The military history of France has had a profound effect on world history. Countless wars have been waged on French soil for political, economic and religious reasons. In France there are many sites of military significance spanning more than 2000 years from Roman ruins to medieval castles, napoleanic forts, World War One trenches through to the fortifications of the Maginot Line and the Normandy Beaches. French military history on the back of a beer coaster The Romans colonised much of France and waged constant warfare against the Celtic tribes who resisted. Julius Caesar won fame as a military leader during these campaigns. The Roman conquest of Gaul started in 121 BC and was only complete when Julius Caesar defeated the Celtic tribes in the Gallic Wars of 58-51 BC. The Battle of Gergovia near modern day Clermont-Ferrand in Auvergnesaw the capitulation of the great Celtic leader Vercengetorix to Caesar. Remnants of the fortifications remain near the village of Gergovie more than 2000 years on. Gaul subdued, Romanization was rapid and massive. Roman laws, customs and language was quickly adopted. Cities sprung up with amphitheatres and colloseums. Water was channelled from mountains to the cities via massive aqueducts. The Roman architectural and engineering legacy remains in Languedoc and Provence to this day at sites such as Pont du Gard, Arles, Nimes, Orange, Frejus etc. The Romans were ousted from France by the Visigoths(a Germanic tribe) between 455 and 475AD who were eventually driven out by the Burgundians and Franks. The threatened Islamic conquest of Europe was halted by forces led by Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours in 732. This is considered to be a seminal moment in French history and indeed a pivotal moment in world history. The Norman conquest of England happened in1066 when William, Duke of Normandy defeated the English army at the Battle of Hastings. The Norman conquest was a pivotal moment in English history which in turn impacted on world history. It transformed the English language, its laws and monarchy. The First Crusades (1095-1099) saw many noblemen and peasants from France take up arms and march off to the Middle East to recapture Jerusalem. The Albigensian Crusade or Cathar Crusade (1209–1229) was another internal religious conflict initiated by the Catholic Church to crush the Cathar heresy in Languedoc. The Cathar Crusade was also very much a case of the north of France asserting its dominance over an increasingly indedpendent south. Northern armies massacred hundreds of thousands of civilians throughout the Languedoc region during this period. Saint Joan of Arc or The Maid of Orléans is a national heroine of France and a Catholic saint. Born a peasant in eastern France, she received divine guidance to lead the French army to several important victories over the invading English during the Hundred Years' War. Joan was captured by the Burgundians and sold to the English who burned her at the stake in 1431 at the age of 19. The French Wars of Religion (1562–98) was a prolonged conflict between French Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots) which divided France and drew neighbouring countries into the fray. The Wars of Religion had long lasting effects on France and fueled wider European Catholic-Protestant conflicts. The French Revolution (1789–1799) was a period of enourmous social and political upheaval in French and European history. French society which was up until 1789 essentially a fuedal monarchy. In 1792 France was declared a Republic and King Louis XIV was executed the following year. In 1799 French army officer Napoleon Bonaparte staged a coup that toppled the government and installed himself as First Consul of France. Napoleon militarised France and embarked on a series of military campaigns across Europe and into Egypt. The Napoleonic Wars had a profound effect on Europe before he was finally subdued at Waterloo. Napoleon Bonaparte for all his militarism also left an enduring legacy on France in the metric system, the French civil code, Jewish emancipation and the secular state. The French Colonial Period can be traced from their involvement in North America fighting the Iroquois Indians in Quebec to supporting the American War of Independence against the British in the 1750s. France created colonies and made military incursions across the globe in places like India, Algeria, Haiti, Indochina (Vietnam-Laos-Thailand), China, Syria, West Africa and even Mexico. Australia and New Zealand came very close to being French rather than British colonies. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 can be seen as a precursor to World War One. France lost the war to the Prussians and as a result lost their Alsace and Lorraine regions. The Prussian victory paved the way for the unification of various German states into a large European power. World War One was triggered by the assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914. Due to a series of complex treaties between various European nations committing each to come to the aid of the other the continent soon found itself at war. Modern weaponary such as the machine gun revolutionised warfare and before long the war became a stalemate punctuated by brief periods of unimanginable slaughter on an industrial scale. It was into this nightmare scenario that Australian and New Zealand forces arrived in France in the summer of 1916. The Great War ended in November 1918 and France was virtually bled white of its young men through battles like the seige of Verdun. The peace that ensued was uneasy and the war reparations inflicted on Germany sowed the seeds for the Second World War. France resolved that never again would the Germans cross their Frontier. French Defence Minister Andre Maginot convinced the French government to fund a massive series of fortifications along the Franco-German border. The Maginot Line as it became known broke all records for public spending and defence projects. Ultimately the Maginot Line was a terrible miscalculation as the Germans invasion in 1940 they simply rolled through France's friendly but unprotected neighbour Belgium. France was occupied by the Germans from June 1940 to late 1944. It was divided into two zones. One being administrated by the collaborationist puppet Vichy Government led by World War One hero Marechal Petain out of the French spa town of Vichy. The north of France and its coastal regions were occupied by the German army. The French Resistence was highly effective at disrupting German military operations in France but the civilan population suffered terrible reprecussions from the Germans. Whole villages were massacred in retribution for French Resistance activities. The museum known as La Coupole near Saint Omer in the Pas de Calais provides many sobering reminders of this terrible period. Many villages in France have memorials to French civilians shot or transported to labour camps by the Germans as retribution. There are also several ghost villages in France where entire populations were murdered and the villages never repopulated. DDay Landings on the Normandy coastline in June 1944 was a stunning blow against Hitler's Third Reich and the largest seaborne invasion ever staged. During the post war period, France like Great Britain gradually began losing its colonies either voluntarily or militarily. France suffered an embarrassing defeat in Vietnam at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 which effectively set the scene for the USA's disastrous foray into that country. France also waged a long and bloody guerilla conflict in Algeria until it finally withdrew in 1964. | 
