1.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
2.
Mariano Goybet
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Mariano Francisco Julio Goybet was an general officer in the French Army. He was brigadier general in 1917 and retired with the rank of general in 1921. Later, they bacame merchants, mayors, military and industrial people and he was the son of Pierre-Jules Goybet manufacturer, and Marie Bravais. His grand mother Louise de Montgolfier, was a niece of Joseph and Jacques-Étienne de Montgolfier. He married in 1887 Marguerite Lespieau, daghter of général Théodore Lespieau, Goybet was born in Zaragoza, Spain. He was educated at the college of Lyon, then at the École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr and he served in the 2nd Regiment of Tirailleurs Algériens, where he married Marguerite Lespieau, the daughter of his commanding officer, general Theodore Lespieau. He was promoted to lieutenant in the 140th Regiment of Infantry, stationed in Grenoble and he served on the staff of the 27th Infantry Division, was promoted to capitaine in 1893 and was appointed as orderly officer to General Zédé, Governor of Lyon, in 1896. He commanded a company of the 99th Regiment of Infantry then, following another staff appointment, in 1907 he took command of the 30th Battalion of Chasseurs Alpins as lieutenant-colonel. He was still in command of this battalion when he was promoted to colonel, at the start of World War I he was assigned to the Vosges front with his Alpine battalion. He seized a convoy of infantry at Col Manday and he was placed at the head of the 152nd infantry regiment, then he took command of the 81st Brigade and his troops took Steinbach in Alsace. His son, Sergeant Frederic Goybet, was killed, having fought in the Vosges, months later he lost another son, the adjutant Adrien Goybet, who died conducting his section towards the trenches in 1915. He was wounded twice at Hartmannswillerskopf, afterwards, he joined the 98th Infantry Regiment at the Verdun front. In autumn his division was transported north to the Battle of the Somme and he was awarded the Order of the Army by Marechal Philippe Pétain on March 19,1915. In the beginning of 1917 he took command of the 25th Infantry Division and, as the enemy retreated, in August his men seized the woods of Avocourt after heavy fighting. In December, he was promoted to the rank of brigadier general. In May 1918, General Goybet was called by Headquarters to command the 157th Division, which had been decimated after the “Chemin des Dames. ”It was reconstituted by putting together the 333rd Infantry Regiment with the American 371st and the 372nd American Regiments. The 157th Division participated with the Fourth Army in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, with violent attacks, General Goybet broke the enemy front at Monthois, taking many prisoners and considerable materiel. After that he occupied the Vosges at the front of Sainte Marie les Mines, in 1920 General Goybet was called by the General Henri Gouraud to command the Third Division of the Levant
3.
Rif War
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The Rif War, also called the Second Moroccan War, was fought in the early 1920s between the colonial power Spain and the Berbers of the Rif mountainous region. Led by Abd al-Karim, the Riffians at first inflicted several defeats on the Spanish forces by using guerrilla tactics, during the early 20th century, Morocco had fallen into the French and Spanish spheres of influence, becoming divided into protectorates ruled by the two European nations. The Rif region had been assigned to Spain, but given that even the Sultans of Morocco had been unable to control over the region. For centuries, the Berber tribes of the Rif had fought off any attempt to impose outside control on them, though nominally Muslim, the tribes of the Rif had continued many pagan practices such as worshipping water spirits and forest spirits that were contrary to Islam. Attempts by the Moroccan sultans to impose orthodox Islam on the Rif had been resisted by the tribesmen. For centuries Europeans had seen the Rif mountains and the outlines of people on the mountains from ships in the Mediterranean Sea, but almost no European had ever ventured into the mountains. Walter Burton Harris, the Morocco correspondent for The Times, who covered the war wrote that as late as 1912 only one or two Europeans had been able to visit the forests that lie south of Fez. A few had traveled in the southern Atlas and pushed on into the Sus. the reason for, as Harris wrote, was the Berbers were often as inhospitable to the Arab as they were to the foreigner, and generally killed any outsiders who ventured into their territory. The Rif was also rich in iron, which could be easily extracted via open pit mining. The Spanish state could collect money in the form of taxes and royalties from the iron mining. When King Alfonso XIII of Spain ascended to the throne in 1886, Spain could at least make the pretense of being a power, having colonies in the Americans, Africa, Asia. To compensate for the lost empire in the Americas and Asia, there emerged a powerful faction in Spain led by Alfonso. For all these reasons, Spain had been pushing into the Rif since 1909, the Berber tribesmen had a long tradition of fierce fighting skills, combined with high standards of fieldcraft and marksmanship. They were capably led by Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Karim al-Khattabi, commonly called Abd el-Krim, however, the Rifian regular army was never a very large force. The elite of the Rifian forces formed regular units which according to Abd el-Krim, other sources put it much lower, at around 2,000 to 3,000. The remaining Rifians were tribal militia selected by their Caids and not liable to serve away from their homes and farms for more than 15 consecutive days. General Goded estimated that at their peak, in June 1924, however, this force was largely adequate in the early stages of the war. In the final days of the war Rifian forces numbered about 12,000 men, in addition Rifian forces were not well armed, with weapons badly maintained and in poor condition
4.
