THE FIRST FRENCH ARMY - From Provence to Germany, 1944-1945

The First French Army was entrusted with a triple role:

diplomatic, political and military. An instrument for the reconquest of national greatness four years after the defeat, it was tasked not only with proving, on the battlefield, the country's capacity to liberate itself, but also with raising France to the rank of the victorious powers. It also had to act, by integrating thousands of fighters from the internal resistance, as a symbol of the Nation's restored unity. Finally, as heir to the discredited armies of the defeat and of Vichy, it had to confront the aspirations for renewal demanded by French society at the Liberation.

Drawing on a vast body of sources gathered in France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States — some of them previously unpublished — Claire Miot examines this pivotal moment in the restoration of republican legality and the consolidation of Gaullist power, as well as the turbulent transition from the time of the Occupation to that of the Liberation, a discontinuous shift from wartime to peacetime.

BIOGRAPHY A graduate of the École normale supérieure de Cachan (now ENS Paris-Saclay) and agrégée in history, Claire Miot is currently seconded to the Service historique de la Défense, where she pursues her research on the history of the French army during and after the Second World War, and on the war experience of colonised soldiers of the French Empire. She also lectures at the Université Paris-Nanterre and at ENS Paris-Saclay.