French First Army

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French First Army was a field army that fought during World War I and World War II.

At the beginning of WWI the First Army was put in the charge of General Auguste Dubail and took part, along with the French Second Army, in the Invasion of Lorraine. The First Army intended to take the strongly defended town of Sarrebourg. German Crown Prince Rupprecht, commander of the German Sixth Army, was tasked with stopping the French invasion. The French attack was repulsed by Rupprecht and his stratagem of pretending to retreat and then strongly attacking back. On August 20, Rupprecht launched a big counter-offensive, driving the French armies out. Dubail was replaced in 1915. A frantic 1916 saw four different commanders command the First Army; an even more frantic 1917 saw five different commanders at the helm.

During WWII the Army formed part of the forces ranged against the German Army during the Battle of France. When the Wehrmacht invaded France and the Low Countries in 1940, the First Army was one of the many armies including the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) that advanced north to stop the German armies. On May 21, 1940, the First Army was one of the armies trapped at a vast pocket with their backs to the sea that would eventually result in the Dunkirk evacuations. As the Germans moved in, much of the First Army was hopelessly surrounded at Lille but resisted fiercely. By the time of the Dunkirk evacuations of early June it was forced to surrender, though a portion escaped with the British troops. By the end of that month the Western campaign was over, with Germany emerging victorious with a puppet Vichy government led by Marshal Pétain being set up in the southern half of France.

French Army B under the command General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny landed in southern France after the Operation Dragoon, the Allied invasion of the area. On September 25, 1944 French Army B was redesignated French First Army. It formed the right flank of the Allied Southern Group of Armies at the southern end of the Allied front line, adjacent to Switzerland. It fought many difficult battles against the Germans in Alsace and captured much of southern Germany before the end of the conflict.