Reviews - Books I Read - DRJG: Battle of France - World War II: A History from Beginning to End (World War 2 Battles), by Hourly History.

................................................................................................

Battle of France - World War II:

A History from Beginning to End

(World War 2 Battles),

by Hourly History.

................................................................................................

A good introduction to the subject of not only battle of France but of WWII as well, written succinctly, perhaps with a US high school readership in mind, but not dumbed down.

................................................................................................

Table of Contents

................................................................................................

Introduction

The Maginot Line

The Phoney War

Shattered Scandinavian Neutrality

Dunkirk and the Surrender of the Low Countries

The Invasion of France

Surrender at Compiegne

Vichy France: The British Attack the French Navy

Aftermath: French Resistance

Bibliography

Your Free eBooks!

................................................................................................

REVIEW

................................................................................................

Introduction

................................................................................................

Succinct introduction.

"The enmity between France and Germany did not spring up fresh from the blood-soaked battlefields of World War I. Roman General Julius Caesar wrote of it in his Commentaries on the Gallic War more than 2,000 years ago. By the time of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, when the German states defeated France and claimed Alsace-Lorraine as German territory, accord seemed impossible.

"Europe itself teemed with unresolved resentments against one another; borders were hostile, and monarchies shared bloodlines and tangled alliances that would complicate the realms when, in 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was assassinated by a Serb. Austria-Hungary and Germany were allies; Serbia and the Russian Empire were allies; France and Great Britain were allies, and off to war they went. Along the way, borders shifted and monarchies toppled, and the social order would never be the same."

"As Adolf Hitler rose to power and proceeded to launch a reign of terror against his political enemies—Jews, Slavs, Communists, homosexuals, and anyone who did not accept his strident rhetoric and brutal tactics—he began to take over neighboring regions: the Anschluss in Austria and the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. European governments and diplomats timidly protested but did not interfere. When Hitler went on to invade Poland in 1939, France and Great Britain declared war on Germany but did not go to Poland’s aid."

"Then, in the spring of 1940, the German blitzkrieg struck, overpowering the Scandinavian nations of Denmark and Norway in April and in May, the Low Countries of the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Belgium. This time, the Allies had to respond by sending troops. Hitler’s battle plan was divided into two operations: The Fall Gelb or Case Yellow stage was intended to push the French out of their stronghold. Fall Rot or Case Red, two months later, was designed to reinforce the superiority of the Germans in the area.

"Undeterred by Germany’s military modernization and technological advantage, France felt that it had provided its nation and its army with more than adequate protection. The French were confident that the impregnable Maginot Line would hold off the German invasion until troops could reinforce the area. The Germans, however, were well aware of the French battle plan. They bypassed the Maginot Line and, because they had already invaded and conquered the Low Countries by swiftly crossing the Ardennes region, they were able to encircle the Allied forces at Dunkirk. The French troops in the south lacked the means to hold off the swift advance of the Germans, who reached Paris on June 14."

"The year 1940 was a bleak one for the Allies. With the United States maintaining its neutral stance, only Great Britain was left to stand against the seemingly indestructible menace of the Nazi war machine.

"Meanwhile, the French Resistance emerged to covertly work with the Allies by helping Allied soldiers who were trapped and at risk of discovery by the Germans. They provided the Allies with intelligence information on the movements of the German forces and also conducted acts of sabotage designed to impede German movements. Although the army had been defeated and the nation was occupied, the members of the French Resistance took enormous risks as they fought back against the Nazis.

"The day after France surrendered, a junior officer named Charles de Gaulle, who was stationed in London, delivered a forceful message defying the notion that France had given up. In his “Appeal of 18 June,” he urged his countrymen to continue the fight against the Germans. Based in London, the Free French Forces would go on to join with the Allies on the battlefield as the Free French maintained a government in exile to counter the puppet Vichy Regime.

