France

Battle of Alma: First Blood in the Crimea

By Eric Niderost

On the morning of September 14, 1854, an Anglo-French fleet arrived off the coast of the Crimean Peninsula in the Black Sea. Read more

France

Leclerc and Liberation

By Michael D. Hull

After the humiliating fall of France in June 1940, two impassioned patriots—a general and an infantry captain—refused to accept defeat and determined, against all odds, to exact retribution from the German invaders. Read more

France

Spanish Disaster at Rocroi

By William Welsh

Five hundred Spanish musketeers filed into the dim forest on the southern edge of a wooded plain south of the border fort at Rocroi, France, at dusk on May 18, 1643. Read more

France

Monmouth: Longest Battle of the American Revolution

By Eric Niderost

On June 19, 1778, Continental soldiers marched out of Valley Forge, happy to leave the rough wooden cabins where they had spent a miserable winter; cold, hunger, and disease had been their constant companions. Read more

France

Capturing the Rock: Gibraltar 1704

By Arnold Blumberg

As Spanish king Charles II lay dying in Madrid in the autumn of 1700, worried diplomats in other European capitals brooded day and night over who would succeed the childless monarch. Read more

France

The Art of Victory: Koniggratz 1866

By William E. Welsh

The Prussian soldiers had been awake long before sunup on the morning of July 3, 1866, and were marching downhill to the Bystrice River in the rolling countryside of Bohemia, 65 miles east of Prague. Read more

France

WWI Author: The Writings of Wilfred Owen

By Philip Burton Morris

When news began to circulate through the city of Bordeaux, France, in August 1914 that war had broken out with Germany, 21-year-old Englishman Wilfred Owen was as surprised as most. Read more

France

Mers el Kebir: Why the Royal Navy Sunk the French Fleet in WWII

by Michael D. Hull

When the armistice between France and Germany was put into force on June 25, 1940, the fate of the powerful French Navy—the fourth largest in the world—was of critical importance to the British. Read more

France

French Strategy in the American Revolution

By David Curtis Skaggs

When most Americans think of the triumphant ending of the Revolutionary War, they almost exclusively credit George Washington for the miraculous outcome, forgetting that the war was part of a much larger worldwide contest of which the revolution in the colonies was only a part. Read more

France

Frederick Townsend Ward and the Ever— Victorious Army

By Robert Heege

Wu Hsu was having trouble sleeping. As the taotai, or mayor, of Shanghai, Wu was charged with the ultimate welfare of China’s greatest cosmopolitan city. Read more

France

Fire: A Photo Essay for the World War II GI

By Kevin M. Hymel

Next to sleep, warmth was the most sought after commodity of the frontline soldiers who froze in their foxholes, stomping their feet or puffing on cigarettes to keep warm. Read more

France

Sitzkrieg on the Western Front

By Michael Hull

Within hours of the entry of Great Britain and France into World War II on September 3, 1939, the British liner SS Athenia was sunk by a German U-boat off the northwestern coast of Ireland, with the loss of 112 dead, including 28 American citizens. Read more

France

Beasts of War

By Chuck Lyons

Not all World War II heroes were men or women. Some were four-legged, hoofed, or winged. They included horses and mules, elephants, and dogs as well as more exotic animals such as bats, camels, reindeer, and pigeons. Read more

France

Napoleon Bonaparte: Moving Toward Destiny at the Battle of Austerlitz

By Frank Quinn

During the summer of 1802, Europe was at peace for the first time in 13 years. The Treaty of Amiens (March 27, 1802), had ended what would later be seen as the opening round of the Napoleonic Wars. Read more

France

Operation Deadstick: the Capture of ‘Pegasus Bridge’

This article was provided by Martin Cherrett, whose blog, World War II Today, provides a unique way military history enthusiasts can understand and experience the Second World War. Read more

France

Operation Greif and Otto “Scarface” Skorzeny

By Don Hollway

With a quarter of a million German troops pouring through the Ardennes Forest, three Americans fleeing in a jeep should have raised no alarm. Read more

France

Germany in World War II: The Long Surrender

By Charles Whiting

It was said on May 8, 1945, that some of the victors wandered around in a daze. They were puzzled by a strange silence. Read more

France

Joachim Murat: Napoleon Bonaparte’s ‘Premier Chevalier’

By Jeremy Green

Dashing hussars in beautifully braided dolmans and fur-lined pelisses; chasseurs in their brilliant green uniforms; the heavy cavalry of cuirassiers in their glistening breastplates, mounted on magnificent chargers; and the dragoons, wearing brass Grecian helmets with long, flowing manes of black horsehair—all magnificent in their martial and fashionable airs. Read more

France

The 1758 Battle of Ticonderoga

by John F. Murphy, Jr.

On the morning of July 8, 1758, the largest field army yet gathered by the British Empire in North America stood a mile from a French stone fort in the forests of what was then the colony of New York. Read more

France

Misadventure in the Sinai

By Eric Hammel

Many historians consider the Suez-Sinai campaign in the autumn of 1956 the last hurrah for British and French colonialist efforts in the Middle East. Read more