The 7th Panzer Division was an armored formation of the German Army in World War II.It participated in the Battle of France, the invasion of the Soviet Union, the occupation of Vichy France, and on the Eastern Front until the end of the war. Any of you guys can recommend a 'realistic' tactical/strategical game covering the invasion of France 1940? It should contain both air and ground forces elements. Even better if it also incorporated the period of the 'phoney war'. Same for the period after the French capitulation - Battle of Britain/Sealion. Panzer Campaigns France '40 Look for John Tiller and HPS to produce a new game – the first of a new series covering WWII at a different scale than has been done before. This title is the first of a several part series that will cover the entire war.
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Aug 4, 2018 - join Hitler's war against France, Great Britain, and Poland. Des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom, vol. 75 (Tiibingen: Max. The combat power of German Panzer and Panzergrenadier divisions increased dramatically as. 1940 had marked the beginning of the North African campaign.
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British Crusader tank passes a German Panzer IV tank during Operation Crusader, November 1941 | |||||||||
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Allies British Empire
United States[nb 1] Free France
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The North African Campaign of the Second World War took place in North Africa from 10 June 1940 to 13 May 1943. It included campaigns fought in the Libyan and Egyptian deserts (Western Desert Campaign, also known as the Desert War) and in Morocco and Algeria (Operation Torch), as well as Tunisia (Tunisia Campaign).
The campaign was fought between the Allies, many of whom had colonial interests in Africa dating from the late 19th century, and the Axis Powers.[12][13] The Allied war effort was dominated by the British Commonwealth and exiles from German-occupied Europe. The United States officially entered the war in December 1941 and began direct military assistance in North Africa on 11 May 1942.
Fighting in North Africa started with the Italian declaration of war on 10 June 1940. On 14 June, the British Army's 11th Hussars (assisted by elements of the 1st Royal Tank Regiment, 1st RTR) crossed the border from Egypt into Libya and captured the Italian Fort Capuzzo. This was followed by an Italian counter-offensive into Egypt and the capture of Sidi Barrani in September 1940 and again in December 1940 following a British Commonwealth counteroffensive, Operation Compass. During Operation Compass, the Italian 10th Army was destroyed and the GermanAfrika Korps—commanded by Erwin Rommel, who later became known as 'The Desert Fox'—was dispatched to North Africa in February 1941 during Operation Sonnenblume to reinforce Italian forces in order to prevent a complete Axis defeat.
A fluctuating series of battles for control of Libya and regions of Egypt followed, reaching a climax in the Second Battle of El Alamein in October 1942 when British Commonwealth forces under the command of Lieutenant-GeneralBernard Montgomery inflicted a decisive defeat on Rommel's Afrika Korps and forced its remnants into Tunisia. After the Anglo-American landings (Operation Torch) in North-West Africa in November 1942, and subsequent battles against Vichy France forces (who then changed sides), the Allies encircled several hundred thousand German and Italian personnel in northern Tunisia and finally forced their surrender in May 1943.
Operation Torch in November 1942 was a compromise operation that met the British objective of securing victory in North Africa while allowing American armed forces the opportunity to engage in the fight against Nazi Germany on a limited scale.[14] In addition, as Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, had long been pleading for a second front to be opened to engage the Wehrmacht and relieve pressure on the Red Army, it provided some degree of relief for the Red Army on the Eastern Front by diverting Axis forces to the North African theatre. Over half the German Ju 52 transport planes that were needed to supply the encircled German and Romanian forces at Stalingrad were tied up supplying Axis forces in North Africa.[15]
Information gleaned via British Ultra code-breaking intelligence proved critical to Allied success in North Africa. Victory for the Allies in this campaign immediately led to the Italian Campaign, which culminated in the downfall of the fascist government in Italy and the elimination of Germany's main European ally.
- 4Intelligence
- 7Notes
Western Desert Campaign[edit]
The Italian Empire in November 1942
On 10 May 1940, the Wehrmacht had started the Battle of France (or Westfeldzug). One month later, it was clear that France would have to surrender within two weeks (the Armistice at Compiègne took place on 22 June 1940).
On 10 June 1940, the Kingdom of Italy aligned itself with Nazi Germany and declared war upon France and the United Kingdom.[16] British forces (along with Indian and Rhodesian troops) based in Egypt were ordered to undertake defensive measures, but to act as non-provocatively as possible.[17] However, on 11 June they began a series of raids against Italian positions in Libya.[18] Following the defeat of France on 25 June, Italian forces in Tripolitania—facing French troops based in Tunisia—redeployed to Cyrenaica to reinforce the Italian Tenth Army.[19] This, coupled with the steadily degrading equipment of the British forces led General Archibald Wavell to order an end to raiding and placed the defence of the Egyptian border on a small screening force.[20]
Italian dictator Benito Mussolini ordered the Tenth Army to invade Egypt by 8 August. Two days later, no invasion having been launched, Mussolini ordered Marshal Graziani that, the moment German forces launched Operation Sea Lion, he was to attack.[21] On 8 September, the Italians—hampered by the lack of transport and enfeebled by the low level of training among officers and weakened by the state of its supporting arms[19] – were ordered to invade Egypt the following day. The battle plan was to advance along the coastal road, while limited armoured forces operated on the desert flank.[20] To counter the Italian advance, Wavell ordered his screening forces to harass the advancing Italians, falling back towards Mersa Matruh, where the main British infantry force was based. Positioned on the desert flank was the 7th Armoured Division, which would strike the flank of the Italian force.[22][23]
By 16 September, the Italian force had advanced to Maktila, around 80 mi (130 km) west of Mersa Matruh, where they halted due to supply problems.[24] Despite Mussolini urging that the advance carry on, Graziani ordered his force to dig in around Sidi Barrani, and fortified camps were established in forward locations; additional troops were also positioned behind the main force.[25] In response to the dispersed Italian camps, the British planned a limited five-day attack, Operation Compass, to strike at these fortified camps one by one.[26][27] The British Commonwealth force, totalling 36,000 men,[28] attacked the forward elements of the 10-division-strong Italian army on 9 December.[29] Following their initial success, the forces of Operation Compass[30] pursued the retreating Italian forces.[31] In January, the small port at Bardia was taken,[32] soon followed by the seizure of the fortified port of Tobruk.[33]Some 40,000 Italians were captured in and around the two ports, with the remainder of the Tenth Army retreating along the coast road back to El Agheila. Richard O'Connor sent the 7th Armoured Division across the desert, with a small reconnaissance group reaching Beda Fomm some ninety minutes before the Italians, cutting off their retreat. Although desperate attempts were made to overcome the British force at the Battle of Beda Fomm, the Italians were unable to break through, and the remnants of the retreating army surrendered. Thus, over the course of 10 weeks Allied forces had destroyed the Italian Tenth Army and reached El Agheila, taking 130,000 prisoners of war in the process.[34][35][36]
A British Matilda Mk II named 'Glenorchy' of Maj K.P. Harris, MC, commander of 'D' Squadron, 7th Royal Tank Regiment during Operation Compass displaying an Italian flag captured at Tobruk, 24 January 1941
Mussolini requested help from his German ally while the Italian Comando Supremo speedily sent several large motorized and armoured forces to protect their colonies in North Africa.[37] This greatly expanded reinforcement included the soon to be renowned Ariete Armoured division under General Ettore Baldassarre.[38] Meanwhile, the Germans hastily assembled a motorized force, whose lead elements arrived in Tripoli in February. This relatively small expeditionary force, termed the Afrika Korps by Hitler, was placed under the command of Erwin Rommel. His orders were to reinforce the Italians and block Allied attempts to drive them out of the region.[39][40] However, the initial commitment of only one panzer division and subsequently, no more than two panzer and one motorized divisions, indicated the limited extent of German involvement and commitment in this theater of operations.[38] The bulk of the reinforcements were Italian and therefore it was up to the Italians to do the bulk of the fighting. The forward Allied force—now named XIII Corps—adopted a defensive posture and over the coming months was built up, before having most of its veteran forces redeployed to Greece. In addition, the 7th Armoured Division was withdrawn to the Nile delta.[41][42][43] The veteran forces were replaced by inexperienced forces, ill-equipped to face German armour.[44]
Italian generals Ugo Cavallero and Ettore Bastico discussing the war at an Italian air base in Libya 1942
British Crusader tanks moving to forward positions during Operation Crusader, 26 November 1941
Although Rommel had been ordered to simply hold the line, an armoured reconnaissance soon became a full-fledged offensive from El Agheila in March 1941.[39][40] In March–April, the Allied forces were forced back [45] and leading general officers captured. The Australian 9th Infantry Division fell back to the fortress port of Tobruk,[46] and the remaining British and Commonwealth forces withdrew a further 100 mi (160 km) east to the Libyan–Egyptian border.[47] With Tobruk under siege from the main Italian-German force, a small battlegroup continued to press eastwards. Capturing Fort Capuzzo and Bardia in passing, it then advanced into Egypt, and by the end of April had taken Sollum and the tactically important Halfaya Pass. Rommel garrisoned these positions, reinforcing the battle-group and ordering it onto the defensive.[48][49]
Though isolated by land, Tobruk's garrison continued to receive supplies and replacements, delivered by the Royal Navy at night. Rommel's forces did not have the strength or training to take the fortress. This created a supply problem for his forward units. His front-line positions at Sollum were at the end of an extended supply chain that stretched back to Tripoli and had to bypass the coast road at Tobruk. Further, he was constantly threatened by a breakout of the British forces at Tobruk.[50] Without Tobruk in Axis hands, further advances into Egypt were impractical.[51][52]
The Allies soon launched a small-scale counter-attack called Operation Brevity. This was an attempt to push the Axis forces off the key passes at the border, which gained some initial success, but the advanced position could not be held. Brevity was then followed up by a much larger-scale offensive, Operation Battleaxe. Intended to relieve the siege at Tobruk, this operation also failed.
Following the failure of Operation Battleaxe, Archibald Wavell was relieved of command and replaced by Claude Auchinleck. The Western Desert Force was reinforced with a second corps, XXX Corps, with the two corps forming the Eighth Army. Eighth Army was made up of army forces from the Commonwealth nations, including the British Army, the Australian Army, the British Indian Army, the New Zealand Army, the South African Army, and the Sudan Defence Force. There was also a brigade of Free French under Marie-Pierre Koenig. The new formation launched a new offensive, Operation Crusader, in November 1941. After a see-saw battle, the 70th Division garrisoning Tobruk was relieved and the Axis forces were forced to fall back. By January 1942, the front line was again at El Agheila.
Commonwealth prisoners captured by Italian and German forces in 1941.
After receiving supplies and reinforcements from Tripoli, the Axis attacked again, defeating the Allies at Gazala in June and capturing Tobruk. The Axis forces drove the Eighth Army back over the Egyptian border, but their advance was stopped in July only 90 mi (140 km) from Alexandria in the First Battle of El Alamein.
Of great significance, on 29 June reports of British military operations in North Africa sent to Washington by the US Military Attaché in Cairo Bonner Fellers stopped using the compromised 'Black Code' which the Axis were reading, so ceasing the Axis learning of British 'strengths, positions, losses, reinforcements, supply, situation, plans, morale etc' which they had enjoyed since 1940.
