Editing History of France (section)

=== World War I ===
{{See also|French entry into World War I|French Army in World War I|Home front during World War I#France}}
[[File:French bayonet charge.jpg|thumb|A French bayonet charge in 1913]]

[[File:El 114 de infantería, en París, el 14 de julio de 1917, León Gimpel.jpg|thumb|The 114th infantry in Paris, 14 July 1917]]

Preoccupied with internal problems, France paid little attention to foreign policy in the 1911–14 period, although it did extend military service to three years from two over strong Socialist objections in 1913. The rapidly escalating [[July Crisis|Balkan crisis of 1914]] caught France unaware, and it played only a small role in [[Causes of World War I|the coming of World War I]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Remak |first=Joachim |date=1971 |title=1914 — The Third Balkan War: Origins Reconsidered |journal=[[Journal of Modern History]] |volume=43 |issue=3 |pages=354–366, quote at 354–355 |doi=10.1086/240647 |s2cid=222445579}}</ref> The Serbian crisis triggered a complex set of military alliances between European states, causing most of the continent, including France, to be drawn into war within a few short weeks. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia in late July, triggering Russian mobilization. On 1 August both Germany and France ordered mobilization. Germany was much better prepared militarily than any of the other countries involved, including France. The German Empire, as an ally of Austria, declared war on Russia. France was allied with Russia and so was ready to commit to war against the German Empire. On 3 August Germany declared war on France, and sent its armies through neutral Belgium. Britain entered the war on 4 August, and started sending in troops on 7 August. Italy, although tied to Germany, remained neutral and then joined the Allies in 1915.

[[Schlieffen Plan|Germany's "Schlieffen Plan"]] was to quickly defeat the French. They captured [[city of Brussels|Brussels, Belgium]] by 20 August and soon had captured a large portion of northern France. The original plan was to continue southwest and attack Paris from the west. By early September they were within {{Convert|65|km|mi}} of Paris, and the French government had relocated to Bordeaux. The Allies finally stopped the advance northeast of Paris at the [[First Battle of the Marne|Marne River]] (5–12 September 1914).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Herwig |first=Holger H. |title=The Marne, 1914: The Opening of World War I and the Battle That Changed the World |date=2011 |publisher=Random House Publishing |isbn=978-0-8129-7829-2 |pages=266–306 |orig-date=2009}}</ref>

The war now became a stalemate – the famous "[[Western Front (World War I)|Western Front]]" was fought largely in France and was characterized by very little movement despite extremely large and violent battles, often with new and more destructive military technology. On the Western Front, the small improvised trenches of the first few months rapidly grew deeper and more complex, gradually becoming vast areas of interlocking defensive works. The land war quickly became dominated by the muddy, bloody stalemate of [[Trench warfare]], a form of war in which both opposing armies had static lines of defense. The war of movement quickly turned into a war of position. Neither side advanced much, but both sides suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties. German and Allied armies produced essentially a matched pair of trench lines from the Swiss border in the south to the North Sea coast of Belgium. Meanwhile, large swaths of northeastern France came under the brutal control of German occupiers.<ref>{{Cite book |last=McPhail |first=Helen |title=The Long Silence: The Tragedy of Occupied France in World War I |date=2014 |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |isbn=978-1-7845-3053-2}}</ref>

Trench warfare prevailed on the Western Front from September 1914 until March 1918. Famous battles in France include the [[Battle of Verdun]] and the [[Battle of the Somme]] in 1916, and five separate conflicts called the [[Battle of Ypres]] (from 1914 to 1918).{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}}

After Socialist leader [[Jean Jaurès]], a pacifist, was assassinated at the start of the war, the French socialist movement abandoned its antimilitarist positions and joined the national war effort. Prime Minister [[René Viviani]] called for unity—for a "[[Union sacrée]]" ("Sacred Union")--Which was a wartime truce between the right and left factions that had been fighting bitterly. France had few dissenters. However, [[war-weariness]] was a major factor by 1917, even reaching the army. The soldiers were reluctant to attack; Mutiny was a factor as soldiers said it was best to wait for the arrival of millions of Americans. The soldiers were protesting not just the futility of frontal assaults in the face of German machine guns but also degraded conditions at the front lines and at home, especially infrequent leaves, poor food, the use of African and Asian colonials on the home front, and concerns about the welfare of their wives and children.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Smith |first=Leonard V. |date=April 1995 |title=War and 'Politics': The French Army Mutinies of 1917 |journal=[[War in History]] |volume=2 |issue=2 |pages=180–201 |doi=10.1177/096834459500200203 |s2cid=154834826}}</ref>

After defeating Russia in 1917, Germany now could concentrate on the Western Front, and planned an all-out assault in the spring of 1918, but had to do it before the very rapidly growing American army played a role. In March 1918 Germany launched its offensive and by May had reached the Marne and was again close to Paris. However, in the [[Second Battle of the Marne]] (15 July to 6 August 1918), the Allied line held. The Allies then shifted to the offensive.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Neiberg |first=Michael S. |title=The Second Battle of the Marne |date=2008 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-2533-5146-3 |author-link=Michael S. Neiberg}}</ref> The Germans, out of reinforcements, were overwhelmed day after day and the high command saw it was hopeless. Austria and Turkey collapsed, and the Kaiser's government fell. Germany signed "[[Armistice with Germany|The Armistice]]" that ended the fighting effective 11 November 1918, "the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rudin |first=Harry |title=Armistice, 1918 |date=1944 |publisher=Yale University Press}}</ref>