Battle of France

Battle of France
Part of The Western Front of the European theatre of World War II
British and French soldiers taken prisoner in Northern France.
Date 10 May – 25 June 1940 Location France, Low Countries Result Decisive German victory
Belligerents
Axis:  Germany  Italy (from June 10)	Allies: France  United Kingdom Belgium  Netherlands  Poland  Canada Czechoslovakia  Luxembourg
Commanders and leaders
Gerd von Rundstedt (Army Group A) Fedor von Bock (Army Group B) Wilhelm von Leeb (Army Group C) Prince Umberto (Army Group West)	Maurice Gamelin Maxime Weygand Charles de Gaulle Lord Gort (British Expeditionary Force) Leopold III Henri Winkelman Władysław Sikorski
Strength
Germany: 141 divisions[1] 7,378 guns[1] 2,445 tanks[1] 5,638 aircraft[2][3] 3,350,000 troops Alps on 20 June 300,000 Italians	144 divisions[1] 13,974 guns[1] 3,383 tanks[1] 2,935 aircraft[4] 3,300,000 troops Alps on 20 June ~150,000 French
Casualties and losses
Germany: 28,225 dead[1] (possibly as high as 49,000)[5] 113,152 wounded[1] 13, 307 missing[1] 1,290 aircraft lost (10 May to 24 June 1940) [6] 1,097 aircrew killed, 1395 injured, 1930 missing[7] 795 tanks[8] Italy: 1,247 dead or missing, 2,631 wounded, 2,151 hospitalised due to frostbite1	360,000 dead or wounded, 1,900,000 captured 1029 RAF aircraft, 1274 french aircraft[6]
1 Italian forces were involved in fighting in the French Alps, where severe sub-zero temperatures are common, even during the summer.

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.^[9]

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.

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8} Maier and Falla 1991, p. 279.
2. ↑ Hooton 2007, pp. 47-48: Hooton uses the Bundesarchiv, Militärarchiv in Freiburg.
3. ↑ Luftwaffe strength included gliders and transports used in the assaults on The Netherlands and Belgium
4. ↑ Hooton 2007, p. 47-48: Hooton uses the National Archives in London for RAF records. Including "Air 24/679 Operational Record Book: The RAF in France 1939–1940", "Air 22/32 Air Ministry Daily Strength Returns", "Air 24/21 Advanced Air Striking Force Operations Record" and "Air 24/507 Fighter Command Operations Record". For the Armee de l'Air Hooton uses "Service Historique de Armee de l'Air (SHAA), Vincennes".
5. ↑ Frieser 1995, p. 400.
6. ↑ ^{6.0 6.1} Hooton 2007, p. 90.
7. ↑ Hooton 2010, p. 73.
8. ↑ Healy 2007, p. 85.
9. ↑ Keegan, John (1989), The Second World War, Glenfield, Auckland 10, New Zealand: Hutchinson{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location (link).