General Auchinleck, although he had checked Rommel's advance at the First Battle of El Alamein, was replaced by General Harold Alexander. Lieutenant-General William Gott was promoted from XIII Corps commander to take command of the entire Eighth Army, but he was killed when his aircraft was intercepted and shot down over Egypt. He was replaced by Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery.
At the end of June, the Axis forces made a second attempt to break through the Allied defences at El Alamein at Alam Halfa, but were unsuccessful. After a lengthy period of build-up and training, the Eighth Army launched a major offensive, decisively defeating the Italian-German army during the Second Battle of El Alamein in late October 1942, driving the Axis forces westward and capturing Tripoli in mid-January 1943. By February, the Eighth Army was facing the Italian-German Panzer Army near the Mareth Line and came under command of General Harold Alexander's 18th Army Group for the concluding phase of the war in North Africa, the Tunisia Campaign.
Operation Torch[edit]
American troops on board a Landing Craft Assault heading into Oran, November 1942
Operation Torch started on 8 November 1942, and finished on 11 November. In an attempt to pincer German and Italian forces, Allied forces (American and British Commonwealth), landed in Vichy-held French North Africa under the assumption that there would be little to no resistance. Nevertheless, Vichy French forces put up a strong and bloody resistance to the Allies in Oran and Morocco, but not in Algiers, where a coup d'état by the French resistance on 8 November succeeded in neutralizing the French XIX Corps before the landing and arresting the Vichy commanders. Consequently, the landings met no practical opposition in Algiers, and the city was captured on the first day along with the entire Vichy African command. After three days of talks and threats, Generals Mark Clark and Dwight Eisenhower compelled the Vichy Admiral François Darlan (and General Alphonse Juin) to order the cessation of armed resistance in Oran and Morocco by French forces on 10–11 November with the provision that Darlan would be head of a Free French administration. During Operation Torch, American, Vichy French and German navy vessels fought the Naval Battle of Casablanca, ending in an American victory.
The Allied landings prompted the Axis occupation of Vichy France (Case Anton). In addition, the French fleet was captured at Toulon by the Italians, something which did them little good as the main portion of the fleet had been scuttled to prevent their use by the Axis. The Vichy army in North Africa joined the Allies (see Free French Forces).[53]
Tunisian Campaign[edit]
Following the Operation Torch landings, (from early November 1942), the Germans and Italians initiated a buildup of troops in Tunisia to fill the vacuum left by Vichy troops which had withdrawn. During this period of weakness, the Allies decided against a rapid advance into Tunisia while they wrestled with the Vichy authorities. Many of the Allied soldiers were tied up in garrison duties because of the uncertain status and intentions of the Vichy forces.
Tiger 712 of the 501st heavy tank battalion was surrendered to the US and subsequently transferred to the United States Army Armor & Cavalry Museum[54]
By mid-November, the Allies were able to advance into Tunisia but only in single division strength. By early December, the Eastern Task Force—which had been redesignated as the British First Army under Lieutenant-GeneralKenneth Anderson—was composed of the British 78th Infantry Division, British 6th Armoured Division, 1st Parachute Brigade, No. 6 Commando and elements of US 1st Armored Division. But by this time, one German and five Italian divisions had been shipped from Europe and the remoteness of Allied airfields from the front line gave the Axis clear air superiority over the battlefield. The Allies were halted and pushed back having advanced eastwards to within 30 kilometres (19 mi) of Tunis.
During the winter, there followed a period of stalemate during which time both sides continued to build up their forces. By the new year, the British First Army had one British, one US and one French Corps (a second British Corps headquarters was activated in April). In the second half of February, in eastern Tunisia, Rommel and von Arnim had some successes against the mainly inexperienced French and US troops, most notably in routing the US II Corps commanded by Major GeneralLloyd Fredendall at the Battle of Kasserine Pass.
By the beginning of March, the British Eighth Army—advancing westward along the North African coast—had reached the Tunisian border. Rommel and von Arnim found themselves in an Allied 'two army' pincer. They were outflanked, outmanned and outgunned. The British Eighth Army bypassed the Axis defence on the Mareth Line in late March and First Army in central Tunisia launched their main offensive in mid-April to squeeze the Axis forces until their resistance in Africa collapsed. The Axis forces surrendered on 13 May 1943 yielding over 275,000 prisoners of war. The last Axis force to surrender in North Africa was the 1st Italian Army.[55] This huge loss of experienced troops greatly reduced the military capacity of the Axis powers, although the largest percentage of Axis troops escaped Tunisia. This defeat in Africa led to all Italian colonies in Africa being captured.
Intelligence[edit]
Axis[edit]
A German Signals reception unit in the desert
The Axis had considerable success in intelligence gathering through radio communication intercepts and monitoring unit radio traffic. The most important success came through intercepting the reports of Colonel Bonner Fellers, the US military attaché in Egypt. He had been tasked by General George Marshall with providing detailed reports on the military situation in Africa.[56] Fellers talked with British military and civilian headquarters personnel, read documents and visited the battlefront. Known to the Germans as 'die gute Quelle' (the good source) or more jokingly as 'the little fellow', he transmitted his reports back to Washington using the 'Black Code' of the US State Department. However, in September 1941, the Italians had stolen a code book containing the Black Code, photographed it and returned it to the US embassy in Rome.[57] The Italians shared parts of their intercepts with their German allies. In addition the 'Chiffrierabteilung' (German military cipher branch) were soon able to break the code. Fellers' reports were very detailed and played a significant role in informing the Germans of allied strength and intentions between January and June 1942.
An Italian M13/40 tank belonging to the Ariete Armoured Division
In addition, the Italian Servizio Informazioni Segrete or SIS code-breakers were able to successfully intercept much radio encrypted signals intelligence (SIGINT) from British aircraft traffic as well as first-class ciphers from British vessels and land bases, providing Supermarina (Regia Marina) with timely warnings of Allied intentions in the Mediterranean.[58] Indeed, so successful was the Italian SIS in handling the bulk of Axis naval intelligence in the Mediterranean, that 'Britain's offensive use of SIGINT was largely negated by Italy's defensive SIGINT.'[59]
The Afrika Korps had the intelligence services of the 621st Signals Battalion mobile monitoring element which arrived in North Africa in late April 1941,[60] commanded by Hauptmann Alfred Seeböhm. The 621st Signals Battalion monitored radio communications among British units.[56] Unfortunately for the Allies, the British not only failed to change their codes with any frequency, they were also prone to poor radio discipline in combat. Their officers made frequent open, uncoded transmissions to their commands, allowing the Germans to more easily identify British units and deployments.[56] The situation changed after a counterattack during the Battle of Gazala resulted in the 621st Signals Battalion being overrun and destroyed, and a number of their documents captured, alerting British intelligence to the problem.[61] The British responded by instituting an improved call signal procedure, introducing radiotelephonic codes, imposing rigid wireless silence on reserve formations, padding out real messages with dummy traffic, tightening up on their radio discipline in combat and creating an entire fake signals network in the southern sector.[61]
Allies[edit]
Colossus Mark II computer at Bletchley Park
Allied codebreakers read much enciphered German message traffic, especially that encrypted with the Enigma machine. The Allies' Ultra programme was initially of limited value, as it took too long to get the information to the commanders in the field, and at times provided information that was less than helpful.[62] In terms of anticipating the next move the Germans would make, reliance on Ultra sometimes backfired. Part of the reason the initial German attacks in March 1941 were so successful was that Ultra intercepts had informed Wavell that OKW had clearly directed Rommel not to take any offensive action, but to wait until he was further reinforced with the 15th Panzer Division in May.[63] Rommel received this information, but placed more value on his own assessment of the situation. Trusting that the Germans had no intention of taking major action, the British command did not respond until it was too late.[64] Furthermore, Rommel did not generally provide OKW or the Italian Comando Supremo details of his planned operations, for he thought the Italians too prone to leak the information. Thus on 21 January 1942, when Rommel struck out on his second offensive from El Agheila, Commando Supremo was just as surprised to learn of it as the British were.[65] Ultra intercepts provided the British with such information as the name of the new German commander, his time of arrival, and the numbers and condition of the Axis forces, but they might not correctly reveal Rommel's intentions.
The primary benefit of Ultra intercepts to the effort in North Africa was to aid in cutting the Axis supply line to Tunisia. Ultra intercepts provided valuable information about the times and routes of Axis supply shipments across the Mediterranean. This was critical in providing the British with the opportunity to intercept and destroy them. During the time when Malta was under heavy air attack, the ability to act on this information was limited, but as Allied air and naval strength improved, the information became instrumental to Allied success. It is estimated that 40% to 60% of Axis supply shipping was located and destroyed due to decrypted information.[66][67] However, this claim is strongly disputed by the authors Vincent P. O'Hara and Enrico Cernuschi (2013) who claim that authors like F.H. Hinsley have greatly exaggerated the effects of ULTRA. For example, they claim that intelligence provided by ULTRA had little impact in stopping Italian convoys reaching North Africa. Of the 2.67 million tons of materiel, fuel, and munitions shipped to Africa — nearly all in Italian vessels and under Italian escort — 2.24 million tons managed to arrive despite the best efforts of ULTRA and the British Navy to prevent it.[68] In effect, 'Ultra did not deny the Axis armies the supplies they needed to reach the Nile.' [59]
Heavy losses of German paratroopers in Crete, made possible by Ultra warnings of the drop times and locations, meant that Hitler hesitated in attacking Malta,[69] which aided the British in gaining control of the Mediterranean, as did the losses of the Italian Navy at the Battle of Cape Matapan.[70] To conceal the fact that German coded messages were being read, a fact critical to the overall Allied war effort, British command required a flyover mission be carried out before a convoy could be attacked in order to give the appearance that a reconnaissance flight had discovered the target.
Aftermath[edit]
Wehrmacht fuel barrel in Tunisia, 2010
After victory by the Allies in the North African Campaign, the stage was set for the Italian Campaign to begin. The invasion of Sicily followed two months later. Nearly 400,000 Axis and Allied troops were either lost, injured, or died of disease by the end of the North African Campaign.
See also[edit]
- Timeline of World War II in 1940 / 1941 / 1942 / 1943
Notes[edit]
Footnotes[edit]
- ^ abcd1942–43.
- ^ abcd8–11 November 1942. Vichy officially pursued a policy of armed neutrality and conducted military actions against armed incursions from Axis and Allied belligerents. The pledging of allegiance of the Vichy troops in French North Africa to the Allies convinced the Axis that Vichy could not be trusted to continue this policy, so they invaded and occupied the French rump state (Case Anton)
- ^ abDarlan joined the Allies in November 1942, ordering the French Army of Africa to cease fire and unite with the Free French, and became High Civilian and Military Commissioner in French North Africa. He was assassinated on 24 December 1942.
- ^Historian Giorgio Rochat wrote:
Considering that about 100,000 Italian prisoners were taken in East Africa and that prisoners taken by the Americans were mainly in Sicily, the total is around 340,000–350,000.[citation needed]Sono circa 400.000 i prigionieri fatti dagli inglesi in Etiopia e in Africa settentrionale, 125.000 presi dagli americani in Tunisia e in Sicilia, 40.000 lasciati ai francesi in Tunisia ('There were about 400,000 prisoners made by the British in North Africa and in Ethiopia, 125,000 taken by the Americans in Tunisia and Sicily, 40,000 by the French in Tunisia')[8] - ^During Operation Torch only (8–16 November 1942).