"The fall of France alerted the world that the fight for freedom and democracy would not be a spectator sport. The Second World War would earn the grim title of the most devasting conflict in the history of human civilization, causing the deaths of more than 75 million people, or three percent of the global population recorded in the year 1940. No one could have guessed on that June day in 1940 when France surrendered to Germany, that the nations of the world were about to be engulfed in a conflagration that would forever alter the nature of war."

................................................................................................

................................................

April 01, 2022 - April 05, 2022.

................................................

................................................................................................

The Maginot Line

................................................................................................

Author quotes appropriately at beginning.

"“The trouble with the Maginot Line was that it was in the wrong places. The classical invasion route to France which the Germans had taken since the earliest tribal days—for nearly two millennia—lay through Belgium. This was the shortest way and the easiest, for it lay through level land with few rivers of any consequence to cross.”

"—William Shirer"

He remains succinct.

"Following the surrender of Germany on November 11, 1918, in a railroad car in Compiegne Forest north of Paris, Marshal Ferdinand Foch said, “This is not a peace. It is an armistice for twenty years.” Foch, who felt that the punitive terms leveled against Germany were still too lenient, was prescient in his remarks. The First World War ended in 1918; the Second World War began on September 1, 1939; Foch was only off by a year in his dim forecast.

"The French had suffered enormously during the four years of World War I, particularly in eastern France. More than one million French citizens had been killed in the war; more than four million had been wounded. The land itself was scarred by the fighting. Foch’s remarks were not dismissed by the French, who knew they had to devise a means to prevent the Germans from inflicting such an assault against their country another time.

"Marshal Joseph Joffre was the first to propose such a defense, and Marshal Petain agreed with him. But the support was not unanimous; Charles de Gaulle, who would go on to lead the Free French Forces in World War II, felt that the military would be better served if the government invested in modern aircraft and armor. His instincts told him that the next war would require equipment that was engineered for speed and mobility, with substantial air support to provide assistance. Yet the Old Guard felt that such a direction would be too aggressive, and younger voices such as those espousing de Gaulle’s theories were ignored."

"Named for France’s Minister of War Andre Maginot, the Maginot Line was 280 miles (450 kilometers) long and approximately 12 to 16 miles (20-25 kilometers) in depth, running along the eastern French border. The line, constructed out of concrete, iron, and steel, was to serve a multitude of purposes to protect the French. The contested Alsace-Lorraine regions, which had been returned to France as part of the German terms of surrender after World War I, possessed industrial value for its iron ore deposits and its iron-making and steel-making plants. Germany had claimed the region as a prize after defeating France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and would covet their possession again."

"There was no need, said General Philippe Petain, to extend the line past the Ardennes region to the north. The forest was its own barrier, and he was confident that it was impenetrable. The caveat was to ensure that if an invading force came through the Ardennes, it would be destroyed by a pincer attack."

"In addition to the Maginot Line, the Meuse River, whose route ran from France through Belgium and the Netherlands before emptying into the North Sea, was a natural barrier against the threat of an invasion from the Germans. Together, the French authorities assured themselves, the Maginot Line and the Meuse River would hold off the Germans long enough for French forces to arrive on the scene in time to keep the enemy from entering France.

"The French held war games in 1938 to test their hypothesis that an armored attack by Germany through the Ardennes would be impossible. The Ardennes was, they were assured, impenetrable. The Maginot Line would keep the Germans out. France was safe from invasion, they believed."

................................................................................................

................................................

April 05, 2022 - April 05, 2022.

................................................

................................................................................................

The Phoney War

................................................................................................

"The starting date for the Second World War is generally agreed to have been September 1, 1939, when the German forces under the authority of Adolf Hitler invaded Poland. The month before, Germany and the Soviet Union had signed a Non-Aggression Pact, agreeing that they would not engage in conflict with one another for ten years. The pact was sweetened for the Soviet Union by Germany’s agreement that Joseph Stalin would be allowed to invade Poland from the east and claim the territory for the Russians, while Germany conquered western Poland. Neither Germany nor the Soviet Union actually believed that it would be ten years before they faced one another in combat, but the Soviets needed time to ready their military, and the Germans did not want Russian interference in their plans for Europe."

