but no official docs yet, so I'm working on it as time permits.

-o-o-o-

The original start-date of the main German offensive ("Case Yellow/"Fall Gelb") in 1940 - the advance through the Ardennes - was May 10, 1940: not June 5. The latter date, however, is usually considered the start of the second and final phase of the offensive ("Case Red"/"Fall Rot") - the final advance to Paris. Which of course, bypassed the main formations of the French Army: who, far from having "fled", were stuck in the Dunkirk bridgehead.

comes directly from John Keegan, who I think is a reliable authority on the subject. I don't recall specifically whether it's described in Teh Second World War or in his map book; I'll find the cite if you are interested.

The German panzer/Luftwaffe offensive that led to the fall of France began in the Ardennes Forest (I incorrectly mentioned Poland) on June 5, 1940; Paris fell on June 14th and France surrendered to the Germans on June 25. I don't recall there being a significant Fifth Column in Paris, at least in the context of the fall of France. I assume France's reliance on the Maginot Line, with the necessary corollary assumption that Belgium could resist Germany, is still taught in various war colleges as an example of monumental folly.

I'm not sure what you mean by "a ruthless, unprincipled enemy." Are you talking about Stukas, the Germans' superior mechanized infantry, their obviously superior battle plans, their invasion of Belgium, their march to the Channel in May 1940 that split the allied forces in half, Dunkirk, or what?

I don't recall surrendering to anyone and turning Washington over to enemy forces after 9/11 so I don't get your analogy. The French fought for their country, then surrendered quickly. The English fought for their country and never surrendered. Others like Sweden, Portugal and Spain did neither, and made huge profits from the sale of war materiel to the Nazis. Of course war is never that simple, but those are the facts as I was taught them.

I know little about Petain. (I like the scene in Casablanca when Claude Rains tosses the Vichy water bottle into the trash, though.) But I have read a bit about the deployment of French forces in WWI (Keegan again, mainly), enough to conclude that the French army was led by a bunch of arrogant, ignorant aristocrats who thought nothing of squandering the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers on a whim. Not a position unique to the French, of course, but they seemed to be the worst at it.

IMO anyone who wants to get some understanding of the insanity of war doesn't have to look any farther than the slaughter (actually murder, when viewed objectively) of hundreds of thousands of soldiers by their own high commands in the trench/gas/WP etc. warfare of WWI. History books generally claim that Gavrilo Princip's assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Bosnia precipitated that war, when Bismarck's absence on a royal cruise was more of a factor. (And how many mention that the wound wouldn't have been lethal of the Archduke hadn't had his clothes actually sewn onto his body to conceal his corpulence?)

I'm betting that books like Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front or Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun aren't required reading in high school anymore.

Citing historical facts is making fun? OK. But check out the history books before you claim the French surrender was "a retreat under heavy fire. There's no evidence that the French tanks the French "retreated" from were firing at them. The French apparently thought their own tanks in retreat were the advancing German mechanized forces. The dust of battle, and the fact that the French tanks had their turrets pointing forward instead of back at the enemy they were fleeing from, may have been factors. If you know of a similar event involving US forces, you of course are free to point it out.