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The Second Army (French: IIe Armée) was a field army of the French Army during World War I and World War II. [1] The Army became famous for fighting the Battle of Verdun in 1916 under Generals Philippe Pétain and Robert Nivelle.
French infantry pushing through enemy barbed wire, 1915. During World War I, France was one of the Triple Entente powers allied against the Central Powers.Although fighting occurred worldwide, the bulk of the French Army's operations occurred in Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Alsace-Lorraine along what came to be known as the Western Front, which consisted mainly of trench warfare.
The 1917 French Army mutinies took place amongst French Army troops on the Western Front in northern France during World War I. They started just after the unsuccessful and costly Second Battle of the Aisne , the main action in the Nivelle Offensive in April 1917.
Gazier (troupes aéroportées): Airborne troops "grunt". Friendly nickname. Marsouin (literally "porpoise"; marines or naval infantry) Poilu (infanterie): "Hairy one". A term that appeared during the First Empire and used to refer to the French soldiers as they often wore a beard and/or a moustache—and were represented that way on memorials.
The French reception of the Tirailleurs Sénégalais during World War II and in the immediate postwar years was complex and shaped by a mix of wartime necessity and entrenched racial stereotypes. While the Tirailleurs Sénégalais made significant contributions to France’s military efforts, particularly during the First and Second World Wars ...
French cavalry during World War I played a relatively minor role in events. As mounted combatants proved highly vulnerable to the firepower of infantry and artillery , the various units of this arm essentially carried out auxiliary missions during the " Great War " (from 1914 to 1919), even if the beginning of the conflict corresponded to its ...
Following World War II, many French-speaking former German soldiers joined the Foreign Legion to pursue a military career, an option no longer possible in Germany, including French German soldiers of Malgré-nous. It would have been considered problematic if the men from Alsace-Lorraine had not spoken French. These French-speaking former German ...
In World War II the number reached fourteen. [13] The zouave regiments raised in 1914 for the First World War were the 8th and 9th. The 13th Zouaves were raised in 1919 and dissolved in 1940. The zouave regiments raised in 1939 for the Second World War were the 11th, 12th, 14th, and 21st, all of which were dissolved after the fall of France in ...