The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

Plan and turning the blame on to Gort. ‘The information given us by
Weygand himself,’ Chamberlain noted, ‘as to the capture of Amiens,
Albery and Peronne on May 23rd turned out to be false.’ Reynaud’s
complaint about Gort of the previous day was looking rather hollow.
The truth was that neither Weygand nor Marshal Pétain were very keen
on continuing the war. Pétain was a national hero in France, the saviour of
Verdun in the last war, and newly appointed Vice-Prime Minister by
Reynaud. It had been a move to try to stiffen the resolve of the French, but
Reynaud now found himself faced with the two most powerful soldiers in
the country presenting the united front of two Anglophobes who had been
opposed to the Anglo-French alliance from the very start. Since both had
been senior commanders in the 1914–18 war, both were indelibly scarred
by the experience and agreed on one thing: the appalling loss of life could
not be repeated. In Paris on the 25th, at a meeting of the Comité de Guerre,
Weygand told Reynaud, Pétain and the President, Albert Lebrun, that the
situation was hopeless. France had committed the immense mistake of
entering into the war without the materiel or the military doctrine that were
needed, he told them. He was right about the second point, wrong about the
first. ‘It is probable,’ he added, ‘that we will have to pay dearly for this
criminal thoughtlessness.’ Weygand, supported by Pétain, urged them to
make a separate peace, which would go against the terms of the alliance
with Britain. The rest of the Comité was not so sure. What was recognized
by Reynaud was the need to explain the situation to the British. The next
day he would go to London.
Of course, Churchill did not know about this discussion but it did not
need a fly on the wall to know that the French will was crumbling and that
they might soon seek terms. The Prime Minister put this to the second
meeting of the Defence Committee at around 10 p.m. that night. ‘If France
went out of the war,’ he told them, ‘she must, however, make it a condition
that our Army was allowed to leave France intact, and to take away its
munitions, and that the soil of France was not used for an attack on
England. Furthermore, France must retain her Fleet.’ Clearly, both Britain
and France had now accepted that there could be only one result in France
itself. It was a question of when, not if. The alliance still stood, but both
countries now had to look after number one. Gort thought most of the BEF
would be lost; so too did Churchill. Then the mighty Luftwaffe would be
unleashed against Britain. Would British will then crumble too? There were