The French Liberation Army (French: Armée française de la Libération [aʁme fʁɑ̃sɛːz də la libeʁɑsjɔ̃]; AFL) was the reunified French Army that arose from the merger of the Giraudist Armée d'Afrique with the prior Gaullist Free French Forces (Forces françaises libres; FFL) during World War II. The military force of Free France, it participated in the Italian and Tunisian campaigns before joining in the 1944 Liberation of France with other Western Allies of World War II. It went on to join the Western Allied invasion of Germany to secure the capitulation of Germany's remaining forces. The successor to the FLA, the modern French Armed Forces would jointly occupy Germany with the other allies until 1955.
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In this Dossier
French Liberation Army in the context of Operation Dragoon
Operation Dragoon (initially Operation Anvil), known as Débarquement de Provence in French ("Provence Landing"), was the code name for the landing operation of the Allied invasion of Provence (Southern France) on 15 August 1944. Although initially designed to be executed in conjunction with Operation Overlord, the June 1944 Allied landing in Normandy, the lack of enough resources led to the cancellation of the second landing. By July 1944 the landing was reconsidered, as the clogged-up ports in Normandy did not have the capacity to adequately supply the Allied forces. Concurrently, the high command of the French Liberation Army pushed for a revival of the operation, which would involve large numbers of French troops. As a result, the operation was finally approved in July to be executed in August.
The invasion sought to secure the vital ports on the French Mediterranean coast and increase pressure on the German forces by opening another front. After preliminary commando operations, the US VI Corps landed on the beaches of the Côte d'Azur under the protection of a large naval task force, followed by several divisions of French Army B. They were opposed by the scattered forces of the German Army Group G, which had been weakened by the relocation of its divisions to other fronts and the replacement of its soldiers with third-rate Ostlegionen outfitted with obsolete equipment.