Germany was the winner of the first Tour De France

100k dead, 1.85M prisoned all in a month. Wow

"I defeated Austrians just by marching " ~Napoleon. 130 years later Austrian painter took that revenge.

What an absolute humiliation that was. Imagine being French ww1 veteran and seeing this unfold before your eyes.

Just like Napoleon, you can win 1,000 battles, have 100 victorious treaties, but it only takes 1 defeat to make you lose the war

Look how happy the Germans were

I just know Napoleon was rolling in his grave seeing how badly France did during WW2

The Germans legitimately thought that France was going to put up a better fight than the USSR. They were shocked not only at their own success in beating France but in how few casualties they took in beating every single country they managed to defeat before July 1941

Blitzkrieg is no joke

The look on the French soldiers faces is devastating

The Germans did even better against the Soviet Union, but the Soviets could keep retreating until German supplies ran low. The French could not keep fighting from Spain. The Soviets had room to be unprepared.

It's always fascinating to me how when a war end and a peace treaty is signed, the soldiers aren't treated that well and shamed, but the losing side's generals still get salutes from their opposing officers and are treated with respect

France invades algeria: Germany invades france : Also algeria: how the tables have turned

The generals saluting eachother was cool

Weil it wasn‘t just France! Almost the whole british mainland army fought at their side. Lucky brits they are an island which got HUGE amount of supplies from the US.

Incredible footage. If the war happened just 40 years before we’d never have this

Why are the streets of Paris lined with trees? Because Germans like marching in the shade.

One of the biggest armies in the world at the time got smashed in weeks! Embarrassing

Paris looked better in 1940 than today in 2023

French when 100k soldiers die : I surrender USSR when 20 million people die : What a nice victory

France was using birds to communicate while Germans used radio soon as it was developed. This should be a lesson for future wars

Words of Stalin,"couldn't they put up any resistance" it was the biggest embarrassment of any country in Europe in morden times.

2:20 not a phone is sight, just people living in the moment.

how does 1.85 million soldiers surrender jesus christ thats embarrassing

To compare, Poland lasted 35 days attacked from two sides, first by Germany at first of September and then by Russia 17th of September. 66 thousands soldiers killed, 133,700 wounded.

France was overrun in 6 weeks. Seems like it would take 6 weeks to overrun a country the size of France even if they lacked any army at all.

1:04 The look of sorrow and dread on the French commander's face as he looks into the eyes of his counterpart, whom they are now entirely at the mercy of, is palpable.

Must've felt exhilarating for some of the older officers who served in the First War and got to live to see the occupation of France.

France knew how it feel to be invaded

How embarrassing that must have been. That still gnaws at the national pride of the French today. Every country in the world should learn from France's mistakes.

I'm so thankful that we were able to record the second world war so that we today can see it.

Thankful we have historical videos like this

2:18 - the high point of the war all those boys. Exactly a year later ,most of those soldiers were streaming into Russia as part of 'Barbarossa' and within a couple of years after that, I'd wager most of them were either dead , disabled or POWs

The main picture appearing on your video is the Polish Royal Castle in Warsaw. It would be good to mention it in your introductory part of the video.

The Germans combined their modern equipment with modern tactics, and to devastating effect against the immense but strategically stagnant French firepower. I think Sun Tzu would have been proud of the invasion of France...

I gotta say I was not expecting to hear Martin Sheen

Funny how the Anglo version of history NEVER talks about the Dutch and. Belgians surrendering in days, the Brits fleeing pants down and hands up while the French kept the fight. Too shameful for you guys to bear?

Germany army before: *ATACC ATACC ATACC* Germany army now: *Make moni Make moni*

2:19 pay back for 1923 probably felt so good

*Under a month... 100,000 french soldiers die?!?! Are you kidding me 😳*

Here are a few words from the Général, after Pétain’s capitulation: « Beaucoup de Français n'acceptent pas ni la capitulation ni la servitude, pour des raisons qui s'appellent : l'honneur, le bon sens et l'intérêt supérieur de la patrie. » « A lot of french people do not accept neither capitulation nor slavery, because of reasons called: honour, common sense and the superior interest of the fatherland » The resistance was launched a day after the capitulation. It wasn’t the best resistance, sure. But it deserves to be recognised.

The war for France was lost in less than 6 days, the day the German special units moved around the Machaon line ,the war was lost and the regular army units did what they were trained for which was to guard and occupy with little fighting required. The war in the west won by Germany was carried out principley by special units tanks para gliders while the regular army units followed up in second dairy movements. sorry about the spelling

verry interesting thanks for this sir .

Also about 340,000 British soldiers fled.

We surrendered Afghanistan faster than that!!!

German Soldier after the war: "I didn't even know that we were at war I just walked right into Paris and no one stopped me"

what a humiliating defeat

My Polish grandfather told me that when he was exiled in France on his way to Britain, all the French people cheered when the Germans entered in the city, as "the war was over". The only man he saw discontent was an Algerian recruit, he was crying disconsolately.

This comment section is full of children

War is weird to watch, everyone knows what's happening and how serious it is while soldiers pretend like they hate each other until they surrender

A little big moment in history that needs to be remembered because things like this can happen to you!

Just so sad seeing the french people weep and those French soliders fought with all their heart.Such a brutal time on earth so many dead

The narrator: The French put up a great fight they died like flies!

germany took on like 9 different nations and did a 9v1 and still took a while to beat. Quite amazing actually.

The ignorance in the comment section is truly astounding

Horrible, but I'm glad that nowadays we work together with France as our closest ally. May there never be war between us again. I hope that at one point we can ensure that there's no war in europe and maybe in a distant future, no war on earth.

