page_title: Free France
section_title: Operation Torch
hierarchical_section_title: Free France / First successes / Operation Torch
caption_attribution_description: Operation Torch; November, 1942. Torch Landings
context_page_description: Free France and its Free French Forces was the government-in-exile led by Charles de Gaulle during the Second World War, and its military forces, that continued to fight against the Axis powers as an Allied nation, following the Fall of France. Set up in London in June 1940, it organised and supported the Resistance in Occupied France, and established a foothold within several French colonies in Africa.
  Charles de Gaulle, a French general and government minister, rejected the armistice being negotiated by Marshal Philippe Pétain and fled to Britain. There he exhorted the French to resist in his BBC broadcast "Appeal of 18 June".
  On 27 October 1940, the Empire Defense Council was constituted to organise the rule of the territories in central Africa, Asia, and Oceania that had heeded the 18 June call. It was replaced on 24 September 1941 by the French National Committee. On 13 July 1942, "Free France" was officially renamed Fighting France to mark that the struggle against the Axis was conducted both externally by the FFF and internally by the French Forces of the Interior.
context_section_description: Soon afterwards in November 1942, the Allies launched Operation Torch in the west, an invasion of Vichy-controlled French North Africa. An Anglo-American force of 63,000 men landed in French Morocco and Algeria. The long-term goal was to clear German and Italian troops from North Africa, enhance naval control of the Mediterranean, and prepare an invasion of Italy in 1943. The Allies had hoped that Vichy forces would offer only token resistance to the Allies, but instead they fought hard, incurring heavy casualties. As a French foreign legionnaire put it after seeing his comrades die in an American bombing raid: "Ever since the fall of France, we had dreamed of deliverance, but we did not want it that way".
  After 8 November 1942 putsch by the French resistance that prevented the 19th Corps from responding effectively to the allied landings around Algiers the same day, most Vichy figures were arrested (including General Alphonse Juin, chief commander in North Africa, and Vichy admiral François Darlan). However, Darlan was released and U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower finally accepted his self-nomination as high commissioner of North Africa and French West Africa, a move that enraged de Gaulle, who refused to recognise his status.
  Henri Giraud, a general who had escaped from military captivity in Germany in April 1942, had negotiated with the Americans for leadership in the invasion. He arrived in Algiers on 10 November, and agreed to subordinate himself to Admiral Darlan as the commander of the French African army.
  Later that day Darlan ordered a ceasefire and Vichy French forces began, en masse, to join the Free French cause. Initially at least the effectiveness of these new recruits was hampered by a scarcity of weaponry and, among some of the officer class, a lack of conviction in their new cause.
  After the signing of the cease-fire, the Germans lost faith in the Vichy regime, and on 11 November 1942 German and Italian forces occupied Vichy France (Case Anton), violating the 1940 armistice, and triggering the scuttling of the French fleet in Toulon on 27 November 1942. In response, the Vichy Army of Africa joined the Allied side. They fought in Tunisia for six months until April 1943, when they joined the campaign in Italy as part of the French Expeditionary Corps in Italy (FEC).
  Admiral Darlan was assassinated on 24 December 1942 in Algiers by the young monarchist Bonnier de La Chapelle. Although de la Chapelle had been a member of the resistance group led by Henri d'Astier de La Vigerie, it is believed he was acting as an individual.
  On 28 December, after a prolonged blockade, the Vichy forces in French Somaliland were ousted.
  After these successes, Guadeloupe and Martinique in the West Indies—as well as French Guiana on the northern coast of South America – finally joined Free France in the first months of 1943. In November 1943, the French forces received enough military equipment through Lend-Lease to re-equip eight divisions and allow the return of borrowed British equipment.
caption: Operation Torch landings in Morocco and Algeria
exif: {}