Citations[edit]
- ^Carell, p. 597
- ^Zabecki, North Africa
- ^Cartier, Raymond. La Seconde Guerre Mondiale, vol4: 1943-Juin1944 [The Second World War, vol4: 1943-June1944]. Press Pocket. p. 40.
- ^Playfair, Volume IV, p. 460. United States losses from 12 November 1942
- ^Atkinson, p. 536
- ^Roma: Instituto Centrale Statistica' Morti E Dispersi Per Cause Belliche Negli Anni 1940–45 Roma 1957
- ^Colin F. Baxter. 'The War in North Africa, 1940–1943: A Selected Bibliography'. 1996. Page 38. 500,000 prisoners are listed as being taken in North Africa, East Africa, and Sicily; as 150,000 POWs were taken in the Allied invasion of Sicily, and about 100,000 in East Africa, this would leave ~250,000 to be taken in North Africa; 130,000 during Operation Compass, and 120,000 afterwards.
- ^Rochat, Giorgio. Le guerre italiane 1935–1943. Dall'impero d'Etiopia alla disfatta [The Italian Wars 1935–1943. From the Ethiopian Empire until defeat]. Einaudi. p. 446.
- ^Carell, p. 596
- ^Barclay, Mediterranean Operations
- ^Porch, Douglas: 'The Path to Victory: The Mediterranean Theater in World War II', 2004, p. 415.
- ^'Military Operations in North Africa'. www.ushmm.org. Retrieved 25 May 2017.
- ^Boundless (12 January 2017). 'The North African Front'. Boundless.
- ^Wilmott, H.P. p.
- ^Joel S.A. Hayward, Stopped at Stalingrad; The Luftwaffe and Hitler's Defeat in the East, 1942–1943, University Press of Kansas, 1998, p. 248; see also the effect on German bomber strength at Stalingrad, p. 219.
- ^Playfair, p. 109
- ^Playfair, p. 41
- ^Churchill, p. 371
- ^ abMacksey, p. 25
- ^ abMacksey, p. 38
- ^Macksey, p. 35
- ^Macksey, p. 40
- ^Playfair (2004), pp.209–210
- ^Macksey, p. 47
- ^Macksey, p. 68
- ^Wavell 'No. 37628'. The London Gazette (1st supplement). 25 June 1946. p. 3261.
- ^Playfair pp. 260–261, 264
- ^Bauer (2000), p.95
- ^Playfair p. 267
- ^Mead, p. 331
- ^Playfair p 271
- ^Playfair, pp. 286–287
- ^Dunn, Jimmy. 'World War II's Opening Salvoes in North Africa'. Tour Egypt.
- ^Playfair, p. 358
- ^'Fall of Bengasi'. Time Magazine (17 February 1941). 17 February 1941. Retrieved 17 December 2007.
- ^Wavell in 'No. 37628'. The London Gazette (1st supplement). 25 June 1946. p. 3268.
- ^Bauer, p.121
- ^ abWalker, Ian W. (2003). Iron Hulls Iron Hearts. Trowbridge: The Crowood Press. p. 67. ISBN978-1-86126-646-0.
- ^ abJentz, p. 82
- ^ abRommel, p. 109
- ^Playfair (1954), p. 289
- ^Playfair (1956), p. 2
- ^Jentz, p. 85
- ^Playfair (1956), pp. 2–5
- ^Playfair (1956), pp. 19–40
- ^Latimer, pp. 43–45
- ^Playfair (1956), pp. 33–35
- ^Playfair (1956), p. 160
- ^Jentz, pp. 128–129, 131
- ^Latimer, pp. 48–64
- ^Playfair (1956), p. 41
- ^Jentz, p. 128
- ^See Operation Torch#Resistance and coup
- ^'AFTA Tiger I Page'. armorfortheages.com. Retrieved 28 September 2016.
- ^Walker 2006, p. 193
- ^ abcWil Deac (12 June 2006). 'Intercepted Communications for Field Marshal Erwin Rommel'. World War II Magazine.
- ^Lewin p. 251
- ^Vincent P. O'Hara and Enrico Cernuschi, 2013, p.119.
- ^ abVincent P. O'Hara and Enrico Cernuschi, 2013, p.135
- ^Forty 1998, pp. 97 and 148.
- ^ abLewin p. 252
- ^'Intelligence in North Africa' Quote:Protection of the top secret Ultra source meant that the distribution of Ultra was extremely slow and by the time it had reached the relevant commander it was often out of date and therefore at best useless and at worst dangerously mis-leading.
- ^Verlauf März 1941.In: Der Feldzug in Afrika 1941–1943 (deutsches-afrikakorps.de). Abgerufen am 24. November 2009. Quote: Schuld an dieser Einschätzung sind die Enigma Berichte, aus denen Wavell ersehen kann, dass Rommel lediglich den Auftrag hat, die Syrte-Front zu stabilisieren, und dass sein wichtigster Verband, die 15. Panzerdivision, noch nicht in Afrika eingetroffen ist. Translated: The responsibility for this assessment are the Enigma reports, which can be seen from Wavell that Rommel only has a mandate to stabilize the Sirte front, and that his most important unit, the 15th Panzer Division, has not yet arrived in Africa.
- ^Lewin p. 33 Quote: On 30 March Wavell signalled, 'I do not believe he can make any big effort for another month.'
- ^Lewin pp. 99–101 Quote from Rommel's diary: I had maintained secrecy over the Panzer Group's forthcoming attack eastwards from Mersa el Brega and informed neither the Italian nor the German High Command. We knew from experience that Italian Headquarters cannot keep things to themselves and that everything they wireless to Rome gets round to British ears. However, I had arranged with the Quartermaster for the Panzer Group's order to be posted in every Cantoniera in Tripolitinia on 21 January ...
- ^Kingsly, Sir Harry 'The Influence of ULTRA in the Second World War'Archived 22 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine
- ^Hinsley, Francis Harry (1993), British intelligence in the Second World War, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN978-0-521-44304-3
- ^Vincent P. O'Hara and Enrico Cernuschi, 2013. p.118
- ^''Intelligence in North Africa''. topedge.com. Retrieved 28 September 2016.
- ^Hinsley, F.H.; Stripp, Alan, eds. (1993), Codebreakers: The inside story of Bletchley Park (OU Press paperback ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN978-0-19-280132-6 p 3
References[edit]
- Atkinson, Rick (2004) [2002]. An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942–1943. Abacus. ISBN0-349-11636-9.
- Barclay, Brigadier C. N. 'Mediterranean Operations'. GI – World War II Commemoration. Archived from the original on 21 January 1997. Retrieved 8 September 2010.
- Bauer, Eddy (2000) [1984]. The history of World War II (Revised and updated ed.). Great Britain: Silverdale. ISBN978-1-85605-552-9.
- Carell, Paul (1960). Le volpi del deserto. 1941–1943: le armate italo-tedesche in Africa settentrionale [The wolves of the desert. 1941 – 1943: the Italo-German armies in North Africa]. New York: Bantam.
- Forty, George (1998). The Armies of Rommel. London: Arms and Armour Press. ISBN978-1-85409-379-0.
- Jentz, Thomas L. (1998). Tank Combat In North Africa: The Opening Rounds, Operations Sonnenblume, Brevity, Skorpion and Battleaxe, February 1941 – June 1941. Schiffer Publishing. ISBN0-7643-0226-4.
- Keegan, John (2001). Oxford Companion to World War II. Oxford University Press. ISBN0-19-280666-1.
- Lewin, Ronald (1998) [1968]. Rommel As Military Commander. New York: B&N Books. ISBN978-0-7607-0861-3.
- O'Hara, Vincent; Cernushi, Enrico (Summer 2013). 'The Other Ultra: Signal Intelligence and the Battle to Supply Rommel's Attack toward Suez'. Naval War College Review. 66 (3): 117–138.
- Playfair, Major-General I.S.O.; and Molony, Brigadier C.J.C.; with Flynn R.N., Captain F.C. & Gleave, Group Captain T.P. (2004) [1st. pub. HMSO 1966]. Butler, J.R.M (ed.). The Mediterranean and Middle East, Volume IV: The Destruction of the Axis Forces in Africa. History of the Second World War United Kingdom Military Series. Uckfield, UK: Naval & Military Press. ISBN1-84574-068-8.
- Walker, Ian (2006). Iron Hulls, Iron Hearts: Mussolini's Elite Armoured Divisions in North Africa. Ramsbury: Crowood. ISBN1-86126-839-4.
- Willmott, H.P. (1984). June, 1944. Poole, Dorset: Blandford Press. ISBN0-7137-1446-8.
- Zabecki, David T. (2007). 'North Africa (1940–1943)'. The War. PBS. Retrieved 8 September 2010.
External links[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to North African campaign. |
- The Jews of North Africa and the Holocaust an e-Newsletter for Holocaust educators by Yad Vashem
- General sites on the North African Campaign
- John, Paul (1997). 'World War II Study – Case Study North Africa'.
- Zabecki, David T. (2000). 'Battlefield North Africa: Rommel's Rise And Fall'. Military.com World War II.
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=North_African_Campaign&oldid=900608882'
La France Libre | |||||||
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1940–1944 | |||||||
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Status | Government in exile, provisional government over unoccupied and liberated territories | ||||||
Capital | Brazzaville (1940–1943) Algiers (1943–1944) London (Seat of the French National Committee) | ||||||
Religion | Secular state | ||||||
Leader | |||||||
Historical era | World War II | ||||||
• de Gaulle's appeal | 18 June 1940 | ||||||
3 June 1943 | |||||||
• Transition into the Provisional Government of the French Republic | 3 June 1944 | ||||||
ISO 3166 code | FR | ||||||
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Timeline |
Free France and its Free French Forces (French: France Libre and Forces françaises libres) were the government-in-exile led by Charles de Gaulle during the Second World War and its military forces, that continued to fight against the Axis powers as one of the Allies after the fall of France. Set up in London in June 1940, it organised and supported the Resistance in occupied France.
Charles de Gaulle, a French government minister who had rejected the armistice concluded by Marshal Philippe Pétain and escaped to Britain, exhorted the French to resist in his BBC broadcast 'Appeal of 18 June' (Appel du 18 juin), which had a stirring effect on morale throughout France and its colonies, although initially relatively few French forces responded to de Gaulle's call for resistance.
On 27 October 1940, the Empire Defense Council (Conseil de défense de l'Empire [fr]) was constituted to organise the rule of the territories in central Africa, Asia and Oceania that had heeded the 18 June call. It was replaced on 24 September 1941 by the French National Committee (Comité national français or CNF). On 13 July 1942, 'Free France' was officially renamed France combattante ('Fighting France'), to mark that the struggle against the Axis was conducted both externally by the FFF and internally by the French Forces of the Interior (FFI). After the reconquest of North Africa, this was in turn formally merged with de Gaulle's rival general Henri Giraud's command in Algiers to form the French Committee of National Liberation (Comité français de Libération nationale or CFNL). Exile officially ended with the liberation of Paris by the 2nd Armoured Free French Division and Resistance forces on 25 August 1944, ushering in the Provisional Government of the French Republic (gouvernement provisoire de la République française or GPRF). It ruled France until the end of the war and afterwards to 1946, when the Fourth Republic was established, thus ending the series of interim regimes that had succeeded the Third Republic after its fall in 1940.
