Battle of France

In World War II, **the Battle of France**, also called the **Fall of France**, was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries from 10 May 1940 that ended the Phoney War. The battle was made up of two parts.

In the first part, called _Fall Gelb_ in German ("Case Yellow" in English), German tank units pushed through the Ardennes to circle the Allied units that moved into Belgium.  Most of the British Expeditionary Force and many French soldiers escaped to England from Dunkirk during Operation Dynamo.

The second part of the battle, called _Fall Rot_ in German ("Case Red" in English), started on 5 June, when German armed forces circled the Maginot Line to attack the rest of France. Italy got into the war and started its own invasion of France, in the southeast of the country, on 10 June. The French government left Paris for Bordeaux, and the Germans took Paris on 14 June. After the French Second Army Group's surrender on 22 June, Philippe Pétain signed an armistice on 25 June.

The campaign was a major victory for the Axis Powers.

The French Third Republic ended. France was split into a German-occupied part in the north and west, a small Italian-occupied part in the southeast, and a satellite state part in the south that was called Vichy France. Southern France was invaded by Germany on 10 November 1942.

France began to be freed by the Allies at the Battle of Normandy in 1944. The Low Countries were freed later in 1944 and in 1945.

## Related pages

- Blitzkrieg
- Battle for Holland
- Vichy France
- Western Front

## References

<div class="references-small">
- Churchill, Winston S. <cite>_The Second World War: Their Finest Hour (Volume 2)_</cite>. Houghton Mifflin Company, Cambridge, 1949
- Durand, Yves. _La Captivite, Histoire des prisonniers de guerre francais 1939 - 1945_, Paris, 1981. Best available study of the French prisoners of war in German captivity.
- Frieser, Karl-Heinz <cite>_Blitzkrieg-Legende—Der Westfeldzug 1940_</cite>. Oldenbourg, 2005.
- Gunsburg, Jeffrey A., 'The Battle of the Belgian Plain, 12-14 May 1940: The First Great Tank Battle', _The Journal of Military History_, Vol. 56, No. 2. (Apr., 1992), pp. 207–244.
- Harman, Nicholas. (1980) _Dunkirk; the necessary myth_. London: Hodder and Stoughton.
- Hooton, E.R. (2007). _Luftwaffe at War; Blitzkrieg in the West_. London: Chervron/Ian Allen. .
- Jackson, Julian T.. <cite>_The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940_</cite>. Oxford UP, 2003.
- Krause, M. and Cody, P. (2006) _Historical Perspectives of the Operational Art_. Center of Military History Publication.
- Taylor, A.J.P. and Mayer, S.L., eds. _A History Of World War Two_. London: Octopus Books, 1974. .
- Weal, John (1997). Junkers Ju 87 _Stukageschwader_ 1937-41. Oxford: Osprey.
- Weinberg, Gerhard L. <cite>_A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II_</cite>. Cambridge UP, 1995.
- Martin, J. and Martin, P. <cite>_Ils étaient là: l’armée de l’Air septembre 39 - juin 40_</cite>. Aero-Editions, 2001.
</div>