Armistice of 11 November 1918
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It went into effect at 11 a. m. Paris time on 11 November 1918, and marked a victory for the Allies, the Germans were responding to the policies proposed by U. S. President Woodrow Wilson in his Fourteen Points of January 1918. Although the armistice ended the fighting, it took six months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. In addition, he recommended the acceptance of the demands of US president Woodrow Wilson including putting the Imperial Government on a democratic footing, hoping for more favorable peace terms. As he said to officers of his staff on 1 October, on 3 October, the liberal Prince Maximilian of Baden was appointed Chancellor of Germany, replacing Georg von Hertling in order to negotiate an armistice. In the subsequent two exchanges, Wilsons allusions failed to convey the idea that the Kaisers abdication was a condition for peace. The leading statesmen of the Reich were not yet ready to contemplate such a monstrous possibility, in late October, Ludendorff, in a sudden change of mind, declared the conditions of the Allies unacceptable. He now demanded to resume the war which he himself had declared lost only one month earlier, however the German soldiers were pressing to get home. It was scarcely possible to arouse their readiness for battle anew, the Imperial Government stayed on course and Ludendorff was replaced by Wilhelm Groener. On 5 November, the Allies agreed to take up negotiations for a truce, the latest note from Wilson was received in Berlin on 6 November. That same day, the led by Matthias Erzberger departed for France. For example, they assumed that the de-militarization suggested by Wilson would be limited to the Central Powers, there were also contradictions with their post-War plans that did not include a consistent implementation of the ideal of national self-determination. Also on 9 November, Max von Baden handed over the office of Chancellor to Friedrich Ebert, eberts SPD and Erzbergers Catholic Centre Party had enjoyed an uneasy relationship with the Imperial government since Bismarcks era in the 1870s and 1880s. They were well represented in the Imperial Reichstag, which had power over the government. Their prominence in the negotiations would cause the new Weimar Republic to lack legitimacy in right-wing. The Armistice was the result of a hurried and desperate process and they were then entrained and taken to the secret destination, aboard Ferdinand Fochs private train parked in a railway siding in the forest of Compiègne. Foch appeared only twice in the three days of negotiations, on the first day, to ask the German delegation what they wanted, the Germans were handed the list of Allied demands and given 72 hours to agree. The German delegation discussed the Allied terms not with Foch, but with other French, the Armistice amounted to complete German demilitarization, with few promises made by the Allies in return
5.
