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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.
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.
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'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 ...
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
Almost all major warships of the Regia Marina escaped Italy and were available for Italy after the end of World War II. [39] [40] France had to rebuild its whole navy after the war. [32] Most of the French light cruisers were salvaged by the Italians, either to restore them as fighting ships or for scrap.
France has encouraged military cooperation at an EU level, starting with the formation of the Franco-German Brigade in 1987 and Eurocorps in 1992, based in Strasbourg. In 2009 a battalion of German light infantry was moved to Alsace, the first time German troops had been stationed in France since the Nazi occupation of World War II.
France, 1940: Blitzkrieg in the West. Oxford: Osprey. ISBN 978-0-85045-958-6. Shirer, William L. (1969) The Collapse of the Third Republic: An Inquiry into the Fall of France in 1940 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1969). Weinberg, Gerhard (1994). A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II. London: Cambridge University Press.