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This article examines the reports on the Russian army by the French military attachés in St. Petersburg to the General Staff in Paris and the intelligence estimates compiled by the Russia specialists of First Bureau (Allied Armies), 1904-14. Officers seconded to the Russian army reported on the remarkable progress made after the war with Japan. French intelligence indicated any Russian offensive against Germany would occur only after the decisive battles in the west and would only tie down limited German forces. The Russian success at the start of the war and resulting transfer of German forces from the Western Front therefore were unexpected by the French General Staff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the role and influence of French periodicals and newspapers, specialized in sports, in promoting the development of soccer in the French Army from 1914 to 1918. It discusses the relationship between sports and the media in 1914 and several periodicals including "Auto," "Sporting," and "Vie au Grand Air," which were published during World War I and promoted sports and patriotism and provided moral support to soldiers. Topics include the actions of the media in promoting the legitimacy of sports in the French Army, the media's reference to British soldiers as role models, and the media's involvement in sending soccer balls to French soldiers at the battlefront.

At the beginning of July 1916, the British and French armies launched a massive offensive against the Germans along the Somme River. Surprised by both the intensity and ferocity of the Entente battle of material on the Somme, the German army was caught completely off guard and suffered high casualties, if not great loss of terrain. Over the course of the battle, the Germans were forced by superior Anglo-French weaponry and tactics to improvise a new defensive tactical doctrine. This article makes use of contemporary German "lessons-learned" reports to explore the development of these new defensive tactics and show that the lessons-learned system refined during the battle allowed the German army to stay intellectually flexible despite the overwhelming pressures of the battle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polo Beyris is a virtually unexplored example of internment under French and German authorities. From 1939 to 1947 the camp of Polo Beyris in Bayonne held successively: Spanish Civil War refugees, French colonial prisoners of war, suspected 'collaborators' and German prisoners of war. Despite having up to 8600 prisoners at one time, the large camp and its numerous satellite work detachments were literally 'forgotten' for decades. Although similar to other camps in its improvised nature, wretched living conditions, lack of food and constant movement of prisoners, Polo Beyris was also unique: located in a dense urban area, within the wartime Occupied Zone and close to the Spanish frontier. Its civil and military administrators were faced with constantly changing, and often chaotic, political and military circumstances. Not a waystation in the Holocaust, Polo Beyris has been lost from the sight of historians. It provides an additional dimension to the complex history of internment in twentieth century France. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers a historiographical essay focusing upon the French and their presence in the Middle East during the Great War. Particular focus is given to how vews of this period of World War I have been shaped by Hollywood representations of events and persons including Lawrence of Arabia and General Edmund Allenby. Topics discussed include how the French would continue fighting in the region until 1927, French imperialism in the Middle East, and France's history in the Middle East, which began in the 16th century with the support of Maronite Christians. The work of archaeologist T. E. Lawrence is also noted.

Focuses on the role played by the French troops in defending France from German invasion during the World War II. Examination of the military system in France during 1944 to 1945; Factors contributing to the success of the army in its war against the Germans.

This article aims at challenging the notion of a French exception in the realm of irregular warfare, suggesting that it rather amounts to a western variation. Born out of a transatlantic community under British influence, the French irregular experience carried on through the early Cold War challenges, strengthening France’s ties with its Western allies. France’s subsequent involvement in post-colonial counter-insurgencies did contribute to generating some specific strategic features, although never totally disconnected from international circulation. Finally, the post-Cold War order significantly drove French irregular warfare back into its Western fold through the adoption of US- and NATO-sponsored concepts and doctrines, thus enhancing interoperability and some degree of standardisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article talks about the French security policy towards the government of president Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in the late 1970s. Topics discussed include an attack on the Shaba Province of Zaire in 1977 and 1978 by Katangan Gendarmes rebels, the provision of crucial military support by France to Mobutu, and why french policymakers assisted a former Belgian colony.

