Some good points about the convenient myths, but many of your quotes range from poor to erroneous and both them and your analysis are not devoid of what you mention as possible in the end ie a bias, a very common one indeed.
A few examples. stating that French tanks overall were superior omits the fact that the most recent ones (many of those operated were obsolescent 20's models) were single man operated and devoid of modern communication device not alone isolated, what made them of low use in fast moving operationel context. In 40 France were only starting to receive planes able to compete with Bf 109, GER air superiority was real.
Reducing Fr politics as "they didn't have the stomach" in 36 is convenient indeed, and very on par with the broadly post 2003 francophobic rhetorics. 36 France was in the middle of a political crisis and the non-reaction of France was in the end the product of its isolation. Britain would have not supported any reaction, and was actually favorable to a remilitarisation, Belgium was on its "neutralité" politics, Poland had signed a non-aggression treaty in 34 and would latter ally with Hitler to dismantle CZ, the US were on a isolationist mood. Although criticizable, blaming France non-reaction as "lack of stomach" without analyzing the context and the more passive stance of virtually all others (except Italy, but this is another untold of interwar politics) is actually a very biased selecive analysis.
Your analysis about France's humiliation is broadly right, but failing to mention Free France in another way than "De Gaulle felt like a cuckold" is laughable actually. FF was administrating large territories from 1940 on and won alone small yet significant battles such as Bir Hakeim. 250k FF troops landed in Provence '44 while FF was fighting in Italy, liberation army ultimately around 1m. France in the winner side is not out of thin air, the although political, post-war consideration do apply. Judt's depiction as if the Fr occupation zone was drawed from nothing is actually scandalous. As a reminder, there were more military deaths/pop for France than for the US WWll. But this is very significant of the historical myths, and also the explanation of why resistance role have been exagerated. This myth is not a French made one, the French post war myth is about "the shield and the sword", resistance is secondary there, and submitted to DG. Resistance has been exagerated by the Americans and subsequently in the anglo world because they had to explain somehow the legitimacy of De Gaulle after having ignored him all over the war. DG was not at odds with Churchill overall, but with Eisenhower, who considered Vichy as the legitimate government, played Giraud against him, didn't inform him about D-Day, refused Churchill's request to end French city bombardment who were killing ten of thousand french civilians for dubious military objectives. (about 60k dead civilians + injured in the 100K's, as late as April 1945, but those are unconvenient deads). DG made himself and Free France with him despite Eisenhower complete disdain. He was not naive vs Stalin, but managed to have him push the French communists back him (the few squadrons of FF fighters operating on the eastern front helped).
The quotes about epuration are again, lacking context and very selective to fit the biased narrative. Around 10k people have been executed for collaborationism, way more in proportion than "upright Norwegians" who were in absolute numbers (and even more in proportion) way more to volounteer in the German Heers. Most of the epuration process took place in 44 before the institutions were completely reinstated and were conducted by local resistance, out of legal juridiction, while in Norway it is the opposite. Closer than Yougo context indeed. Destructions and economic exploitation were also not comparable between FR and fellow aryans DAN/NOR.
A few more could be said, but overall you start your paper by adressing the question of historical myths, while blindly endorsing the very myths that fit well your apparent negative, if not francophobic biases. Our loss of face was real, but history has been consistenly instrumentalized to keep it alive and deepened because indeed, France didn't surrender its autonomy within NATO. The reason while on every unrelated article about Fr hospitals or car manufacturing indusries historical illiterate, 2 digit IQ joke about "French surrenderrrrrr" while ignoring their country's responsabilities in the 30's is not the result of surrendering, but of NOT surrendering. A convenient scapegoating, and France payed and still pays a heavy symbolic and cultural price for refusing to participate in that "destroy Irak on false claims journey". As a former FR president says, "there is a fight taking place undercover...a fight without deads...and yet a fight to death".
I had heard of Mers El Kebir, but then I've been watching a lot of WW2 content on youtube recently.
> to death one by one by a local enthusiast while crowds to death one by on by a local enthusiast while crowds
Looks like some text got repeated there.
I find it odd that you discuss the Napoleonic Wars & WW1, but not the Franco-Prussian war. France's sense of humiliation from German defeat can't really be discussed without that, and French revanchism between those wars was a big deal. Wolfgang Schivelbusch discusses them as as a parallel to the US south after the Civil War & Germany after WW1 in "The Culture of Defeat".
Interesting to read an alternative account of our history and myths about WWII. Interesting to think how many of our myths about WWII are primarily stories that serve to make us feel good about ourselves and our nations' past.
1) The Germans got really really lucky in 1940. You couldn't plan a strategic deployment more favorable (and indeed it wasn't planned from the start).
