France Archives

France

The Wehrmacht in France: Decisions in a Time of Debacle

by Brooke C. Stoddard

May 10, 1940, marked the beginning of the war in western Europe. Nazi-controlled Germany invaded Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. Read more

The Bruneval Raid was crucial to gathering information on a new and dangerous German radar system.

France

Raid on Bruneval: Stealing the Enemy’s Eyes

By Kelly Bell

The parachute of aptly named Major J.D. Frost cracked open in the freezing air high above the French Channel coast at 12:45 am, and he commenced drifting down through the moonlit gloom. Read more

Canadian pilot George Beurling earned fame as the "Falcon of Malta," defending the tiny island in the Mediterranean in World War II.

France

George Beurling: Canadian Fighter Ace Known as “The Falcon of Malta”

By Herb Kugel

In September 1943, Canada’s top air ace, the “Falcon of Malta,” Flying Officer George Beurling, was faced with two problems. Read more

Ed Mauser, who fought as a member of the celebrated band of brothers, hadn’t talked about his odyssey until now.

France

Ed Mauser: Easy Company’s Silent Brother

By Kevin M. Hymel

Paratrooper Ed Mauser never forgot the first thing he saw when he leaped from the doorway of his C-47 transport plane in the opening hours of D-Day, June 6, 1944. Read more

France

The Falaise Pocket Scourge: The RAF’s Hawker Typhoon

By Michael D. Hull

From the Supermarine Spitfire to the North American P-51 Mustang, and from the Soviet Yak series to the Vought F4U Corsair, the Allies were able to field a formidable array of fighter planes against the Axis powers in World War II. Read more

France

Napoleon Bonaparte’s Failing Health at Dresden

By Eric Niderost

Napoleon had occasional health problems before 1810. He seems to have experienced seizures one or two times, episodes that resembled epilepsy, although most medical historians feel that he did not have the disease—at least not a classic version of it. Read more

France

Napoleon’s Last Great Victory: The Battle of Dresden

By Eric Niderost

Marshal Gouvion Saint-Cyr was in a tight spot, and he knew it. It was the morning of August 26, 1813, and Saint-Cyr and his French XIV Corps were defending Dresden, the capital of Saxony, from a large and menacing Allied army that outnumbered his own by at least four to one. Read more

The 2nd SS Division Das Reich destroyed the quiet French village of Oradour-sur-Glane en route to the fields of Normandy.

France

Martyr Village: Massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane

By Robert Mueller

Upon visiting Oradour-sur-Glane, one finds a quiet, rural French village where the populace carries on about its business much like in any commune in France. Read more

Beginning with hi victory at Delaware Bay, Irish-born John Barry was in the forefront of naval action during the Revolutionary War.

France

Commodore John Barry: Naval Hero of the American Revolution

By Neil Cosgrove

Most histories of the American Revolution give the fledgling Patriot navy only one hero: John Paul Jones. While not begrudging Jones’s recognition, it seems unfair to represent the Continental Navy with a single fighting captain. Read more

Giuseppe Garibaldi landed in Sicily in May 1860 at the head of 1,000 revolutionaries, the Italian red shirts. Italy's unification had begun.

France

Giuseppe Garibaldi and the Italian Red Shirts

By Louis Ciotola

In the spring of 1860, when Giuseppe Garibaldi became Dictator of Sicily, Italy was a confusing conglomerate of states, divided between Piedmont-Sardinia and Austrian Venetia in the north, the Papal States in the middle, and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, centered in Naples, in the south. Read more

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

A French army under Gaston de Foix interrupted its siege of Ravenna, Italy, to give battle to Spanish forces on a soggy plain south of the city.

France

Death of the Fox: Battle of Ravenna (1512)

By William E. Welsh

As the first rays of sunlight chased away the shadows from the base of the high walls surrounding the village of Ravenna in northern Italy on Easter Sunday, April 11, 1512, the French army besieging the town began to form into columns. Read more

The fabled Scottish Highlanders marched into battle at Quatre Bras and Waterloo. Here's why the story still resonates today.

France

Scottish Highlanders at the Battle of Waterloo

By Eric Niderost

In the early morning of June 16, 1815, the city of Brussels awoke to the shriek of bagpipes and the throbbing tattoo of drums. 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

From Around the Network

Operation Crusader at Sidi Rezegh—Siege of Tobruk

The Graf Spee & Britain’s First Naval Victory of World War II

Why Erwin Rommel’s 7th Panzer Division Was Called the “Ghost Division”

Evans Carlson Forms Carlson’s Raiders