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The Collapse Of The Third Republic
''The Collapse of the Third Republic: An Inquiry into the Fall of France in 1940'' by William L. Shirer (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1969) deals with the collapse of the French Third Republic as a result of Hitler's invasion during World War II. Prewar As a CBS correspondent in Germany during the climactic events under discussion and as a frequent visitor to and correspondent from prewar France, Shirer was left to question how Germany had overrun France within weeks in 1940. Both countries had fought each other for four years in 1914-1918, with France successfully resisting Germany at every turn of battle along the Western Front during World War I. Shirer, who knew French, did much of his own research for his 1969 book by speaking with surviving politicians and French leaders from the immediate prewar period as well as those who were on duty during the final catastrophe. His conclusion was that France had defeated itself. Unhealed wounds in its civil society, dating back to the 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Shirer
William Lawrence Shirer (; February 23, 1904 – December 28, 1993) was an American journalist and war correspondent. He wrote ''The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich'', a history of Nazi Germany that has been read by many and cited in scholarly works for more than 50 years. Originally a foreign correspondent for the ''Chicago Tribune'' and the International News Service, Shirer was the first reporter hired by Edward R. Murrow for what became a CBS radio team of journalists known as " Murrow's Boys". He became known for his broadcasts from Berlin, from the rise of the Nazi dictatorship through the first year of World War II (1939–1940). With Murrow, he organized the first broadcast world news roundup, a format still followed by news broadcasts. Shirer wrote more than a dozen books besides ''The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich'', including ''Berlin Diary'' (published in 1941); '' The Collapse of the Third Republic'' (1969), which drew on his experience living and working in Franc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Munich Agreement
The Munich Agreement ( cs, Mnichovská dohoda; sk, Mníchovská dohoda; german: Münchner Abkommen) was an agreement concluded at Munich on 30 September 1938, by Nazi Germany, Germany, the United Kingdom, French Third Republic, France, and Fascist Italy (1922–1943), Italy. It provided "cession to Germany of the Sudeten German territory" of First Czechoslovak Republic, Czechoslovakia, despite the existence of a 1924 alliance agreement and 1925 military pact between France and the Czechoslovak Republic, for which it is also known as the Munich Betrayal (; ). Most of Europe celebrated the Munich agreement, which was presented as a way to prevent a major war on the continent. The four powers agreed to German occupation of Czechoslovakia, the German annexation of the Czechoslovak borderland areas named the Sudetenland, where more than three million people, mainly Sudeten Germans, ethnic Germans, lived. Adolf Hitler announced that it was his last territorial claim in Northern Europ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liberation Of France
The liberation of France in the Second World War was accomplished through diplomacy, politics and the combined military efforts of the Allied Powers of World War II, Allied Powers, Free French forces in London and Africa, as well as the French Resistance. Battle of France, Nazi Germany invaded France in May 1940. Their rapid advance through the undefended Ardennes caused a crisis in the French government; the French Third Republic dissolved itself in July, and handed over French Constitutional Law of 1940, absolute power to Marshal Philippe Pétain, an elderly hero of World War I. Pétain signed an Armistice of 22 June 1940, armistice with Germany with the north and west of France under German military administration in occupied France during World War II, German military occupation. Pétain, charged with calling a Constitutional Authority, instead established an authoritarian government in the spa town of Vichy, in the southern ''zone libre'' ("free zone"). Though nominally inde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French State
Vichy France (french: Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was the fascist French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Officially independent, but with half of its territory occupied under harsh terms of the armistice, it adopted a policy of collaboration with Nazi Germany, which occupied the northern and western portions before occupying the remainder of Metropolitan France in November 1942. Though Paris was ostensibly its capital, the collaborationist Vichy government established itself in the resort town of Vichy in the unoccupied "Free Zone" (), where it remained responsible for the civil administration of France as well as its colonies. The Third French Republic had begun the war in September 1939 on the side of the Allies. On 10 May 1940, it was invaded by Nazi Germany. The German Army rapidly broke through the Allied lines by bypassing the highly fortified Maginot Line and invading through Be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vichy
Vichy (, ; ; oc, Vichèi, link=no, ) is a city in the Allier Departments of France, department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of central France, in the historic province of Bourbonnais. It is a Spa town, spa and resort town and in World War II was the seat of government, capital of Vichy France from 1940 to 1944. The term ''Vichyste'' indicated collaboration with the Vichy regime, often carrying a pejorative connotation. In 2021, the town became part of the transnational World Heritage Site, UNESCO World Heritage Site under the name "Great Spa Towns of Europe" because of its famous baths and its architectural testimony to the popularity of spa towns in Europe from the 18th through 20th centuries. Name Vichy is the French form of the Occitan language, Occitan name of the town, ', of uncertain etymology. Albert Dauzat, Dauzat & al. have proposed that it derived from an unattested Latin name (') referencing the most important regional landowner (presumably a "Vippius") d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of the world's major centres of finance, diplomacy, commerce, fashion, gastronomy, and science. For its leading role in the arts and sciences, as well as its very early system of street lighting, in the 19th century it became known as "the City of Light". Like London, prior to the Second World War, it was also sometimes called the capital of the world. The City of Paris is the centre of the Île-de-France region, or Paris Region, with an estimated population of 12,262,544 in 2019, or about 19% of the population of France, making the region France's primate city. The Paris Region had a GDP of €739 billion ($743 billion) in 2019, which is the highest in Europe. According to the Economist Intelli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Parliament
