[15] While Pétain's government was recognized by the US, the USSR, and the Vatican, and controlled the French fleet and military in all the colonies, de Gaulle's retinue consisted of a secretary, three colonels, a dozen captains, a law professor, and three battalions of legionnaires who had agreed to stay in Britain and fight for him.

[c][20] In the south of France especially, Resistance fighters took to the mountainous brush (maquis) that gave them their name, and conducted guerilla warfare on the German occupation forces, cutting telephone lines and destroying bridges.

[22] The Unione Corse and the milieu, the criminal underground of Marseilles, gleefully provided logistical escape assistance for a price, although some such as Paul Carbone instead worked with the Carlingue, French auxiliaries to the Gestapo SD and German military police.

Other leading politicians, including Georges Mandel, Léon Blum, Pierre Mendès France, Jean Zay and Édouard Daladier (and separately Reynaud), were arrested while travelling to continue the war from North Africa.

[30] In his speech, de Gaulle reminded the French people that the British Empire and the United States of America would support them militarily and economically in an effort to retake France from the Germans.

According to historian Henri Bernard, [fr] De Gaulle went on to accept his proposal, but took care to exclude all his adversaries within the Free France movement, such as Émile Muselier, André Labarthe and others, retaining only "yes men" in the group.

In his inaugural speech, de Gaulle gave the body his imprimatur, as providing a means of representing the people of France as democratically and legally as possible under difficult and unparalleled circumstances, until such time as democracy could once again be restored.

[66] Of France's far-flung empire, only the 43 acres of French territory of the British island of St Helena (on 23 June at the initiative of Georges Colin, honorary consul of the domains[67]) and the Franco-British ruled New Hebrides in the Pacific (on 20 July) answered De Gaulle's call to arms.

Like all military personnel trapped on the mainland, they were functionally subject to the Pétain government: "French authorities made it clear that those who acted on their own initiative would be classed as deserters, and guards were placed to thwart efforts to get on board ships.

Unwilling to return to occupied France, but likewise reluctant to join de Gaulle, Béarn instead sought harbour in Martinique, her crew showing little inclination to side with the British in their continued fight against the Nazis.

[80] According to a volume of the U.S. official history of the war, In Brittany, southern France, and the area of the Loire and Paris, French Resistance forces greatly aided the pursuit to the Seine in August.

These "redoubts" of FFI fighters initially kept a low profile, since overt acts of sabotage resulted in savage reprisals by German forces, or direct military action on a large scale.

[88] Despite this, on 6 June, de Gaulle broadcast an impassioned call to arms to the French people on the BBC, which the maquisards interpreted as a signal for overt action; a lower-key message from Eisenhower to avoid a "premature uprising" was widely ignored.

[92][93] The Second Washington Conference in June 1942 confirmed a decision not to open a second front in France but to first invade French North Africa as part of a joint Mediterranean strategy for an attack on Italy (described as the "soft under-belly" of the Axis).

On 6 June 1944, the Allies began Operation Overlord, the largest seaborne invasion in history, establishing a beachhead in Normandy, landing two million men in northern France and opening another front in western Europe against Germany.

A Western Task Force (aimed at Casablanca) was composed of American units, with Major General George S. Patton in command and Rear Admiral Henry Kent Hewitt heading naval operations.

[citation needed] Benito Mussolini postponed the annexation of Corsica by Italy until after an assumed Axis victory in World War II, mainly because of German opposition to the irredentist claims.

[99] Although there was mild support for the occupation among collaborationists[citation needed] and resistance was initially limited, it grew after the Italian invasion and by April 1943 became united, and was armed by airdrop and shipments by the Free French submarine Casabianca and establish some territorial control.

The Battle of Normandy was won due to what is still today the largest ever military landing logistical operation; it brought three million soldiers, mostly American, British, and French, over the Channel from Britain.

[102][clarification needed] The British intelligence organization, MI9, created Operation Marathon to gather downed airmen into isolated forest camps where they would await their rescue by allied military forces advancing after the Normandy Invasion of June 6, 1944.

They were opposed by the scattered forces of the German Army Group G, (Heeresgruppe G) which had been weakened by the relocation of its divisions to other fronts and the replacement of its soldiers with third-rate men outfitted with obsolete equipment.

Hitler committed suicide on 30 April during the Battle of Berlin and Germany's surrender was authorised by his successor, Reichspräsident Karl Dönitz leader of the rump administration Flensburg Government.

[128] But ultra-collaborationists Marcel Déat and Fernand de Brinon protested to the Germans, who changed their minds[129] and took Laval to Belfort on 20 August 1944[130] along with the remains of his government, "to assure its legitimate security", along with Petain, and arrested Herriot.

[135] The Germans, wanting to present a facade of legality, enlisted other Vichy officials such as Fernand de Brinon as president, along with Joseph Darnand, Jean Luchaire, Eugène Bridoux and Marcel Déat.

The population of the enclave was about 6,000, including known collaborationist journalists, the writers Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Lucien Rebatet, the actor Robert Le Vigan and their families, as well as 500 soldiers, 700 French SS, prisoners of war and STO workers.

[138] Inadequate housing, insufficient food, promiscuity among the paramilitaries, and lack of hygiene facilitated the spread of numerous illnesses including flu and tuberculosis, and a high mortality rate among children.

Despite the novelty of women voters, there was no particular media reaction, partly because of the difficulties related to the immediate post-war period which were of greater concern, such as returned deportees, prisoner camps, food rationing, and so on.

It also made several important reforms and political decisions, such as granting women the right to vote,[g] founding the École nationale d'administration, and laying the groundwork of social security in France.

Communist Party The trained and disciplined Francs-Tireurs et Partisans brought into play by the Communist International after Hitler invaded Russia both helped to sway the fight and to dispel the previous perception of under the Third Republic of left-wing [citation needed] politicians as decadent and ineffectual, a disdain that to some extent had underlain the willingness of that government to seek the assistance of the paternalist and traditionalist Pétain, who had gained the heart of the French by prioritizing the conservation of French forces, following bloodying and bruising casualties in World War 1 on the Eastern front against Germany.

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