Reynaud now realised that the German offensive could not be halted and suggested that the government should move to territories it owned in North Africa. Paul Reynaud and his government now left the French capital and moved to Tours. Now clearly outnumbered, the troops were forced to withdraw to the Loire. The French Army tried to hold the line along the Somme and the Aisne. All heavy equipment was abandoned and left in France. Of these 140,000 were members of the French Army. Between May 27 and June 4, 1940, a total of 693 ships brought back 338,226 people back to Britain. Winston Churchill now ordered the implementation of Operation Dynamo, a plan to evacuate of troops and equipment from the French port of Dunkirk, that had been drawn up by General John Gort, the Commander in Chief of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). Except for a counterattack by 4th Armoured Division led by Charles De Gaulle, at Montcornet (May 17) and Laon (May 27 to 29) the German forces encountered very little resistance.

German forces led by Paul von Kliest, Erwin Rommel, Heinz Guderian and Gerd von Rundstedt advanced towards the Channel. Seven panzer divisions reached the Meuse River at Dinant on May 12 and the following day the French government was forced to abandon Paris. The French military had wrongly believed that the Ardennes was impassable to tanks. Belgium was also invaded and the French 7th Army moved forward to help support the Dutch and Belgian forces. The 9th Panzer Division, using its Blitzkreig strategy, advanced quickly into the Netherlands. The ultimate objective was to reach the Channel coast and to force the French government to surrender.Īdolf Hitler gave his approval to the Manstein Plan on February 17, 1940, but it was not activated until the May 10. The Manstein Plan, as it became known, included a attack through southern Belgium that avoided the Maginot Line. In 1939, the Germans devised a plan to inflict a major defeat on the French Army in northern France. One could see that the buyer loved the painting he paid the price of passion,' said Mr Ottavi.īritish prisoners of war captured at Dunkirk, France, in June 1940 walk dejectedly up a hill near a German fortification Finally it went under the hammer for £1.78million, a world record for the artist. The starting price for the painting was £253,000 but it rocketed as ten bidders vyed for the historic work. He finally found a reference to the work in a book by the artist's widow, which said it was painted in 1898 when Miss de Florian was 24. 'We had the link and I was sure at that moment that it was indeed a very fine Boldini'. When Mr Choppin-Janvry found a visiting card with a scribbled love note from Boldini, he knew he had struck gold. 'No reference book dedicated to Boldini mentioned the tableau, which was never exhibited,' said Marc Ottavi, the art specialist he consulted about the work. The expert had a hunch the painting was by Boldini, but could find no record of the painting. Marthe de Florian was an actress with a long list of ardent admirers whose fervent love letters she kept wrapped neatly in ribbon and were still on the premises.Īmong the admirers was the 72nd prime minister of France, George Clemenceau, but also Boldini. Pictured here, German officers and Parisians mingle near a sidewalk cafe on the Champs Elysees on Bastille Day in 1940 Mrs de Florian fled Paris before the outbreak of war in 1939, which saw the Nazis invade France and reach Paris on June 14.

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