"Germany was bound by severe reparations and restrictions on its military, but after the start of the Great Depression, the nations of the world were struggling to manage their own economies and had little thought or time for what was happening beyond their borders. So it was that the militaries of Germany, as well as Japan and Italy, began to build up their strength, manufacturing weapons and devising plans of conquest.

"Germany had lost 13 percent of its land and all of its overseas colonies after the armistice, and disillusioned Germans looked to the Nazi Party to restore the nation’s glory. Ignoring the terms of the original peace treaty, Hitler militarized Germany without retaliatory consequences from the Allied nations, eventually occupying the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia in 1938."

" ... Spain was split by a violent civil war. Japan, intent on becoming the dominant power in the Pacific, invaded Manchuria in 1931. By 1937, Germany, Japan, and Italy had come together to sign the Anti-Comintern Pact."

" ... Hoping that giving Hitler the Sudetenland would sate his hunger for more land, the European powers sought to avoid war. But the green light of the Munich Agreement did exactly the opposite, as it assured Adolf Hitler that he could achieve Germany’s need for more land and no one would stand in his way. The Sudetenland wasn’t enough; the annexation of Austria wasn’t enough. Hitler began to build up the German Navy in order to be able to compete with British control of the Atlantic. He continued through 1939 to grab the lands belonging to other nations, including the rest of Czechoslovakia and a section of Lithuania, the Memelland."

Most of his subsequent actions were not only planned well ahead, and announced to his generals well ahead of being put in action, with dates thereof declared, but were not really a surprise if one read his published book and took it seriously.

That no one of political importance did so was chiefly due to wishful thinking and hoping that a bone might keep the fog occupied while world sought to recover from aftereffects of the Great War, as WWI was until then referred to, including depression.

"Finally, alarmed by German demands on Danzig and Italy’s conquering of Albania, Great Britain and France vowed to provide protection to Poland. Germany accused the British and Poles of conspiring to encircle the German nation. On August 23, 1939, while German troops were already beginning to mobilize along the border of Poland, Germany’s Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop signed a Non-Aggression Pact with Soviet Russia, which outlined the respective countries’ spheres of influence: Germany would claim western Poland and Lithuania; the Soviet Union would invade eastern Poland and claim Estonia, Latvia, Finland, and Bessarabia."

" ... on September 1, 1939, Germany incited border incidents as a pretext for invading Poland. The British command to stop the fighting was ignored. On September 3, France and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany."

"Six months of uneasy peace, named the Phoney War, ensued. During this time, while German U-boats were sinking Allied merchant vessels, the Germans sought to find out whether there was any interest on the part of the Allies in finding a diplomatic solution to the threat of war, one that would allow Germany to maintain its conquered lands. The Germans, of course, had no intention of limiting their conquests to the nations they had seized thus far."

"On April 9, 1940, the Nazis, determined to safeguard the vital shipments of iron ore which they received from Sweden and which the Allies were seeking to block, proceeded with their plans to invade Norway and Denmark. One month later, on May 10, 1940, the German offensive against the Low Countries began. But the Germans were not going to stop there. Their ultimate destination was France."

"The Germans were well aware that the Maginot Line would prove a formidable barrier to their invading forces, but they decided to go by another route, through the Ardennes region, a forested area which, the Allies were confident, was virtually impregnable to the German forces. The German tanks would prove them wrong."

The author overlooks the other two prongs in that paragraph summing up how Germans overcame the formidable Maginot Line and its fortifications. German forces did go around via low countries, and most vital, used extensive air power coupled with paratroopers, not only disabling the forces defending fortifications along the Maginot Line, but destroying them.

................................................................................................

................................................

April 05, 2022 - April 05, 2022.

................................................

................................................................................................

Shattered Scandinavian Neutrality

................................................................................................

