Is there any justification for the way France acted during WW2?
>Considered a super power
>had the phony war time to build up defenses even farther
>folded within a month
>Set up Vichy government and actively aided the Nazis
>aided in jew deportations
>fought against Americans landing in North Africa
>considered a super power
lolnope
>>Set up Vichy government and actively aided the Nazis
No. France was under occupation, but was never allied with Germany.
>aided in jew deportations
True, but you must remind few jews were actually deported. Many french citizens protected and hid jews. Even today, France is one of the country with the biggest jewsih population in the world.
>fought against Americans landing in North Africa
Well, yeah. Vichy French was neutral, they couldn't accept a foreign power landing on its territories.
>found the frog
Many times a French Jew didn't even see a SS uniform until they were boarding a train to or in Germany. It took just 6,000 Nazi officials to run /monitor Vichy France because of the massive levels of cooperation they offered the Nazis. Had they chosen to resist, as Denmark did, they could've prevented their Jewish population being deported
>found the ignorant burger
>considered a superpower
Why do people keep using the word "superpower" to describe any powerful country before 1945? The term exists specifically to describe how much more powerful the US and USSR were than any other country on earth. France was "just" a great power back then, just like it is now and has been for most of the last few centuries.
>Considered a super-power
Consider that after WW1, France had a huge debt, lost a lot of its population, had their most fertile/productive lands and their factories obliterated, and still suffered the crisis of 1929. It wasn't a great power anymore, it didn't have the mainpower to halt a full German offensive.
>had time to build up defenses
Not really.
The Maginot line was built up, that's not a problem, and it did its work : Make sure that the krauts don't try to invade through Alsace.
Still, does this mean the french army was ready and built up ?
Their Air Force was still in ruins. They didn't spend their time during the Phony War sitting and doing nothing, when the germans invaded, they were still desperatly building new airplanes and forming pilots. But the french air force was lacking, they didn't have enough radios, their doctrine wasn't ready. They would have needed at least an entire year to be ready to compete with the nazis.
>folded within a month
Yes. The weak part of the french army was pierced completly, the solid forces were surrounded, the english left Dunkirk. Basically, the french still had forces in june 1940, and could have tried to resist.
And, some people wanted to resist. A lot, in fact. There were projets of a Franco-British union, so the french army could still live out in great britain and continue the fight. But in the end, Philippe Pétain took power, and decided that it wasn't worth it, that it was better to be a nazi province than the lap-dog of the UK. Charles de Gaulle refused this, went to Churchill, and used the french colonies to form a new army, the Free French Forces.
>aided in jew deportations
Yes. There's no excuse for that.
But you would notice that it's only the Vichy Regime who actively tried to hunt down jews, especially the extremist Pierre Laval. You'll also find, if you study this part of history, that thousands of gendarmes and french policemen were fired because they helped jews to escape.
France was tired of war. Germany too but i guess jewish gold helped them a lot recovering. France's elites were happy hitler could help them fight socialism.
>somehow France was in worst condition than Germany
Stop making excuses for the pathetic show France put on.
Maybe not a "super power" but was it not considered one of the premier nations at the time.
As this board is obsessed with that, they should begin with the Strange Defeat, the first hand testimony of one of the most important historians of the XX Century about his experiences and explantions for the defeat.
Not only a scholar, but a decorated veteran from the WWI who voluntered to serve again the Second, joined the Resistance and was execued by the Nazis.
He shows how the French were first defeated in the mood "like a boxer who has gain too much fat and after receiving the first punch just accepts his defeat", "the french generalry ready to win the WWI, had not the means to properly fight the new".
France has always been second rate since Napoleon
>over 6 million casualties in ww1
>extreme levels of corruption in the 1930's french government
>Stavisky scandal nearly sparking a coup d'etat
>corrupt armament deals to special interests produced subpar obsolete equipment
>complete failure of the league of nations
France today is a lapdog of Germany. What a worthless country
France was considered to be the greatest land power on earth.
it certainly didn't have the same manpower as germany, sentiment of revanchism, or an icon such as Hitler to unite an entire nation. It probably could have gotten back up as a great power but eh, democracies are long to change.
Not before ww2.
Indeed, here's a list of reasons :
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Nuh uh.
>folded within a month
Only because the Ardennes gamble paid off for the Germans. If the Ardennes gamble didn't succeed, the war would have been over for the Germans.
What?
>German minister in Denmark warns Danish officials that the Jews are to be departed on X date
>Danish minister warns local officials
>Danish Jews escape to Sweden
I think around 50 Danish Jews died in the holocaust
If anyone wants to read a book that is plentiful on information of the vichy regime and their ties with the Germans and other nations.
Read "our vichy gamble'
It's mostly on our relations with vichy France from its formation until operation torch
who is our?
>butthurt surrender monkey from a failed nation that never achieved anything noteworthy since Napoleon and needed to be saved from their neighbours twice in a row because they can't fight for shit detected
blow it out your ass
France didn't do THAT bad
that damage control
You forgot how they surrendered to Italy
You forgot how the french financed our revolution entirely, so really WW2 was just the US paying it's debt back, a long time after it was contracted.
>our revolution
Not mine
hitler kicked out the debt slave globalists so his nation was in hyper strength mode.
What the fuck was ww1 then?
Literally nothing. The french lost 1.4 million men; americans at the peak of their expeditionary force had 1 million men fighting.
Read "Strange Defeat" by Marc Bloch.
If not For the morale change that the Americans have France by showing up they would have surrendered
> 92,000 French were killed in 5 weeks compared to 8,000 Britons (4,000 of which in the Lancastria disaster), yet French are cowards
> The entire Allied command was completely buttufucked but somehow only French are stupid gullible, ignoring how the Sichelschnitt was as genial as a gambling hazard
> Germans repeatedly praised the French but hey burgers know better
> Most Germans casualties were during the final phases of the offensive in the South over the Aisne-Ourcq and Amiens fighting against the desperately outnumbered, outgunned and outthought remainders of the French army
> Without the French there would have been no "victorious retreat" at Dunkerque, remember Lille
> France lost 1,3 million men KILLED just 20 years before (more than ALL American wars combined, just to remind you) and 4 times that number wounded
> France was in severe political turmoil for the decade preceding the war
> By the end of the war, the French managed to rake a quite impressive army nonetheless (equipped by the Americans, that's obvious, as much as most American equipment in WWI was either British or French)
Yet, French soldiers are surrendering monkeys, I wonder what were then American soldiers who deserted the draft during the Vietnam war.
Inb4, I'm not French.