With all luck, part of it is of their own making. German doctrine, and especially the individual spirit of its frontline officers, meant that they lucked into crossing the Meuse and then went for broke once they did. And French doctrine, and their own decadence, meant they just let it happen.
Still, re-run that 100 times and in most the Germans fail. Who looks like a genius? Stalin. Who gets to conquer Eastern Europe without all of the losses in the actual WWII timeline.
2) We have to remember a few things about the Rhineland.
The French occupation of the Rhineland was a disaster. It's not as if the west didn't try to impose Versailles, it had and it didn't work out.
France in 1936 was also a complete basket case. Who wasn't.
Germany's war games for the Battle of France already assumed that the French would be slow to react. That weakness was evident to them and is hard to excuse.
Not only did France fail to send an expeditionary force to Finland during the Winter War, she also failed to invade Germany while the bulk of the Wehrmacht was fighting in Poland. It is hard to think of more favorable circumstances. Expecting that Germany would not spoil a military buildup lasting for years was irresponsible.
Interestingly, the French already had a lot of problems due to overly centralized decision-making during the Franco-Prussian War (and mobilization had been an outright disaster). Perhaps the trench warfare of WW1 obscured that weakness.
Since humans love to moralize, Petain preferred to explain the defeat in WW2 with the degeneration of French society. Marc Block, the author of "Strange Defeat" (no right-winger) still somewhat agreed with that view.
France spent most of 1914-1917 launching idiotic attacks in a war that greatly favored the defender. In part because they learned the wrong lessons from the Franco-Prussian war.
Such idiocy nearly led to the complete collapse of the French army in 1917, and it Petain who saved it by ending the idiotic offensives.
In WWII, they tried not to repeat the mistakes of WWI. The fact that France entered the demographic decline earlier then most also made it a material reality.
Petain spent a lot of the interwar years trying to stop the left from interfering with that he thought the army needed. Let's also try to remember that France going socialist/communist wasn't totally outside the realm of possibility in the 30s. I'm not going to rehash whether this view was right, only that it was a reasonable view from his perspective.
Further, Stalin in 1940 was a known mass murderer. Hitler hadn't done anything quite like that yet in 1940. If your Petain, Communism looks a lot worse than Fascism in 1940, and anyway the fight is lost and Britain will sign a peace agreement soon. Hindsight is 20/20.
The fundamental problem with French doctrine was *airpower*. Which had not come of age yet in WWI. Not only did Germany have a better airforce in 1940 (its one real area of advantage), it stayed in the air much longer than French planes did. It should have taken seven days for the Germans to bring up artillery to the Meuse. Instead, they just used Stukas to do what artillery would do. Throughout the campaign, Stukas filled the role of artillery in the war of movement in a way French command couldn't envision.
Hitlers problem of course is that Stuka's were fine for close range air support in Northern France, but they couldn't conquer Britain or Russia.
I'm going on memory, but Germany had very good AirPower in 1940. Probably a numerical advantage if I recall, but I don't remember. The Airforce was one of the first things Germany started re-arming (it was in Triumph of Will I think), and of course it was Goerings baby.
The biggest advantage I remember is that they just got in the air more. Like every Germany plane did many many time more sorties than each French plane. If planes aren't in the air, they don't really count.
Quibble: the Germans did not seize any bridges over the Meuse in the course of their Ardennes offensive; the French blew them all.* The Germans relied on pontoon bridges and even ferries to get their tanks across. Fun fact: the pontoon bridges were rated for 16 tons, and the German Panzer III and IVs were 19-20 tons.
* The exception was a narrow, foot-traffic-only dam/bridge at Houx that the French deliberately did not demolish for fear that it would lower the water level enough to make the river fordable in places. But then the French failed to defend it….
The war with the Allies in 1940 was lost before a shot was fired. The French army was not motivated to fight, and, with some honourable exceptions, it didn't. The British were determined not to have to create a large conscript army (like they had to in the First World War) to fight and suffer the corressponding amount of casualties. They provided the minimum they felt was necessary (around 300,000), and many of these troops were mot well trained. The Germans were motivated to fight and win, and they did. It is often overlooked that the German army of WW 2 was designed to fight short, sharp conflicts like the Battle of France. Germany didm't have the resources to fight a war of attrition. When she forced into just such a war, she was bound to lose (and she did).
Interesting read and enjoyable. I find it funny that the author brags about his country's homogeneity as they put people into mini prisons for resisting vaccine governmental overreach. As long as they aren't being racist lol! Bow before your government and beg for your freedoms Australia.
Some good points about the convenient myths, but many of your quotes range from poor to erroneous and both them and your analysis are not devoid of what you mention as possible in the end ie a bias, a very common one indeed.
