History
Until June 1940, the Force de Raid operated against the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) in the Atlantic and supported the Norwegian Campaign. In June, all the ships that could sail were moved to North Africa to avoid capture by the Germans.
The wartime British Government of Winston Churchill was greatly alarmed by the possibility that these ships might be acquired, with or without French agreement, by the Axis powers and, when agreement over their fate was not reached, they were bombarded by the Royal Navy.
Read more about this topic: Force De Raid
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It’s a very delicate surgical operation—to cut out the heart without killing the patient. The history of our country, however, is a very tough old patient, and we’ll do the best we can.”
—Dudley Nichols, U.S. screenwriter. Jean Renoir. Sorel (Philip Merivale)
“Free from public debt, at peace with all the world, and with no complicated interests to consult in our intercourse with foreign powers, the present may be hailed as the epoch in our history the most favorable for the settlement of those principles in our domestic policy which shall be best calculated to give stability to our Republic and secure the blessings of freedom to our citizens.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)