On 15 June Reynaud resigned and Philippe Pétain became Prime Minister. On 14 June the French government left Tours and fled to Bordeaux, : 49 Wehrmacht troops entered Paris. On 13 June Paris was declared an open city and a meeting of the Anglo-French Supreme War Council with Churchill and the French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud was taking place in Tours, on the Loire. A further air raid at nearby Souzay took place on 13 June. On 8/9 June there was an air raid against Saumur railway station, which killed three people. In the first week of June 1940, in accordance with instructions by General Maxime Weygand to delay German Wehrmacht army units, Colonel Michon issued contingency orders for the cadets to take up defensive positions along the southern bank of the Loire, not that there was any likelihood of Germans getting to the Loire. Modern map of the vicinity of Saumur (commune FR insee code 49328) Since the battle occurred after the message by Marshal Pétain which called for an end to fighting (on 17 June 1940), the event is often considered one of the first acts of the French Resistance. For two days the Cavalry School, and other assorted units which had fallen back before the German Wehrmacht advance, held off a German attack. The Battle of Saumur occurred during the last stages of the Battle of France during World War II, when officer cadets from the Cavalry School at Saumur, led by superintendent Colonel Charles Michon, made a defensive stand along the Loire River at Saumur, Gennes, and Montsoreau.
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