Knowledgia

♦Want EARLY ACCESS or EXCLUSIVE CONTENT? Support us and get it here: https://www.youtube.com/c/Knowledgia/join https://www.patreon.com/c/Knowledgia The Complete History Edition Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOJtsUMWwR9h7OjK629BU8pNtQo4Lz9Sx ♦♦Why did Germany invade France three times in seventy years? On September 2nd, 1870, Napoleon III surrendered to the Prussians at Sedan with 104,000 men. Two days later, Paris proclaimed the Third Republic. In May 1940, German panzers broke through at the exact same town, and France fell in six weeks. Between those two disasters at Sedan, France lost Alsace and Lorraine, crushed the Paris Commune, held Verdun for 300 days, and won the First World War at a cost of almost 1.4 million dead. This is not the story of a nation that kept losing. It is the story of how defeat built modern France. The Maginot Line guarded the wrong border, Vichy chose collaboration while de Gaulle's Free French fought on, the empire died at Dien Bien Phu and in Algeria, and the Fifth Republic turned a country invaded three times into a nuclear power at the heart of the European Union. From the Franco-Prussian War through both World Wars and beyond, this is the complete history of France from 1870 to today. ♦Please consider to SUBSCRIBE: https://goo.gl/YJNqek ♦Our general knowledge channel: https://www.youtube.com/@MasteringKnowledge ♦Music by Epidemic Sound Big Thank you to: potatohistory-us, johnathondwigans, MohitAgrawal-d9n, Николай Димитров, Tobias Tron, Mahmoud Shahin, Justin Bourke, Augustus Caesar, Chaim laser Joshua Kerr, Slayer, John McKeon ,Michael Morale,Rory,Smithy3371, The Angry Celt, Paula Collins-Cook, Jonathon Dwigans 00:00 From Empire to Almost Nothing 00:52 The Belle Époque Mirage 02:02 1914: The Alliances Snap Shut 05:30 Four Years in the Trenches 08:06 Boom, Bust, and the Storm to the East 10:42 Six Weeks to Defeat 12:02 Free France and the Resistance 14:13 Liberation and the End of Empire 16:29 The Bomb, the Franc, and the EU 18:01 Hard to Govern, Hard t