,296
Well, that actually takes quite a bit
of courage to make a decision like that,

576
00:35:58,320 --> 00:36:01,360
you know, because if you get it wrong
and it's not a success

577
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:03,480
and it ends in defeat,
you're in big, big trouble,

578
00:36:03,560 --> 00:36:06,640
particularly in a totalitarian
militaristic state like Nazi Germany.

579
00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:09,616
But, you know, he has the courage
of his convictions, and he goes for it.

580
00:36:09,640 --> 00:36:12,880
And of course, it's absolutely
extraordinary, unprecedented in history.

581
00:36:13,680 --> 00:36:17,480
Hitler's great gamble
on Manstein's plan has paid off.

582
00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:22,560
The bulk of the Allied forces
are now trapped in narrow corridor.

583
00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:25,480
It means that those Allied armies
further north,

584
00:36:25,560 --> 00:36:28,000
including the whole
of the British Expeditionary Force,

585
00:36:28,080 --> 00:36:30,520
have been cut off
from their lines of supply.

586
00:36:30,600 --> 00:36:33,040
So, those troops in Belgium

587
00:36:33,120 --> 00:36:36,200
who are surrounded, of course,
on all sides now by Germans

588
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:39,120
who are fighting
also in Belgium and also in Holland,

589
00:36:39,200 --> 00:36:41,880
are completely surrounded
by German forces,

590
00:36:41,960 --> 00:36:44,800
and their only way out
is either by cutting through them

591
00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:47,080
or being rescued from the Channel coast.

592
00:36:51,840 --> 00:36:54,440
It will take Guderian
no more than a few days

593
00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:57,600
to block off that last escape route
to the coast,

594
00:36:57,840 --> 00:37:01,240
and thus encircle a million
Allied soldiers.

595
00:37:02,600 --> 00:37:06,200
Having become trapped in his pocket,
the British start to make plans

596
00:37:06,280 --> 00:37:10,960
to evacuate their troops by sea,
and Churchill settles on Calais

597
00:37:11,040 --> 00:37:13,840
as the best place
to bring in large ships.

598
00:37:15,680 --> 00:37:18,480
So, he sends three elite
British regiments to hold it,

599
00:37:18,560 --> 00:37:21,040
and they're all sacrificed;
the Germans annihilate them,

600
00:37:21,120 --> 00:37:22,680
and they lose Calais.

601
00:37:22,760 --> 00:37:26,400
The loss of life is daunting,
but the distraction

602
00:37:26,480 --> 00:37:29,240
buys the BEF time to make other plans.

603
00:37:30,080 --> 00:37:33,640
The decision to send the troops to Calais
is actually a key bit of the story,

604
00:37:33,720 --> 00:37:35,960
because without that blocking force,

605
00:37:36,080 --> 00:37:38,200
which was ultimately captured
by the Germans,

606
00:37:38,320 --> 00:37:41,640
the rest of the BEF and the French armies
fighting alongside it

607
00:37:41,720 --> 00:37:44,960
are not gonna have enough time
to get to the coast at Dunkirk

608
00:37:45,160 --> 00:37:48,920
to construct a defensive perimeter
that will allow them to be rescued.

609
00:37:55,360 --> 00:37:57,880
Just as it seems
that hundreds of thousands

610
00:37:57,960 --> 00:38:02,000
of Allied soldiers are within hours
of being slaughtered or captured,

611
00:38:02,280 --> 00:38:05,840
Hitler makes a highly
controversial decision.

612
00:38:07,680 --> 00:38:10,640
When the German forces have almost

613
00:38:11,240 --> 00:38:13,840
driven the Allies back
to the Channel harbors,

614
00:38:14,720 --> 00:38:17,560
Hitler suddenly orders them to stop.

615
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:22,520
The German tank officers thought,

616
00:38:22,600 --> 00:38:25,880
"I mean, are they crazy? Are they mad?
We are going to win.

617
00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:28,520
Yes, we are exhausted,
yes, we are short of supplies but…

618
00:38:29,400 --> 00:38:32,040
speed is our lifeline.

