Imbued with Spirit



On this date in nineteen hundred and forty

As British planes bombed German factories

France signed a treaty with the Third Reich

Essentially, turning over all left of its might



Allowing absorption of the country and its people

Into a greater gathering dominated by body lethal

A strong-arming - engineered by Nazi overseers ...

Who clearly were multi-faced, and brutal puppeteers



Announcing on a railway coach car in Compiegne 

Huntziger protested he was signing under strain

But hoped Germany would be imbued with spirit

Enabling both their nations to be at peace with it



And Keitel acknowledged Huntziger's declaration

By making reference to the fact they were nations ...

At war ... and that there was honor to be bestowed

Upon the vanquished ... a phrase spoken quite low 



Looking back ... with absolute awe, on this reflection

It is incomprehensible today why these confections

Were not seen then as just so much cotton candy

Sweet to taste, but a mass of colored hot air, dandy



- Tristram



© Christopher W. Thomas

8:50pm Tuesday, June 22nd, 1999



The Plenipotentiaries:



For France:

General Charles Huntziger (a German born in Alsace)

Also present: Admiral Maurice Leluc, Leon Noel, and

Air General Jean Marie Bergeret.



For Germany:

Colonel General Wilhelm Keitel

Also present: General Jodl, General von Tippelskirch

and Dr. Paul Schmidt (Foreign Office interpreter)