Seventy years ago a Franco-American force (with a few British troops thrown in) landed in southern France, starting Operation DRAGOON. The American landings began on 15 August 1944 and the French landings the next day. A once-classified, never published official history of the U.S. Seventh Army tells the story of these landings and the operations that followed over the next two weeks. This companion to Operation OVERLORD in Normandy was critical to the liberation of France and the winning of World War II in the west. It was also an important example of successful—if not always harmonious—cooperation between the United States and France. Its conduct belies the pernicious caricatures of the French Army and, indeed, the French people as militarily incompetent cowards.
DRAGOON (previously known as ANVIL) had long been intended as a companion to the invasion of Normandy, but it was an on-again, off-again affair until mid-June 1944, when the final decision to proceed was made. General Dwight Eisenhower’s decision finally to support the landing may have been the deciding factor and his support became all the more firm over time. Once the Anglo-American forces got ashore in Normandy, he became intensely interested in the logistical demands of destroying the German forces in the west. Allied forces had captured only one substantial port in useable condition and he badly wanted Marseille and the route up the Rhône valley to accelerate the delivery of divisions and supplies. More than forty allied divisions were in the pipeline, but they could not all be brought to the front through the Normandy logistic bottleneck. The landings would also free Eisenhower’s forces advancing across northern France from having to worry about their right flank. Moreover, the U.S. Government had gone to considerable expense to train and equip French divisions in North Africa, and the only practical way to get them quickly into battle was through southern France. In short, DRAGOON was a very important undertaking and much depended on its success.
As the Seventh Army official history shows, the initial French invasion forces comprised the French II Corps, commanded by General Jean-Marie de Lattre de Tassigny, who has since become a French national hero. This French corps fell under the U.S. Seventh Army commanded by General Alexander “Sandy” Patch. (Later, the French forces would grow to army size and de Lattre would take command of the First French Army which, in turn, would be subordinated to the U.S. 6th Army Group commanded by General Jacob Devers.) The French units were a remarkable combination of ethnic French formations put together from former Vichy troops and French soldiers who had escaped France and joined the Free French, and colonial troops from North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, and even Polynesia.
While American forces advanced inland on the right, the French II Corps on the left had the task of capturing Toulon (France’s largest naval port) and Marseille (France’s largest commercial port). De Lattre’s forces set off with determination and within twelve days isolated the two cities and then captured them, destroying two German divisions in the process. The capture of the ports gave the Allies a solid logistical base for driving northward. This they did, with the French and American forces racing each other as they went. On 12 September, French units from the south met up with General George Patton’s Third Army, which had come through Normandy. Toulon and Marseille were soon providing supplies not only to the 6th Army Group but also to General Omar Bradley’s 12th Army Group, which included Patton’s Army. For its part, troops from de Lattre’s French First Army were the first Allied troops to reach the Rhine. The French stayed in the fight all the way until the end of the war and elements of the French Army celebrated VE Day in Austria.
In the American popular perception the French military has a reputation for having a disinclination to fight, an echo in the American mind of the 1940 debacle, when French forces collapsed quickly in the face of the German onslaught. The French also have a reputation for being difficult partners and not especially competent. In fact, while the behavior of the French First Army in 1944 and 1945 includes some instances that seem to conform to the former stereotype, it almost entirely contradicts the latter.
Many senior French officers, including de Lattre himself, were first-rate military leaders. Moreover, the French forces were eager to fight and included some pockets of true excellence, notably the Moroccan colonial troops, the guomiers.
It is true that de Lattre sometimes subverted the spirit or violated the letter of American-authored plans. However, these unilateral decisions were uniformly ones that gave the French more opportunities to fight rather than fewer. In addition, French officers from lieutenants to corps commanders were often overly enthusiastic and eager to get straight into combat even when it was unwise or contrary to orders. It may also be worth remembering—and it cannot have been lost on the French—that while the American army was drafted, a large proportion of the Frenchmen in de Lattre’s army had risked their lives escaping France just to have the chance to fight. De Lattre himself fit this description, having broken out of prison in Vichy France and rallied to the Free French cause.