The Free French fought Axis and Vichy regime troops and served on battlefronts everywhere from the Middle East to Indochina and North Africa. The Free French Navy operated as an auxiliary force to the Royal Navy and, in the North Atlantic, to the Royal Canadian Navy.[1] Free French units also served in the Royal Air Force, Soviet Air Force, and British SAS, before larger commands were established directly under the control of the government-in-exile.
From colonial outposts in Africa, India, and the Pacific, Free France steadily took over more and more Vichy possessions, until after the Allied landings in North Africa (Operation Torch) in November 1942 Vichy only ruled over the zone libre in southern France and a few possessions in the West Indies (and nominally over Japanese-occupied French Indochina). The French Army of Africa switched allegiance to Free France, and this caused the Axis to occupy Vichy in reaction.
On August 1, 1943, L'Armée d'Afrique was formally united with the Free French Forces to form L'Armée française de la Liberation [fr]. By mid-1944, the forces of this army numbered more than 400,000, and they participated in the Normandy landings and the invasion of southern France, eventually leading the drive on Paris. Soon they were fighting in Alsace, the Alps and Brittany. By the end of the war, they were 1,300,000 strong—the fourth-largest Allied army in Europe—and took part in the Allied advance through France and invasion of Germany. The Free French government re-established a provisional republic after the liberation, preparing the ground for the Fourth Republic in 1946.
- 2History
- 3Struggle for control of the French colonies
- 4First successes
- 5Liberation of France
- 6Provisional republic and the war against Germany and Japan
- 10References
Definition[edit]
Historically, an individual became 'Free French' by enlisting in the military units organised by the CFN or by employment by the civilian arm of the Committee. On 1 August 1943 after the merger of CFN and representatives of the former Vichy regime in North Africa to form the CFLN earlier in June, the FFF and the Armée d'Afrique (constituting a major part of the Vichy regular forces allowed by the 1940 armistice) were merged to form the French Liberation Army, Armée française de la Libération [fr], and all subsequent enlistments were in this combined force.
In many sources, Free French describes any French individual or unit that fought against Axis forces after the June 1940 armistice. Postwar, to settle disputes over the Free French heritage, the French government issued an official definition of the term. Under this 'ministerial instruction of July 1953' (instruction ministérielle du 29 juillet 1953), only those who served with the Allies after the Franco-German armistice in 1940 and before 1 August 1943 may correctly be called 'Free French'.[2]
History[edit]
Prelude[edit]
Charles de Gaulle was an armoured division commander and a minister in the Reynaud government during the Battle of France.
On 10 May 1940, Nazi Germany invaded France and the Low Countries, rapidly defeating the Dutch and Belgians, while armoured units attacking through the Ardennes cut off the Franco-British strike force in Belgium. By the end of May, the British and French northern armies were trapped in a series of pockets, including Dunkirk, Calais, Boulogne, Saint-Valery-en-Caux and Lille. The Dunkirk evacuation was only made possible by the resistance of these troops, particularly the French army divisions at Lille.[3]
From 27 May to 4 June, over 200,000 members of the British Expeditionary Force and 140,000 French troops were evacuated from Dunkirk.[4] Neither side viewed this as the end of the battle; French evacuees were quickly returned to France and many fought in the June battles. After being evacuated from Dunkirk, Alanbrooke landed in Cherbourg on 2 June to reform the BEF, along with the 1st Canadian Division, the only remaining armoured unit in Britain. Contrary to what is often assumed, French morale was higher in June than May and they easily repulsed an attack in the south by Fascist Italy. A defensive line was re-established along the Somme but much of the armour was lost in Northern France; they were also crippled by shortages of aircraft, the vast majority incurred when airfields were over-run, rather than air combat.[5]
On 1 June, Charles de Gaulle was promoted brigadier general; on 5 June, Prime Minister Paul Reynaud appointed him Under Secretary of State for Defence, a junior post in the French cabinet.[6] De Gaulle was known for his willingness to challenge accepted ideas; in 1912, he asked to be posted to Pétain's regiment, whose maxim 'Firepower kills' was then in stark contrast to the prevailing orthodoxy.[7] He was also a long-time advocate of the modern armoured warfare ideas applied by the Wehrmacht, and commanded the 4th Armoured Division at the Battle of Montcornet.[8] However, he was not personally popular; significantly, none of his immediate military subordinates joined him in 1940.[9]
The new French commander Maxime Weygand was 73 years old and like Pétain, an Anglophobe who viewed Dunkirk as another example of Britain's unreliability as an ally; de Gaulle later recounted he 'gave up hope' when the Germans renewed their attack on 8 June and demanded an immediate Armistice.[10] De Gaulle was one of a small group of government ministers who favoured continued resistance and Reynaud sent him to London in order to negotiate the proposed union between France and Britain. When this plan collapsed, he resigned on 16 June and Pétain became President of the Council.[11] De Gaulle flew to Bordeaux on 17th but returned to London the same day when he realised Pétain had already agreed an armistice with the Axis Powers.[8]
De Gaulle rallies the Free French[edit]
In Occupied France during the war, reproductions of the 18 June appeal were distributed through underground means as pamphlets and plastered on walls as posters by supporters of the Résistance. This could be a dangerous activity.
On 18 June, General de Gaulle spoke to the French people via BBC radio, urging French soldiers, sailors and airmen to join in the fight against the Nazis:
- 'France is not alone! She is not alone! She has a great empire behind her! Together with the British Empire, she can form a bloc that controls the seas and continue the struggle. She may, like England, draw upon the limitless industrial resources of the United States'.[8]
Some members of the British Cabinet had reservations about de Gaulle's speech, fearing that such a broadcast could provoke the Pétain government into handing the French fleet over to the Nazis,[12] but British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, despite his own concerns, agreed to the broadcast.
In France, de Gaulle's 'Appeal of 18 June' (Appel du 18 juin) was not widely heard that day but, together with his BBC broadcasts[13] in subsequent days and his later communications, came to be widely remembered throughout France and its colonial empire as the voice of national honour and freedom.
Armistice[edit]
On the 19 of June, de Gaulle again broadcast to the French nation saying that in France, 'all forms of authority had disappeared' and since its government had 'fallen under the bondage of the enemy and all our institutions have ceased to function', that it was 'the clear duty' of all French servicemen to fight on.[14]
This would form the essential legal basis of de Gaulle's government in exile, that the armistice soon to be signed with the Nazis was not merely dishonourable but illegal, and that in signing it, the French government would itself be committing treason.[14] On the other hand, if Vichy was the legal French government as some such as Julian T. Jackson have argued, de Gaulle and his followers were revolutionaries, unlike the Dutch, Belgian, and other governments in exile in London.[15] A third option might be that neither considered that a fully free, legitimate, sovereign, and independent successor state to the Third Republic existed following the Armistice, as both Free France and Vichy France refrained from making that implicit claim by studiously avoiding using the word 'republic' when referring to themselves,[citation needed] even though republicanism had been a core ideological value and central tenet of the French state ever since the French Revolution—and especially since the Franco-Prussian War. In Vichy's case those reasons were compounded with ideas of a Révolution nationale about stamping out France's republican heritage.
On 22 June 1940, Marshal Pétain signed an armistice with Germany, followed by a similar one with Italy on 24 June; both of these came into force on 25 June.[16] After a parliamentary vote on 10 July, Pétain became the leader of the newly established authoritarian regime known as Vichy France, the town of Vichy being the seat of government. De Gaulle was tried in absentia in Vichy France and sentenced to death for treason.[17] He, on the other hand, regarded himself as the last remaining member of the legitimate Reynaud government and considered Pétain's assumption of power to be an unconstitutional coup d'état.
Beginnings of the Free French forces[edit]
Emile Fayolle, pilot of the Free French Air Force, during the Battle of Britain.[18]
Despite de Gaulle's call to continue the struggle, few French forces initially pledged their support. By the end of July 1940, only about 7,000 soldiers had joined the Free French Army in England.[19][20] Three-quarters of French servicemen in Britain requested repatriation.[21]
France was bitterly divided by the conflict. Frenchmen everywhere were forced to choose sides, and often deeply resented those who had made a different choice.[22] One French admiral, René-Émile Godfroy, voiced the opinion of many of those who decided not to join the Free French forces, when in June 1940, he explained to the exasperated British why he would not order his ships from their Alexandria harbour to join de Gaulle:
- 'For us Frenchmen, the fact is that a government still exists in France, a government supported by a Parliament established in non-occupied territory and which in consequence cannot be considered irregular or deposed. The establishment elsewhere of another government, and all support for this other government would clearly be rebellion'.[22]
Equally, few Frenchmen believed that England could stand alone. In June 1940, Pétain and his generals told Churchill that 'in three weeks, England will have her neck wrung like a chicken'.[23] Of France's far-flung empire, only the Franco-British ruled New Hebrides condominium in the Pacific answered on July 20 De Gaulle's call to arms. It was not until late August that Free France would gain significant support in French Equatorial Africa.[24]
Unlike the troops at Dunkirk or naval forces at sea, relatively few members of the French Air Force had the means or opportunity to escape. Like all military personnel trapped on the mainland, they were functionally subject to the Pétain government: 'French authorities made it clear that those who acted on their own initiative would be classed as deserters, and guards were placed to thwart efforts to get on board ships'.[25] In the summer of 1940, around a dozen pilots made it to England and volunteered for the RAF to help fight the Luftwaffe.[26][27] Many more, however, made their way through long and circuitous routes to French territories overseas, eventually regrouping as the Free French Air Force.[28]
The French Navy was better able to immediately respond to de Gaulle's call to arms. Most units initially stayed loyal to Vichy, but about 3,600 sailors operating 50 ships around the world joined with the Royal Navy and formed the nucleus of the Free French Naval Forces (FFNF; in French: FNFL).[20] France's surrender found her only aircraft carrier, Béarn, en route from the United States loaded with a precious cargo of American fighter and bomber aircraft. Unwilling to return to occupied France, but likewise reluctant to join de Gaulle, Béarn instead sought harbour in Martinique, her crew showing little inclination to side with the British in their continued fight against the Nazis. Already obsolete at the start of the war, she would remain in Martinique for the next four years, her aircraft rusting in the tropical climate.[29]
Composition[edit]
Initially at least, the Free French forces were drawn mostly from the French colonial empire, rather than from metropolitan France. French nationals from the tropical African colonies formed a large part of the recruited forces at the beginning, as did nationals from French Algeria following Operation Torch in 1942. Many combatants were drawn from the native populations of French colonies. Natives of Senegal, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and other former French African colonies made up a large portion of the French forces, around 56% of the army at the time of Operation Dragoon in August 1944 (134,000 Algerians, 73,000 Moroccans, 26,000 Tunisians and 80,000 men from colonies in black Africa). Additionally, 176,000 men were Pied-Noir, French European settlers in North Africa, 50,000 men were from mainland France (15,000 had escaped France through Spain) and 13,000 Corsicans.[30][31][32] From September 1944 onward, the number of men recruited from metropolitan France dramatically increased. In late September 1944, most African soldiers were replaced by young recruits of the French Forces of the Interior to better deal with the cold weather. Bolstered by rapid recruitment from metropolitan France, the number of troops rose from around 560,000 in the summer of 1944 to 1 million by the end of the year and eventually 1.3 million by April 1945.