619
00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:34,680
Stopping is not an option."

620
00:38:34,760 --> 00:38:36,560
But then they got the clear order,

621
00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:41,000
so yes, they stopped
and they were asking themselves,

622
00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:44,600
"What the hell's going on here?
That's ridiculous."

623
00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:50,080
One of the reasons
was surely that the Generals

624
00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:56,880
had acted independently in the days prior
and flouted Hitler's authority.

625
00:38:56,960 --> 00:39:00,880
Hitler wanted to show that he was
the supreme war commander

626
00:39:00,960 --> 00:39:03,080
and they had to obey him.

627
00:39:03,560 --> 00:39:05,600
The man behind the decision

628
00:39:05,720 --> 00:39:08,960
is Luftwaffe Commander in Chief
Hermann Göring.

629
00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:13,880
He convinces Hitler that the honor
of annihilating the Allied soldiers

630
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:19,600
should fall not to the German Army,
but to the Nazi-dominated air force.

631
00:39:20,320 --> 00:39:22,720
Hermann Göring
was a very influential Nazi,

632
00:39:22,840 --> 00:39:26,320
and he'd been touting the Luftwaffe
as the arm, the weapon of the future.

633
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:29,920
And he was like,
"Look, let me unleash the Luftwaffe.

634
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:33,080
These are sitting ducks on the beach,
I can destroy them from the air

635
00:39:33,160 --> 00:39:35,520
and you can use the army,
you can move south and destroy

636
00:39:35,600 --> 00:39:38,240
the rest of the French army,
take Paris and pursue them

637
00:39:38,320 --> 00:39:40,720
across the Loire
if that's the direction they take.

638
00:39:40,960 --> 00:39:44,240
And the Luftwaffe can do this, you know,
without wasting the field army."

639
00:39:51,440 --> 00:39:56,880
Back when they took this
weapon from the Germans in Versailles,

640
00:39:58,040 --> 00:40:02,320
they did not expect Germany
to rebuild this weapon,

641
00:40:02,720 --> 00:40:07,360
stronger and more powerful,
under Adolf Hitler's leadership.

642
00:40:13,680 --> 00:40:17,280
But Göring's plan
soon starts to unravel.

643
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:23,800
Very conveniently for the British,
there was ten tenths' cloud cover

644
00:40:23,880 --> 00:40:27,040
for most of the evacuation period,
which is made worse by the fact

645
00:40:27,120 --> 00:40:30,160
that the Germans have already bombed
the oil refinery at Dunkirk,

646
00:40:30,240 --> 00:40:34,440
and vast clouds of black smoke
are pitching 15,000 feet into the sky.

647
00:40:34,520 --> 00:40:36,320
So basically,
you can't actually see anything.

648
00:40:38,560 --> 00:40:40,960
The poor visibility
makes it very difficult

649
00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:43,040
for the Luftwaffe to dive bomb,

650
00:40:43,280 --> 00:40:45,560
and even when the clouds
start to disperse,

651
00:40:45,640 --> 00:40:48,440
the Stukas struggle to hit their targets.

652
00:40:50,080 --> 00:40:52,280
From 6,000 feet when you're starting
your dive bombing,

653
00:40:52,680 --> 00:40:55,480
a destroyer crammed full of men
just looks like a pencil

654
00:40:55,560 --> 00:40:57,720
and it's kind of wobbling around
all over the place,

655
00:40:57,800 --> 00:41:01,400
and it's incredibly difficult
to hit something that has been moving

656
00:41:01,480 --> 00:41:02,880
from that distance.

657
00:41:06,440 --> 00:41:08,560
Göring's planes
also find themselves

658
00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:10,520
facing an unexpected weapon.

659
00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:14,040
Among the squadrons sent
to defend the evacuation

660
00:41:14,120 --> 00:41:16,880
by the RAF's fighter command
in the south of England

661
00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:19,640
is a brilliant new fighter plane:

662
00:41:20,040 --> 00:41:22,600
the Supermarine Spitfire.

663
00:41:23,720 --> 00:41:26,040
For the first time,
the fighter command

664
00:41:26,240 --> 00:41:29,440
was able to break
the German air superiority.

