While a convoy of ministerial cars drives toward the Loire, which it will reach early in the morning, Gen Héring, the Military Governor of Paris, summons the Prefects of the Seine and of Police to notify them that they are now under his command, and to inform them the 'the captial will be defended to the last'.

Gen Héring's task, however, is too much for one man. It entails:

• 1. Commanding the Paris Army, which consists in the main of units from the 7th and 10th Armies, though to these have now been added a few units that have not yet been in action and that form a shield north of the capital, stretching from Pointoise to the Ourcq and passing through Czeil and La Ferté-Milon;
• 2. Maintaining law and order within the capital, and the defense of the city proper.

He dispatches Gen de Lanurien to Gen Weygand's GHQ in Briare, to point out the he 'could not devote himself to the organization and command of an improvised army, which might have to pull out at any moment and whose left flank is seriously threatened, and at the same time retain responsibility for the military government of Paris'.

Along the Channel coast, north of the mouth of the Seine, events are taking a disastrous turn. The western portion of Altmayer's 10th Army, whose southward retreat has been cut off by the swift movement of Rommel's armor the day before, now has its back to the sea. The Allied forces in this area, under Gen Marcel Ihler, commander of the IX Army Corps, consisting of elements of the British 51st Division (Gen Fortune), the 31st and 41st Alpine Infantry Divisions, remnants of the 2nd and 5th Light Cavalry Divisions and part of the 13th Battalion of Chasseurs Alpins, which have been flung into the Battle of France immediately upon its return from Namsos in Norway. Of the 60,000-odd men encircled, only about 20,000 (most of them forward elements of the British 51st Division) are to reach freedom via Le Havre or the ferries across the Lower Seine.

About noon the 7th Panzer Division sets out from Veulettes, with the panzer regiment and part of the 6th Fusiliers, and starts northward up the coast toward Saint-Valery-en-Caux. It runs into fairly stiff British resistance near Le Tô.

Dieppe harbor, which has become useless, had been abandoned without a fight during the hours of darkness. Adm James, C-in-C Portsmouth, and Adm Platon, Commander of the Normandy sectors, are striving to organize a naval evacuation from Saint-Valery-en-Caux.

Here, the units that Gen Ihler had taken over are forming a square with their backs to the sea, the British in line facing west, the French facing south and east. This evacuation, however, is thwarted by a heavy mist, the highly unfavorable geography of the place and the fact that Rommel has very swiftly managed to install heavy guns upon the cliffs from which they are battering Saint-Valery harbor and the beaches.

From the cliff tops, Rommel has a clear view of the situation in and around Saint-Valery. He can see the British troops moving about among the harbor installations; others, equipped with guns and vehicles, are in the northern part of the town. The intensive bombardment continues throughout the afternoon. Toward evening Rommel sends truce-bearers, suggesting a surrender timed for 9pm. Gen Ihler refuses.

While these disorganized 10th Army units are thus fighting for every inch of ground with their backs to the sea, a meeting is being held in the Château du Muguet, Gen Weygand's residence, 6 miles from Briare, where GHQ has now been installed. The Commander-in-Chief is examining the position with Gen Georges. The news that had reached him during the night and in the early morning was very grave.

In the west the Germans have crossed the Seine at several points, including Elbeuf, Saint-Pierre du Vauvray, Les Andelys and Vernon. The slender barrier that the High Command has tried to form along the Lower Seine has been pierced through and through: it had held for less than 24 hours.

East of Paris the situation is no less alarming. The German columns that had reached the Ourcq on June 9th are now on the banks of the Marne between Château-Thierry and Jaulgonne. The encirclement of Paris is taking shape.

The position most critical of all, however, is in the Champagne region. While von Rundstedt's forces are continuing to exert intense pressure along the whole of the 4th Army front and against the left of the 2nd Army, a great mass of tanks, belonging to von Kleist's Panzer Group, has poured toward Rheims. Simultaneously another column, proceeding through Braisne and Fismes, is approaching the town from the west. Caught in this pincer movement, Rheims falls a few hours later.

