1914-1918

They thought if they gave up to the Germans they'd make them pay some reparations, take a few small territories, and make them demilitarize a few provinces. They didn't realize they'd be turned into Germany's personal bitch.

Still the French bested the Germans in the first world war. Russia on the other hand performed poorly against the germans.

Are there any good books that focus on France in the second world war?

Generally I always see the surrender monkey meme but I want to really understand what happened to France in the war.

>>hold out for years against their most powerful rival
Not that impressive when you're clearly numerically superior most of the time

Charles De Gaulle was not in charge of the Army between the wars.

The man advocated for heavy mechanized formations and independent armor units. Basically wrote the book on the Blitz.

from 1932 to 1937 france had 14 different governments

Shirer, William (1969) The Collapse of the Third Republic. New York: Simon and Schuster

Beaufre, Andre (1967) 1940: The Fall of France. New York: Knopf

de Gaulle, Charles (1964) The Complete War Memoirs. New York: Simon and Schuster

Bloch, Marc (1946) Strange Defeat. New York: Octagon Books

Dop, Catherine (2004) France and the Nazi Threat. New York: Enigma Books

Chapman, Guy (1969) Why France Fell: The Defeat of the French Army in 1940. New York: Holt

start with 1940 and strange defeat to get the perspective of a member of the high command and a regular soldier respectively

> The last time France was considered the pre-eminent land power was 1815.

I'd say the date is considerably later, 1866 at the least, when Prussia became the other seious contender.

French military influence was everywhere in the 1840 up to the 1860's. Both the Americans and the newly industrializing Japanese were followers of the French school of military thought. The Americans flat out copied the French uniform in the 1850's, and during the Civil War, both sides raised "Zouave" regiments patterned after the French Zouaves. Why would the Americans copy the second best if France was no longer the greatest land power?

All that changed after the Franco-Prussian war. Japan replaced their French advisors with Prussian advisors, which lead to Japan's modern army looking very Prussian indeed.

The whole "muh Maginot Line" thing and its failure is a meme. It did exactly what it was intended to do, which was to prevent Germany from blitzing through the Franco-German border and predictably be forced through the northern countries, allowing the bulk of their forces to be concentrated accordingly.

The problem was that nobody anticipated that the Germans would launch a massive thrust through the Ardennes, a region full of hills, valleys, and dense forests, located between the Belgian forts and the French line, and extending into four different countries (France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg). The Germans launched a feint in the north of Belgium following the capture of Fort Eben-Emael, drawing the attention of the French army, which then sent some of its best formations to counteract the expected advance. In the meantime, the main thrust slowly managed to make their way through the Ardennes, which was largely undefended.

Once the Germans managed to punch through the Ardennes, the deficiencies of French doctrine (lack of flexibility and no defence in depth) became apparent. They quickly overran the under-strength reservist formations guarding the area and wreaked havoc. With their best troops caught up fighting in the north, the French army was caught off guard, completely disorganized, and offered ineffective resistance. Had the French managed to maintain a sufficient reserve, they might have had a chance to counteract the German invasion, but then that's like saying the Americans would have been able to counteract Pearl Harbour if they paid attention to their radar reports.

Fun fact: William Sherman was fluent in French because he needed to be to read most of the textbooks at West Point.

>The whole "muh Maginot Line" thing and its failure is a meme.
not really, almost the entirety of French training was on how to properly man static defenses, its a big part of why all their counter attacks failed

What really screwed them over were resources and birth rates. During the Napoleonic Wars and prior, France was the most populous country in Europe except for the underdeveloped Russian Empire, and even then they were pretty close (30 million v 37 million in 1800). In the Middle Ages their share of Europe's population was even larger; France's population in 1300 was estimated at 17 million. Compare that to 4 million for England+Wales+Scotland+Ireland, 9 million for all of the German states, 6-7 million for the combined population of the lands that are now Russia/Belarus/Ukraine, 2 million for Poland, etc.

This order eroded over the 19th century until Britain's population nearly equaled France's and Russia and Germany far exceeded it. In 1914, Germany was x1.5 more populous than France (39 million vs 64 million), though physically smaller. By 1939 France's population had barely changed, but Germany's had. It had over twice France's population (40m vs 84m, though that includes Austria and its 6.5m I guess) . And the USSR, despite being much poorer than France or Germany, had twice the population of Germany. And the USA had about as many people as the USSR while being wealthier by far than all of the above.

this desu

faginot_line.jpg

gee bill

To Lose a Battle by Allistair Horne

Why were the French, such a libidinous race, so uneager to procreate?

Germs got lucky.
If we reroll the dice of who is in command, where the soldiers are put, how the other states react, etc, the french will win 9 times out of 10.

t. Delusional Francois

-The French population and leaders were Pacifists (understandable, after the experience of WW1). They were reluctant to go to another war against Germany.

-The French military commanders didn't understood modern mechanized warfare : they used tanks as a support for infantry operations instead of as an independent arm. This was shown through the lack of radio in French tanks and a generally poor mobility.

-Germans, on the other hand, fully understood what the mechanization of warfare implied in terms of changes, and they modified their doctrine accordingly by emphasizing the concept of the armored spearhead. The irony : De Gaulle knew this and wrote about it, but nobody listened to his theory, except the Germans...

-Germans were more fanaticized and had a better morale thanks to years of resentment and propaganda.

Semi-correct. If French and British anticipate Ardennes move or at least leave some mobile reserves, quick conquest that happened historically is highly unlikely.

But it didn't. What ifs are what ifs, the French sucked and got pwned.

But we're talking about what-if. Don't get so triggered.

Wat is er nieuw?

should've just stayed part of the Netherlands 2bh