"A fine biography of Leclerc, who played almost as important a part as de Gaulle himself in restoring French pride in the Second World War" (Antony Beevor, international bestselling author of D-Day).From the fall of France until 1943, Philippe Leclerc dovetailed his operations with the British effort in North Africa, establishing himself as a dynamic combat leader in the battles against Rommel. But once the conflict shifted to European soil, he became even...

"A fine, racy account of the Occupation and Liberation of Paris—a rattlingly good read" (Giles MacDonogh, author of After the Reich).During the fall of 1944, once the Western Allies had gained military advantage over the Nazis, the crown jewel of Allied strategy became the liberation of Paris—the capital of France so long held in captivity.This event, however, was steeped in more complexity when the Allies returned than in 1940 when Hitler's legion...

In May 1945, as the triumphant Red Army crushed the last pockets of German resistance in central Berlin, French soldiers fought back. They were the last surviving members of SS Charlemagne, the Waffen SS division made up of French volunteers. They were among the final defenders of the city and of Hitlers bunker. Their extraordinary story gives a compelling insight into the dreadful climax of the Battle for Berlin and into the conflicts of loyalty faced by the French in the Second World War...

From the author of Talavera, an extensive history of the Battle of Waterloo from the losing side's point of view.The story of the Battle of Waterloo—of the ultimate defeat of Napoleon and the French, the triumph of Wellington, Blücher, and their allied armies—is most often told from the viewpoint of the victors, not the vanquished. Even after 200 years of intensive research and the publication of hundreds of books and articles on the battle, the French pers...

Follow the infamous 2nd SS Panzer Division on its march through Southwest France to the Massacre at Oradour with this illustrated battlefield guide.The 2nd SS Das Reich Division Das Reich committed was an elite division known for its ruthlessness. Stationed in the French village of Montauban, near Toulouse, when the Allies invaded Normandy in 1944. When ordered to rush North, they ran into a series of French Resistance, SAS, and SOE delaying actions. The Division re...

In World War II, 37 women were dropped in occupied France to work as Special Operations Executive agents and 'set Europe ablaze'. 13 never returned. They were executed in Hitler's concentration camps.This is the fascinating story of eight of those female agents, all striking beauties (despite the need to be inconspicuous), all from civilian life, who were warned of the likelihood of arrest, torture and a brutal death before they volunteered. None demurred. These young women were gi...

From the bestselling and prize-winning author of ‘A Brilliant Little Operation’ comes the long neglected D-Day story of the largest action by the French Resistance during WWII, published to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the Normandy landings.In early 1941, three separate groups of plotters – one military, one political, one intellectual – began to organise and plan on and around the forbidding mountainous plateau near Grenoble – the Vercors. The aims of the groups were the ...

A historian analyzes the Franco-Prussian War's Battle of Sedan, from its causes and effects, to the characters involved.The Franco-Prussian War was a turning point in the history of nineteenth-century Europe, and the Battle of Sedan was the pivotal event in that war. For the Germans, their overwhelming victory symbolized the birth of their nation, forged in steel and tempered in the blood of the common enemy. For the French, it was a defeat more complete and humilia...

A WWI historian and Verdun battleground guide shares her knowledge and expertise in this series ten of walking tours.On February 21st, 1916, the German Fifth Army launched a devastating offensive against French forces at Verdun and set in motion one of the most harrowing and prolonged battles of the Great War. By the time the struggle finished ten months later, over 650,000 men were left killed, wounded, or were missing. The terrible memory of the battle had been et...

The result of years of research in British, French and German archives, this is a new critical history of how close Germany came to winning the First World War in 1914.The German invasion of France and Belgium in August 1914 came close to defeating the French armies, capturing Paris and ending the First World War before the autumn leaves had fallen. But the German armies failed to score the knock-out blow they had planned and the war would drag on for four years of...

At a crucial moment in the Second World War, an obscure French general reaches a fateful personal decision: to fight on alone after his government’s flight from Paris and its capitulation to Nazi Germany.Amid the ravages of a world war, three men — a general, a president, and a prime minister — are locked in a rivalry that threatens their partnership and puts the world’s most celebrated city at risk of destruction before it can be liberated. This is the setting of ...

This WWII pictorial history illustrates a horrifying episode of destruction in Nazi-occupied France.In June of 1944, the Second SS Panzer Division Das Reich was stationed in Southern France until it was called north to help stop the Allied advance. On its way toward Normandy, Das Reich destroyed the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane and massacred its population. The brutal event ranks as one of the most notorious atrocities of the Second World W...