Showing results for "France" in Military & War

Brought to you by Penguin. In six weeks in 1940, France was over-run by German troops and surrendered. One junior French general, refusing to accept defeat, made his way to England. On 18 June he spoke to his compatriots over the BBC, urging them to rally to him in London. At that moment...

Few images more shocked the French population during the Occupation than the photograph of Marshal Philippe Pétain - the great French hero of the First World War - shaking the hand of Hitler on 20 October 1940. In the radio speech after this meeting, Pétain said 'It is I alone who will be judged by History.' Five years later, in July 1945, the hour of judegment - if not yet the judgement of History - arrived.

Napoleon Bonaparte lived one of the most extraordinary of all human lives. In the space of just 20 years, from October 1795, when as a young artillery captain he cleared the streets of Paris of insurrectionists, to his final defeat at the (horribly mismanaged) battle of Waterloo in June 1815, Napoleon transformed France and Europe. After seizing power in a coup d'état, he ended the corruption and incompetence into which the revolution had descended.

“Nada está perdido para a França.” (De Gaulle) Foi assim, por uma transmissão radiofônica de Londres, após ver seu país invadido pelos alemães, que Charles de Gaulle convocou os franceses a lutarem pela Resistência. Ele liderou o país nos momentos mais difíceis e tornou-se herói nacional. Nos diversos conflitos dos quais participou, De Gaulle lutou, foi ferido, acabou preso e, depois, fugitivo.

Volume Five begins on an optimistic note. The French recognition of the United States on February 6, 1778, along with the promise of military assistance, renewed Washington’s confidence in eventual success. But before that day arrived in 1781, three years of hardship, privation, and suspense would intervene. Throughout this ordeal George Washington’s towering presence was the catalyst that kept everything together.

In 1940, Private Raymond Bailey, a 21 year old Vauxhall motors apprentice, serving with the 1st Kensington Regiment, was captured in Northern France, becoming a Nazi prisoner of war. But he wouldn't remain one for long... The Longest Walk Home is the incredible account of his daring 2,000 mile...

During the course of his time in enemy territory he broke out from a column of prisoners while having a Nazi machine gun aimed at him, fought against his captors with stolen weapons, hid in stinking manure, and even posed as a member of the Irish Republican Army in order to throw his captors off the scent of his true identity.

A gripping memoir written by a 96-year-old Jewish Holocaust survivor about his escape from Nazi-occupied Poland in the 1930's and his adventures with the French Resistance during World War II In 1937, as the Nazi Party tightened its grip on the city of Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland), Justus...

‘Napoleon is an out-and-out masterpiece and a joy to read’ Sir Antony Beevor, author of Stalingrad A landmark new biography that presents the man behind the many myths. The first writer in English to go back to the original European sources, Adam Zamoyski’s portrait of Napoleon is...

The astonishing untold story of the author's father, the lone American on a 4-person SOE commando team dropped behind German lines in France, whose epic feats of irregular warfare proved vital in keeping Nazi tanks away from Normandy after D-Day. When Daniel Guiet was a child and his family...

The remarkable untold WWII story of the US airman who was shot down over Nazi-occupied France and evaded Gestapo pursuers for more than six months. Arthur Meyerowitz was on his second air mission over France when he was shot down in 1943. He was one of only two men on the B-24 Liberator known as Harmful Lil' Armful who escaped death or immediate capture on the ground. After fleeing the wreck, Meyerowitz knocked on the door of an isolated farmhouse....

This is the true story of four brave women secretly sent into the darkness of Nazi-occupied France to carry out Winston Churchill’s plan to "set Europe ablaze." Caught in a web of deception surrounding the preparations for the D-Day invasion, their mission ended in betrayal and sacrifice. An engrossing history based on first-hand interviews with agents of the Special Operations Executive and revelations about the secret organization and the courageous women who served it.

The French Revolution facilitated the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, but after gaining power he knew that his first task was to end it. In this book William Doyle describes how he did so, beginning with the three large issues that had destabilized revolutionary France: war, religion, and monarchy.

Bayard naquit vers 1475, au château de la Bussière dans la vallée de Grésivaudan. Envoyé très jeune à Grenoble, il se forma sous la direction de Mgr Alleman, évêque de cette ville. À l'âge de 13 ans, rappelé au château paternel, il ne rêve plus que de faits d'armes et de batailles. C'est alors que son oncle le présenta au Duc de Savoir Charles Ier, qui tenait à ce moment sa cour à Chambéry et qui le prit comme page. Bayard suivit ce prince quand il alla rendre visite à Lyon au roi Charles VIII. Bayard, invité à manœuvrer son cheval devant le roi, le fit avec une telle maîtrise que celui-ci le demanda au Duc de Savoie.

The rousing story of Lafayette - “adopted son” of George Washington - and his vital role in the American Revolution. In this long-overdue history of Marquis Gilbert de Lafayette, acclaimed French author Gonzague Saint Bris recounts Lafayette’s invaluable contributions to the American War of Independence and, later, the French Revolution of 1789.

L'aventure des anciens combattants d'Afrique subsaharienne, ceux que l'on a appelés "les Tirailleurs Sénégalais", engagés par dizaines de milliers aux côtés de la France tout au long des grands conflits du XXe siècle, fait partie de la mémoire commune partagée par l'Afrique noire et la France. Commencée dès 1857 pour s'achever en 1964, cette longue page d'histoire a laissé, entre fierté et rancœur, glorification et oubli, des traces profondes. Le livre audio proposé aujourd'hui par RFI est le fruit d'un patient inventaire dans les archives sonores en France, complétées grâce à la collecte de témoignages effectuée par les radios publiques africaines.