"In 1939, after the German invasion of Poland, Winston Churchill, a new member of the British war cabinet, suggested that placing mines in Norwegian waters would require the ships carrying ore from Sweden to Germany to use the North Sea instead, where they could be intercepted by the British Navy. But Prime Minister Chamberlain was reluctant, fearing that such a bold move by the British would be unpopular in the United States, which was still a neutral country."

"In April 1940, Germany’s ambassador to Denmark informed the Danish foreign minister that German troops were on their way to protect Denmark from attack by the French and British. If Denmark resisted, Copenhagen would be bombed. Regardless of the fact that the year before, Denmark and Germany had signed a nonaggression pact, Hitler’s overarching campaign plans required the use of Denmark’s bases for Germany’s military. He knew that the Danish forces could not possibly challenge Germany’s might. The Danes knew it as well.

"Two days after the German ships set forth to invade Denmark, the Royal Navy left Scapa Flow and headed for Scandinavia. By April 8, the British minefields were in place in the Vestfjorden in Norway. These would slow down but ultimately fail to stop the German invasion."

"Danish capitulation did provide the country with some advantages. The Danes were allowed to maintain their independence in Danish political matters. The occupation would be more lenient than what other occupied countries would be subjected to. Because of this, most of Denmark’s Jews were safely removed to Sweden, out of harm from the German Final Solution for the extermination of the Jews."

" ... Norwegians presented a stiff defense of their capital as they sank the German cruiser Blücher. By the end of the day, however, after the Germans parachuted into Oslo, the city fell to the Nazis. Fighting continued in other parts of Norway, but within two days, the Germans had taken the main cities of the country."

"Alerted to the presence of German ships in Norwegian waters, Norway was able to evacuate its government and royal family before the invasion. Norway never actually surrendered to the Germans, and the Norwegians maintained a government-in-exile based in London during the war. At the same time, the Quisling government, supportive of the Nazi regime, ruled in Norway."

" ... As Chamberlain tried to rally his tottering government, Adolf Hitler, encouraged by the lackluster Allied efforts in Norway, was sending tanks, aircraft, and troops into the Low Countries.

"As a result, Chamberlain resigned. Winston Churchill became prime minister on the day when Europe faced a military threat from an enemy seeking revenge for its defeat in the First World War."

................................................................................................

................................................

April 05, 2022 - April 05, 2022.

................................................

................................................................................................

Dunkirk and the Surrender of the Low Countries

................................................................................................

" ... Dutch neutrality had kept the Netherlands out of the First World War and had avoided actions which might have caused friction against Germany. ... In order to dodge the barrier posed by the Maginot Line, the Germans planned to avoid the eastern border of France and instead advance through the Netherlands and Belgium. The plan had an added advantage which would enable the Germans to prevent the Allies from setting up an operations base on the European mainland."

" ... The British Expeditionary Force, better trained and better armed, was positioned south of the border between Belgium and France. The British and French forces combined had 750,000 troops ready to reinforce the armies of Belgium and the Netherlands, along with an Allied air force, although the latter did not match the numbers of the German Luftwaffe."

" ... while the Dutch citizens perceived increased military activity, they didn’t realize that invasion was imminent. On the morning of May 10, 1940, when they spotted German bombers flying toward the North Sea, they assumed the planes were heading to Britain. But once they were over the North Sea, the German planes, after a 180-degree turn, circled back toward the Netherlands.

"Hitler had an alibi for his attack. Britain and France, he accused, planned to attack the Ruhr Area via the Netherlands and Belgium. Germany had to protect its borders. Hitler was proficient in manufacturing excuses as a pretext for German aggression and had accomplished it with success before."

The alibi was only for US media and people; his own nation was happy Invading and colonising any of rest of Europe or world. But the fraudulent propaganda also served to divide people of France and UK, by giving those willing to believe it, an excuse to go on clamouring for a treaty.

