Posted on 05/18/2014 1:14:39 PM PDT by SJackson
A million and a half dead and more crippled in the First World War ; smaller population than Germany; low birth rate and the socialist and communist influences in the government, academic and news cartel areas and the Army not combined arms integrated like the Krauts-——the collapse in 1940 isn’t too surprising.
also, they had losses in 1940 as well.
360,000 dead or wounded,
1,900,000 captured
it would have not been a factor regardless of its state of completion. the Germans came through the Ardennes.
Now WHY did the Wehrmacht go through the Ardennes? I submit that it was to avoid the strongest parts of the defences?
“He stated many times that the French did not fight at all. There were a lot of French communists and they, along with unions ordered the soldiers not to fight.”
I think a bigger problem was that Catholic France saw what the communists had done in neighboring Spain from 1936-1939 (killing 7,000 priests, a dozen bishops, and a few hundred nuns) and preferred Hitler (who hadn’t done that - infact aided in stopping it) to Stalin (who armed and funded the perpetrators). France had no reason to fight in WWII, and they knew it; when Americans landing on the North African coast in 1942 were shot down by French soldiers defending their neutrality, those French knew exactly what they were doing.
The experiences of the French in WWI were why they didn’t fight in WWII; they felt betrayed by politicians in the first war, who had spent the soldiers’ lives recklessly. It isn’t coincidence that the man who fixed the mutinous French army in 1917 (Marshal Petain) led the Vichy government in WWII; they were neutral, and he wanted it kept that way to avoid the loss of life from the first war.
It is Horne’s theory that the three wars were related; i.e. Franco/Prussian, WWI and WWII. He is persuasive, especially the Franco/Prussian war and WWI. Remember Germany took a large part of France after the Franco/Prussian war.(Alsace.)
Right. The French populace and the military were demoralized before WWII. Many French soldiers ran when the Germans attacked in 1940. They did not run in WWI.
Right. The French populace and the military were demoralized before WWII. Many French soldiers ran when the Germans attacked in 1940. They did not run in WWI.
it was to cut off the BEF and French forces heading for the Dyle line.
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