ROYAL NAVY DESTROYS FRENCH FLEET
Mers-el-Kébir, French Algeria • July 3, 1940 On June 22 and 23, 1940, representatives of the new French prime minister, Marshal Philippe Pétain, signed armistices with emissaries from Adolf Hitler’s Germany and Benito Mussolini’s Italy. Article 8 of the Franco-German armistice permitted the defeated French nation, headquartered after July 1 in the spa town of Vichy, to…