Still further east the 1st, 2nd, 6th and 8th Panzer Divsisions as well as the 29th and 20th Motorized Infantry Divisions composing Guderian's Panzer Group, are advancing along a front reaching from the Marne, near Épernay, to the Argonne. This is the start of an exploiting maneuver on a grand scale, aimed at the encirclement of the French units in the fortified sector.

To hold the new positions between the sea and Longuyon the French are now left with the equivalent of about thirty standard divisions or about half the number put into line at the start of the battle on June 5th. Also, there is no possibility of relief since all the reserves have been thrown in.

Events have made Gen Georges's schemes for keeping German armor out of the Champagne region an impossible task. Secret and Personal Instruction No 115 had been outstripped by events before ever it could be put into operation.

Gens Weygand and Georges take the view that there are only two possible solutions:

• 1. Either cling to the fortified position, so long as resources allow, and pull back the forces round the Montmédy bridgehead, thus forming a pivot on which to maneuver;
• 2. Or else abandon the fortified position and attempt a unified retreat covering the heart of the country.

The advantage of the first solution is that it conserves to the very last a front solidly buttressed by the fortifications of the Maginot Line, but it abandons almost the whole country to the enemy and leaves the army with no prospect other than that of capitulating in the east, in the Vosges, or along the Swiss frontier.

The second solution, difficult to put into practice, can only lead to the Allied line being cut into small pieces. It does afford a certain amount of hope, however, that the bulk of our forces may not have to capitulate.

It is the second solution that is finally adopted. The plan for the maneuver, laid down in Personal and Secret Instruction No 1444/f.t.3, aims to guarantee the protection of the heart of the country for as long as possible while the required withdrawal is going on, and at the same time to maintain the Armies' cohesion.

The Instruction stipulated that if the Lower Seine-Paris position-Marne line were broken, the armies will fall back along the general routes given below:

• 3rd Group of Armies (Gen Besson):
• 10th Army: Rouen-Argentan.
• Paris Army: Orléans.
• 7th Army: Paris-Orléans.
• 4th Group of Armies (Gen Huntziger):
• 6th Army: Châllons-sur-Marne
• 4th Army: Troyes
• 2nd Army: Nevers
• 2nd Group of Armies (Gen Prételat):
• 3rd Army: Sarrebourg
• 5rh Army: Épinal
• 8th Army: Dijon

'The High Command was not blind to the fact that it would be very hard to maintain contact between the armies during the maneuver,' writes Roton. 'It might be possible for the forces in the center, firmly linked at the outset along the Paris position, to retain cohesion, but the same could not be said for the 10th Army, whose mission would take it farther and farther from the general line of withdrawal.

'For the armies on the right, which would have to compete in speed with the enemy thrust that had started in the Champagne region and was moving southeastward, the difficulties would be ever greater.'

As a result Gen Weygand, alive to the many problems posed by a retreat carried out in such conditions, gives Gen Georges strict orders to put Personal and Secret Instruction No 1444 into effect only on receipt of a further communication. This will become necessary soon enough. For in the evening a weighty mass of armor belonging to Guderian's Group crosses the Suippe at Bétheniville. This hammer blow, aimed almost at the center of its position, compels the whole of the 4th Group of Armies to retreat southward. Gen Huntziger orders his army commanders to do everything in their power to dig in along the following line:

• 6th Army (Touchon): along the Marne, from the Ourcq to Damery.
• 4th Army (Réquin): along the line Montagne de Reims-Monts de Champagne-Somme-Py-Monthois.
• 2nd Army (Freydensberg): along the line Grandpr&acure;-Dun-sur-Meuse.

Nothing to report on the Alpine front. The RAF carries out a sortie over northern Italy and bombed Turin.