Posted on 02/06/2003 7:18:18 PM PST by Chi-townChief
Now that France has emerged as a leading critic of U.S. policy toward Iraq, a lot of pundits and editorial cartoonists are having a field day lampooning France's ''cowardice'' and proclivity to ''surrender.'' The supposed evidence for this slur is France's defeat in World War II.
Why is that, exactly? No one would dream of sneering at Poland, Greece, Yugoslavia, Norway or any of the other nations overcome by Germany in the war. So what makes France fair game?
France's critics need to be aware of some historical facts. At the beginning of World War II, Germany possessed the world's most powerful army, led by some of the world's most brilliant commanders. When Germany launched its great assault on France in 1940, it had no worries in the East, having defeated Poland and concluded a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union. Moreover, France was strategically handicapped by Holland's and Belgium's foolish insistence on neutrality--which Hitler blithely violated the moment it suited him.
By the time the Anglo-American forces reached France in 1944, Germany had been weakened by three years of savage warfare against Russia. Even so, the Allies barely managed to contain a German counteroffensive (the Battle of the Bulge). How much tougher do you think the German army was at the war's outset?
Those who carp about France's ''ingratitude'' never seem to remember that the United States could not have become a nation without France's help. At the very least, they should thank their lucky stars they didn't have to face the Wehrmacht in 1940.
Pan Demetrakakes,
St. Charles
letters@suntimes.com
(Excerpt) Read more at suntimes.com ...
Well, I have to say that "I" think a good plate of etoufee looks as good as anything I ever had a a ritzy French restaurant. Admittedly, you can't do much for the looks of boiled crawfish, but I don't think they look any worse than snails.
Fair enough. I accepted the challenge, and to my surprise I found that the quote above did not in fact originate with Voltaire. It apparently originated with a group called "Friends of Voltaire" who put it forward as a summation of Voltaire's beliefs. My mistake.
As for the rest of your post, you make a great many points, some of which are valid and some of which aren't. I'm not going to try to refute or defend any of them, because I don't need to.
I haven't been arguing that the American and French revolutions were one and the same. All I've been arguing is that they both had common roots. That, and that to some extent the French revolution was in some ways directly affected by the American.
So far, everyone seems to be focusing on the fact that there were differences between the two. This is quite true, but that doesn't mean they had nothing in common or that they weren't related to each other.
Both the American and French revolutions put forward claims about natural human rights, equality before the law, and supported the idea that republican goverment was preferable to a hereditary form of government. Both, as I've mentioned before, used the same colours in their national flags to support their basic ideals.
Also, in at least one way, the American revolution lead to the French Revolution. A large part of the reason France fell into bankruptcy were the debts it had accumulated supporting the American colonists in their uprising against the British.
Had the American revolution not happened, it is not certain that the reason for the crisis of the Estates-General would have existed.
At any rate, like it or not, the French and American revolutions were entwined. Pretending otherwise is to deny historical fact.
"In the early days of the French Revolution, the three colors were initially brought together in the form of a cockade. "
Which tends to suggest that the original choice of colours was not because of the blood that ran through the streets of Paris, nor its 'purity'.
Although I have to admit, I'd never heard of the British connection before. History is just one big irony, it seems.
Who landed in Normandy?
BTW - I know the perfect song for France. It's by Iron Maiden, and it is titled
RIBBIT!
Well, which ones in particular are wrong?
All I've been arguing is that they both had common roots. That, and that to some extent the French revolution was in some ways directly affected by the American.
Ok, but ideological and result-based links are a very different allegation from the material cause and effect one you cite later; French bankruptcy certainly had a role as a catalyst in the Revolution.
Both the American and French revolutions put forward claims about natural human rights, equality before the law, and supported the idea that republican goverment was preferable to a hereditary form of government. Both, as I've mentioned before, used the same colours in their national flags to support their basic ideals.
If you apply those same loose definitions, you might as well claim the Bolshevik Revolution was the spiritual kin of the American War for Independence. I mean, both forwarded "claims" about human rights, equality before the law, and the preferability of a republican form of government (Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics) over a hereditary one (the Czarist rule).
But much like with the French revolution and the American War, the differences are so vast in what was *meant* by those terms as to render them very different phenomenons. The French conception of natural rights was based around the organization of such rights in a central, pseudo-totalitarian organ that would apportion them back to the citizen to maintain order and create equality (this would later become more explicitly centered around being entitled to income and land redistribution based on "need"); dissent and freedom of speech, for example had no place (the worst Voltaire ever got for his extensive anti-Bourbon/anti-clerical/anti-nobility writings was exile; think of the thousands slaughtered daily in the Terror for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time).
