Portal:Military history of France/Selected article/7

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In World War II, the Battle of France, also known as the Fall of France, was the German and Italian invasion of France and the Low Countries, executed 10 May 1940, which ended the Phony War. German armored units pushed through the Ardennes, outflanking the Maginot Line and unhinging the Allied defenders. Paris was occupied and the French government fled to Bordeaux on 14 June. France capitulated on 25 June after the French Second Army Group was forced to surrender on 22 June. For the Axis, the campaign was a spectacular victory.

France was divided into a German occupation zone in the north and west, a small Italian occupation zone in the southeast and a collaborationist government in the south, Vichy France. The British Expeditionary Force and many French soldiers were evacuated from Dunkirk in Operation Dynamo. France remained under German occupation until after the Allies defeated the German forces in France following the Allied landings on D-Day in 1944. (More...)