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Adolf Hitler (hand on hip) looking at the statue of Ferdinand Foch before starting the negotiations for the armistice at Compiègne, France (21 June 1940) Ferdinand Foch ' s railway car, at the same location as after World War I, prepared by the Germans for the second armistice at Compiègne, June 1940
The Battle of France (French: bataille de France; 10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign (German: Westfeldzug), the French Campaign (Frankreichfeldzug, campagne de France) and the Fall of France, during the Second World War was the German invasion of the Low Countries (Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) and France.
The Dutch surrender to the Germans after heavy bombing across Rotterdam. 17-18 May: Antwerp and Brussels would fall to Germany; the Allies were forced to retreat to the coastline of France. 20 May: General Maxime Weygand replaces General Maurice-Gustave Gamelin as supreme Allied commander due to major losses across France.
A year later, the Italian naval fleet did what de Gaulle wished the Vichy French had done. They set sail for North Africa after the Italian Armistice in 1943. Almost all major warships of the Regia Marina escaped Italy and were available for Italy after the end of World War II. [39] [40] France had to rebuild its whole navy after the war. [32]
France's colonial empire at the start of World War II stretched from territories and possessions in Africa, the Middle East (Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon), to ports in India, Indochina, the Pacific islands, and territories in North and South America. France retained control of its colonial empire, and the terms of the armistice shifted the ...
Guard (Vichy France) Scuttling of the French fleet in Toulon. Service du travail obligatoire - the provision of French citizens as forced labour in Germany. Axis occupation of France: German occupation of France during World War II - 1940–1944 in the northern zones, and 1942–1944 in the southern zone. The Holocaust in France.
The Germans signing an armistice with France during World War Two. Not only did they single handily beat the French AND British armies, they forced the French to surrender in the same train car ...
France did not invade Germany in 1939, because it wanted British lives to be at risk too and because of hopes that a blockade might force a German surrender without a bloodbath. The French and British also believed that they were militarily superior and guaranteed victory through the blockade or by desperate German attacks.