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The Battle of France (French: bataille de France; 10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign (German: Westfeldzug), the French Campaign (Frankreichfeldzug, campagne de France) and the Fall of France, during the Second World War was the German invasion of the Low Countries (Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) and France.
The Timeline of the Battle of France, also known as the Fall of France, covers the period during World War II from the first military actions between Germany and France and to the armistice signed by France. Over the period of six weeks, from May 10 to June 25, 1940, Nazi Germany had also
German forces fought and defeated new French armies in northern France, then besieged Paris for over four months before it fell on 28 January 1871, effectively ending the war. In the final days of the war, with German victory all but assured, the German states proclaimed their union as the German Empire under the Prussian king Wilhelm I and ...
France had lots of armed forces in World War II, in part due to the German occupation. In 1940, General Maurice Gamelin commanded the French Army, headquartered in Vincennes on the outskirts of Paris. It consisted of 117 divisions, with 94 committed to the northeastern front and a commander, General Alphonse Georges, at La Ferte-sous-Jouarre.
The extreme shortage of petrol and diesel fuel. France had no indigenous oil production and all imports had stopped. Labour shortages, particularly in the countryside, due to the large number of French prisoners of war held in Germany, and the Service du travail obligatoire. Rationing tickets for the French population, July 1944.
[42] On 19 July 1870 "Le Sourd, the French Chargé d'Affaires, delivered Napoleon's declaration of war at the Foreign Office" in Berlin. [43] According to the secret treaties signed with Prussia and in response to popular opinion, Bavaria, Baden, and Württemberg mobilised their armies and joined the war against France. [44]
In France, French Prime Minister Daladier withheld information until the last moment, then presented the cabinet a fait accompli in September 1938 over the Munich Agreement, to avoid discussion over whether Britain would follow France into war or if the military balance was really in Germany's favour or how significant it was.
Adolf Hitler (hand on hip) looking at the statue of Ferdinand Foch before starting the negotiations for the armistice at Compiègne, France (21 June 1940) Ferdinand Foch ' s railway car, at the same location as after World War I, prepared by the Germans for the second armistice at Compiègne, June 1940