A few examples. stating that French tanks overall were superior omits the fact that the most recent ones (many of those operated were obsolescent 20's models) were single man operated and devoid of modern communication device not alone isolated, what made them of low use in fast moving operationel context. In 40 France were only starting to receive planes able to compete with Bf 109, GER air superiority was real.
Reducing Fr politics as "they didn't have the stomach" in 36 is convenient indeed, and very on par with the broadly post 2003 francophobic rhetorics. 36 France was in the middle of a political crisis and the non-reaction of France was in the end the product of its isolation. Britain would have not supported any reaction, and was actually favorable to a remilitarisation, Belgium was on its "neutralité" politics, Poland had signed a non-aggression treaty in 34 and would latter ally with Hitler to dismantle CZ, the US were on a isolationist mood. Although criticizable, blaming France non-reaction as "lack of stomach" without analyzing the context and the more passive stance of virtually all others (except Italy, but this is another untold of interwar politics) is actually a very biased selecive analysis.
Your analysis about France's humiliation is broadly right, but failing to mention Free France in another way than "De Gaulle felt like a cuckold" is laughable actually. FF was administrating large territories from 1940 on and won alone small yet significant battles such as Bir Hakeim. 250k FF troops landed in Provence '44 while FF was fighting in Italy, liberation army ultimately around 1m. France in the winner side is not out of thin air, the although political, post-war consideration do apply. Judt's depiction as if the Fr occupation zone was drawed from nothing is actually scandalous. As a reminder, there were more military deaths/pop for France than for the US WWll. But this is very significant of the historical myths, and also the explanation of why resistance role have been exagerated. This myth is not a French made one, the French post war myth is about "the shield and the sword", resistance is secondary there, and submitted to DG. Resistance has been exagerated by the Americans and subsequently in the anglo world because they had to explain somehow the legitimacy of De Gaulle after having ignored him all over the war. DG was not at odds with Churchill overall, but with Eisenhower, who considered Vichy as the legitimate government, played Giraud against him, didn't inform him about D-Day, refused Churchill's request to end French city bombardment who were killing ten of thousand french civilians for dubious military objectives. (about 60k dead civilians + injured in the 100K's, as late as April 1945, but those are unconvenient deads). DG made himself and Free France with him despite Eisenhower complete disdain. He was not naive vs Stalin, but managed to have him push the French communists back him (the few squadrons of FF fighters operating on the eastern front helped).
The quotes about epuration are again, lacking context and very selective to fit the biased narrative. Around 10k people have been executed for collaborationism, way more in proportion than "upright Norwegians" who were in absolute numbers (and even more in proportion) way more to volounteer in the German Heers. Most of the epuration process took place in 44 before the institutions were completely reinstated and were conducted by local resistance, out of legal juridiction, while in Norway it is the opposite. Closer than Yougo context indeed. Destructions and economic exploitation were also not comparable between FR and fellow aryans DAN/NOR.
A few more could be said, but overall you start your paper by adressing the question of historical myths, while blindly endorsing the very myths that fit well your apparent negative, if not francophobic biases. Our loss of face was real, but history has been consistenly instrumentalized to keep it alive and deepened because indeed, France didn't surrender its autonomy within NATO. The reason while on every unrelated article about Fr hospitals or car manufacturing indusries historical illiterate, 2 digit IQ joke about "French surrenderrrrrr" while ignoring their country's responsabilities in the 30's is not the result of surrendering, but of NOT surrendering. A convenient scapegoating, and France payed and still pays a heavy symbolic and cultural price for refusing to participate in that "destroy Irak on false claims journey". As a former FR president says, "there is a fight taking place undercover...a fight without deads...and yet a fight to death".
Strong reply, thank you!
I had heard of Mers El Kebir, but then I've been watching a lot of WW2 content on youtube recently.
> to death one by one by a local enthusiast while crowds to death one by on by a local enthusiast while crowds
Looks like some text got repeated there.
I find it odd that you discuss the Napoleonic Wars & WW1, but not the Franco-Prussian war. France's sense of humiliation from German defeat can't really be discussed without that, and French revanchism between those wars was a big deal. Wolfgang Schivelbusch discusses them as as a parallel to the US south after the Civil War & Germany after WW1 in "The Culture of Defeat".
Thank you for the correction
You can attribute my lack of discussion of the Franco-Prussian war to ignorance... will read! Thanks
Interesting to read an alternative account of our history and myths about WWII. Interesting to think how many of our myths about WWII are primarily stories that serve to make us feel good about ourselves and our nations' past.
1) The Germans got really really lucky in 1940. You couldn't plan a strategic deployment more favorable (and indeed it wasn't planned from the start).
