sheggalism wrote:
As for the previous post, I'm glad to read that kind of really well-writed text. Your country has been our best ally for 60 years now. And your current chancellor is one of the best leader today's world has (I wish I speak German but I was obliged to learn Spanish in school).
I agree with all facts said above : French army drawbacks in 39 : the lack of radio communication, quite bad strategies, early 40's British "cowardness" (mainly because of Chamberlain, fortunately Churchill was better) and still remaining WWI's traumatism.
I still regret that I didn't decide to learn french way back in school when I had the opportunity. And I have to admit, I am too lazy these days to do the learning. Furthermore there is this saying about "old dogs" and "new tricks"
The strategies in 39 were not "bad", they were outdated, but how should France have known? Hitler was pretty good in hiding the true re-arming process from the other countries. If Germany hadn't advanced that much in military technology and strength the defensive strategies France had in place would have worked fine.
France was a country that warned about Germany and the developing risk of a new war, but they were largely ignored and even looked at as trying to find a reason to invade Germany as a kind of "payback" because of the long history of franco-german hostilities or as paranoid due to the invasion in WW I.
If the other countries would have listened and intervened then, who knows what would have happened...
Threatening Germany with an invasion of allied troops from all the victors of WW I would have been a serious throwback for Hitler. He would have had two choices: Start the war while not ready and fully re-armed, or abandon his plans for a long time (while probably still working on war equipment in secret).
The first choice would probably have made WW II a short one, since the allied forces could have steamrolled through Germany. The second choice would have made it harder for him to stay in power since his Nazi Party was not capable of getting the german economics going and actually satisfy the german people's need. His only chance to stay in power was a war, since this took the minds of the germans from the daily concerns of inflation, hunger and the depression.
Here is how I see it:
France had a valid defense strategy to their knowledge, not being able to forsee the leap in technology and tactics that the germans made.
France warned about Germany becoming a strong military force again that could wage war soon again.
The appeasement policy played into Hitler's hands since he gained time to re-arm and rebuild the german army.
The french army fought a hopeless fight and only gave up fighting to save the country, when the defeat was not a question of "if" but "when".
How many german cities would still be able to shine in their historical beauty if the german leadership would have seen it that way during the end of the war?
But unlike the french, who made a humane decision the german leaders kept fighting without regards for their own people, even when they knew that the defeat was imminent.
The french didn't roll over, they didn't drop their weapons. They fought fierce for their country only to find out that they stood alone. So they did the most reasonable thing for their country and the french people, keep the losses low.
Great Britain might not have fallen, but they sure would have been isolated in a nazi-occupied Europe. It was the US that threw in the weight needed to shift the scales of war. But they "only" decided to do so when attacked by Japan. What would have happened if Japan hadn't attacked Pearl Harbour?
Please don't understand the above as a notion that "America saved the day and Europe". They couldn't have pulled it off alone. No american force could have gained a foothold in Normandy without Great Britain as base and the french resistance disturbing the troop deployment in the german rear. What if Russia would have decided to just push the germans back to their own borders and claim the liberated eastern countries as "protectorates"?
Without the all out attack in the eastern front more german troops would have been at the ready to be deployed where ever the american army would have tried to land.
That is why the winning side of WW II is called "Allies". It was a victory of several countries, not an all out "America 1, Germany nil".
I am thankful to every soldier of every nation that defeated Nazi Germany, because I have freedom of speech, the right to vote and live in a democratic state.
(I do go ballistic when people say that the german soldiers all were Nazis and monsters, but that is an entirely different topic
)
Finally:
This post is far too long, much longer than I planned on it to be.
But some topics get me going, sorry for that
And please bear with me, since english is not my first language (as you probably already noticed), so grammatical errors, punctuation errors and spelling errors are a normal thing to happen.
Thanks for reading this far,
vonSteuben
i heard that the first thing that french soldiers learn at basic training is how to say surrender in 10 languages
