As with Britain, World War I deeply scars France, claiming the lives of 1.4 million soldiers. Two decades later, the French Army is among the largest and best equipped in Europe, but the country remains locked in a defensive mindset, wary of another war and haunted by memories of so many of its soldiers killed in senseless charges against entrenched foes. As Germany aggressively re-arms, French engineers construct what becomes known as the Maginot Line – a miles-deep network of defensive fortifications and fortresses along their shared border with Germany. In 1936, Hitler marches German troops into the demilitarized Rhineland, a swath of German land adjoining France and Belgium.
FRANCE
Paris before the war, 194O
- PRELUDE TO WAR
- FRANCE
It is a clear violation of the Versailles Treaty, but French leaders do nothing about the provocation, fearful of triggering a wider conflict. Two years later, France joins with Britain in accommodating Hitler again, bargaining away Czechoslovakian territory, but the mollification only emboldens the German leader. After Nazi forces subsume all of Czechoslovakia six months later, Hitler turns his attention to Poland, and France follows Britain’s lead in taking a more forceful stand, pledging war if the German aggression continues.
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