The French Army – Two Centuries of Commitment

On 14 June 1830, 30,000 French soldiers landed in Algeria and set about its conquest. More than one hundred and eighty years later, the operations in Mali from 2013 to 2022 saw the deployment of a force that closely resembled the army of 1830: small in size, professional, expert in overseas operations, in counter-insurgency as well as counter-terrorism. Yet the national army has also been profoundly shaped by the great European conflicts of the nineteenth century and, above all, the two World Wars. To illuminate the many facets of French military identity — that is the central subject of this landmark work.

In nearly sixty richly illustrated articles featuring photographs, drawings, maps and infographics, this book takes the reader through two centuries of military history told with clarity and precision — covering not only the history of battles but also that of troops, weapons and doctrines. Like the two previous works born of the collaboration between Perrin and Guerres & Histoire — La Wehrmacht and La Guerre antique — L'Armée française is a comprehensive volume by the finest historians, assembled under the direction of Jean Lopez. Destined to appeal to all audiences, this book appears at the very moment when, owing to the war in Ukraine, France must rethink its army. It enters this new chapter bolstered by a tradition that is arguably the richest in the world, by virtue of the variety of its experiences — which have led it, more than once, as General de Gaulle wrote, to "complete successes or exemplary misfortunes".