665
00:41:29,640 --> 00:41:34,640
They're sending Spitfires and Hurricanes
from Southeast England over to Dunkirk

666
00:41:34,720 --> 00:41:37,720
to cover the evacuation and actually,
they do a pretty good job.

667
00:41:37,800 --> 00:41:40,800
They suffer as well,
but they're pretty effective

668
00:41:40,880 --> 00:41:44,280
and they shoot down dive bombers…
German dive bombers in their droves.

669
00:41:47,520 --> 00:41:51,200
The Luftwaffe
bombs a number of Royal Navy ships,

670
00:41:51,640 --> 00:41:55,920
but it fails to annihilate the British
and French forces on the beaches

671
00:41:56,040 --> 00:41:59,360
or their rescue boats
as Göring had hoped.

672
00:42:02,800 --> 00:42:07,720
Royal Engineers Private
Cecil Ingram recalls the evacuation.

673
00:42:08,800 --> 00:42:10,680
It was a mass of soldiers…

674
00:42:11,640 --> 00:42:14,720
and we were being dive-bombed
the whole time,

675
00:42:14,800 --> 00:42:20,080
so you were trying to make yourself
as safe as possible by sort of,

676
00:42:20,640 --> 00:42:22,800
burying into the sand
as far as you could go.

677
00:42:23,600 --> 00:42:25,160
You were lying low.

678
00:42:25,600 --> 00:42:29,720
You could hear and see
these Stuka bombers coming down

679
00:42:29,840 --> 00:42:33,800
and the horrendous noise
as they revved up and dived down.

680
00:42:34,640 --> 00:42:37,120
To be honest, I was quite scared…

681
00:42:38,240 --> 00:42:40,320
because you didn't know
what was happening.

682
00:42:40,400 --> 00:42:44,120
It was… You know, communications
had completely broken down.

683
00:42:44,240 --> 00:42:46,480
I think the word to use,
it was "chaotic".

684
00:42:47,160 --> 00:42:51,240
So, I eventually got up,
walked into the water

685
00:42:51,600 --> 00:42:54,240
with my rifle aloft, very wet.

686
00:42:54,320 --> 00:42:57,160
I managed to get onto a naval ship.

687
00:42:57,240 --> 00:42:59,160
My feet were bleeding.

688
00:42:59,240 --> 00:43:04,440
I spent the journey over to England
lying on the deck of this ship.

689
00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:10,120
Royal Army Service
Corps Private Stanley William Priest

690
00:43:10,320 --> 00:43:12,800
survived a German air attack
over the Channel.

691
00:43:13,800 --> 00:43:15,640
We entered Dunkirk
during an air raid

692
00:43:15,680 --> 00:43:20,440
and there were several severe air raids.
A direct hit would have killed 100.

693
00:43:20,520 --> 00:43:24,360
And we saw some planes approaching,
and they machine-gunned the boat,

694
00:43:24,440 --> 00:43:28,640
killing 60 or so and wounding
many others, including myself.

695
00:43:29,400 --> 00:43:32,480
I took shelter in a little alcove.

696
00:43:32,600 --> 00:43:35,360
The bullets were passing
an inch or two from my feet,

697
00:43:35,440 --> 00:43:40,240
so had I been on deck, I'd almost
certainly have been killed, or…

698
00:43:40,720 --> 00:43:44,080
But I lost a finger,
and I got a bullet to my shoulder.

699
00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:46,920
The best Churchill was hoping for

700
00:43:47,000 --> 00:43:50,960
was to save 45,000 soldiers
from death or capture.

701
00:43:51,040 --> 00:43:54,760
But thanks to the navy,
the little ships and the RAF,

702
00:43:54,880 --> 00:43:58,880
almost 340,000 were rescued.

703
00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:02,240
They got together enormous numbers

704
00:44:02,320 --> 00:44:04,880
of sea-going craft run by civilians,

705
00:44:05,120 --> 00:44:08,240
and these people sailed voluntarily
across the Channel

706
00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:12,520
at risk of life and limb
to coordinate with the Royal Navy

707
00:44:12,600 --> 00:44:17,800
to rescue a huge proportion
of the troops at Dunkirk.