The French Parliament (french: Parlement français) is the bicameral legislature of the French Republic, consisting of the Senate () and the National Assembly (). Each assembly conducts legislative sessions at separate locations in Paris: the Senate meets in the and the National Assembly convenes at . Each house has its own regulations and rules of procedure. However, occasionally they may meet as a single house known as the Congress of the French Parliament (), convened at the Palace of Versailles, to revise and amend the Constitution of France. History and name The French Parliament, as a legislative body, should not be confused with the various parlements of the Ancien Régime in France, which were courts of justice and tribunals with certain political functions varying from province to province and as to whether the local law was written and Roman, or customary common law. The word "Parliament", in the modern meaning of the term, appeared in France in the 19th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Order (political System)
The New Order (german: Neuordnung) of Europe was the political order which Nazi Germany wanted to impose on the conquered areas under its dominion. The establishment of the german: label=none, Neuordnung had already begun long before the start of World War II, but was publicly proclaimed by Adolf Hitler in 1941: "The year 1941 will be, I am convinced, the historical year of a great European New Order!" Among other things, it entailed the creation of a pan-German racial state, structured according to Nazi ideology, to ensure the existence of a perceived Aryan- Nordic master race, consolidate a massive territorial expansion into Central and Eastern Europe through colonization by German settlers, achieve the physical annihilation of Jews, Slavs (especially Poles and Russians), Roma ("gypsies"), and others considered to be " unworthy of life", as well as the extermination, expulsion or enslavement of most of the Slavic peoples and others regarded as " racially inferior". Nazi Ger ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pierre Laval
Pierre Jean Marie Laval (; 28 June 1883 – 15 October 1945) was a French politician. During the Third Republic, he served as Prime Minister of France from 27 January 1931 to 20 February 1932 and 7 June 1935 to 24 January 1936. He again occupied the post during the German occupation, from 18 April 1942 to 20 August 1944. A socialist early in his life, Laval became a lawyer in 1909 and was famous for his defence of strikers, trade unionists and leftists from government prosecution. In 1914, he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies as a member of the Socialist Party, and he remained committed to his pacifist convictions during the First World War. After his defeat in the 1919 election, Laval left the Socialist Party and became mayor of Aubervilliers. In 1924 he returned to the Chamber as an independent, and was elected to the Senate three years later. He also held a series of governmental positions, including Minister of Public Works, Minister of Justice and Minister of Labour ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second Armistice At Compiègne
The Armistice of 22 June 1940 was signed at 18:36 near Compiègne, France, by officials of Nazi Germany and the Third French Republic. It did not come into effect until after midnight on 25 June. Signatories for Germany included Wilhelm Keitel, a senior military officer of the Wehrmacht (the German armed forces), while those on the French side held lower ranks including General Charles Huntziger. Following the decisive German victory in the Battle of France (10 May – 21 June 1940) during World War II, this armistice established a German occupation zone in Northern and Western France that encompassed about three fifths of France's European territory, including all English Channel and Atlantic Ocean ports. The remainder of the country was to be left unoccupied, although the new regime which replaced the Third Republic was mutually recognized as the legitimate government of all of Metropolitan France except Alsace-Lorraine. The French were also permitted to retain control of a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Army
The French Army, officially known as the Land Army (french: Armée de Terre, ), is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces. It is responsible to the Government of France, along with the other components of the Armed Forces. The current Chief of Staff of the French Army (CEMAT) is General , a direct subordinate of the Chief of the Defence Staff (CEMA). General Schill is also responsible to the Ministry of the Armed Forces for organization, preparation, use of forces, as well as planning and programming, equipment and Army future acquisitions. For active service, Army units are placed under the authority of the Chief of the Defence Staff (CEMA), who is responsible to the President of France for planning for, and use of forces. All French soldiers are considered professionals, following the suspension of French military conscription, voted in parliament in 1997 and made effective in 2001. , the French Army employed 118,600 personnel (including the Fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blitzkrieg
Blitzkrieg ( , ; from 'lightning' + 'war') is a word used to describe a surprise attack using a rapid, overwhelming force concentration that may consist of armored and motorized or mechanized infantry formations, together with close air support, that has the intent to break through the opponent's lines of defense, then dislocate the defenders, unbalance the enemy by making it difficult to respond to the continuously changing front, and defeat them in a decisive : a battle of annihilation. During the interwar period, aircraft and tank technologies matured and were combined with systematic application of the traditional German tactic of (maneuver warfare), deep penetrations and the bypassing of enemy strong points to encircle and destroy enemy forces in a (cauldron battle). During the Invasion of Poland, Western journalists adopted the term ''blitzkrieg'' to describe this form of armored warfare. The term had appeared in 1935, in a German military periodical (German Defen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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