Germany would have destroy any country on land in 39. Gb and USA survived because of sea. Soviet because their land was 20 times bigger than France with rude winter and lost 23 millions ppl. Very funny ppl thinking they would have done a better job than France 😂 Where were they in 39, fact is everyone just left France and Poland.

I liked the part at the end, I've seen it before but it always makes me smile, those soldiers cheering, they defeated their long time enemy in a few weeks they did what the Kaiser could not.

I like how the clip is about French surrender in 1940, but the thumbnail for the video is the Royal Castle in Warsaw burning after being bombarded by German artillery in September 1939. Because that scene is nowhere in the video, so it wasn't auto-generated by KZfaq.

It was the French High command that failed the nation, not the army. We only started making fun of France because they protested our invasion of Iraq in 2003

Note that the Wehrmacht lost 40,000 men in this operation and the French collapsed due to a lack of leadership as well as a national will.

Guys, guys, you might want to change the miniature for this video. Its a photo from Polish 1939 campaign, not the french one

If you think this is bad, at least these guys put up more resistance than their grandchildren.

When I heard the narrator, I was just like... Nah, it probably isn't. But I went to check and yes, this actually is Martin Sheen.

2:10 just look at him. he probably fought through the previous war, and now all is lost. France for the first time in its History is a great power no more. they dont know yet that the allies will prevail...

When the German surrender act was signed in Berlin in May 1945, a representative of the German command, seeing the representatives of France, asked sarcastically: "Did they defeat us too?" France was included among the victorious powers at the insistence of Stalin. This is something that in Europe they carefully want to forget.

Greece: *Surrenders in 6 months* Norway: *Surrenders in 8 weeks* France: *Surrenders in 6 weeks* Poland: *Surrenders in 18 days* Belgium: *Surrenders in 18 days* Yugoslavia: *Surrenders in 11 days* Netherlands: *Surrenders in 5 days* Denmark: *Surrenders in 6 hours* Everyone: Hahaha France is so week. They always surrender

0:17 I’m starting to get some BF1 flashbacks looking at that MP-18.

I didn't know The Illusive Man made documentaries about WW2

How sweet victory is. My Opa was in Lyon during the invasion.

That Quick...History repeats..

very nice !

Why on the miniature picture, there is king's castle in Warsaw, Poland?

Wow it’s so crazy seeing footage

This war is unbelievable.

Less than 5 years later, the Germans who were lucky enough to still be alive had no towns to go home to.

All that manpower, large navy, overseas colonies and they just surrendered in a month. 😂

no smartphone in sight... just people living in the moment

Wow, that's a lot of antifrench US comments, mocking the French at war and calling them cowards and all that... And yet, I can't remember the USA complaining about the French soldiers during (for instance) the Korean war (1950-53). The French had impressed by their efficiency and heroism more than once. Some example: At the Battle of Wonju in January 1951, the fighting around the French Battalion of the 23rd Infantry Regiment became particularly fierce. At one point, the French Battalion was forced to fend off several KPA (North Koreans) counterattacks with bayonet charges after running out of ammunition. The French Battalion's action at Wonju impressed US general Ridgway, who later encouraged all American units in Korea to utilize bayonets in battle. The French Battalion of NATO (1,017 men) earned 3 US Presidential Unit Citation (and 2 Korean equivalent as well) and the USA didn't give these away like candies. And one soldier of the French Battalion, sergeant Louis Misseri, was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross by the United States for his actions at the famous battle of Heartbreak ridge, in 1951.

I have a vintage French rifle from 1940 - it's never been fired and was only dropped once.

France conquered a vast empire and brought many positive and negative things. Yet the French had their right to resist German conquest??????

Is that the voice of Martin Sheen? Pretty awesome if it is

imagine you thought that you are the best army and even was it by fighting strength and losing in the most humiliating way possible.

So sad seeing the defeated French soldiers surrendering and marching as prisoners. Much love to France from Australia. Vive la France!

Smithsonian, I hope you are aware of the fact that the thumbnail of this film depicts the burning Royal Castle in Warsaw after it's been bombed by Germans in September of 1939. Also, the description of the film has a little to do with its content.

Why is there the Warsaw Royal Castle on the thumbnail???

Is that Ramon Estevez? (Martin Sheen) with the voiceover?

Only the english channel saved britain at this time in the war.

Great history 👍

Can't believe this just happened 5 years ago!

I recommend this documentary. It is "Apocalypse: The Second World War" for those interested.

It took over 50 countries to defeat the greatest military ever assembled, let that sink in

France declared war on Germany.

Martin Sheen narrates!

This is sad how france people faced ww2 respect to all brothers and sisters that gave their lifes to protect homeland respect from serbia 🇷🇸🇫🇷

The voiceover sounds so presidential

The illusive man really saw everything in the galaxy

The Original "World At War" & "WW2 in Colour" gives a more accurate presentation of Frances surrender & why many servicemen eventually refused to fight. Conflict History has to be researched objectively just like anything concerning more than one party.

Les soldats français de 1940 se sont battus et n’ont pas démérité. Je tiens à rappeler que , en l’espace de plus de 44 jours de combats , un peu moins de 90 000 soldats français ont été tués au combat ou sont morts des suites de leurs blessures. Durant ces durs combats , plusieurs milliers de soldats français mourraient donc chaque jours. Ayez donc un peu de respect envers ces soldats qui ont fait de leur mieux.

Martin Sheen as the narrator is amazing.