London gives in

As it was, initially the British did not see the need for any local troops. Notwithstanding the rapid fall of Poland to the Germans in the first month of the war, the British and French forces were, prior to May 1940, lulled into a false sense of security behind the massive defences of the Maginot Line in France.

The German’s lightening advance through France in May-June 1940 thus came as a severe shock. On the 22nd of June 1940 the French capitulated, by which time the British army had been evacuated home in complete defeat.