Certainly there were frictions between the French and Americans. For instance, American General Lucian Truscott erroneously accused de Lattre of dawdling in attacking Marseille. For their part, the French resented the fact that many Americans obviously held them in contempt. Veteran French troops thought that American soldiers were spoiled with creature comforts and used firepower to compensate for a lack of courage. In addition, the French industrial base was unavailable to the French Army so it was forced to depend on American industry and American logisticians. Not surprisingly, the French resented this, especially because the price of accepting American weapons was to abandon many established French practices and accept many American ways of doing things.
Despite the occasional tactical shortcomings of the French Army, and despite its leadership’s sometimes strained relationship with their American counterparts, in 1944 and 1945 the French forces were, overall, quite effective. Both American and French contributions were necessary to the success of DRAGOON and DRAGOON, in turn, was an important part of the overall victory over the Nazis. This precedent of effective Franco-American cooperation should not be forgotten.
Mark Stout is a Senior Editor at War on the Rocks. He is the Director of the MA Program in Global Security Studies at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Arts and Sciences in Washington, D.C.
Photo credit: PhotoNormandie
Paul Robinson 
sufferin succotash 
Ryan Evans 
TP Jones 
M.M. McCloud 
Vincent 
Tommy 
Vincent S. 
As an ex pat Ulsterman, now living northern France, near the Belgian border, i’ve found many myths blown about the French lack of will to fight, and being surrender monkeys. Remember it was a failing government of mainly elderlery ditherers, who surrendered France to the Germans, not the people. My present home of Valenciennes is dotted with several monuments to civilians shot by the Germans for resistance. A lot of the problem too is the resentment and problems caused by de Gaulle and his bad relations with the allies, which leaders and military passed on to press, which again public took to be typical of French people and military. There were several other French generals who made contributions above and beyond their batting weight like Leclerc, who is more celebrated in the north as he liberated many towns and cities that had been under oppressive occupation since almost the end of the Phoney War.My own new home town of Valenciennes however was liberated in September ’44 by the US 30th Division “Old Hickory” – thanks guys.
One often overlooked aspect of the 1940 debacle was that German casualties in the six-week campaign were quite comparable to their losses in the first six weeks of Barbarossa the following year. In other words, the French Army’s resistance was as tough as the Red Army’s and I’ve never heard any allegations that the Russians were surrender monkeys.
The problem for both armies was their initial inability to deal with the mechanized breakthrough by preventing it from turning into a breakout. Gamelin and the other WW1 relics, steeped in the notion of the “unbreakable” continuous front, simply had no plan B to respond to the unfolding disaster along the Meuse in May, 1940. Gamelin’s response to Churchill’s query–“where is your mobile reserve”–was “there isn’t any.”
The French Army did have a learning curve, adopting more flexible defensive tactics in early June, but by that point it was really too late. Unlike the USSR in 1941-42 France had neither the time nor the space to fix the damage done by faulty doctrines and a petrified national leadership.
Interesting piece. As a Frenchman who wrote his PhD in War Studies in the UK and is now living in North America, I often found that the cliché about the French being unwilling to fight comes from a deep misunderstanding of the 1940 campaign, seen as a German promenade in the French countryside.
Tony Judt writes in his memoirs that when he reviewed Frieser’s book on the myth of the Blitzkrieg for the New York Review of Books, he reminded his American audience that 100.000 Frenchmen had been killed during the 1940 campaign, and that they were far from waiting to be disarmed by the Germans. But conducting maneuver warfare with roads filled of refugees concentrates your efforts and prevents counter-attacks, which largely explain France’s defeat. Judt received countless letters of well-intentioned readers questioning the 100.000 figure: the French are notorious cowards, so he must have had the figure wrong.
Judt interprets this reaction as part of the American militarism: Americans believe that they have to be the bravest and fiercest warriors (which is also reflected in popular culture, movies and popular history books).
Everytime I served with American forces, I have been amused by their surprise when they were realizing that French troops are brave, well-behaved and tactically proficient (for example in Afghanistan). But the myth endures, for some reason. It is weird to observe that one major defeat makes more for the reputation of a country that several centuries of military prowess.
Thanks for chiming in Olivier! You should be writing for us regularly!
