Backgroundĭuring the 1930s, the French built the Maginot Line, fortifications along the border with Germany. In November 1942, the Germans and Italians occupied the zone under Case Anton (Fall Anton), until the Allied liberation in 1944. The Vichy regime retained the unoccupied territory in the south (zone libre). The Italian invasion of France over the Alps took a small amount of ground and after the armistice Italy occupied a small occupation zone in the south-east. The neutral Vichy government led by Marshal Philippe Pétain superseded the Third Republic and Germany occupied the North Sea and Atlantic coasts of France and their hinterlands. On 22 June, the Second Armistice at Compiègne was signed by France and Germany. After the flight of the French government and the collapse of the French Army, German commanders met with French officials on 18 June to negotiate an end to hostilities. German tanks outflanked the Maginot Line and pushed deep into France, occupying Paris unopposed on 14 June. The sixty remaining French divisions and the two British divisions in France made a determined stand on the Somme and Aisne but were defeated by the German combination of air superiority and armoured mobility. German forces began Fall Rot (Case Red) on 05 June. British, Belgian and French forces were pushed back to the sea by the German armies and the British evacuated the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), French and Belgian troops from Dunkirk in Operation Dynamo. In Fall Gelb (Case Yellow), German armoured units made a surprise push through the Ardennes, and then along the Somme valley, cutting off and surrounding the Allied units that had advanced into Belgium to meet the expected German invasion. In six weeks from, German forces defeated Allied forces by mobile operations, conquering France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, ending land operations on the Western Front until the Normandy landings on 06 June 1944. By mid-October, the French had withdrawn to their start lines. In early September 1939, France began the limited Saar Offensive. On 03 September 1939 France had declared war on Germany, following the German invasion of Poland. The Battle of France, also known as the Fall of France, was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries during the Second World War.
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