" ... Netherlands surrendered on May 15, submitting to occupied rule under the German Reich. For the Jews living in the Netherlands, many of whom—like the family of Anne Frank—had fled to the Netherlands to escape persecution in their native Germany, the developments were especially ominous. Some people, knowing the capacity of the Nazis for violence and menace, chose suicide rather than the prospect of Nazi brutality.

"The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, like the Netherlands, was a neutral country. Concrete block defenses had been constructed along its border with Germany and France, but there was little hope that they would withstand a German invasion. On May 10, the Germans invaded, and by night, most of the nation was occupied, although the government and the royal family evacuated to Canada."

" ... On May 28, King Leopold surrendered the army without first consulting his government or his Allies and leaving the British Expeditionary Force dangerously exposed at the port of Dunkirk, near the French/Belgian border.

"The Germans advanced to the English Channel, trapping the Allied forces. At the last moment, the British forces were rescued by a civilian armada of “little ships,” numbering approximately 850, that sailed to Dunkirk from May 26 to June 4, 1940, to rescue more than 336,000 French and British soldiers. Much of the Allied equipment was left behind, but the rescue at Dunkirk was a burst of morale for the British. They would sorely need good news, for the war was about to become much bleaker for the Allied cause. As Prime Minister Winston Churchill succinctly put it, “Wars are not won by evacuations!”"

................................................................................................

................................................

April 05, 2022 - April 05, 2022.

................................................

................................................................................................

The Invasion of France

................................................................................................

"Despite all the information that was accumulating, French General Maurice Gamelin did not react with the speed that the circumstances seemed to require. Gamelin was a 68-year-old military veteran, reflective of a bygone time, with ideas more suited to the past. He doubted that airplanes would play a prominent role in warfare and was dismissive of the importance of radio communication, believing that if he even had a radio in his headquarters, the enemy might discern its location. ... "

"During the Battle of Hannut, French and German tanks met on May 12 in what was, at that time, the largest tank battle ever fought. After knocking out 160 German tanks, the French staged a planned withdrawal, leaving the Germans in control of the battlefield. The French were successful in delaying the German Panzer divisions long enough for the French First Army to arrive and get into position. Defying orders from his superiors and indeed, from Hitler as well, the German Panzer commander General Erich Hoepner attacked once again at Gembloux, ultimately losing 42 tanks in the effort. At this point, matters seemed hopeful for the French, but that perspective was an illusion."

" ... French lacked anti-tank and anti-aircraft weaponry. They had failed to heed the intelligence reports they were receiving on German movements. Reserve units had been ordered to reinforce the Meuse area on May 11, but this operation was conducted at night due to the threat of Luftwaffe planes in daylight. The French believed that the Germans would also be hampered by slow movement, not yet realizing that the Germans were in a hurry."

"On May 13, three Panzer Divisions, reinforced by an elite infantry regiment, crossed near Sedan. Because the Germans lacked artillery, the German air attack used dive bombing and carpet bombing against a narrow sector of the French lines, flying 3,940 sorties to smash a hole in the defensive line. By midnight, the Germans were able to penetrate five miles into the French defenses as the gunners fled."

"The situation had reached a dangerous level, and the French commander decided that the bridges across the Meuse had to be destroyed. In doing so, the Allies lost 44 percent of their strength in the attempt to destroy the three bridges."

" ... French Ninth Army was surrounded; the Second Army suffered serious losses. Erwin Rommel’s tanks had broken through the French lines, advancing by day and by night, traveling 30 miles (48 kilometers) in 24 hours and, by May 17, claiming to have taken 10,000 prisoners while suffering only 36 losses among his own forces. ... "

" ... Germans could call upon 142 divisions and, except for the skies over the English Channel, air supremacy and were in excellent shape as they began their second offensive on the Somme and the Aisne on June 5. Here, however, the French Army proved more challenging to the Germans. More than 110,000 French soldiers had been returned from Dunkirk and had not been demoralized by the German advance."

"Army Group B, moving over Luxembourg and Belgium and then advancing through the Ardennes, was bringing more than one million German troops and 1,500 tanks through the forest. The French units in position had minimal air support and could not stop the German bombers. By this time, the French Army was unable to present opposition to the German forces.

