International rivalries, thwarted colonial ambitions, and conflicting alliances led to World War I, which, after decisive German victories for 2 years, degenerated into the mud-slogged horror of trench warfare. Mourning between four and five million casualties, Europe was afflicted with psychological scars that never healed. In 1917, the United States broke the deadlock by entering the war.
After the Allied victory, economic problems, plus demoralization stemming from years of fighting, encouraged the growth of socialism and communism. The French government, led by a vindictive Georges Clemenceau, demanded every centime of reparations it could from a crushed Germany. The humiliation associated with this has been cited as the origin of the German nation's almost obsessive determination to rise from the ashes of 1918.
The worldwide depression had devastating repercussions in France. Poverty weakened the Third Republic to the point where coalition governments rose and fell with alarming regularity. The crises reached a crescendo on June 14, 1940, when Hitler's armies marched down the Champs-Elysées, and newsreel cameras recorded French people openly weeping. The Nazis occupied the north of France, and a puppet French government was established at Vichy under the authority of Marshal Pétain. The immediate collapse of the French army is viewed as one of the most significant humiliations in modern French history.
Pétain and his regime cooperated with the Nazis in shameful ways. Not the least of their crimes included the deportation of more than 75,000 French Jews to German work camps. Pockets of resistance fighters (le maquis) waged small-scale guerrilla attacks against the Nazis throughout the war, and free-French forces continued to fight along with the Allies on battlegrounds such as North Africa. Charles de Gaulle, the irascible giant whose personality is forever associated with the politics of his era, established himself as the head of the French government in exile, operating first from London and then from Algiers.
On June 6, 1944, the largest armada in history landed on the beaches of Normandy. Paris rose in rebellion before the Allied armies arrived, and on August 26, 1944, Charles de Gaulle entered the capital as head of the government. The Fourth Republic was declared even as Nazi snipers continued to shoot from scattered rooftops throughout the city.
