Military history of France during World War II

The military history of France during World War II covers three periods. From 1939 until 1940, which witnessed a war against Germany by the French Third Republic. The period from 1940 until 1945, which saw competition between Vichy France and the Free French Forces under General Charles de Gaulle for control of the overseas empire. In 1944 the Allies (United States, Britain and others) invaded and took control of France, expelling the Germans (except for a few ports the Germans kept).

In August 1943, the de Gaulle and Giraud forces merged in a single chain of command subordinated to Anglo-American leadership, meanwhile opposing French forces on the Eastern Front were subordinated to Soviet or German leaderships. This in-exile French force together with the French Forces of the Interior (FFI) played a variable-scale role in the eventual liberation of France by the Western Allies and the defeat of Vichy France, Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and the Japanese empire. Vichy France fought for control over the French overseas empire with the Free French forces, which were aided by Britain and the U.S. By 1943, all of the colonies, except for Indochina, had joined the Free French cause.

France and Britain declared war on Germany when it invaded Poland in September 1939. After the Phoney War from 1939 to 1940, with very little fighting, the Germans invaded and defeated France and forced the British off the continent. France formally surrendered to Germany.

The number of Free French troops grew with Allied success in North Africa and subsequent rallying of the Army of Africa which pursued the fight against the Axis fighting in many campaigns and eventually invading Italy, occupied France and Germany from 1944 to 1945 by demanding unconditional surrender to the Axis Power in Casablanca Conference. On 23 October 1944, Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union officially recognized de Gaulle's regime as the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF) which replaced the in-exile Vichy French State (its government having fled to Sigmaringen in western Germany) and preceded the Fourth Republic (1946).

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