708
00:44:20,080 --> 00:44:22,240
Göring is humiliated.

709
00:44:22,600 --> 00:44:25,640
Having failed to stop
the British evacuation from Dunkirk,

710
00:44:26,120 --> 00:44:29,600
Hitler now turns the army
towards Paris.

711
00:44:29,680 --> 00:44:34,560
In an effort to prevent their beloved
capital city being reduced to rubble,

712
00:44:34,640 --> 00:44:39,600
the French flee,
leaving it to be captured, undefended.

713
00:44:39,840 --> 00:44:41,696
There's no doubt
that the French were aware

714
00:44:41,720 --> 00:44:44,480
of the German use of bombing

715
00:44:44,560 --> 00:44:47,280
at Rotterdam and also previously
against the Poles at Warsaw

716
00:44:47,360 --> 00:44:49,800
and the terrible damage
that was done to those cities,

717
00:44:49,880 --> 00:44:51,880
and they did not want
the same thing to happen

718
00:44:51,960 --> 00:44:54,160
to all the architectural jewels in Paris.

719
00:44:54,240 --> 00:44:57,560
They declare it an open city
and move the government further south.

720
00:44:59,840 --> 00:45:03,040
The Germans march in
on the 14th of June.

721
00:45:05,520 --> 00:45:08,560
The French Government moves first
to the City of Tours,

722
00:45:08,720 --> 00:45:10,400
and then to Bordeaux.

723
00:45:10,520 --> 00:45:16,240
Prime Minister Reynaud is replaced
by 84-year-old First World War hero,

724
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:18,480
Marshal Philippe Pétain.

725
00:45:18,920 --> 00:45:20,840
Pétain is a bit of a defeatist.

726
00:45:20,920 --> 00:45:23,520
He's pretty convinced
that the French have lost the battle.

727
00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:26,800
The most important thing to do now
is to avoid revolution,

728
00:45:26,880 --> 00:45:29,480
avoid the French Army
from collapsing completely,

729
00:45:29,560 --> 00:45:32,200
and the best way to do that
is to negotiate an armistice.

730
00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:36,336
The north of the France
and the Atlantic seaboard

731
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:38,600
are now occupied by the Germans.

732
00:45:39,000 --> 00:45:42,520
The south is designated
as the unoccupied zone

733
00:45:42,680 --> 00:45:45,760
and run as a puppet regime
by Marshal Pétain

734
00:45:45,880 --> 00:45:48,040
from the spa town of Vichy.

735
00:45:49,240 --> 00:45:53,200
Pétain's authoritarian regime
replaces the French motto,

736
00:45:53,280 --> 00:45:55,760
"liberté, égalité, fraternité,"

737
00:45:55,840 --> 00:45:59,800
with a new slogan,
"work, family, fatherland."

738
00:46:00,840 --> 00:46:04,960
Hundreds of thousands of French workers
are deported to Nazi Germany

739
00:46:05,040 --> 00:46:07,720
to work as forced labor
for the war effort.

740
00:46:07,880 --> 00:46:10,840
They replace Germans
who were being enlisted to fight

741
00:46:10,920 --> 00:46:12,360
on the Eastern Front.

742
00:46:12,640 --> 00:46:15,880
The speed of the German victory
was astonishing.

743
00:46:15,960 --> 00:46:19,040
Blitzkrieg was a brilliant success.

744
00:46:19,640 --> 00:46:21,400
German generals
always had in mind,

745
00:46:21,480 --> 00:46:25,720
"I want to have the perfect battle,"
so war is an art.

746
00:46:28,600 --> 00:46:31,520
The Germans attack with an inferior army.

747
00:46:31,920 --> 00:46:34,640
Inferior in numbers, inferior in quality,

748
00:46:34,840 --> 00:46:37,160
but superior in their mentality.

749
00:46:37,240 --> 00:46:40,920
We, as generals, just want to have
the perfect battle.

