Ok, let's settle this once and for all, which country performed more embarrassing in ww2, France or Italy?

No you fucking dunce, Italy did it while it was a bonafide member of the Axis.

Coming to think of it, almost ALL European Axis allies were fucking Embarassing. Hungary as well.
>FUCK YEAR, WE ALLIES WITH GERMANS, FUCK RUSSIA N SHIET.
>N-NO WE WERE FORCED, GERMANS HELD A GUN TO OUR HEADS, RUSSIA PLS LISTEN, OOOOUCH!!

Italy.

France was basically like a top contending pro fighter that got caught by the Champ with a knockout shot in the first round. Once they got beat they went back to fight camp (Western Allies) and were able to make some valuable contributions in '44--45.

Italy on the other hand was basically this guy.

youtube.com/watch?v=AU_7JaX16Ts
youtube.com/watch?v=AU_7JaX16Ts

>were able to make some valuable contributions in '44--45
What did they do more than Italy in Russia and North Africa?
>inb4 muh partisans
Italy had those too.

Italy's partisans fought THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT when they realized they were losing.

The height of patheticness.

>THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT
So just like the french ones with Vichy?

I'm pretty sure you're just being a troll by this point so here's your (you).

>What did they do more than Italy in Russia and North Africa?

Achieve ultimate victory with your bro tier allies that hold back and let you "liberate" your beautiful capital city.

And all because of lucky luciano ...

Why isn't China in the running?

Italy was much more embarrassing.

France basically just made one huge mistake that knocked them out right away. Italy just made retarded move after retarded move, forever, and lost every remotely evenly matched battle.

>France and Italy
They just weren't prepared

Italy has always been "ppssssh, nothin personnel kid"-tier, they always sided with the best side in a certain moment and backstabbed their former allies when switching sides.
But can you really say these were retarded decisions? Italy acts for its own interests, and when your only escape route is blocked by the same guys that want to conquer everything, of course you protect yourself by siding with them.

Underrated af

Retarded strategically, I meant. Not necessarily politically. Unless you think they were losing battles on purpose?

Chinks never surrendered.

Half of France got occupied and the Germos had a clear shot in the capital, the French surrendered.

China lost its industrial Northern Heartlands, all major Coastal Cities, including the ROC's capital and what did it do? They did not surrender and kept fighting even if they died in droves.

By 1939 most of China's most embarrassing defeats were already over. For a horribly under-industrialized, factionalized nation it performed pretty decently tbhfam.

>Chinks never surrendered.

No, but they definitely put fighting the Japanese low on the priority list, preferring instead to hole up in around Chengdu and wait for the Americans to bail them out.

> They did not surrender and kept fighting even if they died in droves.

Except they didn't really fight, unless the Japanese attacked them, and even then, only did so halfheartedly. Chiang was far more conerned about watching the Commies than actually fighting the nips.

That's only because the Japanese had taken what they wanted and could easily hold and stopped expanding. In 1944, when everything else was collapsing around their ears, they still managed to advance where and when they wanted to burn down those airfields that the American forces in China were striking out of.

Enough of an answer for you...
And if this doesn't suffice, researching "Operation Compass" should straighten out who you most should feel embarrassed for.

France was plagued with a government that strived to dispossess from itself the responsibilities of fighting (preventing the french army from advancing into Germany because of "muh we don't want another war" and suffered immensely from budget cuts), communist activists that sabotaged their industry, british allies cowering away from the fight, and was struck by the full effect of the german military inflicting blitzkrieg on the world for the first time.

Italy tried to fight against fucking Greece and lost. No contest.

>That's only because the Japanese had taken what they wanted and could easily hold and stopped expanding.
Not from lack of trying, if if four battles in Changsha, unsuccessful Japanese pushes into Sichuan and attacks into Zhejiang were any indication.
>In 1944, when everything else was collapsing around their ears, they still managed to advance where and when they wanted to burn down those airfields that the American forces in China were striking out of.
Much of which was recovered in 1945.

And again, given that China had little to no industrial capacity and had been fighting a civil war right before the invasion of the Japanese, they did fairly alright for themselves as the clear underdogs. Poland-tier at least even if they weren't quite Greece (invading Italy after being invaded is something) or Finland-tier.

Why are threads like these not banned or highly discouraged?

>Not from lack of trying, if if four battles in Changsha, unsuccessful Japanese pushes into Sichuan and attacks into Zhejiang were any indication.

Except 2 of those invasions of Changsha were tiny (less than 2 divisions each) the third was a serious attempt, but mostly to keep the Chinese out of what's now Vietnam, and the 4th one, the Ichi-Go one, worked.

Don't know much about the Zhejiang push, but the Japanese never even bordered Sichuan provence, so I'm not sure what you're talking about there.

>Much of which was recovered in 1945.

Most of which the Japanese didn't try to hold onto. They went in, destroyed the air fields, and went back to the positions they wanted.

>And again, given that China had little to no industrial capacity

Not really true.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_Japan#20th_century

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_China_(1912–49)#The_Chinese_war_economy_.281937-1945.29

Sure, they were on a GDP/person level much less than the Japanese, but when you factor in China's much, much bigger population, you come out to an overall manufacturing picture that isn't much worse than what the Japanese had at the outset, (although, to be fair, a lot of this gets smashed when the Japanese occupy huge swaths of territory. By 1939 a lot of the CHinese economy had been crippled)

> civil war right before the invasion of the Japanese,

And during the Japanese invasion. But I don't count this as a plus in their favor, it's actually extremely stupid and pathetic tier. It again, justifies the Japanese actions not to put the stake through the KMT's heart in 1939-40. They weren't a threat, they could keep.

t. benito

fritaly

Finland

I think his point was that they often performed badly even with the odds in their favor.

De Gaulle was such an intolerable shit. The allies treated him better than he deserved.

Which country is the most successful military power in European history?

France. According to the historian Niall Ferguson, of the 125 major European wars fought since 1495, the French have participated in 50 – more than Austria (47) and England (43). Out of 168 battles fought since 387BC, they have won 109, lost 49 and drawn 10.

>Niall Ferguson

Reminder that Paris was conquered with the blood of polish and spanish men.

>That's only because the Japanese had taken what they wanted and could easily hold and stopped expanding.
Those southern offensives sure meant they got what they wanted.

Italy.

Every move Fascist Italy made was a disaster until Germany intervened.

North Africa
Albania and Yugoslavia
Sicily
Italy itself.

France and her people kept fighting, whether in the resistance or the Free French forces, who fought with great elan.
In the end, the Republic was victorious.

Italy was crushed, and took over a decade to recover even with Allied assistance.

With a largely drunk and demoralised 2nd Army

because unlike the French who fell over themselves trying to surrender as quickly as possible the Chinese were completely committed to fighting on to the last man, and did indeed hold out for 8 brutally grinding years.