The Gun Counter

I was under the impression that politically the French were already in bed with the NAZIs and were not all that interested in actually defeating the Germans.

Cobar wrote:I was under the impression that politically the French were already in bed with the NAZIs and were not all that interested in actually defeating the Germans.

No. The French may not have fought with good strategy, but they didn't lack courage or will.

Mike OTDP wrote:No. The French may not have fought with good strategy, but they didn't lack courage or will.

Despite all the (funny IMHO) jokes out there, the problem with the French military has never been at the individual or small unit level. It's been in the senior military and political leadership.

That is what I meant, not the troops out there fighting, but the politicians and political brass that were already lining up for their place in the Vichy government.

It does seem like they might have been bought and paid for - similar to the Austrian government, I think.

The Hapsburgs were pushed out, and shortly thereafter the replacements rolled over for the NAZIs - the Hapsburg supporters and the Hapsburgs carried on a fairly serious resistance campaign.

randy wrote:

Mike OTDP wrote:No. The French may not have fought with good strategy, but they didn't lack courage or will.

Despite all the (funny IMHO) jokes out there, the problem with the French military has never been at the individual or small unit level. It's been in the senior military and political leadership.

Even the Maginot Line actually worked, after a fashion - after all, it was formidable enough that the Germans didn't even try to attack it. The problem for the French was that their strategic plan lacked the flexibility to deal with the German attacking somewhere else (somewhere else that wasn't Belgium.)

Ironically, the German breakthrough in 1940 centered on Sedan - the same place as the battle that doomed France in 1870.

The big French problem, in 1914 and 1940, was not that they failed to learn from the last war, it was that they learned the wrong lessons. After 1871, they decided that attack was the way to go, and suffered massive losses from German machineguns and artillery when they tried to attack into Alsace, Lorraine, and the Ardennes. (That France tried to attack Germany, and failed utterly, while the German right wing swung through Belgium is a largely forgotten fact of WWI.) After WWI, they adopted a firepower-centric strategy centered on prepared defenses, and were unprepared for a war of mobility and maneuver.

Always preparing for the last war.

It's worth remembering that the First World War was fought with a tremendous dissonance between strategic and tactical mobility. Troops could be moved up and down the lines by rail at high speed, but once they got off the train, thew slogged through the mud on foot. Toss in a trench system anchored on the Swiss Alps and the English Channel, and you had a damn near impregnable defensive position. The smart move would have been to reinforce the Russians.

Cobar wrote:That is what I meant, not the troops out there fighting, but the politicians and political brass that were already lining up for their place in the Vichy government.

Without the benefit of hindsight, the Vichy government did not look too bad, at least at first. The peace with Germany was not too bad considering the situation they found themselves in and they mostly expected to have a seat at the table for piece talks with the British soon. I don't think anyone was expecting the arc things followed and if Hitler didn't have a hard on for invading Russia they probably would have been right.

Vonz90 wrote:Without the benefit of hindsight, the Vichy government did not look too bad, at least at first. The peace with Germany was not too bad considering the situation they found themselves in and they mostly expected to have a seat at the table for piece talks with the British soon. I don't think anyone was expecting the arc things followed and if Hitler didn't have a hard on for invading Russia they probably would have been right.

This is a bit of a diversion from the original topic, but you are right.

Contrary to their treatment of Russians, the German Army in France was better behaved than the US Army in Germany in the 1980s. Their example of occupying the Channel Islands indicates they would have treated the UK about the same. Basically, they met with the Chief of Police and told him to let them know if there was any trouble, and could he kindly point them to the nearest chocolate shop.

However, the main strategy for AH all along was to defeat the Soviet Union. As I stated elsewhere, until his erstwhile allies, the Japanese, bombed Pearl Harbor, AH thought that Britain and the US were his natural allies in the defeat of the Soviet Union.

Actually, AH considered dropping his alliance with the Japanese after that bone-headed move, but his deal with the Japanese was he would declare war on the US if they would open a SIberian front on the Soviet Union. However, the Japanese had their egos badly bruised by a young Colonel Zhukov (later Marshall Zhukov) in a Manchurian campaign in the early 1930s, so they conveniently forgot about their side of the bargain.

AH's vision for Europe can pretty much be summed up as NATO (including France), the EU (perhaps with slightly more influence by Germany), and a non-communist, emasculated Russia.

Honestly, if AH was alive today, he'd be right there with BHO, spanking the British for "Brexit", and trying to keep Russia from getting too uppity.