Free French Forces

The Free French Forces (Forces Françaises Libres) was the name applied to French citizens who fought overtly, as a military formation, against Germany and the Vichy Government after France fell as a result of the Battle of France. The Free French Forces had its origin in a BBC broadcast of June 18, 1940, by Charles de Gaulle from London to the French people. Commemorated in French history as the "Appeal of June 18," it was a call to French men and women to continue to resist the Nazi occupation. Subsequent broadcasts repeated this call, and De Gaulle, keenly aware of the power of symbols, even fashioned a Free French flag featuring the red Cross of Lorraine superimposed on the white band of the nation's tricolor. As compelling a figure as de Gaulle was, his broadcasts initially drew only some 7,000 volunteers to the Free French Forces. In addition, about 3,600 sailors joined the Free French Navy, which consisted of 50 ships that had been in British-controlled ports or had sailed to such ports at the time of the fall of France. This force operated as an auxiliary to the British Royal Navy. The Free French Forces received a significant influx of men in fall 1940, when the French colonies of Chad, Cameroon, Moyen-Congo, French Equatorial Africa, and Oubangi-Chari broke with the Vichy Government and joined the Free French. Somewhat later, colonies in New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, and the New Hebrides also joined. French Indochina and the French colonies of Guadeloupe and Martinique in the West Indies remained under Vichy control. A blow to recruitment came as a result of the Battle of Mers-el-Kebir, a British attack on the French fleet harbored in this Algerian port, in which some 1,297 French sailors were killed. This turned many against the idea of joining the Free French Forces, which collaborated with the British. Nevertheless, de Gaulle carried on, and, in September 1941, he formally created the Comité National Français (French National Committee), the Free French government in exile. On November 24, 1941, U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt conferred considerable legitimacy on the Comité National Français by extending Lend-Lease Act policy to it. Free French troops fought in the North African Campaigns and also against Italians in Ethiopia and Eritrea. They also fought Vichy French troops in Syria and Lebanon. The Free French Forces existed separately from the French resistance and underground movements until de Gaulle worked to unite them—and, indeed, all the disparate resistance movements—under his own leadership. Changing the name of Comité National Français to Forces Françaises Combattantes (Fighting French Forces), he sent resistance leader Jean Moulin back to France to unite the major resistance groups into one organization. This became the Conseil National de la Résistance, but complete union between the overt military (what the Allies continued to call the Free French Forces) and the covert and guerrillastyle resistance was never really achieved. Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa, prompted various French units to surrender and join the Free French. At this point General Henri Giraud presented himself as a rival to de Gaulle's leadership of the forces, but de Gaulle retained control. As the North African campaign progressed, the Free French forces grew, and in 1943, some 100,000 Free French troops participated in the Allies' Italian Campaign. By the time of the Normandy landings (D-day), the Free French mustered about 400,000 troops and featured a formal military organization. The Free French 2nd Armored Division, led by General Jacques-Philippe Leclerc, landed at Normandy and, subsequently, took the lead in the Allied drive toward Paris. It was the first unit to actually enter Paris on August 25, 1944. The Free French First Army, commanded by General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, participated in the invasion of southern France. This unit retook Alsace from the Germans, an event of powerful symbolic significance.