Thanks Ryan. Let’s think of something which could be of interest to the website and your audience.
I agree with your points, but just would add that one of the reasons the “myth” endures is not just because of 1940…it was the loss of the Battle of France combined in latter succession with the loss of Vietnam and Algeria which fed the myth and allowed it to grow. Despite the fact that one could argue Algeria was a military victory but only a political “defeat.”
Good point.
Indochina and Algeria surely add to the list in terms of creating the myth of military incompetence.
I think an article on Napoleon as a disruptive thinker of his day would be quite interesting. Especially on how he raised and employed his Grande Armée, his adoption of the General Staff system as developed by General Louis Alexandre Berthier and his belief in a system of meritocracy instead of social class or wealth for filling rank/positions within the Armée. Obviously these changes within the French military had a major impact on the “Old World” in Continental Europe at the start of the 19th Century and have had lasting contributions to the present for how modern armies are raised, trained and used.
Michael,
As I’m sure you know, there have been countless of books and articles written on Napoleon’s military innovations and greatness as well as their second and third order effects on European societies. I’m not sure if any have been written from the newly popular “disruptive thinker” perspective, but I am also not sure if that perspective could add much to the immense amount of scholarly attention this topic has received. I may be wrong, however, and we’re always open to submissions of any sort.
Best,
Ryan
Mr. Evans,
You are correct; there is a plethora of information on Napoleon and Napoleonic France. I am by no means an expert on Napoleon or the France he ruled over. I am also one that tries to avoid “buzz words” as much as possible. With that being said, when you consider the changes that were made to both the country and the military during Napoleon’s rule, one has to be amazed at how much he was able to accomplish and how successful he was up to his final defeat and abdication. Even Napoleon himself declared that his greatest feat was not a military one but that of his accomplishment with the “Civil Code” that came into being under his rule. On the military front, his use of meritocracy and his ability to pick excellent Marshals was a great strength, one that served him and France well up to the end. In spirit with this article, it is amazing that so many have (wrongly) criticized the French and their bravery when clearly their contributions to military affairs in both victory and defeat were once the pinnacle of land power across Europe and the world.
And remember theONU/Irak crisis involving US and France… One week of foul words between the two countries and US medias were ful of 1940 french surrenderers… In France itself (what a coincidence!) Articles appeared about (useless and civilian killing) US bombing on Normandy or Boulogne Billancourt… And all that took place only 12 years ago :-)
Yeah, the stereotype of the French not being good soldiers is a sad, tired one. Highly recommend “Dare Call it Treason” to put the whole 1917 mutinies in context.
I actually find the stereotype of American soldiers somehow being inferior to their European counterparts during WW2 to be more offensive. Alot of self-hating Americans and Wehrmacht fanboys too easily dismiss just how well our military performed in the ETO, given the state of it just three years prior.
As you rightly notice, it might be related to the “German bias” which developped after WWII, the myth according to which the Germans were excellent tacticians but eventually lost because of the number of human waves coming from both the East and the West that eventually overwhelmed them.
For the Eastern front, the massive work by David Glantz and his colleagues has sufficiently demonstrated that the Soviets won out of a real military superiority coming from a mastery of operational art and sequential operations aiming at disrupting the German armies: the Soviets basically outmatched the Germans at the operational and tactical levels. But Liddell Hart, in his forged book interviewing former German officers, helped spread the myth of the unstoppable human waves, which conveniently discharges the German army of any responsibility in the military defeat.
I have rarely seen the accusation (at least in France) of US troops poorly performing in WWII. Certainly there was a learning curve between 1942 and 1944, but the combats of 1944-1945 in both the European theater and the Pacific are proofs of the American proficiency.
At the tactical level,a contemporary example of this persistent myth seen by an American soldier who fought with the French troops in Afghanistan: http://mars-attaque.blogspot.fr/2013/07/interview-with-us-good-guy-in-bad-lands.html
Hi everyone,
First, the Algerian was not a military defeat, but a policy one. Even if french army won, the public were too hurt.
Second,I think that US media keep this stereotypes on by the french bashing, mainly after the Franco-American crisis of Iraq 2003.