750
00:46:41,520 --> 00:46:45,560
And so, the whole war plan in 1940

751
00:46:45,640 --> 00:46:47,360
aimed for the perfect battle.

752
00:46:48,200 --> 00:46:51,080
And it was possible,
because the British and the French

753
00:46:51,160 --> 00:46:55,320
did every mistake
and made every mistake they could make.

754
00:46:57,760 --> 00:47:01,440
The Nazis exploit
their triumphant victory over the French

755
00:47:01,520 --> 00:47:04,600
to create a huge spectacle
for the newsreels

756
00:47:04,920 --> 00:47:08,800
which finally expunges
the humiliating experiences

757
00:47:09,080 --> 00:47:11,520
endured in the First World War.

758
00:47:12,240 --> 00:47:13,800
The German victory over France

759
00:47:13,880 --> 00:47:16,480
was the biggest victory
of German military history,

760
00:47:16,560 --> 00:47:20,640
so it was really an outstanding event
for Germany,

761
00:47:20,760 --> 00:47:26,360
and Hitler was quite clever
to create a propaganda coup

762
00:47:26,720 --> 00:47:28,920
of how they were signing the armistice.

763
00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:33,000
It was not just done somewhere
in a hidden place, signing a document,

764
00:47:33,080 --> 00:47:37,200
but it was really made up
for the propaganda.

765
00:47:38,560 --> 00:47:41,640
This time,
it is Hitler's moment to gloat.

766
00:47:41,880 --> 00:47:45,240
In a repeat
of the November 1918 Armistice,

767
00:47:45,320 --> 00:47:48,440
he orders the very same railway carriage

768
00:47:48,520 --> 00:47:51,560
back to the same place at Compiegne

769
00:47:51,640 --> 00:47:54,880
where the Germans surrendered
in the First World War.

770
00:47:55,120 --> 00:47:59,800
This time, it would be the French
who would be paraded in disgrace

771
00:47:59,920 --> 00:48:01,920
in front of the cameras.

772
00:48:03,320 --> 00:48:07,840
He took the railway carriage
out of the museum,

773
00:48:08,200 --> 00:48:12,280
put it on the very place
where it was used in the First World War,

774
00:48:12,360 --> 00:48:13,760
and at that very place,

775
00:48:14,520 --> 00:48:17,480
the French leadership
has to sign the armistice.

776
00:48:17,560 --> 00:48:21,200
And the symbol was,
with that victory…

777
00:48:22,240 --> 00:48:28,160
we, you know, somehow react
on the defeat of the First World War.

778
00:48:30,320 --> 00:48:32,840
There were cameras there,
it was in all the press,

779
00:48:32,920 --> 00:48:34,800
and only a few days later,
interestingly enough,

780
00:48:34,880 --> 00:48:36,800
he decides to take the railway carriage

781
00:48:37,200 --> 00:48:41,440
back to Germany and to destroy
the site of the 1918 Armistice,

782
00:48:41,560 --> 00:48:44,520
which, of course, had always been
a humiliation for Germany.

783
00:48:48,800 --> 00:48:50,560
So now, we have won.

784
00:48:50,800 --> 00:48:54,920
The war, which had started in 1914,
we have won that war.

785
00:48:55,000 --> 00:48:58,240
So, it's a combination
of the First and the Second World War,

786
00:48:58,320 --> 00:48:59,600
and we have won that.

787
00:48:59,840 --> 00:49:03,680
And by this, we overcome the defeat
of the First World War.

788
00:49:04,320 --> 00:49:06,320
Now, we are not defeated, we won.

789
00:49:06,480 --> 00:49:08,840
And this awful event
of having been defeated

790
00:49:08,920 --> 00:49:11,480
in the First World War,
it's over, it's passed,

791
00:49:11,560 --> 00:49:13,600
and it's Hitler who's done this.

792
00:49:13,880 --> 00:49:14,920
It's Hitler.

793
00:49:15,000 --> 00:49:19,520
He is, you know,
the greatest war leader ever.

794
00:49:31,540 --> 00:49:36,040
Re-sync and redact: BLU DUAINE
blu.duaine@protonmail.com