Very few Frenchmen in 1940 and afterwards followed the example set by tens of thousands of Poles—fighting on in exile, even after their country had been defeated. Only in 1943–44, when it became plain that the Allies would win the war and German occupation had proved intolerably oppressive, did French people in large numbers offer significant assistance to the Anglo-Americans. In the years of Britain’s lonely defiance, French forces offered determined resistance to Churchill’s armies and fleets wherever in the world they encountered them.