This article examines the French decision to send reinforcements to Indochina in April 1951 despite evidence of the futility of the Indochina War and pressing security needs in Europe. I analyze the motivation for this decision with the assistance of the minutes of the National Defense Committee, as well as the private papers of leading French politicians and military figures. I argue that the key to understanding the French decision to continue the war rather than seek peace was the belief that the war in Indochina was critical to the achievement of French goals in Europe and NATO. As a consequence of this analysis, I suggest that any celebration of France's European achievements must be tempered by the recognition that European policy was often closely linked with a regressive imperial policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faced with a growing Algerian insurgency in 1955, French Governor-General Jacques Soustelle turned to his ethnological training to convert soldiers into amateur social scientists, hoping to better know the people of Algeria and therefore ease pacification through cultural understanding. Soustelle failed to appreciate the sophistication of revolt in Algeria, a diverse array of movements that did not fit traditional European categories. Confronting similar problems in understanding the causes of Iraqi and Afghan resistance in the years following the invasions of 2001–2003, American military planners also turned to anthropology. Though not taken to the administrative extreme seen in Soustelle's Algeria, the United States Army instituted the Human Terrain System in order to better understand native populations involved in an active insurgency. American planners can learn from the French experience by developing a more nuanced approach to study that includes more advanced anthropological techniques without the baggage of the colonial system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Following the Germans’ first use of chlorine gas during the second battle of Ypres, the Entente had to develop means of protection from future poison gas attacks as well as systems for retaliation. This article, through the analysis of heretofore unexamined archival sources, considers early French attempts at engaging in chemical warfare. Contrary to the existing historiography, the French army aggressively adapted to, and engaged in, chemical warfare. Indeed, the French army would be the first to fire asphyxiating gas shells from field guns and, by June 1915, would pioneer the use of gas as a neutralization weapon to be used in counter-battery fire, as opposed to unleashing gas via canisters to engage enemy infantry. Such innovation invites a rethinking not only of French gas efforts but also of the role and evolution of the French army as a whole on the Western Front, a topic which the Anglophone world is in great need of examining further. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses military engagements between French and Viet Minh forces in Phat Diem, Vietnam, in 1951 during the Franco-Viet Minh War. The author argues that the conflicts at Phat Diem illustrated the nature of the Cold War in Asia from 1945 to 1954. The article also discusses Phat Diem's significance concerning the concepts of regionalism, nationalism, and religion during the Cold War. It discusses Catholic Church bishop Thaddeus Le Huu Tu's ties to the French, the government of Vietnamese king Bao Dai, and Communism.

The lessons from the two French counterinsurgencies, Indochina and Algeria, give rise to a new understanding of the projection of airpower in remote and hostile environments and the purpose, design, and use of aircraft in counterinsurgency. In both Indochina and Algeria, the campaigns were ones of poverty, and it is their imaginative management under severe resource constraints that provides thoughtful and applicable lessons for today. In both cases, airpower held the promise of delivering victory and solving the resource issue. In Indochina, acquisition of the needed aircraft, operating knowledge, and experience came too slowly to realize this promise. In Algeria, the French embraced the lessons from Indochina and were quite successful and innovative in the use of airpower. The lessons can be reduced to four requirements: (1) a network of airfields for liaison, ground-support, and intra-theater airlift to enable effective air support of ground forces; (2) a solid, reliable, and simple ground-support aircraft capable of operating from forward airfields within range of ground engagements; (3) a capable intra-theater heavy-lift transport to supply the extended ground forces; and (4) helicopter capability to enhance tactical troop mobility and support. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although we have a great deal of information about Second World War French military history, we still do not know everything about the Vichy government's attempt to engage in military collaboration with Nazi Germany. Despite the fact that France was defeated in 1940, the country's government tried to improve the French positions in German commanded Europe. For the Vichy government, one of the most important areas was the Mediterranean region where it tried to maintain the French influence even by offering support to Germany in the hope of receiving some military and political concessions in return. This collaboration had a very important element, namely the establishment of two military units which were to fight by the side of the German forces in Africa: the Legion tricolore and the Phalange africaine. In the autumn of 1942, the Legion was dissolved even before its first mission, but the Phalange participated in the Tunisian fights against the Anglo- Saxon armies in 1943. Despite these efforts, France's position did not improve as a result of which this attempt is considered one of the fiascos of the Vichy regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses public concern surrounding the service of West Germans in the French Foreign Legion in the 1950s. It comments on what the author terms a "moral panic" in West Germany over the recruitment of young German men, reflecting on concerns about abductions and discourses of slavery and homosexuality. The author considers the reactivation of Paragraph 141 of the German criminal code criminalizing the practice of foreign military recruitment, and he also addresses German views of French colonialism in this period.

From its creation with the strong support of General de Lattre until the end of the Indochina War in 1954, the National Army of Vietnam ('Quan doi quoc gia Viet Nam') underwent impressive development. This 'new unified army' (entitled Forces Armées du Viet Nam, FAVN) was present in all the battles from 1951, especially in the North in operations against the main Viet-Minh divisions. Its five Vietnamese paratrooper battalions, known as the 'Bawouan', distinguished themselves in major military operations in the Red River delta as well as the historic battle of Dien Bien Phu. Other military formations, such as the capital battalions in the North or the local armies in the South (Binh Xuyen, Cao Dai, Hoa Hao, and UMDC) played important roles in the pacification of the two deltas. This article explores the emergence, development, and transformation of this defeated army and considers what the experience of war might have been from the point of view of its soldiers, offering a glimpse into a neglected social dimension of this conflict for the decolonization of Vietnam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 1956 to 1960, the French Army developed a force of Muslim auxiliaries (supplétifs) as a major component of its strategy to combat the National Liberation Front (FLN) insurgency in Algeria. Aside from their military utility in hunting down the guerrillas in the mountains and forests, the supplétifs were instrumental in undermining FLN legitimacy in the countryside. The rapid growth and employment of the supplétif force dismantled FLN political control in the villages, undermined the enemy's unity, and critically weakened the revolutionaries' claim to represent all of Algeria's Muslims. The military and political activities of France's Muslim soldiers also projected an image of Muslim–European unity behind the French cause, and portrayed the French Army as the only legitimate political force in numerous villages. These political successes, however, were limited to the local, tactical level of revolutionary warfare, and the Army was never able to convert the supplétifs into a force of decisive, strategic political significance. They thus had little ultimate impact on the outcome of the conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the mesdames tirailleurs, or West African women who accompanied West African male soldiers in French forces known as tirailleurs sénégalais in their campaigns, focusing on the years 1908 to 1918. It explores the role of these women during the French conquest of Morocco and during World War I. The author comments on the legal status of these women as wives. She also reflects on how the mesdames tirailleurs raised children and sought governmental assistance and how the French military regulated disputes and marital fidelity.

