FRENCH FORCES FIGHT ON

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23051, 20 June 1940, Page 7

FRENCH FORCES FIGHT ON

Germans Continue Advance COUNTER-ATTACKS REPORTED

(UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION —COPYRIGHT.) (Received June 19, 9 p.m.)

LONDON, June 18,

A French radio to-day announced that the Prime Minister (Marshal Retain) had issued an order of the day ordering all Franch and Allied forces on land, sea, and in the air to continue to fight as long as an armistice was not signed.

The French radio announcer said: “It is necessary to wait for news with calm sangfroid. The French people are not prepared, and never will be prepared, to accept anything but an honourable peace.” 1 The French radio said that the battle was continuing, and four French armies were still holding out against very strong enemy pressure. The Maginot Line was intact, but some regrouping of units was being carried out. It was difficult to give a picture of the fighting, taut the Germans were holding the north bank othe Loire south from Tours. The French had counter-attacked German troops trying to cross the Loire with serious losses. “It is reported , that the stronglyarmed city of Bethune fell to enemy detachments this afternoon. An important four-mile railway tunnel in the Juras has beep blown up. Th e eastern end of the tunnel is in Switzerland, and the tunnel is on the direct line of the Paris express.” It is suggested that General Weygand plans to pin the eastern wing of his new line on the southern Jura mountains. „ . . The latest news of the fighting is given in a communique issued By the French General Staff. It says that the enemy, in the course of violent fighting, succeeded in advancing deeply into Brittany and Normandy, One column has reached Cherbourg. Between the Loire and the Vosges German forces have reached Orleans, and advanced in mass towards Jura. Fighting continues in Lorraine and Alsace, where French troops are holding the enemy. , , A French radio announcer referred to Mr Churchill’s tribute to the French Army. Similar tributes have been paid to the French in neutral countrThe Basle correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain states that further Maginot Line- fortress troops, numbering about 500,000. to-day escaped from the Germans in an Al-sace-Lorraine trap to join the French Army of the south. Refugees declare that German motorised units occupied the French fortress city of Vesoul. An aggregate of 0000 French soliders are reported to have been interned in Switzerland after crossing the frontier. - A German High Command communique states: “The military collapse of France continues rapidly. We crossed the river Orne between Gaen and Lemans and reached the Loire above Orleans as far as Nevcrs and south-east of there. “We are also advancing in the Maginot Line region. The Germans captured the fortresses'of Dijon and Belfort, and occupied Le Creusot, where the principal French arms factory has fallen into German hands. More than 100,000 prisoners and full equipment, and many divisions and fortresses have been captured. “On June 17 our air force attacked the Rennes railway station, where entire trains were blown up and troops panicked. Our air force also made the greatest attack since the outbreak of the war against enemy transport ships at the mouth of the Loire. A large tonnage was destroyed or damaged, including two transports of 30,000 tons each, partly loaded. Nine ships were sunk and others burnt out or capsized as a result of the explosions.”

According to a message received in Cairo from Beirut, the French Commander in Syria (General Mittelhauser) has issued an order that the fight was being continued. There is no official confirmation of this.