First Army (France)

Infobox Military Unit
unit_name=Ire Armée


caption=
dates=1914-1918
1939-1940
1944-1945
country=
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type=Field Army
role=
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current_commander=
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motto=Rhin et Danube (Eng: Rhine and Danube)
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anniversaries=The First Army ( _fr. Ire Armée) was a field army of France that fought during World War I and World War II. It was also active during the Cold War.

First World War

On mobilization in August 1914 the First Army was put in the charge of General Auguste Dubail and comprised the 7th, 8th, 13th, 14th, and 21st Army Corps, two divisions of cavalry and one reserve infantry division. It was massed between Belfort and the general line Mirecourt-Lunéville with headquarters at Epinal. First Army then took part, along with the French Second Army, in the Invasion of Lorraine. The First Army intended to take the strongly defended town of Sarrebourg. German Crown Prince Rupprecht, commander of the German Sixth Army, was tasked with stopping the French invasion. The French attack was repulsed by Rupprecht and his stratagem of pretending to retreat and then strongly attacking back. On August 20, Rupprecht launched a major counter-offensive, driving the French armies out. Dubail was replaced in 1915. A frantic 1916 saw four different commanders command the First Army; an even more frantic 1917 saw five different commanders at the helm.

econd World War

1940

During WWII the Army formed part of the forces ranged against the German Army during the Battle of France. When the Wehrmacht invaded France and the Low Countries in 1940, the First Army was one of the many armies including the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) that advanced north to stop the German armies. On May 21, 1940, the First Army was one of the armies trapped in a vast pocket with their backs to the sea that would eventually result in the Dunkirk evacuations. As the Germans moved in, much of the First Army was hopelessly surrounded at Lille but resisted fiercely. The First Army formally ceased to exist on May 29, though a portion escaped with the British troops.

1944-1945

French Army B under the command General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny landed in southern France after Operation Dragoon, the Allied invasion of the area. On September 25, 1944 French Army B was redesignated French First Army. Liberating Marseille, Toulon, and Lyon, it later formed the right flank of the Allied Southern Group of Armies at the southern end of the Allied front line, adjacent to Switzerland. It commanded two corps, the French I and II Corps. The French First Army liberated the southern area of the Vosges Mountains, including Belfort. Its operations in the area of Burnhaupt destroyed the German IV Luftwaffe Korps in November 1944. In February 1945, with the assistance of the U.S. XXI Corps, the First Army collapsed the Colmar Pocket and cleared the west bank of the Rhine River of Germans in the area south of Strasbourg. In March 1945, the First Army fought through the Siegfried Line fortifications in the Bienwald Forest near Lauterbourg. Subsequently, the First Army crossed the Rhine near Speyer and captured Karlsruhe and Stuttgart. Operations by the First Army in April 1945 encircled and captured the German "XVIII S.S. Korps" in the Black Forest and cleared southwestern Germany. At the end of the war, the motto of the French First Army was "Rhin et Danube", referring to the two great German rivers that it had reached and crossed during its combat operations.

Postwar

During the Cold War the First Army was again active, controlling the I Corps, the II Corps, and the III Corps as well as Army troops, including Pluton artillery, during the 1980s.

Commanders

WWI

*General Auguste Dubail (Mobilisation – 5 January, 1915)
*General Pierre Roques (5 January, 1915 – 25 March, 1916)
*General Olivier Mazel (25 March, 1916 – 31 March, 1916)
*General Gérard (31 March, 1916 – 31 December, 1916)
*General Emile Fayolle (31 December, 1916 – 6 May, 1917)
*General Joseph Alfred Micheler (6 May, 1917 – 1 June, 1917)
*General Henri Gouraud (1 June, 1917 – 15 June, 1917)
*General François Anthoine (15 June, 1917 – 21 December, 1917)
*General Marie-Eugene Debeney (21 December, 1917 – Armistice)

WWII

* General Georges Blanchard (2 September 1939 – 26 May 1940)
* General René Prioux (26 May – 29 May 1940)
* General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny (September 1944 – VE Day)

References

* British Broadcasting Corporation,
* Duffy, Michael,
* Iavarone, Mike,

External links

* [http://france1940.free.fr/oob/1armee.html Order of Battle on May 10, 1940]