## More reading

<div class="references-small">
- Alexander, Martin. <cite>Republic in Danger, General Maurice Gamelin and the Politics of French Defence, 1933-1940</cite>, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. An examination of Gamelin’s career and French military preparations during the 1930s. Highly complimentary work stressing French rational preparations for the war.
- This was the first detailed account of the B.E.F. in France. The fight for survival finished with the return from France in the little ships
- Bloch, Marc. <cite>Strange Defeat, A Statement of Evidence Written in 1940</cite>, Hopkins, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1968. Written in 1940 by a veteran of the campaign. Considered one of the early key works on understanding how the French saw this defeat. Writer killed in 1943 by Gestapo due to resistance work.
- Six nations locked in aerial combat - September 1939 to June 1940.
- Doughty, Robert Allan. <cite>The Seeds of Disaster: The Development of French Army Doctrine, 1919-1939</cite>, Archon, 1986. Examination of errors the French made in military doctrine during the inter-war years and how this, not defeatism or lack of quality equipment, led to the defeat of 1940.
- Doughty, Robert Allan. <cite>The Breaking Point: Sedan and the Fall of France, 1940</cite>. Archon, 1990. Classic study on the events of 13 and 14 May.
- Gerard, Lt. Robert M. <cite>Tank-Fighter Team</cite>, 1943
- Horne, Alistair. <cite>To Lose a Battle, 1940</cite>, Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1969. Narrative account of the Fall of France in 1940. Very readable but also dated in terms of its non-critical acceptance of the defeatism argument.
- Keisling, Eugenia C. <cite>Arming Against Hitler: France and the Limits of Military Planning</cite>. UP of Kansas, 1996. Study stressing the weaknesses of the French reserve, mobilization and training system. Rejects the defeatism interpretation.
- Maier, Klaus A. <cite>Germany and the Second World War: Germany's Initial Conquests in Europe</cite>. Oxford UP, 1991. English translation of a thorough collective German academic study, giving a detailed account of all events.
- May, Ernest R. <cite>Strange Victory: Hitler's Conquest of France</cite>. Hill & Wang, 2001. A modern account for the general public focusing on politics, strategy and intelligence.
- Mosier, John. <cite>The Blitzkrieg Myth: How Hitler and the Allies Misread the Strategic Realities of World War II</cite>. HarperCollins, 2003. Strongly revisionist interpretation, denying that the concept of Blitzkrieg can even be applied to this campaign.
- Shepperd, Alan. _France 1940_, Blitzkrieg in the West; Osprey Campaign Series #3, Osprey Publishing, 1990.
- Shirer, William L.. <cite>Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent, 1934-1941</cite>. Johns Hopkins UP, 2002. In the period just before the surrender, Shirer worked for CBS News under Edward R Murrow, moving around Europe as events dictated. This is his written account of the period.
- Young, Robert J. <cite>In Command of France: French Foreign Policy and Military Planning, 1933-1940, </cite> Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978.

</div>

## Other websites

- BBC - History - WW2: Fall of France Campaign (Flash animation of the campaign)
- Official German account of the Battle of France (as published in 1940)
- Battle of France
- Armistice Agreement Between Germany and France, 22 June 1940

## Infobox (military conflict)

- **conflict**: Battle of France
- **partof**: The Western Front (World War II), Western Front of the European theatre of World War II
- **image**: British prisoners at Dunkerque, France.jpg
- **caption**: British and French soldiers taken prisoner in Northern France.
- **date**: 10 May – 25 June 1940
- **place**: France, Low Countries
- **result**: Allied Nazi Germany, German–Italian invasion of France, Italian  victory
- **combatant1**: **Axis powers, Axis**:
***'
 <small>(from June 10)</small>
- **combatant2**: **Allies of World War II, Allies**:
** French Third Republic, France**
***'
** Belgium**
****

Czechoslovakia

- **commander1**: Gerd von Rundstedt
<small>(Army Group A)</small>
 Fedor von Bock
<small>(Army Group B)</small>
 Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb, Wilhelm von Leeb
<small>(Army Group C)</small>
 Umberto II of Italy, Prince Umberto
<small>(Army Group West)</small>
- **commander2**: Maurice Gamelin
 Maxime Weygand
 Charles de Gaulle
 John Vereker, 6th Viscount Gort, Lord Gort
<small>(British Expeditionary Force (World War II), British Expeditionary Force)</small>
 Leopold III of Belgium, Leopold III
 Henri Winkelman
 Władysław Sikorski
- **strength1**: ** Germany**:
141 divisions
7,378 guns
2,445 tanks
5,638 aircraft
3,350,000 troops
** Alps on 20 June**
300,000 Italians
- **strength2**:
144 divisions
13,974 guns
3,383 tanks
2,935 aircraft
 3,300,000 troops
**Alps on 20 June**
 ~150,000 French
- **casualties1**: ** Germany**:
28,225 dead (possibly as high as 49,000)
113,152 wounded
 13, 307 missing

1,290 aircraft lost (10 May to 24 June 1940)
1,097 aircrew killed, 1395 injured, 1930 missing
795 tanks
** Italy**:
1,247 dead or missing,
2,631 wounded,
2,151 hospitalised due to frostbite<sup>1</sup>
- **casualties2**: 360,000 dead or wounded,
1,900,000 captured
1029 RAF aircraft, 1274 french aircraft
- **notes**: <sup>1 </sup> Italian forces were involved in fighting in the French Alps, where severe sub-zero temperatures are common, even during the summer.
- **territory**: * Vichy France established
* Parts of France placed under German and Italian military occupation
*German annexation of Alsace–Lorraine