I would say that rather than equality *before* the law, what the French sought was equality *after* the law was done with everyone. Finally, the material structures replacing the Bourbons had nothing to do with a Republic, and far more to do with clashing mixture of demagoguery, socialism, and reactionary responses.
I did not bring up the Bolshevik revolution just for the hell of it; if you want to see spiritual compatriots, it certainly has a whole lot more in common with the French Revolution ideologically than the American War for Independence ever did.
Both, as I've mentioned before, used the same colours in their national flags to support their basic ideals.
This remains as unsupported as the first time you said it. I believe I have presented reasonable evidence to the contrary of a supposition of ideological relationships in the flag symbols, as has LibertarianInExile. Simply repeating it won't make it any more true.
Finally:
I haven't been arguing that the American and French revolutions were one and the same. All I've been arguing is that they both had common roots. That, and that to some extent the French revolution was in some ways directly affected by the American.
So far, everyone seems to be focusing on the fact that there were differences between the two. This is quite true, but that doesn't mean they had nothing in common or that they weren't related to each other. This seems like a much less definitive positive than your original statement:
Well, care to paraphrase the masterful Kuehnelt-Leddihn's explanation as to how the American did not lead directly to the French Revolution. How the ideas of liberty, equality and democracy did not in fact play a large role in both revolutions? And while you're at, please explain the odd concidence that in both revolutions, the colors red, white and blue came to represent both sets of revolutionaries? To the extent that both color schemes came to be represented in the flags of both nations?
...where it seemed quite reasonable to infer that you were pointing at the burden of evidence showing not only historical causal linkages between the two (which are fairly obvious and not really all that open to debate, such as France's financial situation) but a genuine ideological sameness between the two, which is precisely what you are implying with your opening barrage
Are we now going to argue that WWII and the American Civil war were "related to each other" as you put it, because freedom was at at stake in both and many bullets were fired? Such a proof can be made through strict dialectics, but reason must dictate some boundaries in categorization, or else history would be just a blob of similarities.
At any rate, all this began because you questioned my castigation of the French Revolution, apparently on the grounds of its links and similarities to the American War for Independence (which apparently was intended to either make me feel that America ought to bear part of the blame for the Revolution, or that the French Revolution ought to be viewed as an objectively good event as the consensus on the American War is). While you may never agree with von Kuehnelt-Leddihn as to the importance of the French Revolution in defining modern leftism, I think it is fair to say I have made a strong case for rationally disliking it, on a historical and moral basis.
I would argue that the problems with the French Revolution have to do with its radically leftist character and origins, and that its disastrous consequences were the logical consequence of such thinking rather than an unfortunate accident. Unless, of course, you meant screwed up in a broader sense, in which case I totally agree :)
As with all questions of such a vague nature, it is difficult to know which view (the mixture of various French symbolic colors, naturally put forth by the French, who wouldn't admit to an Anglo influence if the flag had included "MADE IN BRITAIN" in boldface) or the desire to represent in some degree the "revolutionary" spirit some French thought they were borrowing from the US (when in reality it was a radically different animal that was being set loose). No doubt the truth lies somewhere in the middle, but either way, is not really all that relevant to the sweeping correlations you drew earlier based on the colors.
It is a wonderful irony, though, is it not?
Wonderful revisionist, ridiculous take on WWII.
It totally ignores that the US was FULLY ENGAGED in a major war on land and sea in the Pacific against Japan. This kept Germany's ally, Japan, off of the Russian flank. This war began in 1941 and was continuously fought throughout the years 1941-1945.
It totally ignores that the US fought a war SIMULTANEOUSLY Against Germany while Russia was first siding with Germany, and then getting itself bashed by Germany.
The Allied (read US/Britain) effort involved a series of campaigns that ALL were successful. First, the North Africa campaign drove Germany from the south of the Mediteranean. Second, the Italian Campaign ended German presence in the North Mediteranan. Third, the Atlantic campaign destroyed Germany's ability to oppose resupply across the Atlantic. Fourth, the Bombing Campaign INSIDE Germany was busy destroying Germany's capacity to resist.
While the US/Britain were winning the Atlantic, the Pacific, Northern Africa, Southern Europe, and the Industrial Output Campaigns, Germany was bashing Russia. When Germany began to feel the pinch, that's when the ALLIES invaded.
THAT ALSO is when Russia began to succeed on the battlefield: after German strength had been destroy, and their ability to attack elsewhere had been destroyed, and after their major allies (Japan/Italy) had been put on the run.
Many forget that once the Allies landed at Normandy, Germany was defeated and surrendered IN LESS THAN A YEAR....Jun 44 to May 45.
All this "russia won the war" revivisonism is Cold War, Soviet propaganda nonsense!
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