The Free French forces included men from the French Pacific Islands. Mainly coming from Tahiti, there were 550 volunteers in April 1941. They would serve through the North African campaign (including the Battle of Bir Hakeim), the Italian Campaign and much of the Liberation of France. In November 1944, 275 remaining volunteers were repatriated and replaced with men of French Forces of the Interior to better deal with the cold weather.[33]
The Free French forces also included 5,000 Non-French Europeans, mainly serving in units of the Foreign Legion. There were also escaped Spanish Republicans, veterans of the Spanish Civil War. In August 1944, they numbered 350 men.[34]
The ethnic composition of divisions varied. The main common difference, before the period of August to November 1944, was armoured divisions and armour and support elements within infantry divisions were constituted of mainly white French soldiers and infantry elements of infantry divisions were mainly made up of colonial soldiers. Nearly all NCOs and officers were white French. Both the 2e Division Blindée and 1er Division Blindée were made up of around 75% Europeans and 25% Mahgrebians which is why the 2e Division Blindée was selected for the Liberation of Paris.[35] The 5e Division Blindée was almost entirely made up of white Frenchmen.
Records for the Italian campaign show that both the 3rd Algerian Infantry Division and 2nd Moroccan Infantry Division were made up of 60% Mahgrebians and 40% Europeans while the 4th Moroccan Infantry Division was made up of 65% Mahgrebians and 35% Europeans.[36] The three North African divisions had one brigade of North African soldiers in each division replaced with a brigade of French Forces of the Interior in January 1945.[37] Both the 1st Free French Division and 9th Colonial Infantry Division contained a strong contingent of Tirailleurs Sénégalais brigades. The 1st Free French Division also contained a mixed brigade of French Troupes de marine and the Pacific island volunteers.[33] It also included the Foreign Legion Brigades. In late September and early October 1944, both the Tirailleurs Sénégalais brigades and Pacific Islanders were replaced by brigades of troops recruited from mainland France.[38] This was also when many new Infantry divisions (12 overall) began to be recruited from mainland France, including the 10th Infantry Division and many Alpine Infantry Divisions. The 3rd Armoured Division was also created in May 1945 but saw no combat in the war.
Panzer Campaings France 1940 Iso Download Pc
The Free French units in the Royal Air Force, Soviet Air Force, and British SAS were mainly composed of men from metropolitan France.
Additionally, according to French historian Jean-François Muracciole, between the creation of the Free French forces in the Summer 1940 and the merger with the Army of Africa in summer 1943, 73,100 men fought for Free France. This included 39,300 French (from metropolitan France and colonial settlers), 30,000 Colonial soldiers (mostly from Black Africa) and 3,800 foreigners.[39]
Cross of Lorraine[edit]
The Free French naval jack and French naval honour jack.
The argent rhomboid field is defaced with a gules Lorraine cross, the emblem of the Free French.
The argent rhomboid field is defaced with a gules Lorraine cross, the emblem of the Free French.
Capitaine de corvetteThierry d'Argenlieu[40] suggested the adoption of the Cross of Lorraine as a symbol of the Free French. This was chosen to recall the perseverance of Joan of Arc, patron saint of France, whose symbol it had been, the province where she was born, and now partially annexed into Alsace-Lorraine by the Third Reich, and as a response to the symbol of national-socialism, the Nazi swastika.[41]
In his general order No. 2 of 3 July 1940, Vice admiralÉmile Muselier, two days after assuming the post of chief of the naval and air forces of the Free French, created the naval jack displaying the French colours with a red cross of Lorraine, and a cockade, which also featured the cross of Lorraine. Modern ships that share the same name as ships of the FNFL—such as Rubis and Triomphant—are entitled to fly the Free French naval jack as a mark of honour.[citation needed]
The Free French Memorial, looking out over the Firth of Clyde.
A monument on Lyle Hill in Greenock, in the shape of the Cross of Lorraine combined with an anchor, was raised by subscription as a memorial to the Free French naval vessels which sailed from the Firth of Clyde to take part in the Battle of the Atlantic. It has plaques commemorating the loss of the Flower-class corvettesAlyssa and Mimosa, and of the submarine Surcouf.[42] Locally, it is also associated with the memory of the loss of the destroyer Maillé Brézé which blew up at the Tail of the Bank.
Mers El Kébir and the fate of the French Navy[edit]
After the fall of France, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill feared that, in German or Italian hands, the ships of the French Navy would pose a grave threat to the Allies. He therefore insisted that French warships either join the Allies or else adopt neutrality in a British, French, or neutral port. Churchill was determined that French warships would not be in a position to support a German invasion of Britain, though he feared that a direct attack on the French Navy might cause the Vichy regime to actively ally itself with the Nazis.[21]
A very modern Dunkerque-classbattleship battleship commissioned in 1937, Strasbourg was potentially a quite substantial threat to British control of the sealanes were she to fall into Axis hands.
Submarine Rubis. With 22 ships sunk (12 of them German men-of-war) on 22 operational patrols, she achieved the highest kill number of the FNFL.
On 3 July 1940, Admiral Marcel-Bruno Gensoul was provided an ultimatum by the British:
It is impossible for us, your comrades up to now, to allow your fine ships to fall into the power of the German enemy. We are determined to fight on until the end, and if we win, as we think we shall, we shall never forget that France was our Ally, that our interests are the same as hers, and that our common enemy is Germany. Should we conquer we solemnly declare that we shall restore the greatness and territory of France. For this purpose we must make sure that the best ships of the French Navy are not used against us by the common foe. In these circumstances, His Majesty's Government have instructed me to demand that the French Fleet now at Mers el Kebir and Oran shall act in accordance with one of the following alternatives;
(a) Sail with us and continue the fight until victory against the Germans.
(b) Sail with reduced crews under our control to a British port. The reduced crews would be repatriated at the earliest moment.
If either of these courses is adopted by you we will restore your ships to France at the conclusion of the war or pay full compensation if they are damaged meanwhile.
(c) Alternatively if you feel bound to stipulate that your ships should not be used against the Germans lest they break the Armistice, then sail them with us with reduced crews to some French port in the West Indies—Martinique for instance—where they can be demilitarised to our satisfaction, or perhaps be entrusted to the United States and remain safe until the end of the war, the crews being repatriated.
If you refuse these fair offers, I must with profound regret, require you to sink your ships within 6 hours.
Finally, failing the above, I have the orders from His Majesty's Government to use whatever force may be necessary to prevent your ships from falling into German hands.[43]
Gensoul's orders allowed him to accept internment in the West Indies,[44] but after a discussion lasting ten hours, he rejected all offers, and British warships commanded by Admiral James Somerville attacked French ships during the attack on Mers-el-Kébir in Algeria, sinking or crippling three battleships.[21] Because the Vichy government only said that there had been no alternatives offered, the attack caused great bitterness in France, particularly in the Navy (over 1,000 French sailors were killed), and helped to reinforce the ancient stereotype of perfide Albion. Such actions discouraged many French soldiers from joining the Free French forces.[22]
Despite this, some French warships and sailors did remain on the Allied side or join the FNFL later, such as the mine-laying submarine Rubis, whose crew voted almost unanimously to fight alongside Britain,[45] the destroyer Le Triomphant, and the then-largest submarine in the world, Surcouf. The first loss of the FNFL occurred on 7 November 1940, when the patrol boat Poulmic struck a mine in the English Channel.[46]
Most ships that had remained on the Vichy side and were not scuttled with the main French fleet in Toulon, mostly those in the colonies that had remained loyal to Vichy until the end of the regime through the Case Anton Axis invasion and occupation of the zone libre and Tunisia, changed sides then.
In November 1940, around 1,700 officers and men of the French Navy took advantage of the British offer of repatriation to France, and were transported home on a hospital ship traveling under the international Red Cross. This did not stop the Germans from torpedoing the ship, and 400 men were drowned.[47]
The FNFL, commanded first by Admiral Emile Muselier and then by Philippe Auboyneau and Georges Thierry d'Argenlieu, played a role in the liberation of French colonies throughout the world including Operation Torch in French north Africa, escorting convoys during the Battle of the Atlantic, in supporting the French Resistance in non-Free French territories, in Operation Neptune in Normandy and Operation Dragoon in Provence for the liberation of mainland France, and in the Pacific War.
In total[citation needed] during the war, around 50 major ships and a few dozen minor and auxiliary ships were part of the Free French navy. It also included half a dozen battalions of naval infantry and commandos, as well as naval aviation squadrons, one aboard HMS Indomitable and one squadron of anti-submarine Catalinas. The French merchant marine siding with the Allies counted over 170 ships.
Struggle for control of the French colonies[edit]
The gradual loss of all Vichy territory to Free France and the Axis by 1943. Legend.
With metropolitan France firmly under Germany's thumb and the Allies too weak to challenge this, de Gaulle turned his attention to France's vast overseas empire.
African campaign and the Empire Defence Council[edit]
De Gaulle was optimistic that France's colonies in western and central Africa, which had strong trading links with British territories, might be sympathetic to the Free French.[48]Pierre Boisson, the governor-general of French Equatorial Africa, was a staunch supporter of the Vichy regime, unlike Félix Éboué, the governor of French Chad, a subsection of the overall colony. Boisson was soon promoted to 'High Commissioner of Colonies' and transferred to Dakar, leaving Éboué with more direct authority over Chad. On 26 August, with the help of his top military official, Éboué pledged his colony's allegiance to Free France.[49] By the end of August, all of French Equatorial Africa (including the League of Nations mandate French Cameroun) had joined Free France, with the exception of French Gabon.[50]
A Chadian soldier fighting for Free France
With these colonies came vital manpower – a large number of African colonial troops, who would form the nucleus of de Gaulle's army. From July to November 1940, the FFF would engage in fighting with troops loyal to Vichy France in Africa, with success and failure on both sides.
In September 1940 an Anglo French naval force fought the Battle of Dakar, also known as Operation Menace, an unsuccessful attempt to capture the strategic port of Dakar in French West Africa. The local authorities were not impressed by the Allied show of strength, and had the better of the naval bombardment which followed, leading to a humiliating withdrawal by the Allied ships. So strong was de Gaulle's sense of failure that he even considered suicide.[51]
There was better news in November 1940 when the FFF achieved victory at the Battle of Gabon (or Battle of Libreville) under the very skilled General Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque (General Leclerc).[52] De Gaulle personally surveyed the situation in Chad, the first African colony to join Free France, located on the southern border of Libya, and the battle resulted in free French forces taking Libreville, Gabon.[53]
De Gaulle meeting Félix Éboué in Chad
By the end of November 1940 French Equatorial Africa was wholly under the control of Free France, but the failures at Dakar had led French West Africa to declare allegiance to Vichy, to which they would remain loyal until the fall of the regime in November 1942.
On 27 October 1940 the Empire Defence Council was established to organise and administrate the imperial possessions under Free French rule, and as an alternative provisional French government. It was constituted of high-ranking officers and the governors of the free colonies, notably governor Félix Éboué of Chad. Its creation was announced by the Brazzaville Manifesto that day. La France libre was what de Gaulle claimed to represent, or rather, as he put it simply, 'La France'; Vichy France was a 'pseudo government', an illegal entity.[54]
In 1941–1942, the African FFF slowly grew in strength and even expanded operations north into Italian Libya. In February 1941, Free French Forces invaded Cyrenaica, again led by Leclerc, capturing the Italian fort at the oasis of Kufra.[52] In 1942, Leclerc's forces and soldiers from the British Long Range Desert Group captured parts of the province of Fezzan.[52] At the end of 1942, Leclerc moved his forces into Tripolitania to join British Commonwealth and other FFF forces in the Run for Tunis.[52]
Asia and the Pacific[edit]
Insigna of the Free French Forces in the Far East (French Indochina), Langlade Mission
France also had possessions in Asia and the Pacific, and these far-flung colonies would experience similar problems of divided loyalties. French India and the French South Pacific colonies of New Caledonia, French Polynesia and the New Hebrides joined Free France in the summer 1940, drawing official American interest.[50] These South Pacific colonies would later provide vital Allied bases in the Pacific Ocean during the war with Japan.
