La grande illusion francaise - french news on 23 May 1940

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTi7A7Fgulk


A touch of wishful thinking?

This is the News on 23rd May 1940, shown in French Cinemas

The French 1st and 7th Armies and the BEF had already been surrounded for two days in the pocket Lille to Dunkirk and were fighting for their existence!

 

In fact morale was high until about June 5th, not to mention this is propaganda. The Wochenschau is very similar and more famous than the French alter ego. Take the same Wochenschau after Stalingrad and you have something similar. I'd bet my Breakfast the BBC broadcasted a very similar document that day. Morale had to be kept high at any cost (including hiding what could not be said) . I have magazines from mid June with a similar content. (so when the outcome was obvious) .

 

Good point Skipper - I have tried to find 23rd May news for the BBC but without success so far.

 

One reason that news is harder to find could be the fact that in 1940 The British actually retained a lot of info rather than altering the truth like the Germans and the French . Two examples comes to mind : the sinking of the Lancastria and the bombing of the soldier train in Britanny (killing up to 2.000 men) . On the other hand I cannot imagine some news not being published that day .

 

The LAA unit at 15 seconds is 52 LAA Regiment.

The Dragon shortly after is from 20 Anti-Tank Regiment

And finally at 26 seconds is 2 Medium Regiment.

All of that BEF footage was taken on or around the 10th May when the BEF moved into Belgium.

 

Excellent information, that means the news is in fact 13 days old, so I wouldn't be surprised the French scenes are old news too.

 

Didn't understand a word, well most of 'em anyway, but the pictures was purdy!

 

In fact it depicts the state of mind of May 10th and tells the allies will win because France is ready the BEF is there and the USA , though neutral are allied in their minds and will supply material. Only the third point, which those days was the most uncertain, appeared to be true after all.

 

Impressive stuff Drew.


At the beginning there is reference to De Gaulle taking over command in Syria - was that true? If so, when did it happen.

 

I'm not all that up on my French 1940 type stuff but I'm sure the Americans were supplying the French before 10th May. IIRC they delivered a shed load of aircraft (Fighters) before the balloon really went up.

 

No idea about De Gaulle I'm afraid - I'm a BEF man more than the French side of things. I know he was lucky to escape France according to Spears and that where my knowledge stops.

We've ID'd those vehicles on WW2Talk. Some are in Peter Taghon's book Mai 40 but most of our BEF vehicle identifications come from a few files me and another member found in BEF war diaries at Kew. The other member published a book with all of the known unit ID numbers in called Vehicle Markings of the BEF by Andrew Foulkes.

 

It's Weygand , not de Gaulle. Weygand was recalled from Syria on May 17th and took over command in France on May 19th. We see his departure on the documentary . So the news isn't that old actually. The trouble is that Weygand had little information regarding the situation and cancelled Gamelin's orders . He decided to go up north to check for himself. that took time and that's precisely what he did not have.