The nation of France has been a key global power, by virtue of its size and the diversity of its terrain and resources, which allowed it a vast supply of manpower in Europe. The first people to settle modern France were Gauls, a warlike tribe that came into conflict with the Romans as they expanded into Europe from the Caucasus and defeated and absorbed by the same in 52 BCE. Gallo-Roman society would for a nucleus for statehood which the Franks, a Germanic tribe, would inherit to create a modern state n the Middle Ages. From the conclusion of the Middle Ages until the Second World War, France would be a major power in Western Europe, and a major political and cultural force in the shaping of the modern world as we know it today by sheer size and population alone.