French Indochina was invaded by Japan in September 1940, although for most of the war the colony remained under nominal Vichy control. On 9 March 1945, the Japanese launched a coup and took full control of Indochina.
From June 1940 until February 1943, the concession of Guangzhouwan (Kouang-Tchéou-Wan or Fort-Boyard), in South China, remained under the administration of Free France. The Republic of China, after the fall of Paris in 1940, recognised the London-exiled Free French government as Guangzhouwan's legitimate authority and established diplomatic relations with them, something facilitated by the fact that the colony was surrounded by the Republic of China's territory and was not in physical contact with French Indochina. In February 1943 the Imperial Japanese Army invaded and occupied the leased territory.[55]
North America[edit]
In North America, Saint-Pierre and Miquelon (near Newfoundland) joined the Free French after an 'invasion' on 24 December 1941 by Rear Admiral Emile Muselier and the forces he was able to load onto three corvettes and a submarine of the FNFL. The action at Saint-Pierre and Miquelon created a serious diplomatic incident with the United States, despite this being the first French possession in the Americas to join the Allies,[56] which doctrinally objected to the use of military means by colonial powers in the western hemisphere and recognised Vichy as the official French government.
Mainly because of this and of the often very frosty relations between Free France and the USA (with President Roosevelt's profound distrust of de Gaulle playing a key part in that, with him being firmly convinced that the general's aim was to create a South-American style junta and become the dictator of France[57]), other French possessions in the new world were among the very last to defect from Vichy to the Allies (with Martinique holding out until July 1943).
Syria and East Africa[edit]
The fall of Damascus to the Allies, late June 1941. A car carrying Free French commanders General Georges Catroux and General Paul Louis Le Gentilhomme enters the city, escorted by French Circassian cavalry (Gardes Tcherkess).
In 1941, the FFF fought alongside British Empire troops against the Italians in Italian East Africa during the East African Campaign.
In June 1941, during the Syria-Lebanon campaign (Operation Exporter), Free French Forces fighting alongside British Commonwealth forces faced substantial numbers of troops loyal to Vichy France – this time in the Levant. De Gaulle had assured Churchill that the French units in Syria would rise to the call of Free France, but this was not the case.[58] After bitter fighting, with around 1,000 dead on each side (including Vichy and Free French Foreign Legionnaires fratricide when the 13th Demi-Brigade (D.B.L.E.) clashed with the 6th Foreign Infantry Regiment near Damascus). General Henri Dentz and his Vichy Army of the Levant were eventually defeated by the largely British allied forces in July 1941.[58]
The British did not themselves occupy Syria; rather, the Free French General Georges Catroux was appointed High Commissioner of the Levant, and from this point, Free France would control both Syria and Lebanon until they became independent in 1946 and 1943 respectively. However, despite this success, the numbers of the FFF did not grow as much as has been wished for. Of nearly 38,000 Vichy French prisoners of war, just 5,668 men volunteered to join the forces of General de Gaulle; the remainder chose to be repatriated to France.[59]
Despite this bleak picture, by the end of 1941, the United States had entered the war, and the Soviet Union had also joined the Allied side, stopping the Germans outside Moscow in the first major reverse for the Nazis. Gradually the tide of war began to shift, and with it the perception that Hitler could at last be beaten. Support for Free France began to grow, though the Vichy French forces would continue to resist Allied armies—and the Free French—when attacked by them until the end of 1942.[60]
Creation of the French National Committee (CNF)[edit]
Reflecting the growing strength of Free France was the foundation of the French National Committee (Comité national français, CNF) in September 1941 and the official name change from France Libre to France combattante in July 1942.
The United States granted Lend-Lease support to the CNF on 24 November.[citation needed]
Madagascar[edit]
In June 1942, the British attacked the strategically important colony of French Madagascar, hoping to prevent its falling into Japanese hands and especially the use of Diego-Suarez's harbour as a base for the Imperial Japanese Navy. Once again the Allied landings faced resistance from Vichy forces, led by Governor-GeneralArmand Léon Annet. On 5 November 1942, Annet, at last, surrendered. As in Syria, only a minority of the captured Vichy soldiers chose to join the Free French.[61] After the battle, Free French general Paul Legentilhomme was appointed High Commissioner for Madagascar.[citation needed]
Battle of Bir Hakeim[edit]
The FFF's tenacious defense at Bir Hakeim prevented Rommel's attempted outflank at El Alamein from succeeding.
Throughout 1942 in North Africa, British Empire forces fought a desperate land campaign against the Germans and Italians to prevent the loss of Egypt and the vital Suez canal. Here, fighting in the harsh Libyan desert, Free French soldiers distinguished themselves. General Marie Pierre Koenig and his unit—the 1st Free French Infantry Brigade—resisted the Afrika Korps at the Battle of Bir Hakeim in June 1942, although they were eventually obliged to withdraw, as Allied forces retreated to El Alamein, their lowest ebb in the North African campaign.[62] Kœnig defended Bir Hakeim from 26 May to 11 June against superior German and Italian forces led by Generaloberst Erwin Rommel, proving that the FFF could be taken seriously by the Allies as a fighting force. British General Claude Auchinleck said on 12 June 1942, of the battle: 'The United Nations need to be filled with admiration and gratitude, in respect of these French troops and their brave General Koenig'.[63] Even Hitler was impressed, announcing to the journalist Lutz Koch, recently returned from Bir Hakeim:
- 'You hear, Gentlemen? It is a new evidence that I have always been right! The French are, after us, the best soldiers! Even with its current birthrate, France will always be able to mobilise a hundred divisions! After this war, we will have to find allies able to contain a country which is capable of military exploits that astonish the world like they are doing right now in Bir-Hakeim!'.[64]
Panzer Campaigns France 1940 Iso Download Pc
First successes[edit]
From 23 October to 4 November 1942, Allied forces under general Bernard Montgomery, including the FFF, won the Second battle of El Alamein, driving Rommel's Afrika Korps out of Egypt and back into Libya. This was the first major success of an Allied army against the Axis powers, and marked a key turning point in the war.
Operation Torch[edit]
Operation Torch landings in Morocco and Algeria
Panzer Campaigns Forum
Soon afterwards in November 1942, the Allies launched Operation Torch in the west, an invasion of Vichy-controlled French North Africa. An Anglo-American force of 63,000 men landed in French Morocco and Algeria.[65] The long-term goal was to clear German and Italian troops from North Africa, enhance naval control of the Mediterranean, and prepare an invasion of Italy in 1943. The Allies had hoped that Vichy forces would offer only token resistance to the Allies, but instead they fought hard, incurring heavy casualties.[66] As a French foreign legionnaire put it after seeing his comrades die in an American bombing raid: 'Ever since the fall of France, we had dreamed of deliverance, but we did not want it that way'.[66]
After the 8 November 1942 putsch by the French resistance that prevented the 19th Corps to respond effectively to the allied landings around Algiers the same day, most Vichy figures were arrested (including General Alphonse Juin, chief commander in North Africa, and Vichy admiral François Darlan). However, Darlan was released and U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower finally accepted his self-nomination as high commissioner of North Africa and French West Africa, a move that enraged de Gaulle, who refused to recognise his status.
Henri Giraud, a general who had escaped from military captivity in Germany in April 1942, had negotiated with the Americans for leadership in the invasion. He arrived in Algiers on 10 November, and agreed to subordinate himself to Admiral Darlan as the commander of the French African army.[67]
Later that day Darlan ordered a ceasefire and Vichy French forces began, en masse, to join the Free French cause. Initially at least the effectiveness of these new recruits was hampered by a scarcity of weaponry and, among some of the officer class, a lack of conviction in their new cause.[66]
After the signing of the cease-fire, the Germans lost faith in the Vichy regime, and on 11 November 1942 German and Italian forces occupied Vichy France (Case Anton), violating the 1940 armistice, and triggering the scuttling of the French fleet in Toulon on 27 November 1942. In response, the Vichy Army of Africa joined the Allied side. They fought in Tunisia for six months until April 1943, when they joined the campaign in Italy as part of the French Expeditionary Corps in Italy (FEC).
Admiral Darlan was assassinated on 24 December 1942 in Algiers by the young monarchist Bonnier de La Chapelle. Although de la Chapelle had been a member of the resistance group led by Henri d'Astier de La Vigerie, it is believed he was acting as an individual.
On 28 December, after a prolonged blockade, the Vichy forces in French Somaliland were ousted.
After these successes, Guadeloupe and Martinique in the West Indies—as well as French Guiana on the northern coast of South America – finally joined Free France in the first months of 1943. In November 1943, the French forces received enough military equipment through Lend-Lease to re-equip eight divisions and allow the return of borrowed British equipment.
Creation of the French Committee of National Liberation (CFNL)[edit]
Henri Giraud and de Gaulle during the Casablanca Conference in January 1943. Churchill and Roosevelt in the background.
The Vichy forces in North Africa had been under Darlan's command and had surrendered on his orders. The Allies recognised his self-nomination as High Commissioner of France (French military and civilian commander-in-chief, Commandement en chef français civil et militaire) for North and West Africa. He ordered them to cease resisting and cooperate with the Allies, which they did. By the time the Tunisia Campaign was fought, the ex-Vichy French forces in North Africa had been merged with the FFF.[68][69]
After Admiral Darlan's assassination, Giraud became his de facto successor in French Africa with Allied support. This occurred through a series of consultations between Giraud and de Gaulle. The latter wanted to pursue a political position in France and agreed to have Giraud as commander in chief, as the more qualified military person of the two. It is questionable that he ordered that many French resistance leaders who had helped Eisenhower's troops be arrested, without any protest by Roosevelt's representative, Robert Murphy.
Later, the Americans sent Jean Monnet to counsel Giraud and to press him into repeal the Vichy laws. The Cremieux decree, which granted French citizenship to Jews in Algeria and which had been repealed by Vichy, was immediately restored by General de Gaulle. Democratic rule was restored in French Algeria, and the Communists and Jews liberated from the concentration camps.[70]
Giraud took part in the Casablanca conference in January 1943 with Roosevelt, Churchill and de Gaulle. The Allies discussed their general strategy for the war, and recognised joint leadership of North Africa by Giraud and de Gaulle. Henri Giraud and Charles de Gaulle then became co-presidents of the French Committee of National Liberation (Comité Français de Libération Nationale, CFLN), which unified the territories controlled by them and was officially founded on 3 June 1943.
The CFLN set up a temporary French government in Algiers, raised more troops and re-organised, re-trained and re-equipped the Free French military, in cooperation with Allied forces in preparation of future operations against Italy and the German Atlantic wall.