During World War I male French citizens in Cochinchina whom the colonial government had drafted to fight in Europe left their families behind in the colony. Through a complicated subsidies process, the government offered financial assistance to families impoverished by the draftee's departure and the concomitant loss of income. Far from being a monolithic category, the colony's poor white applicants, also known as petits-blancs, received varying government subsidies, depending on their family configurations. This article argues that the military allocations council's judgments correlate with the petits-blancs applicants' relationships to indigenous people and their adherence to traditional gender roles. To guard white prestige, the colonial government effectively penalized petits-blancs applicants who deviated from behavior associated with whiteness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an examination of the impact that World War I had on the establishment of peace in Europe in the years following the war, international politics and the European balance of power. It explores these issues by examining how the English and the French approached the issue of air power. It explores the national strength and power that was attributed to air power and discusses how France and Great Britain differed in their approaches to technology, industrial capacity and military mobilization.

The article examines debates over voting rights for French men completing their term of universal military service during the 1920s. According to the author, competition between the Socialist and Communist parties brought the issue into public consciousness, in turn causing French generals to reveal their skeptical attitudes towards the Third Republic. Topics discussed include the 1925-1926 Rif War and propaganda.

The article discusses Napoleonic strategy from the 19th to 20th centuries, with reference to letters and other archival materials. Topics discussed include the history and mythology of Napoleon's leadership, Napoleonic political and military philosophy and strategy, and the history of the concept of the Code Napoléon.

The article has two main theses: first, that from 1958 to 1967—Charles de Gaulle's presidency—there was a typical patron-client relationship between France and Israel that lasted until the Six Day War. It challenges the frequent claim in the literature that relations between Israel and France did not essentially change after de Gaulle's rise to power. Second, it argues that the basis on which this relationship was founded was rocky from the start since as a client, Israel was not ready to accede to French demands that it restrain its security policy to conform to key French interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the ways in which French officers manipulated the image of the "savage and violent" African colonial soldier. While the background for the development of this image was the general European perception of Africa as a violent space, during World War I, officers, as well as parts of the French public, began to see Africans as "grown children" rather than savages. However, as this image served French military purposes and made the soldiers useful on the battlefields, it was not rejected outright. I look at the debate around recruiting Africans to serve in Europe on the eve of World War I, and the French attempts to refute the German accusations around the deployment of African soldiers in the Rhineland during the 1920s. Finally I examine how, thirty years later, during the Indochina War, African officers dealt with these conflicting images in reports about violent incidents in which African soldiers had been involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information is presented about topics discussed at the conference "Les militaires et l'information, en Allemagne et en France, au XXe siecle" sponsored by the Military History Research Institute (MGFA), the Center for the Study of History of Defense (CEHD), and the German Historical Institute Paris (DHIP), held at the DHIP on November 24, 2009 in Paris, France. Topics discussed include national security, military communications, and the relation between military and civilian life.

Argues that the French, though at a disadvantage in air strength, also failed to make sufficient use of their aviation resources, thereby compounding a failure of the ground forces which might have been remedied by a more energetic employment of available combat aircraft against the German in May and June 1940.

Focuses on concept of a Vichy syndrome in France concerning World War II. Contours of a continuing discussion of Vichy as syndrome and obsession; Image of a historically unique postwar French retrospective fixation with the Vichy years; Controversy among those in France concerned with the country's wartime past.

Focuses the memory of the Resistance and the image of a collaboration imposed in France concerning World War II. Memory difficulties of older generations; Figures in the Vichy syndrome; Embarrassment and incomprehension in the Francois Mitterrand case; National revolution; Ideology of the National Revolution; Construction of French historical memory.

Discusses how the invasion of France and its timing was one of the most important issues in the course of the war, and it continued even after the war to spur historiographical disagreement. Churchill, British Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, was a key figure in the controversy. The accusations against Churchill for being against the invasion and having played an important role in its postponement.

The article presents a history of the French paratroopers from their formation in World War II until the end of the Algerian War. The paratroopers role as units of intervention in the Algerian War set them apart from other military branches, whose roles were more mundane. As public support for the Algerian war faded, so too did the elite status of the paratroopers, resulting in the paratroopers being integrated into the general military following the war.