page_title: French Army
section_title: Early 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: French Army / History / Early 20th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Free French Foreign Legionnaires "leap up from the desert to rush an enemy strong point", Bir Hacheim, 12 June 1942.
context_page_description: The French Army, officially the Ground Army to distinguish it from the French Air Force, Armée de l'Air or Air Army, is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces. It is responsible to the Government of France, along with the other four components of the Armed Forces. The current Chief of Staff of the French Army is General Thierry Burkhard, a direct subordinate of the Chief of the Defence Staff. General Burkhard is also responsible, in part, to the Ministry of the Armed Forces for organization, preparation, use of forces, as well as planning and programming, equipment and Army future acquisitions. For active service, Army units are placed under the authority of the Chief of the Defence Staff, who is responsible to the President of France for planning for, and use, of forces.
  According to British historian Niall Ferguson, out of all recorded conflicts which occurred since the year 387 BC, France has fought in 168 of them, won 109, lost 49 and drawn 10; thus giving French Army an immense prestige.
  All soldiers are considered professionals following the suspension of conscription, voted in parliament in 1997 and made effective in 2001.
context_section_description: In August 1914, the French Armed Forces numbered 1,300,000 soldiers. During the Great War, the French Army would call up 8,817,000 men, including 900,000 colonial troops. During the war around 1,397,000 French soldiers were killed in action, mostly on the Western Front. It would be the most deadly conflict in French history. The main generals were: Joseph Joffre, Ferdinand Foch, Charles Mangin, Philippe Pétain, Robert Nivelle, Franchet d'Esperey and Maurice Sarrail (See French Army in World War I). At the beginning of the war, French soldiers still wore the uniform of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, but the uniform was unsuited to the trenches, and so in 1915 the French Army replaced the uniform, with the Adrian helmet replacing the képi. A uniform with a capote, of bleu-horizon colour adopted to the trenches, was adopted, and the uniform for colonial soldiers coloured khaki.
  At the beginning of the Battle of France the French Army deployed 2,240,000 combatants grouped into 94 divisions (of which 20 were active and 74 were reservists) from the Swiss border to the North Sea. These numbers did not include the Army of the Alps facing Italy and 600,000 men dispersed through the French colonial empire are not included in this figure. After defeat in 1940, the Vichy French regime was allowed to retain 100–120,000 personnel in unoccupied France, and larger forces in the French Empire: more than 220,000 in Africa (including 140,000 in French North Africa), and forces in Mandate Syria and French Indochina. Free French Forces, under the command of Charles de Gaulle, continued the fight with the Allies until the final defeat of the Axis in 1945.
  After 1945, despite enormous efforts in the First Indochina War of 1945–54 and the Algerian War of 1954–62, both lands eventually left French control. French units stayed in Germany after 1945, forming the French Forces in Germany. 5th Armored Division stayed on in Germany after 1945, while 1st and 3rd Armoured Divisions were established in Germany in 1951. However NATO-assigned formations were withdrawn to fight in Algeria; 5th Armoured Division was withdrawn in 1956. From 1948 to 1966, many French Army units fell under the integrated NATO Military Command Structure. Commander-in-Chief Allied Forces Central Europe was a French Army officer, and many key NATO staff positions were filled by Frenchmen. While an upper limit of 14 French divisions committed to NATO had been set by the Treaty of Paris, the total did not exceed six divisions during the Indochina War, and during the Algerian War the total fell as low as two divisions.
  The Army created two parachute divisions in 1956, the 10th Parachute Division under the command of General Jacques Massu and the 25th Parachute Division under the command of General Sauvagnac. After the Algiers putsch, the two divisions, with the 11th Infantry Division, were merged into a new light intervention division, the 11th Light Intervention Division, on 1 May 1961.
caption: Free French Foreign Legionnaires at the Battle of Bir Hakeim (1942)
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