Eastern Front[edit]
FAFL Normandie-Niemen Yak-3 preserved at the Paris Le Bourgetmuseum
The Normandie-Niemen Regiment, founded at the suggestion of Charles de Gaulle, was a fighter regiment of the Free French Air Force that served on the Eastern Front of the European Theatre of World War II with the 1st Air Army. The regiment is notable for being the only air combat unit from an Allied western country to participate on the Eastern Front during World War II (except brief interventions from RAF and USAAF units) and the only one to fight together with the Soviets until the end of the war in Europe.[citation needed]
The unit was the GC3 (Groupe de Chasse 3 or 3rd Fighter Group) in the Free French Air Force, first commanded by Jean Tulasne. The unit originated in mid-1943 during World War II. Initially the groupe comprised a group of French fighter pilots sent to aid Soviet forces at the suggestion of Charles de Gaulle, leader of the Free French Forces, who felt it important that French servicemen serve on all fronts in the war. The regiment fought in three campaigns on behalf of the Soviet Union between 22 March 1943, and 9 May 1945, during which time it destroyed 273 enemy aircraft and received numerous orders, citations and decorations from both France and the Soviet Union, including the French Légion d'Honneur and the Soviet Order of the Red Banner. Joseph Stalin awarded the unit the name Niemen for its participation in the Battle of the Niemen River.[citation needed]
Tunisia, Italy and Corsica[edit]
The Free French forces participated in the Tunisian Campaign. Together with British and Commonwealth forces, the FFF advanced from the south while the formerly Vichy-loyal Army of Africa advanced from the west together with the Americans. The fighting in Tunisia ended in July 1943 with an Allied victory.[citation needed]
During the campaign in Italy during 1943–1944, a total of between 70,000[19] and 130,000[citation needed] Free French soldiers fought on the Allied side. The French Expeditionary Corps consisted of 60% colonial soldiers, mostly Moroccans and 40% Europeans, mostly Pied-Noirs.[36] They took part in the fighting on the Winter Line and Gustav Line, distinguishing themselves at Monte Cassino in Operation Diadem. Some elements of these colonial troops, the Moroccan Goumiers, were responsible for mass rape and killings of civilians in an incident during those operations (see Marocchinate) and were subsequently withdrawn from the Italian front.[citation needed]
In September 1943, the liberation of Corsica from Italian occupation began, after the Italian armistice, with the landing of elements of the reconstituted French I Corps (Operation Vésuve).[citation needed]
Forces Françaises Combattantes and National Council of the Resistance[edit]
Picture of Jean Moulin and his iconic scarf. He was probably tortured to death by Klaus Barbie personally.
The French Resistance gradually grew in strength. General de Gaulle set a plan to bring together the fragmented groups under his leadership. He changed the name of his movement to 'Fighting French Forces' (Forces Françaises Combattantes) and sent Jean Moulin back to France as his formal link to the irregulars throughout the occupied country to coordinate the eight major Résistance groups into one organisation. Moulin got their agreement to form the 'National Council of the Resistance' (Conseil National de la Résistance). Moulin was eventually captured, and died under brutal torture by the Gestapo.
De Gaulle's influence had also grown in France, and in 1942 one resistance leader called him 'the only possible leader for the France that fights'.[71] Other Gaullists, those who could not leave France (that is, the overwhelming majority of them), remained in the territories ruled by Vichy and the Axis occupation forces, building networks of propagandists, spies and saboteurs to harass and discomfit the enemy.
Later, the Resistance was more formally referred to as the 'French Forces of the Interior' (Forces Françaises de l'Intérieur, or FFI). From October 1944 – March 1945, many FFI units were amalgamated into the French Army to regularise the units.
Liberation of France[edit]
The liberation of continental France began on D-Day, 6 June 1944, with the invasion of Normandy, the amphibious assault aimed at establishing a bridgehead for the forces of Operation Overlord. At first hampered by very stiff German resistance and the bocage terrain of Normandy, the Allies broke out of Normandy at Avranches on 25–31 July 1944. Combined with the landings in Provence of Operation Dragoon on 14 August 1944, the threat of being caught in a pincer movement led to a very rapid German retreat, and by September 1944 most of France had been liberated.
Normandy and Provence landings[edit]
Charles de Gaulle speaks as president of interim government to the population of Cherbourg from the city hall's balcony on 20 August 1944
Opening a 'Second Front' was a top priority of the Allies, and especially of the Soviets to relieve their burden on the Eastern Front. While Italy had been knocked out of the war in the Italian campaign in September 1943, the easily defensible terrain of the narrow peninsula required only a relatively limited number of German troops to protect and occupy their new puppet state in northern Italy. However, as the Dieppe raid had shown, assaulting the Atlantic Wall was not an endeavour to be taken lightly. It required extensive preparations such as the construction of artificial ports (Operation Mulberry) and an underwater pipeline across the English Channel (Operation Pluto), intensive bombardment of railways and German logistics in France (the Transportation Plan), and the wide-ranging military deception such as creating entire dummy armies like FUSAG (Operation Bodyguard) to make the Germans believe the invasion would take place where the Channel was at its narrowest.
By the time of the Normandy Invasion, the Free French forces numbered more than 400,000 strong.[72] 900 Free French paratroopers landed as part of the British Special Air Service (SAS) Brigade; the 2e Division Blindée (2nd Armoured Division or 2e DB)—under General Leclerc—landed at Utah Beach in Normandy on 1 August 1944 together with other follow-on Free French forces, and eventually led the drive toward Paris.
In the battle for Caen, bitter fighting led to the almost total destruction of the city, and stalemated the Allies. They had more success in the western American sector of the front, where after the Operation Cobra breakthrough in late July they caught 50,000 Germans in the Falaise pocket.
The invasion was preceded by weeks of intense resistance activity. Coordinated with the massive bombardments of the Transportation Plan and supported by the SOE and the OSS, partisans systematically sabotaged railway lines, destroyed bridges, cut German supply lines, and provided general intelligence to the allied forces. The constant harassment took its toll on the German troops. Large remote areas were no-go zones for them and free zones for the [[maquis (World War II)|maquisards]], so-called after the maquis shrubland that provided ideal terrain for guerrilla warfare. For instance, a large number of German units were required to clear the maquis du Vercors, which they eventually succeeded with, but this and numerous other actions behind German lines contributed to a much faster advance following the Provence landings than the Allied leadership had anticipated.
The main part of French Expeditionary Corps in Italy which had been fighting there was withdrawn from the Italian front, and added to the French First Army—under General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny—and joined the US 7th Army to form the US 6th Army Group. That was the force that conducted Operation Dragoon (also known as Operation Anvil), the Allied invasion of southern France. The objective of the French 2nd Corps was to capture ports at Toulon (France's largest naval port) and Marseilles (France's largest commercial port) in order to secure a vital supply line for the incoming troops. Most of the German troops there were second-line, consisting mainly of static and occupation units with a large number of Osttruppen volunteers, and with a single armoured division, the 11. Panzer-Division. The Allies sustained only relatively light casualties during the amphibious assault, and were soon in an all-out pursuit of a German army in full retreat along the Rhône valley and the Route Napoleon. Within 12 days the French forces were able to secure both ports, destroying two German Divisions in the process. Then on September 12, French forces were able to connect to General George Patton's Third Army. Toulon and Marseille were soon providing supplies not only to the 6th Army Group but also to General Omar Bradley's 12th Army Group, which included Patton's Army. For its part, troops from de Lattre's French First Army were the first Allied troops to reach the Rhine.
While on the right flank the French liberation army was covering Alsace-Lorraine (and the Alpine front against German-occupied Italy), the centre was made up of US forces in the south (12th Army Group) and British and Commonwealth forces in the north (21st Army Group). On the left flank, Canadian forces cleared the Channel coast, taking Antwerp on 4 September 1944.
Liberation of Paris[edit]
After the failed 20 July plot against him, Hitler had given orders to have Paris destroyed should it fall to the Allies, similarly to the planned destruction of Warsaw.
Mindful of this and other strategic considerations, General Dwight D. Eisenhower was planning to by-pass the city. At this time, Parisians started a general strike on 15 August 1944 that escalated into a full-scale uprising of the FFI a few days later. As the Allied forces waited near Paris, de Gaulle and his Free French government put General Eisenhower under pressure. De Gaulle was furious about the delay and was unwilling to allow the people of Paris to be slaughtered as had happened in the Polish capital of Warsaw during the Warsaw uprising. De Gaulle ordered General Leclerc to attack single-handedly without the aid of Allied forces. Eventually, Eisenhower agreed to detach the 4th US Infantry Division in support of the French attack.
Leclerc's 2nd Armoured Division (2e DB) parading down the Champs Elysées on 26 August 1944, the day after the Liberation of Paris
The Allied High Command (SHAEF) requested the Free French force in question to be all-white, if possible, but this was very difficult because of the large numbers of black West Africans in their ranks.[35] General Leclerc sent a small advance party to enter Paris, with the message that the 2e DB (composed of 10,500 French, 3,600 Maghrebis[73][74] and about 350 Spaniards[34] in the 9th company of the 3rd Battalion of the Régiment de Marche du Tchad made up mainly of Spanish Republican exiles[75]) would be there the following day. This party was commanded by Captain Raymond Dronne, and was given the honour to be the first Allied unit to enter Paris ahead of the 2e Division Blindée. The 1er Bataillon de Fusiliers-Marins Commandos formed from the Free French Navy Fusiliers-Marins that had landed on Sword Beach were also amongst the first of the Free French forces to enter Paris.
The military governor of the city, Dietrich von Choltitz, surrendered on 25 August, ignoring Hitler's orders to destroy the city and fight to the last man.[76] Jubilant crowds greeted the Liberation of Paris. French forces and de Gaulle conducted a now iconic parade through the city.
Provisional republic and the war against Germany and Japan[edit]
Re-establishment of a provisional French Republic and its government (GPRF)[edit]
The Provisional Government of the French Republic (gouvernement provisoire de la République Française or GPRF) was officially created by the CNFL and succeeded it on 3 June 1944, the day before de Gaulle arrived in London from Algiers on Churchill's invitation, and three days before D-Day. Its creation marked the re-establishment of France as a republic, and the official end of Free France. Among its most immediate concerns were to ensure that France did not come under allied military administration, preserving the sovereignty of France and freeing Allied troops for fighting on the front.
After the liberation of Paris on 25 August 1944, it moved back to the capital, establishing a new 'national unanimity' government on 9 September 1944, including Gaullists, nationalists, socialists, communists and anarchists, and uniting the politically divided Resistance. Among its foreign policy goals was to secure a French occupation zone in Germany and a permanent UNSC seat. This was assured through a large military contribution on the western front.
Several alleged Vichy loyalists involved in the Milice (a paramilitary militia)—which was established by SturmbannführerJoseph Darnand who hunted the Resistance with the Gestapo—were made prisoners in a post-liberation purge known as the épuration légale (legal purge or cleansing). Some were executed without trial, in 'wild cleansings' (épuration sauvage). Women accused of 'horizontal collaboration' because of alleged sexual relationships with Germans during the occupation were arrested and had their heads shaved, were publicly exhibited and some were allowed to be mauled by mobs.
