Editing Maxime Weygand (section)

==== Armistice ====
{{further|Second Armistice at Compiegne}}

On 5 June the German second offensive (''[[Fall Rot]]'') began.{{sfn|Lacouture|1991|p=189}} On 8 June Weygand was visited by de Gaulle, newly appointed to the government as Under-Secretary for War. According to de Gaulle's memoirs Weygand believed it was "the end" and gave a "despairing laugh" when de Gaulle suggested fighting on. He believed that after France was defeated Britain would also soon sue for peace, and hoped that after an armistice the Germans would allow him to retain enough of a French Army to "maintain order" in France. Weygand later disputed the accuracy of de Gaulle's account of this conversation, and remarked on its similarity to a dialogue by [[Pierre Corneille]]. De Gaulle's biographer [[Jean Lacouture]] suggests that de Gaulle's account is consistent with other evidence of Weygand's beliefs at the time and is therefore, allowing perhaps for a little literary embellishment, broadly plausible.{{sfn|Lacouture|1991|p=193}}

[[Fascist Italy (1922–1943)|Fascist Italy]] entered the war and [[Italian invasion of France|invaded France]] on 10 June. That day Weygand barged into the office of Prime Minister [[Paul Reynaud]] and demanded an armistice.{{sfn|Lacouture|1991|pp=195–6}} Weygand was present at the Anglo-French Conference at the Château du Muguet at [[Briare]] on 11 June, at which the option was discussed of continuing the French war effort from [[Brittany]] or [[French North Africa]]. The transcript shows Weygand to have been somewhat less defeatist than de Gaulle's memoirs would suggest.{{sfn|Lacouture|1991|p=197}} At the Cabinet meeting on the evening of 13 June, after another Anglo-French conference at Tours, Marshal Pétain, Deputy Prime Minister, strongly supported Weygand's demand for an armistice.{{sfn|Lacouture|1991|p=201}} On June 14 Weygand warned General [[Alan Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke|Alan Brooke]], the new commander-in-chief of the British forces in France, that the French Army was collapsing and incapable of fighting further, leading him to evacuate the final [[British Expeditionary Force (World War II)|British Expeditionary Force]] contingents remaining on the [[Western Front (World War II)|Western Front]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Roberts |first=Andrew |url=https://archive.org/details/masterscommander0000robe_g9v1 |title=Masters and Commanders: The Military Geniuses Who Led the West to Victory in World War II |publisher=[[Penguin Books]] |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-141-02926-9 |edition=1 |location=London |pages=38 |language=en |ref=None |via=Internet Archive }}</ref>

The French government moved to [[Bordeaux]] on 14 June. At Cabinet on 15 June Reynaud urged that they should follow the Dutch example, that the Army should lay down its arms so that the fight could be continued from abroad. Pétain was sympathetic,{{sfn|Atkin|1997|pp=82–6}} but he was sent to speak to Weygand (who was waiting outside, as he was not a member of the Cabinet).{{sfn|Williams|2005|pp=325–7}} After no more than fifteen minutes Weygand persuaded him that this would be a shameful surrender. [[Camille Chautemps]] then proposed a compromise proposal, that the Germans be approached about possible armistice terms.{{sfn|Atkin|1997|pp=82–6}} The Cabinet voted 13–6 for the Chautemps proposal.{{sfn|Williams|2005|pp=325–7}}

After Reynaud's resignation as Prime Minister on 16 June, [[President of France|President]] [[Albert Lebrun]] felt he had little choice but to appoint Pétain, who already had a ministerial team ready, as prime minister. Weygand joined the new government as Minister for Defence, and was briefly able to veto the appointment of [[Pierre Laval]] as minister of foreign affairs.