With all luck, part of it is of their own making. German doctrine, and especially the individual spirit of its frontline officers, meant that they lucked into crossing the Meuse and then went for broke once they did. And French doctrine, and their own decadence, meant they just let it happen.
Still, re-run that 100 times and in most the Germans fail. Who looks like a genius? Stalin. Who gets to conquer Eastern Europe without all of the losses in the actual WWII timeline.
2) We have to remember a few things about the Rhineland.
The French occupation of the Rhineland was a disaster. It's not as if the west didn't try to impose Versailles, it had and it didn't work out.
France in 1936 was also a complete basket case. Who wasn't.
Germany's war games for the Battle of France already assumed that the French would be slow to react. That weakness was evident to them and is hard to excuse.
Not only did France fail to send an expeditionary force to Finland during the Winter War, she also failed to invade Germany while the bulk of the Wehrmacht was fighting in Poland. It is hard to think of more favorable circumstances. Expecting that Germany would not spoil a military buildup lasting for years was irresponsible.
Interestingly, the French already had a lot of problems due to overly centralized decision-making during the Franco-Prussian War (and mobilization had been an outright disaster). Perhaps the trench warfare of WW1 obscured that weakness.
Since humans love to moralize, Petain preferred to explain the defeat in WW2 with the degeneration of French society. Marc Block, the author of "Strange Defeat" (no right-winger) still somewhat agreed with that view.
France spent most of 1914-1917 launching idiotic attacks in a war that greatly favored the defender. In part because they learned the wrong lessons from the Franco-Prussian war.
Such idiocy nearly led to the complete collapse of the French army in 1917, and it Petain who saved it by ending the idiotic offensives.
In WWII, they tried not to repeat the mistakes of WWI. The fact that France entered the demographic decline earlier then most also made it a material reality.
Petain spent a lot of the interwar years trying to stop the left from interfering with that he thought the army needed. Let's also try to remember that France going socialist/communist wasn't totally outside the realm of possibility in the 30s. I'm not going to rehash whether this view was right, only that it was a reasonable view from his perspective.
Further, Stalin in 1940 was a known mass murderer. Hitler hadn't done anything quite like that yet in 1940. If your Petain, Communism looks a lot worse than Fascism in 1940, and anyway the fight is lost and Britain will sign a peace agreement soon. Hindsight is 20/20.
The fundamental problem with French doctrine was *airpower*. Which had not come of age yet in WWI. Not only did Germany have a better airforce in 1940 (its one real area of advantage), it stayed in the air much longer than French planes did. It should have taken seven days for the Germans to bring up artillery to the Meuse. Instead, they just used Stukas to do what artillery would do. Throughout the campaign, Stukas filled the role of artillery in the war of movement in a way French command couldn't envision.
Hitlers problem of course is that Stuka's were fine for close range air support in Northern France, but they couldn't conquer Britain or Russia.
Interesting points, not sure you're right about relative airpower - I quote Tooze who noes France did have the upper hand there
I'm going on memory, but Germany had very good AirPower in 1940. Probably a numerical advantage if I recall, but I don't remember. The Airforce was one of the first things Germany started re-arming (it was in Triumph of Will I think), and of course it was Goerings baby.
The biggest advantage I remember is that they just got in the air more. Like every Germany plane did many many time more sorties than each French plane. If planes aren't in the air, they don't really count.
Quibble: the Germans did not seize any bridges over the Meuse in the course of their Ardennes offensive; the French blew them all.* The Germans relied on pontoon bridges and even ferries to get their tanks across. Fun fact: the pontoon bridges were rated for 16 tons, and the German Panzer III and IVs were 19-20 tons.
* The exception was a narrow, foot-traffic-only dam/bridge at Houx that the French deliberately did not demolish for fear that it would lower the water level enough to make the river fordable in places. But then the French failed to defend it….
The war with the Allies in 1940 was lost before a shot was fired. The French army was not motivated to fight, and, with some honourable exceptions, it didn't. The British were determined not to have to create a large conscript army (like they had to in the First World War) to fight and suffer the corressponding amount of casualties. They provided the minimum they felt was necessary (around 300,000), and many of these troops were mot well trained. The Germans were motivated to fight and win, and they did. It is often overlooked that the German army of WW 2 was designed to fight short, sharp conflicts like the Battle of France. Germany didm't have the resources to fight a war of attrition. When she forced into just such a war, she was bound to lose (and she did).
Interesting read and enjoyable. I find it funny that the author brags about his country's homogeneity as they put people into mini prisons for resisting vaccine governmental overreach. As long as they aren't being racist lol! Bow before your government and beg for your freedoms Australia.
Actually, I bragged about Australia's heterogeneity - largest foreign born population in the advanced world