On 17 August, Pierre Laval was taken to Belfort by the Germans. On 20 August, under German military escort, Pétain was forcibly moved to Belfort, and on 7 September to the Sigmaringen enclave in southern Germany, where 1,000 of his followers (including Louis-Ferdinand Céline) joined him. There they established a government in exile, challenging the legitimacy of de Gaulle's GPRF. As a sign of protest over his forced move, Pétain refused to take office, and was eventually replaced by Fernand de Brinon. The Vichy regime's exile ended when Free French forces reached the town and captured its members on 22 April 1945, the same day that the 3rd Algerian Infantry Division took Stuttgart. Laval, Vichy's prime minister in 1942–1944, was executed for treason. Pétain, 'Chief of the French State' and Verdun hero, was also condemned to death but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
As the wartime government of France in 1944–1945, its main purposes were to handle the aftermath of the occupation of France and continue to wage war against Germany as a major Ally. It also made several important reforms and political decisions, such as granting women the right to vote, founding the École nationale d'administration, and laying the grounds of social security in France, and lasted until the establishment of the IVth Republic on 14 October 1946, preparing its new constitution.
Campaigns in France and Germany 1944–1945[edit]
By September 1944, the Free French forces stood at 560,000 (including 176,500 White French from North Africa, 63,000 metropolitan French, 233,000 Maghrebis and 80,000 from Black Africa).[30][31] The GPRF set about raising new troops to participate in the advance to the Rhine and the invasion of Germany, using the FFI as military cadres and manpower pools of experienced fighters to allow a very large and rapid expansion of the Armée française de la Libération. It was well equipped and well supplied despite the economic disruption brought by the occupation thanks to Lend-Lease, and their number rose to 1 million by the end of the year. French forces were fighting in Alsace-Lorraine, the Alps, and besieging the heavily fortified French Atlantic coast submarine bases that remained Hitler-mandated stay-behind 'fortresses' in ports along the Atlantic coast like La Rochelle and Saint-Nazaire until the German capitulation in May 1945.
Also in September 1944, the Allies having outrun their logistic tail (the 'Red Ball Express'), the front stabilised along Belgium's northern and eastern borders and in Lorraine. From then on it moved at a slower pace, first to the Siegfried Line and then in the early months of 1945 to the Rhine in increments. For instance, the Ist Corps seized the Belfort Gap in a coup de main offensive in November 1944, their German opponents believing they had entrenched for the winter.
France
A plaque commemorating the Oath of Kufra in near the cathedral of Strasbourg
The French 2nd Armoured Division, tip of the spear of the Free French forces that had participated in the Normandy Campaign and liberated Paris, went on to liberate Strasbourg on 23 November 1944, thus fulfilling the Oath of Kufra made by its commanding officer General Leclerc almost four years earlier. The unit under his command, barely above company size when it had captured the Italian fort, had grown into a full-strength armoured division.
The spearhead of the Free French First Army that had landed in Provence was the Ist Corps. Its leading unit, the French 1st Armoured Division, was the first Western Allied unit to reach the Rhône (25 August 1944), the Rhine (19 November 1944) and the Danube (21 April 1945). On 22 April 1945, it captured Sigmaringen in Baden-Württemberg, where the last Vichy regime exiles, including Marshal Pétain, were hosted by the Germans in one of the ancestral castles of the Hohenzollern dynasty.
They participated in stopping Operation Nordwind, the very last German major offensive on the western front in January 1945, and in collapsing the Colmar Pocket in January–February 1945, capturing and destroying most of the German XIXth Army. Operations by the First Army in April 1945 encircled and captured the German XVIII SS Corps in the Black Forest, and cleared and occupied south-western Germany. At the end of the war, the motto of the French First Army was Rhin et Danube, referring to the two great German rivers that it had reached and crossed during its combat operations.
In May 1945, by the end of the war in Europe, the Free French forces comprised 1,300,000 personnel, and included around forty divisions making it the fourth largest Allied army in Europe behind the Soviet Union, the US and Britain.[77] The GPRF sent an expeditionary force to the Pacific to retake French Indochina from the Japanese, but Japan surrendered before they could arrive in theatre.
At that time, General Alphonse Juin was the chief of staff of the French army, but it was General François Sevez who represented France at Reims on 7 May, while General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny led the French delegation at Berlin on V-E day, as he was the commander of the French First Army. At the Yalta Conference, Germany had been divided into Soviet, American and British occupation zones, but France was then given an occupation zone in Germany, as well as in Austria and in the city of Berlin. It was not only the role that France played in the war which was recognised, but its important strategic position and significance in the Cold War as a major democratic, capitalist nation of Western Europe in holding back the influence of communism on the continent.
Approximately 58,000 men were killed fighting in the Free French forces between 1940 and 1945.[78]
World War II victory[edit]
Battle Of France 1940
Allied Occupation Zones in Germany in 1946 after territorial annexations in the East
A point of strong disagreement between de Gaulle and the Big Three (Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill), was that the President of the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF), established on 3 June 1944, was not recognized as the legitimate representative of France. Even though de Gaulle had been recognized as the leader of Free France by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill back on 28 June 1940, his GPRF presidency had not resulted from democratic elections. However, two months after the liberation of Paris and one month after the new 'unanimity government', the Big Three recognized the GPRF on 23 October 1944.[79][80]
In his liberation of Paris speech, de Gaulle argued 'It will not be enough that, with the help of our dear and admirable Allies, we have got rid of him [the Germans] from our home for us to be satisfied after what happened. We want to enter his territory as it should be, as victors', clearly showing his ambition that France be considered one of the World War II victors just like the Big Three. This perspective was not shared by the western Allies, as was demonstrated in the German Instrument of Surrender's First Act.[81] The French occupation zones in Germany and in West Berlin cemented this ambition.
Legacy[edit]
The Free French memorial on Lyle Hill, Greenock, overlooks Gourock, Scotland.
The Free French Memorial on Lyle Hill in Greenock, in western Scotland, in the shape of the Cross of Lorraine combined with an anchor, was raised by subscription as a memorial to sailors on the Free French Naval Forces vessels that sailed from the Firth of Clyde to take part in the Battle of the Atlantic.
The memorial is also associated, locally, with the memory of the French destroyer Maillé Brézé (1931) which sank at the Tail of the Bank.[82]
To this day, General de Gaulle's Appeal of 18 June 1940 remains one of the most famous speeches in French history.[83][84]
See also[edit]
- Normandie-Niemen, free French squadron fighting on the Eastern Front with the USSR's Red Air Force
Notes[edit]
- ^London was the seat of the government-in-exile in 1940–1942, but Brazzaville was considered the symbolic capital of Free France due to the declaration of the Brazzaville Manifesto there. The government of Free France was based in Algiers in French Algeria in 1942–1944, then part of metropolitan France, from 1942 until the liberation of France in 1944, when it briefly moved back to London for a few weeks from the start of the Normandy and Provence landings before ending the exile by moving to Paris on 25 August 1944.
References[edit]
Citations[edit]
- ^Stacey 2007, p. 373.
- ^La France Libre et les Français Libres : éléments de définitionArchived 5 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine
- ^Horne, Alistair (1969). To Lose a Battle; France, 1940 (2007 ed.). Penguin. p. 604. ISBN978-0141030654.
- ^Taylor, p.58
- ^Alexander, Martin (2007). 'After Dunkirk: The French Army's Performance Against 'Case Red', 25 May to 25 June 1940'. War in History. 14 (2): 226–227. doi:10.1177/0968344507075873. ISSN1477-0385.
- ^Jackson, Julian (2018). A Certain Idea of France: The Life of Charles de Gaulle. Allen Lane. pp. 110–111. ISBN978-1846143519.
- ^Horne, Alistair (1962). The Price of Glory; Verdun 1916 (1993 ed.). Penguin. p. 150. ISBN978-0140170412.
- ^ abcMunholland 2007, p. 10.
- ^ Jackson, p. 110
- ^ Jackson, p. 112
- ^Shlaim, Avi (July 1974). 'Prelude to Downfall: The British Offer of Union to France, June 1940'. Journal of Contemporary History. 3. 9 (3): 27–63. doi:10.1177/002200947400900302. JSTOR260024.
- ^The Guardian, 'A Mesmerising Oratory', 29 April 2007.
- ^de Gaulle, Charles (28 April 2007). 'The flame of French resistance'. The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 31 August 2013. Retrieved 27 March 2010.
- ^ abMunholland 2007, p. 11.
- ^Jackson, Julian (2001). France: The Dark Years, 1940–1944. Oxford University Press. pp. 31, 134–135. ISBN978-0-19-820706-1. Archived from the original on 3 January 2016. Retrieved 25 October 2015.
- ^P. M. H. Bell, France and Britain 1900–1940: Entente & Estrangement, London, New York, 1996, p. 249
- ^Axelrod & Kingston, p. 373.
- ^bbm.orgArchived 27 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved October 2012
- ^ abPierre Goubert (20 November 1991). The Course of French History. Psychology Press. p. 298. ISBN978-0-415-06671-6. Archived from the original on 27 May 2013. Retrieved 6 March 2011.
- ^ abAxelrod & Kingston, p. 362.
- ^ abcHastings, Max, p.80
- ^ abcHastings, Max, p.126
- ^Yapp, Peter, p. 235. The Travellers' Dictionary of Quotation. Retrieved October 2012
- ^Jennings, Eric T. Free French Africa in World War II. p. 66.
- ^Bennett, p. 16.
- ^History Learning SiteArchived 3 October 2012 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved October 2012
- ^Bennett, p. 13.
- ^Bennett, pp. 13–18.
- ^Hastings, Max, p.74
- ^ abJean-François Muracciole, Histoire de la France libre, Presses universitaires de France, 1996, p. 67
- ^ abBenjamin Stora, ' L'Armée d'Afrique : les oubliés de la libération ', TDC, no 692, 15 mars 1995, Paris, CNDP, 1995.
- ^'It was they, the Africans who came from afar by Benjamin Stora'. histoirecoloniale.net. 18 June 2006. Archived from the original on 1 September 2018. Retrieved 18 June 2006.
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Sources[edit]
- Axelrod, Alan; Kingston, Jack A. (2007). Encyclopedia of World War II. 1. Facts on File. ISBN9780816060221.
- Bennett, G. H. (2011). The RAF's French Foreign Legion: De Gaulle, the British and the Re-emergence of French Airpower 1940-45. London; New York: Continuum. ISBN9781441189783.
- Hastings, Max, p. 125–126, All Hell Let Loose, The World at War 1939–45, Harper Press, London, 2011
- Mollo, Andrew (1981). The Armed Forces of World War II. Crown. ISBN0-517-54478-4.
- Munholland, Kim (2007) [1970]. Arms, Men and Governments: The War Policies of Canada, 1939–1945. Queens Printer for Canada.
- Stacey, C.P. (2007) [2005]. Rock of Contention: Free French and Americans at War in New Caledonia, 1940–1945. Berghahn Books. ISBN978-1-84545-300-8.
- Sumner, Ian; Vauvillier, François (1998). The French Army 1939–45: Free French, Fighting French and the Army of Liberation. Men-at-arms Series No. 318. Volume 2. London: Osprey. ISBN978-1855327078.
- Taylor, A. J. P.The Second World War – an Illustrated History, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1975.
Panzer Campaings France 1940 Iso Download Full
External links[edit]
- FFF fighting units (France-Libre.net)
- France-Libre.net (Free French Forces foundation)
- Fights of the population in Gers in the regular army from Nov.8, 1942 to Aug.31, 1944 (1992– O.N.A.C.- S.D. GERS translated in English)
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