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Rallying the Empire to Free France

French possessions in Africa in late 1940. Source: MINDEF/SGA/DMPA

Following General de Gaulle’s call to arms of 18 June 1940, volunteers keen to join Britain and Free France began streaming in, but the British attack on the French fleet at Mers el-Kébir, for fear that the vessels should fall into German hands, dealt a serious blow to recruitment. In early July, Free France amounted to no more than a handful of exiles, dependent on British support.

Vercors

First public edition of Le Silence de la Mer, published by Les Éditions de Minuit - © Les Éditions de Minuit

When the Nazis came to power, they immediately began destroying all books and writings deemed contrary to their ideology. The most spectacular expression of this “policy” was the organisation of book burnings, at which large numbers of works were publicly destroyed.

The Senegalese tirailleurs in the Battle of France

Senegalese tirailleur, 1939. Source: Musée des Troupes de Marine

In both the First and Second World Wars, France called on its empire. Elements of its colonial forces, among them Senegalese tirailleurs, took part in the Battle of France in 1940.

Battle of Dunkirk

The port of Dunkirk in May 1940. Source: ECPAD

After the seemingly endless ”Phoney War” which followed Britain and France's declaration of war on Germany as a result of the invasion of Poland, the situation suddenly changed in the west when, on 10 May 1940, Germany launched an offensive on Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg.

Operation Torch: the Allied landings in North Africa

American soldiers march through the streets of Oran after landing.
Source : Service historique de la défense

8 November 1942

In the spring of 1942, the Axis forces - Germany, Italy and Japan - were winning on all fronts: in Russia, in Africa and in the Pacific. Germany occupied a large part of Europe.

Victorious in the east, it was triumphing in Africa too, where German and Italian troops under General Rommel had recaptured Cyrenaica and were preparing to enter Egypt.

The successful landings in North Africa on 8 November 1942 were one of the elements that would sway the balance in the Allies' favour from that point on.

Mont Valérien: a site of history and remembrance

Une sentinelle allemande monte la garde devant l'entrée de la forteresse du Mont-Valérien

The Cross of Lorraine at the Mont Valérien Memorial. Source: Creative Commons Licence Photo: Remi Jouan.

For centuries, Mont Valérien was an important Christian pilgrimage site. Then, in the mid-14th century, a fort was built there, as part of Paris’s defensive fortifications.

During the Second World War, it was used as the main execution site by the German authorities in France.

La bataille de la Dyle - mai 1940

10th May 1940. The arrival of French regiments in Belgium

1918 - Les Américains au combat

Maquis du Mont Mouchet

Memorial to the Resistance on Mont Mouchet (Haute Loire, France).

The Maquis du Mont Mouchet, along with the Maquis du Vercors, was no doubt the largest grouping of French Résistance fighters at a single location in the nation.

Liberation of the camps

Entrée de camp allemand nazi Birkenau (Auschwitz II), vue depuis l'intérieur du camp. Source : Libre de droit

Sixty years after the collapse of the National Socialist dictatorship and the end of the Nazi concentration camp system, certain questions have yet to be answered despite everything we have learnt about the subject.

In the end, nobody will ever know exactly how many victims were lost during that period, nor how many prisoners were still living in the camps when they were liberated by the Allied troops.

The overseas soldiers in the Second World War

Captain N'Tchoréré, commanding the 7th Company of the 53rd RICMS

La Flamme sous l'Arc de Triomphe

1918: the Second Battle of the Marne (27 May - 6 August)

Le mémorial des batailles de la Marne. Dormans. Source : GNU Free Documentation License

Following the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, on 3 March 1918, Germany hastened to transfer its troops from Russia to France. Now with numerical superiority over its British, French and Belgian adversaries, in order to secure victory it had to launch a series of offensives before the Americans arrived at the front.

The resistance in Corrèze and Creuse

Photograph of armed resistance fighters from the Maquis of Neuvic, winter 1943-1944 © Musée départemental de la Résistance à Neuvic

The Combat movement was established in Haute-Corrèze

The Resistance and the Networks

They rubbed shoulders with death to keep London informed, to help prisoners escape, to get pilots back home, to organise sabotages… They were part of a network.

La période Vauban

L'invasion

La Victoire... et ensuite ?

14th of July (Bastille Day)

Almost every country has a national celebration, generally chosen to commemorate an anniversary deemed particularly influential and solemn, and nothing is more revealing about a country’s past than the decisions made surrounding this day and how they have changed with the times.

► Behind the scenes of the parades | The French people meet their armed forces

Storming of the Bastille, painting by Jean-Pierre Houël (1735-1813). Source: public domain

De l'Enfer au Paradis, les hôpitaux de l'arrière en 1916

Orderly Sister with bandages; gouache, Ferdinand Fargeot