"June would see the Germans cutting the Maginot Line off from the rest of France. Some of the troops within the Maginot Line forts continued to fight, but they were easily captured. On June 10, as the German 18th Army was deployed against Paris and Weygand acknowledged that the French Army would not be able to muster a significant defense, the government of France declared Paris an open city. In order to keep the Germans from destroying Paris, all defensive efforts were abandoned; the city of Paris, the jewel of France, was Germany’s for the taking."

................................................................................................

................................................

April 05, 2022 - April 05, 2022.

................................................

................................................................................................

Surrender at Compiegne

................................................................................................

"On May 16, when Churchill flew to Paris, he saw for himself how desperate matters were. The French government was burning its papers and preparing for the evacuation of Paris. He learned from General Gamelin that the French Army had no reserve soldiers. Churchill would later recount this exchange as the most shocking moment of his life. When he asked Gamelin where and when the French would counterattack the Germans, Gamelin replied, “inferiority of numbers, inferiority of equipment, inferiority of methods.”

"The French population suddenly realized that they were in danger and that the hated, dreaded Germans, having overwhelmed the French Army, were going to occupy France as they were now occupying other countries in Europe. In response, the citizens prepared to flee to the south, where the Germans had not yet made inroads.

"The French government had failed to prepare for such a disaster and had no contingency plans to accommodate the new refugees, between six million to ten million, who were leaving in droves, despite government encouragement to stay where they were. Cities in the south of France saw their populations suddenly increase while cities such as Chartres decreased in numbers from 23,000 residents to 800."

"Churchill, still hoping to rally the French, attended a meeting of the Anglo-French Supreme War Council on June 13 to suggest a Franco-British Union, but the suggestion was rebuffed. He had insisted that the French ought to continue the fight because eventually the United States would enter the war on the side of the Allies.

"However, when Prime Minister Reynaud sent a telegram to U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt asking him to declare war or offer help, Roosevelt’s secretary of state was averse to the publication of such an announcement. Publicly offering aid would signal to Hitler that the U.S. intended to join the war on the Allied side, putting American neutrality in jeopardy. The U.S. would provide help and materiel but could not make a public announcement. Roosevelt did, however, order that the American assets of Germany and Italy were to be frozen."

"On June 22, 1940, the signing was concluded. The French Army was to disband. France was responsible for bearing the costs of the invasion by Germany. France was to be divided into zones occupied by Italy and Germany. The remaining third, which was not occupied by the Germans, became known as the Vichy government, with Marshal Petain as its chief of state. The Vichy government was officially neutral, but Petain would be a figurehead leader, obedient to the Nazi rule, and the Vichy government collaborated with the Germans.

"After the signing of the surrender, Adolf Hitler toured Paris with Albert Speer, the architect of the Third Reich. After praising the beauty of Paris, Hitler ordered Speer to draw up a decree for the resumption of renovations to the buildings in Berlin. “In the past,” he told Speer, “I often considered whether we would not have to destroy Paris. But when we are finished in Berlin, Paris will only be a shadow. So why should we destroy it?”"

Author misses on significance of visit to the tomb of Napoleon by someone aspiring to be considered his heir, on exactly the anniversary of his significant victory, a century later.

................................................................................................

................................................

April 05, 2022 - April 05, 2022.

................................................

................................................................................................

Vichy France: The British Attack the French Navy

................................................................................................

"According to the terms of the armistice, the French were allowed to retain their navy. Churchill asked the admiral of the French fleet, Francois Darlan, to take his navy to Britain rather than risk letting the Germans control the fleet. Darlan vowed that he would destroy the French ships before he would allow Hitler to take control of them. Yet Winston Churchill knew that Hitler was eager to attack Great Britain, and with only the English Channel separating the two countries, the prime minister faced a dreadful dilemma. It seemed unlikely that the occupying Germans would permit France to maintain control of its vessels. Churchill felt that he had no choice: he had to order the destruction of the French fleet in order to save Great Britain.