French West Africa
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French West Africa was a federation of eight French colonial territories in Africa, Mauritania, Senegal, French Sudan, French Guinea, Ivory Coast, Upper Volta, Dahomey and Niger. The capital of the federation was Dakar, the federation existed from 1895 until 1960. Until after the Second World War almost all the Africans living in the colonies of France were not citizens of France, rather, they were French Subjects, lacking rights before the law, property ownership rights, rights to travel, dissent, or vote. Anyone able to prove they were born in these towns was legally French and they could vote in parliamentary elections, which had been previously dominated by white and Métis residents of Senegal. The Four Communes of Senegal were entitled to elect a Deputy to represent them in the French Parliament in the years 1848–1852, 1871–1876, in 1914, the first African, Blaise Diagne, was elected as the Deputy for Senegal in the French Parliament. In 1916, Diagne pushed through the National Assembly a law granting citizenship to all residents of the so-called Four Communes. In return, he had promised to help millions of Africans to fight in World War I. Thereafter, all black Africans of Dakar, Gorée, Saint-Louis and these conquered areas were usually governed by French Army officers, and dubbed Military Territories. The first Governor General of Senegal was named in 1895, and in 1904, Gabon would later become the seat of its own federation French Equatorial Africa, which was to border its western neighbor on the modern boundary between Niger and Chad. While the latter fell to Free France already after the Battle of Gabon in November 1940, following World War II, the French government began a process of extending limited political rights in its colonies. In 1945 the French Provisional Government allocated ten seats to French West Africa in the new Constituent Assembly called to write a new French Constitution, of these five would be elected by citizens and five by African subjects. The elections brought to prominence a new generation of French-educated Africans and they were all re-elected to the 2nd Constituent Assembly on 2 June 1946. In 1946, the Loi Lamine Guèye granted some limited rights to natives of the African colonies. The French Empire was renamed the French Union on 27 October 1946, in late 1946 under this new constitution each territory was for the first time able elect local representatives, albeit on a limited franchise, to newly established General Councils. These elected bodies had only limited powers, although they did approve local budgets. The Loi Cadre of 23 June 1956 brought universal suffrage to elections held after that date in all French African colonies, the first elections under universal suffrage in French West Africa were the municipal elections of late 1956. On 31 March 1957, under universal suffrage, territorial Assembly elections were held in each of the eight colonies, the leaders of the winning parties were appointed to the newly instituted positions of Vice-Presidents of the respective Governing Councils — French Colonial Governors remained as Presidents. The Constitution of the French Fifth Republic of 1958 again changed the structure of the colonies from the French Union to the French Community, each territory was to become a Protectorate, with the consultative assembly named a National Assembly
6.
Suez Crisis
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The Suez Crisis, also named the Tripartite Aggression and the Kadesh Operation or Sinai War, was an invasion of Egypt in late 1956 by Israel, followed by the United Kingdom and France. The aims were to regain Western control of the Suez Canal, after the fighting had started, political pressure from the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Nations led to a withdrawal by the three invaders. The episode humiliated Great Britain and France and strengthened Nasser, on October 29, Israel invaded the Egyptian Sinai. Britain and France issued a joint ultimatum to cease fire, which was ignored, on November 5, Britain and France landed paratroopers along the Suez Canal. The Egyptian forces were defeated, but they did block the canal to all shipping and it later became clear that the Israeli invasion and the subsequent Anglo-French attack had been planned beforehand by the three countries. The three allies had attained a number of their objectives, but the Canal was now useless and heavy political pressure from the United States. U. S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower had strongly warned Britain not to invade, historians conclude the crisis signified the end of Great Britains role as one of the worlds major powers. The Suez Canal was closed from October 1956 until March 1957, Israel fulfilled some of its objectives, such as attaining freedom of navigation through the Straits of Tiran. The Suez Canal was opened in 1869, after ten years of work financed by the French, the canal instantly became strategically important, as it provided the shortest ocean link between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. The canal eased commerce for trading nations and particularly helped European colonial powers to gain, in 1875, as a result of debt and financial crisis, the Egyptian ruler was forced to sell his shares in the canal operating company to the British government of Benjamin Disraeli. They were willing buyers and obtained a 44 percent share in the operations for less than £4 million. With the 1882 invasion and occupation of Egypt, the United Kingdom took de facto control of the country as well as the canal proper, the 1888 Convention of Constantinople declared the canal a neutral zone under British protection. In ratifying it, the Ottoman Empire agreed to international shipping to pass freely through the canal, in time of war. The Convention came into force in 1904, the year as the Entente cordiale between Britain and France. Following the Japanese surprise attack on the Russian Pacific Fleet based at Port Arthur, the British denied the Russian fleet use of the canal and forced it to steam around Africa, giving the Japanese forces time to consolidate their position in East Asia. The importance of the canal as an intersection was again apparent during the First World War. The attempt by German and Ottoman forces to storm the canal in February 1915 led the British to commit 100,000 troops to the defense of Egypt for the rest of the war. The canal continued to be strategically important after the Second World War as a conduit for the shipment of oil, petroleum business historian Daniel Yergin wrote of the period, In 1948, the canal abruptly lost its traditional rationale
7.
