Time period: 1944-1945. The liberation of Italy, Provence, the Alps, the Rhone Valley, the Vosges and Alsace marked vital stages in the Allied victory. And, in the place that France was able to take among the Allies following the Armistice. This victorious and bloody march on Germany was carried out by the 1st French Army, recruited in Africa to sidestep the German occupiers and the officials of the Vichy regime: 200,000 men, including 130,000 "natives" comprising 110,000 North Africans and 20,000 Black African. The rest of the force was made up of French North Africans and of young Frenchmen who had fled the Occupation. This is the forgotten story of the so-called "native" soldiers.