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French and British troops sharing Christmas drinks at Kedange-sur-Canner, near Metz, 21 December 1939 Internment of French troops in Switzerland, June 1940. France had lots of armed forces in World War II, in part due to the German occupation. In 1940, General Maurice Gamelin commanded the French Army, headquartered in Vincennes on the ...
The precise meaning of the terms "colonial troops", "colonial army", marine troops or "troops of the French colonies" has changed several times since the 18th century: During the 18th and early 19th centuries "marine infantry" was the title used to identify French troops stationed permanently in France's various overseas territories.
The Thiaroye massacre [a] was a massacre of black African soldiers serving in French West Africa, committed by the French Army on the morning of 1 December 1944 near Dakar, French Senegal. Those killed were members of the Tirailleurs Sénégalais , and were veterans of the 1940 Battle of France who had been recently liberated from prison camps ...
After the Americans landed in Algiers in 1942 during Operation Torch, the colonial troops of the French Army of Africa, until then under the orders of the pro-Nazi republic of Vichy. General Charles De Gaulle , head of the French government in exile , drew on this military personnel to create the CEF (Corp Expeditionnaire Français).
In World War II, Charles de Gaulle and the Free French took control of the overseas colonies one-by-one and used them as a base from which they prepared to liberate France. Historian Tony Chafer argues that: "In an effort to restore its world-power status after the humiliation of defeat and occupation, France was eager to maintain its overseas ...
2nd Colonial Divisionary Artillery Regiment; 202nd Colonial Heavy Artillery Regiment; The Division was first stationed in the Alps, but later moved to the North, where it fought in the Seine and Loire regions. The Division was disbanded after the capitulation of the French Army in June 1940.
The Colonial Army Corps, originally the Army Corps of Colonial Troops, is a unit of the French Army established by decree on June 11, 1901. It was composed of units from the Colonial Troops stationed in mainland France.
Until World War II, artillery or mechanized units rarely had indigenous troops although the Italian colonial army maintained a number of Eritrean, Somali, and Libyan mule artillery batteries, and there were locally-recruited mountain batteries in the Indian Army. The relative lack of up-to-date weaponry and training put colonial troops at an ...