Free French Forces (and Later Fighting France and Provisional Government of The French Republic)
- Charles de Gaulle was the leader of the Free French and as such head of the French government-in-exile following the Fall of France. A vehement opponent of collaboration, he eventually took nominal command of the French resistance and headed the French Army of Liberation from its foundation to the war's end.
- Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque was a leader of the Free French forces, and commanded forces both in Africa and in France. After the war ended, he commanded the French Far East Expeditionary Corps in the First Indochina War. He signed the armistice with Japan on behalf of France on September 2, 1945.
- Henri Giraud was de Gaulle's rival and the Western Allies' favourite. He escaped from Germany where he was a prisoner of war and co-founded the Free French movement with de Gaulle, though soon found himself relegated to second in command of the Free French Forces after the Casablanca Conference of 1943. He was the chief of staff of the French Army of Liberation from 1943 to July 1944.
- Alphonse Juin became chief of staff of the French Army in July 1944 after being the commander of the French Expeditionary Corps (130,000 men) in Italy.
- Marie Pierre Kœnig became commander in chief of the French Forces of the Interior which effectively helped the Allies in the invasion of France.
- Jean de Lattre de Tassigny was the commander of the First French Army which invaded southern France with 260,000 men. His army numbered more than 320,000 men when he entered in Germany with the integration of the FFI.
- Georges Catroux was the main French military leader in Syria and Lebanon before entering De Gaulle's government.
- André Lemonnier was a French Admiral who served as the French Navy chief of staff in 1943 and led the French Navy's participation in Operation Dragoon (34 warships including one battleship and eight cruisers).
Read more about this topic: Allied Leaders Of World War II, French Third Republic (Until 1940)
Famous quotes containing the words free, french, forces, fighting, france and/or government:
“The doctrine that all men are, in any sense, or have been, at any time, free and equal, is an utterly baseless fiction.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“An old French sentence says, “God works in moments,”M”En peu d’heure Dieu labeure.” We ask for long life, but ‘t is deep life, or grand moments, that signify. Let the measure of time be spiritual, not mechanical.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The vice named surrealism is the immoderate and impassioned use of the stupefacient image or rather of the uncontrolled provocation of the image for its own sake and for the element of unpredictable perturbation and of metamorphosis which it introduces into the domain of representation; for each image on each occasion forces you to revise the entire Universe.”
—Louis Aragon (1897–1982)
“My grandfather fell on Vinegar Hill,
And fighting was not his trade;
But his rusty pike’s in the cabin still,
With Hessian blood on the blade.””
—Joseph I. C. Clarke (1846–1925)
“The bugle-call to arms again sounded in my war-trained ear, the bayonets gleamed, the sabres clashed, and the Prussian helmets and the eagles of France stood face to face on the borders of the Rhine.... I remembered our own armies, my own war-stricken country and its dead, its widows and orphans, and it nerved me to action for which the physical strength had long ceased to exist, and on the borrowed force of love and memory, I strove with might and main.”
—Clara Barton (1821–1912)
“All forms of government symbolize an immortal government, common to all dynasties and independent of numbers, perfect where two men exist, perfect where there is only one man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)