"The British war cabinet was not in favor of Churchill’s views on destroying the French fleet; France was an ally, even if about to surrender to Germany. But on July 1, his arguments prevailed. On July 3, the British Navy surrounded the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir outside Oran, Algeria. The British relayed Churchill’s message that the French vessels had six hours to decide whether they were going to sail to a British port, the United States, a French port in the West Indies, or scuttle the ships. The French showed the British the order they had received from Darlan; if the Germans broke the terms of the armistice and demanded the ships, the French were to sail to the U.S. When Admiral Darlan learned of the exchange, he ordered reinforcements to the ships, but the message was intercepted by the British. The British meanwhile sent planes to mine the entrance to the port.

"That evening, the British launched their attack, killing approximately 1,300 French sailors in what some French would later describe as their Pearl Harbor. The French ordered an airstrike against Gibraltar, but the effect was minimal in comparison. On July 8, France cut diplomatic ties with the British.

"Two years later, when Germany decided that the remaining French fleet was to do its bidding and sent authorities to Toulon, where the ships were based, the French commanders scuttled their 70 ships. Darlan sent Churchill a letter which told the British prime minister that, as he had said in 1940, he was a man of his word."

................................................................................................

................................................

April 05, 2022 - April 05, 2022.

................................................

................................................................................................

Aftermath: French Resistance

................................................................................................

"Charles de Gaulle was a junior brigadier general who served in a minor capacity in the pre-Vichy French government. The day after Marshal Petain announced that France was going to surrender to Germany, de Gaulle delivered an address in a London studio. “This war has not been decided by the Battle of France. This war is a world war,” de Gaulle said. The Appeal of June 18 was the start of the French Resistance, but at the time it was made, there seemed little chance that France would rally to de Gaulle, who was not widely known. Not many French people even heard the broadcast, as they were occupied by Germany.

"Existing resistance movements that had arisen did not view de Gaulle, who was not in France, as a legitimate representative of their country or their plight. But de Gaulle would not be restrained as he overcame the obstacles in his way. On September 24, 1941, the French National Committee was formed. It would eventually become the foundation of the provisional government led by de Gaulle when the Allies liberated France in 1944. The Free French Army also formed to fight with the Allies. It numbered almost 500,000 soldiers by June 1944, 1 million by December, and 1.3 million by the end of the war. By the war’s end, this army occupied south-west Germany and a part of Austria.

"The ignominy and hardship of living under German occupation inspired the French to resist the Nazi regime, and the French Resistance proved to be of great value to the Allies as ordinary citizens relayed information about German movements, rescued Allied pilots and managed to get them back to Great Britain, and engaged in acts of sabotage against the Germans. As many as 400,000 French are estimated to have been part of the French Resistance."

" ... By the time the Allies were ready to invade Normandy, the Resistance was engaged in major acts of sabotage against the Germans, blowing up ammunition depots and derailing trains and enraging the Germans. When a German Panzer division was attacked while traveling to Normandy, the Germans retaliated against the town of Oradour-sur-Glane, where Resistance members were suspected of hiding. The Germans massacred 642 of the town’s residents. Still, the French Resistance continued."

................................................................................................

................................................

April 05, 2022 - April 05, 2022.

................................................

................................................................................................

................................................

April 01, 2022 - April , 2022.

Purchased January 17, 2022.

ASIN:- ‎B099S12QM9

................................................

Battle of France - World War II:

A History from Beginning to End

(World War 2 Battles) Kindle Edition

by Hourly History

Language ‏ : ‎ English

................................................................................................

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4642965562

................................................................................................

Reviews - Books I Read - DRJG

Tuesday, April 5, 2022

Battle of France - World War II: A History from Beginning to End (World War 2 Battles), by Hourly History.

Light Explodes Across Heavens

Blog Archive

Serene, Reflecting

Contributors

Followers

My Shelfari Bookshelf