France signs the armistice at Compiègne

1940 · Event

Hitler stages the surrender in the same railway carriage, on the same spot, where Germany signed in 1918 — then has the carriage hauled to Berlin and the site dynamited. France is cut in two, its army reduced to a token force and its captured soldiers kept as prisoners of war, its fleet's fate left ominously open. Britain now stands alone.

On these timelines: 1940: Britain's Darkest Hour, World War II, France, Master, Germany

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