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Encyclopedia of Invasions & Conquests, Fourth Edition

Southern France, Allied Invasion Of

In January 1943 President Franklin Roosevelt met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Casablanca, Morocco. With American and British forces squeezing the German and Italian armies in North Africa, the decision had to be made as to what would be the next target to invade. Churchill favored Sicily then into Italy, hoping to put pressure on Italian Premier Benito Mussolini and get Italy to withdraw from the war. Roosevelt favored an attack on southern France. Ultimately Churchill’s idea was adopted in return for his promise to provide more aid to the war against the Japanese in Burma and China. Also attending the conference were French Generals Charles De Gaulle and Henri Giraud of the Free French forces in Britain, which had escaped with the British forces from Dunkirk in late spring 1940. The two were given co-command of the Free French forces.

Roosevelt and Churchill met with Soviet leader Josef Stalin at the Teheran Conference in November 1943. Stalin demanded more allied action to relieve the pressure on the Soviet army on the eastern front. Churchill proposed an invasion of the Balkans, arguing that such an action would put immediate pressure on the Germans fighting in the Soviet Union. His underlying motive was to put American and British troops in control of eastern Europe so Stalin could not spread Communism into that region by occupying it after Germany’s defeat. Stalin pushed for an invasion of northern France, arguing that forcing the Germans to fight a two-front war would be a more effective way to defeat them. This would also keep the allies out of eastern Europe so he could establish Communism in those countries. The deciding vote went to Roosevelt, who backed the French invasion. He hoped that siding with Stalin would make it easier to negotiate with him concerning Russia going to war against Japan.

The invasions of Sicily and Italy proceeded in the summer and fall of 1943 while planning continued for Operation Overlord, the cross-channel invasion of Normandy in northern France. An attack on southern France would spread the Germans thin along the western front. Since it was to follow shortly after the Normandy invasion, the southern invasion was originally code-named Operation Anvil to provide cooperation with Overlord’s supposed hammer. When Overlord took place in June 1944, Allied forces were soon moving into the French countryside. However, delivering supplies was difficult owing to the severe damage done to the port of Cherbourg. Thus, the invasion of southern France became necessary to provide more ports of entry for supplies to Allied forces. Churchill argued that expanding the effort in Italy was a more important priority. American and British command staffs finally scheduled Anvil for 15 August; Churchill was assured that the effort in Italy would not be shortchanged. The operation was renamed Dragoon over fears that the Anvil code name may have been compromised.

Owing to the Normandy invasion, German forces in the south of France were minimal. The German force was designated Army Group G under General Johannes Blaskowitz. The best troops had been transferred north and replaced by inferior forces including Soviet defectors and conscripts from eastern Europe. They were poorly armed and had only one armored division to assist. Thus, what became known as Operation Dragoon looked to be a relatively easy campaign. The allied invasion force included three divisions from the American VI Corps of the Seventh Army, a naval underwater demolition team to disable landing obstacles, plus five infantry divisions and two armored divisions of Free French troops under the command of General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny. (This would be the first major French force to directly assist in freeing their home country.) An airborne attack of American and British paratroopers was to take place just before the invasion to slow any German movement toward the beaches. Overall command was exercised by American General Alexander Patch.

Map via massillonmuseum.org.

GHInv4e_p553_0001.jpg

The landing took place at 0800 on 15 August after an hour’s naval bombardment. Ninety thousand American troops landed on three beaches just southwest of Cannes on the French Riviera, suffering 394 casualties. French forces landed the next morning and began moving down the coast toward the harbors of Marseilles and Toulon. German forces were unprepared for the assault and within two days were retreating up the Rhone River valley, harassed continually by French resistance fighters. The two harbors fell to the French army on 28 August, a month earlier than the planners had anticipated.

By mid-September the invasion was over when the Seventh Army troops linked up with General George Patton’s Third Army advancing eastward.

In spite of its uncertain antecedents, Dragoon was soundly conceived, based on hard lessons learned in previous amphibious operations. The British concerns about the Italian theater had limited the number of Allied ground forces, but the ably commanded naval and air forces involved--and German unpreparedness and disarray--had contributed to a surprisingly rapid battlefield success that achieved all of its tactical and strategic objectives in a minimum amount of time. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

See also: France, Allied invasion of.

References:

1 

Anonymous, “Operation Dragoon: The Invasion of Southern France, 15 August 1944,” Naval History and Heritage Command, 28 August 2019, www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-and-operations/world-war-ii/1944/operation-dragoon.html, 3 November 2022; Dean, Mack, “Casablanca Conference,” 22 June 2021, World War 2 Facts, www.worldwar2facts.org/casablanca-conference.html, 20 October 2022; Zinsou, Cameron, “Forgotten Fights: Operation Dragoon and the Decline of the Anglo-American Alliance,” The National WW II Museum, 17 August 2020, www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/operation-dragoon-anglo-american-alliance, 3 November 2022.

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MLA 9th
, . "Southern France, Allied Invasion Of." Encyclopedia of Invasions & Conquests, Fourth Edition, edited by Paul K. Davis, Salem Press, 2023. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=GHInv4e_0252.
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, . (2023). Southern France, Allied Invasion Of. In P. K. Davis (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Invasions & Conquests, Fourth Edition. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
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