Battle of France

In World War II, the Battle of France, also called the Fall of France, was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries from 10 May 1940 that ended the Phoney War. The battle was made up of two parts. In the first part, called Fall Gelb in German ("Case Yellow" in English), German tank units pushed through the Ardennes to circle the Allied units that moved into Belgium. Most of the British Expeditionary Force and many French soldiers escaped to England from Dunkirk during Operation Dynamo. The second part of the battle, called Fall Rot in German ("Case Red" in English), started on 5 June, when German armed forces circled the Maginot Line to attack the rest of France. Italy got into the war and started its own invasion of France, in the southeast of the country, on 10 June. The French government left Paris for Bordeaux, and the Germans took Paris on 14 June. After the French Second Army Group's surrender on 22 June, Philippe Pétain signed an armistice on 25 June. The campaign was a major victory for the Axis Powers. The French Third Republic ended. France was split into a German-occupied part in the north and west, a small Italian-occupied part in the southeast, and a satellite state part in the south that was called Vichy France. Southern France was invaded by Germany on 10 November 1942. France began to be freed by the Allies at the Battle of Normandy in 1944. The Low Countries were freed later in 1944 and in 1945.