Foreign relations of Vichy France policy of keeping 2 million French prisoners of war in Germany, effectively as hostages. Although Vichy France was nominally in control of all of France--apart from Alsace Lorraine--in practice the Germans controlled over half of the country, including the northern and western coasts, the industrial northeast, and the Paris region. The Petain government in Vichy controlled the rest until October 1942, when Germany took it all over. At that point, the Vichy regime became entirely a puppet of the German occupiers. Germany wanted food, minerals, and industrial productions, as well as volunteers to work in German factories. Vichy was allowed
Declarations of war during World War II Declarations of war during World War II This is a timeline of formal declarations of War during World War II. A declaration of war is a formal act by which one nation goes to war against another. The declaration is usually an act of delivering a performative speech (not to be confused with a mere "speech") or the presentation of a signed document by an authorized party of a national government in order to create a state of war between two or more sovereign states. The official international protocol for declaring war was defined in The Hague Peace Conference of