Marianne
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Marianne is a national symbol of the French Republic, an allegory of liberty and reason, and a portrayal of the Goddess of Liberty. Marianne is displayed in places in France and holds a place of honour in town halls. She symbolizes the Triumph of the Republic, a bronze sculpture overlooking the Place de la Nation in Paris. Her profile stands out on the official government logo of the country, is engraved on French euro coins and appears on French postage stamps, Marianne is one of the most prominent symbols of the French Republic, and is officially used on most government documents. Marianne is a significant republican symbol, opposed to monarchy, in classical times it was common to represent ideas and abstract entities by gods, goddesses and allegorical personifications. Less common during the Middle Ages, this practice resurfaced during the Renaissance, during the French Revolution of 1789, many allegorical personifications of Liberty and Reason appeared. These two figures finally merged into one, a figure, shown either sitting or standing, and accompanied by various attributes, including the tricolor cockade. This woman typically symbolised Liberty, Reason, the Nation, the Homeland, in September 1792, the National Convention decided by decree that the new seal of the state would represent a standing woman holding a spear with a Phrygian cap held aloft on top of it. A feminine allegory was also a manner to symbolise the breaking with the old monarchy headed by kings, even before the French Revolution, the Kingdom of France was embodied in masculine figures, as depicted in certain ceilings of Palace of Versailles. Furthermore, France and the Republic themselves are, in French, feminine nouns, as are the French nouns for liberty, the use of this emblem was initially unofficial and very diverse. A female allegory of Liberty and of the Republic makes an appearance in Eugène Delacroixs painting Liberty Leading the People, Marianne made her first major appearance in the French spotlight on a medal in July 1789, celebrating the storming of the Bastille and other early events of the Revolution. From this time until September 1792, the image of Marianne was overshadowed by other such as Mercury. It was not until September 1792 when the new Republic sought a new image to represent the State that her popularity began to expand. Marianne, the allegory of Liberty, was chosen to represent the new regime of the French Republic. The imagery of Marianne chosen as the seal of the First French Republic depicted her standing, young and it was symbolic of the First Republic itself, a newly created state that had much to prove. Marianne is clad in a classical gown, in her right hand, she wields the pike of revolution with the Phrygian cap resting on it, which represents the liberation of France. Marianne is shown leaning on a fasces, a symbol of authority, although the initial figure of Marianne from 1792 stood in a relatively conservative pose, the revolutionaries were quick to abandon that figure when it no longer suited them. By 1793, the figure of Marianne had been replaced by a more violent image
8.
Division (military)
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A division is a large military unit or formation, usually consisting of between 10,000 and 20,000 soldiers. Infantry divisions during the World Wars ranged between 10,000 and 30,000 in nominal strength, in most armies, a division is composed of several regiments or brigades, in turn, several divisions typically make up a corps. In the West, the first general to think of organising an army into smaller units was Maurice de Saxe, Marshal General of France. He died at the age of 54, without having implemented his idea, victor-François de Broglie put the ideas into practice. He conducted successful practical experiments of the system in the Seven Years War. The first war in which the system was used systematically was the French Revolutionary War. It made the more flexible and easy to manoeuvre. Under Napoleon, the divisions were grouped together into corps, because of their increasing size, napoleons military success spread the divisional and corps system all over Europe, by the end of the Napoleonic Wars, all armies in Europe had adopted it. In modern times, most military forces have standardized their divisional structures, the peak use of the division as the primary combat unit occurred during World War II, when the belligerents deployed over a thousand divisions. With technological advances since then, the power of each division has increased. Divisions are often formed to organize units of a particular type together with support units to allow independent operations. In more recent times, divisions have mainly been organized as combined arms units with subordinate units representing various combat arms, in this case, the division often retains the name of a more specialized division, and may still be tasked with a primary role suited to that specialization. For the most part, large cavalry units did not remain after World War II, in general, two new types of cavalry were developed, air cavalry or airmobile, relying on helicopter mobility, and armored cavalry, based on an autonomous armored formation. The former was pioneered by the 11th Air Assault Division, formed on 1 February 1963 at Fort Benning, on 29 June 1965 the division was renamed as the 1st Cavalry Division, before its departure for the Vietnam War. After the end of the Vietnam War, the 1st Cavalry Division was reorganised and re-equipped with tanks, the development of the tank during World War I prompted some nations to experiment with forming them into division-size units. Many did this the way as they did cavalry divisions, by merely replacing cavalry with AFVs. This proved unwieldy in combat, as the units had many tanks, instead, a more balanced approach was taken by adjusting the number of tank, infantry, artillery, and support units. A panzer division was a division of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS of Germany during World War II
9.
Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque
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Philippe François Marie Leclerc de Hauteclocque was a French general during the Second World War. He became Marshal of France posthumously in 1952, and is known in France simply as le maréchal Leclerc or just Leclerc, the son of an aristocratic family, de Hauteclocque graduated from the École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr, the French military academy, in 1924. After service with the French Occupation of the Ruhr and in Morocco and he was awarded the croix de guerre des théâtres dopérations extérieures for leading goumiers in an attack on caves and ravines on Bou Amdoun on 11 August 1933. During the Second World War he fought in the Battle of France and he was sent to French Equatorial Africa, where he rallied local leaders to the Free French cause, and led a force against Gabon, whose leaders supported Vichy France. From Chad he led raids into Italian-controlled Libya, after his forces captured Kufra, he had his men swear an oath known today as the Serment de Koufra, in which they pledged to fight on until their flag flew over the Strasbourg Cathedral. The forces under his command, known as L Force, campaigned in Libya in 1943, covered the Eighth Armys inland flank during its advance into Tunisia, L Force was then transformed into the 2e Division Blindée, although it was often referred to as La Division Leclerc. It fought under Leclercs command in the Battle of Normandy, and participated in the liberation of Paris, after the end of World War II in Europe in May 1945, he was given command of the French Far East Expeditionary Corps. He represented France at the surrender of the Japanese Empire in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945 and he quickly perceived the necessity for a political solution to the nascent conflict in Indochina, but once again was ahead of his countrymen, and was recalled to France in 1946. He was killed in an air crash in Algeria in 1947, Philippe François Marie de Hauteclocque was born on 22 November 1902 at Belloy-Saint-Léonard in the department of Somme. He was the fifth of six children of Adrien de Hauteclocque, comte de Hauteclocque, Philippe was named in honour of an ancestor killed by Croats in 1635. De Hauteclocque came from an old line of country nobility and his direct ancestors had served in the Fifth Crusade against Egypt, and again in the Eighth Crusade of Saint Louis against Tunisia in 1270. They had also fought at the Battle of Saint-Omer in 1340, the family managed to survive the French Revolution. Three members of the served in Napoleons Grande Armée and a fourth. The third son, Constantin, who had served in Napoleons Russian Campaign, was created a chevalier by King Louis XVIII, the older, Alfred Francois Marie, died childless. The younger, Gustave Francois Marie Joseph, became a noted Egyptologist, Gustave, in turn, had three sons. The first, Henry, and third, Wallerand, became officers in the French Army, serving during the colonial campaigns, both were killed in the early fighting of the First World War. The second son was Adrien, who enlisted in August 1914 as a trooper in the 11e Régiment de Chasseurs à Cheval, Adrien was later commissioned, and was twice awarded the Croix de Guerre for gallantry. He survived the war, and inherited the title and estate in Belloy-Saint-Léonard
10.
