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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.
17-18 May: Antwerp and Brussels would fall to Germany; the Allies were forced to retreat to the coastline of France. 20 May: General Maxime Weygand replaces General Maurice-Gustave Gamelin as supreme Allied commander due to major losses across France.
It was created by the Armistice of 22 June 1940 after the fall of France in May 1940. The path of the demarcation line was specified in the Articles of the Armistice. It was also called the green line because it was marked green on the joint map produced at the Armistice Convention. [1]
Axis occupation of France: German occupation of France during World War II - 1940–1944 in the northern zones, and 1942–1944 in the southern zone. The Holocaust in France. Italian occupation of France during World War II - limited to border areas 1940–1942, almost all Rhône left-bank territory 1942-1943.
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.
For the historian Éric Alary, [6] the partitioning of France into two main zones, libre and occupée, was partly inspired by the fantasy of pan-Germanist writers, particularly a work by a certain Adolf Sommerfeld, published in 1912 and translated into French under the title Le Partage de la France, which contained a map [7] showing a France partitioned between Germany and Italy according to a ...
France's colonial empire at the start of World War II stretched from territories and possessions in Africa, the Middle East (Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon), to ports in India, Indochina, the Pacific islands, and territories in North and South America. France retained control of its colonial empire, and the terms of the armistice shifted the ...
German soldiers parade on the Champs Élysées on 14 June 1940 (Bundesarchiv) The city of Paris started mobilizing for war in September 1939, when Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union attacked Poland, but the war seemed far away until May 10th 1940, when the Germans attacked France and quickly defeated the French army.