Marcel Bigeard
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Marcel Bruno Bigeard was a French military officer who fought in World War II, Indochina and Algeria. He was one of the commanders in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and is thought by many to have been an influence on French unconventional warfare thinking from that time onwards. A former resistant, he is associated mainly with the war of Indochina, Marcel Bigeard was born in Toul, Meurthe-et-Moselle on 14 February 1916, the son of Charles Bigeard, a railway worker, and Sophie Bigeard, a domineering housewife. He also had a sister, Charlotte Bigeard, fours years his senior. Lorraine instilled a strong patriotism in him and his mother a will to win, at fourteen, Bigeard quit school to help his parents financially by taking a position in the local Société Générale bank, where he did well. Following a 6-year career in Société générale, Marcel Bigeard conducted his military service in France at Haguenau at the corps of the 23rd Fortress Infantry Regiment. Incorporated in the regiment as a soldat de deuxième classe in September 1936, caporal-chef, he was relieved of duty, volunteer for the franc corps, he led a combat group at Trimbach in Alsace and became quickly a sergent-chef then adjudant at the age of 24. On June 25,1940, he was captured and made prisoner of war spending 18 months in captivity in a stalag. Following his third attempt to escape on November 11,1941, he managed to make his way to the zone in France. Volunteering for the French Occidental Africa, he was assigned in February 1942 to a camp in Senegal, promoted to sous-lieutenant in October 1943, he was directed with his regiment to Morocco. One of these audacious ambushes against superior German forces gained him a British decoration and his nickname of Bruno has its origins in his radio call sign. Decorated with the Légion dhonneur and the British Distinguished Service Order for his actions in Ariège, Bigeard was first sent to Indo-China in October 1945 to assist with French efforts to reassert their influence over the former French colonies. He commanded the 23rd Colonial Infantry and then volunteered to train Thai auxiliaries in their interdiction of Viet Minh incursions around the Laos border along the road R. C. In the middle of 1945, captain Bigeard was entrusted with the command of the 6th company of the 23rd Colonial Infantry Regiment. Designated to participate to the corps in Indochina, the regiment dismebarked in Saigon on October 25,1945. During this epoque, the Bruno surname started to circulate, on March 8,1946, a detachment of the 2nd Armored Brigade 2e DB and 9th Colonial Infantry Division, which the 23rd Colonial Infantry Regiment 23e RIC was part of, disembarked in Tonkin. On July 1,1946, Bigeard left the 23e RIC and formed south-east of Dien Bien Phu, at the return of his men in metropole, mid-October 1946, he assumed command of the 3rd company, constituted of almost 40 men. He then left Indochina on September 17,1947 and reached France three days later, volunteer for another séjour in Indochina, Bigeard was assigned on February 1,1948 to the 3rd Colonial Parachute Commando Battalion 3e BCCP
11.
Alphonse Juin
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Alphonse Pierre Juin was a senior French Army officer who became a Marshal of France. A graduate of the Saint-Cyr class of 1912, he served in Morocco in 1914 in command of native troops, upon the outbreak of the First World War, he was sent to the Western Front in France, where he was gravely wounded in 1915. As a result of wound, he lost the use of his right arm. After the war, he attended the École Supérieure de Guerre and he chose to serve in North Africa again. After the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, he assumed command of a division, the division was encircled in the Lille pocket during the Battle of France and Juin was captured. He was a prisoner of war until he was released at the behest of the Vichy Government in 1941, and was assigned to command French forces in North Africa. After Operation Torch, the invasion of Algeria and Morocco by British and American forces in November 1942, Juin ordered French forces in Tunisia to resist the Germans and his great skills were exhibited during the Italian campaign as commander of the French Expeditionary Corps. His expertise in warfare was crucial in breaking the Gustav Line. Following this assignment he was Chief of Staff of French forces, in 1947 he returned to Africa as the Resident General in Morocco, where he opposed Moroccan attempts to gain independence. Next came a senior NATO position as he assumed command of CENTAG until 1956, during his NATO command, he was promoted to Marshal of France in 1952. He was greatly opposed to Charles De Gaulles decision to grant independence to Algeria and he was the French Armys last living Marshal of France until his death in Paris in 1967, when he was buried in Les Invalides. He was named after his paternal grandfather, when he was six, his family moved to Constantine, where he went to primary school, and learnt Arabic from the local boys. In 1902 he was awarded a bursary to study at the Lycée dAumale in Constantine, in 1909 he passed the entrance examination for the École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr. Classes are named, and his class, the 94th, was known as promotion de Fès after the Moroccan city of Fès that was at the centre of the Agadir Crisis of 1911. There would remain a special bond between members of the class, and de Gaulle would always address Juin using the pronoun tu. Juin, de Gaulle and Béthouart would give their names to the Saint-Cyr classes of 1966–68, 1970–72, after graduating on 1 October 1912, Juin was commissioned as a sous-lieutenant in an Algerian regiment, the 1er régiment de tirailleurs algériens. He soon saw service in Morocco in the Zaian War, participating in the fighting around Taza, Juin joined Chef de Bataillon Joseph-François Poeymiraus 2e Régiment des Chasseurs Indigènes as a lieutenant. On 5 September, the joined the fighting in the First Battle of the Marne
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