Was the French army the best fighting force among european great powers by 1918 ? They had the greatest amount of tanks...

Was the French army the best fighting force among european great powers by 1918 ? They had the greatest amount of tanks, planes and trucks, their soldiers and generals were experienced and had a high morale, but how was it really like in comparison with their british and german counterparts ? Also, were the russian, ottoman and austrian armies that bad compared to the three mentioned above ? Why ?

by 1918 the french had come so close to mutiny in the trenches a million times, the soldiers were war weary, shellshocked and tired of being bombed by their own commanders for the past couple of years... the commanders (most of whom were still being drafted from the nobility and bourgeoisie by that time) might have been in good spirit, the average jean in the trenches was not... brits had the largest navy and the possibility of one of the largest armies in the world (look up the battle plan the americans had to fight against the evil british empire in the '20's)... the germans were even worse than the french because their economy was dieing faster than a cow hit by a train...

The british forces were far from being better than the french. In 1917, the Germans attacked the british troops, because they knew they were weaker than their french counterpart.

The French army might have had a lot of materiel and experience, but it's important to note that it had *severe* manpower issues by 1918. After 4 years of grinding warfare, the French army, and by extension the French male population was bled white. This is also the reason for them giving more and more jobs to the US army.

Really?

got any sources?

in 1917 only the allies had their major attacks... the germans did the kaiserslacht in 1918 because of the reinforcements they got from the dissappearing eastern front... The brits started the assault because they knew at that point the french were almost collapsing under a communist uprising in the ranks (partially because there were a lot of russian soldiers in the ranks)

>(most of whom were still being drafted from the nobility and bourgeoisie by that time)

This is such utter crap, its been a while since ive read something this dumb. The nobility was long dead, its the French Republic, if there was a clique that the officers came from it was the freemasons see Affaire Des Fiches

>brits had the largest navy and the possibility of one of the largest armies in the world (look up the battle plan the americans had to fight against the evil british empire in the '20's)
>unironically trying to do the "Britain was the strongest European power in the inter-war period"
If you'd cared enough to read up even the slightest bit on the era, you'd know that the inter-war period is punctuated by the British being horrified that France was left as the sole continental European power (being that they hadn't foreseen that the war would collapse the Russian empire), and that was the largest reason for their lenience towards Germany, hoping that by alleviating the pressure on Germany, Germany could rise again to challenge France.

Yes, by 1918 the French army was most likely the best fighting force in europe, or at least the least shitty. The Doughboys mostly received training from the French Alpine Troops ( Chasseurs Alpins ) in the art of sneaking to the enemy trench and slit the Kraut's throat. By this time, the French had developped doctrines and equipement which surpassed those of Germany and Britain by far, surprising the German high command which thought them to be the underdog between France and Russia.

Compared to how retarded the French were in 1914, they made the most impressive progress.

kek, the 1917 mutinies are greatly over exagerated, only a few leaders were executed and everything went back to normal in a span of two months.

By 1918 the French were the most operationally experienced and significant force on the Western Front, yet their doctrines were slightly behind Britain's in the sense that Britain was capable of combining all arms in their offensives. For example, looking at the Battle of Amiens, Rawlinson was reluctant to accept Foch's request that the French participate because they lacked tanks. They'd therefore have to bombard the German lines before the attack, removing the element of surprise and thereby reducing the attack to the same gruelling process that every offensive had had to deal with for the past 4 years.

That said, by 1918 the French remained the most important Allied force on the Western Front. They were exhausted yet defiant. The British, by contrast, were less exhausted than the French (a result of only being a major force on the Front from 1916 onwards) and more experienced than the Americans.

>french
>army

From what i've gathered france's men stopped being good warrior tier almost completely by 1500 everything past they it's like they just couldn't stop shitting their pants

>stopped being good warrior
they've never been though

No,
those were

They were before 1914 and after 1918.

They just had terrible equipment and tactics until they worked out combined arms with the British and figured out that helmets were a good idea.

>From what i've gathered france's men stopped being good warrior tier almost completely by 1500
>their era of most intense military prestige spans from ~1630 to 1815
>you not looking like an absolute fucking moron

the brits/Canadian attack in 1918 literally won the war

the french helped pioneer the tank and the aeroplane but by 1936 had totally fallen behind again.

interwar france was a joke.

>Also, were the russian, ottoman and austrian armies that bad compared to the three mentioned above ? Why ?

>Russians
Technology gap mostly, the Tsar at The Hague Convention 1907 would say stuff like "pls dont use new weapons ok" other part is that their troops were mostly farmers.

>Ottomans
Not that terrible, actually very tenacious. They just didn't have a lot of resources or leadership but the German generalship made up for them.

>Austro-Hungry
JUST FUCK MY SHIT UP SEMPAI DEUTSCHLAND. They were just shit and didn't prepare for war like everyone else did

1936 is a little after 1918

>by golly yes our 400,000 man strong army was what won the war
Canadians have to be the most arrogant people that I know of.

that 400,000 canadians did more in 1918 than the french

Not really... The French had been artfully training the American forces, and endowing each of them with the experience four years of war had garnered, which helped the Hundred days be such a success. And above that, the man helming the operations was French, drawing from shock-operations he had been perfecting throughout the war, where the Renault FT-17 was called on to breach through the opponent's line.

And the French and British army (so encompassing of Canadians) had as many casualties in the campaign.

Fuck, well you get it, this was for you:

Austria Hungary had the best navy though most think that was Britain, the land force was Germany or France

why?, they hardly did anything

W-what, is history a lie ?

Nah it was post revolution. Turns out when you go full tall poppy syndrome your officer class turns to shit.

...

>ignoring the glory days of Rocroi to Waterloo
>ignoring the modern French military operation
Go read more history and go read about Mali in 2014

>War was fought entirely on French soil.
>"Best"

>Turks literally shit on the treaty that divided their heartlands, and ignored France while punching Greeks in the face.
>"Best."

>Ottofag spotted

>long dead
there are still folks around who are recognized as belonging to nobility within France. While their titles no longer have legal standing, they still have cultural distinction, as well as money to match.

Officers were not chosen upon birth and noble right, but by skill and experience.

>Officers were not chosen upon birth and noble right, but by skill and experience.
Oh everyone says they do that, but in practice some folks are in a better position than other to advance in the ranks. One might have better access to education, martial or otherwise. Or one might just know the right folks in the right places. You can probably guess which sets of folks have an advantage when it comes to receiving a commission.

That's called corruption, corruption is everywhere and wealth =/= nobility

Oh yes, wealth does equal nobility, but nobility tends to involve some level of wealth. But I mean a noble family making a decent fortune in the time of Napoleon III was likely to keep it, insofar as the third republic didn't exactly involve mass expropriation of all noble assets.

Yes, a corruption that happened to involve those who thought themselves of noble birth in some capacity.

Most arrogant people? LOL, look at this total faggot. I hope you get raped and your throat slashed, BITCH!

Can you explain how at least?
They are simply a joke now

That's just a meme, every mentally able person knows they were average at least from this point

Britain was not starving, Britain was not on the verge of revolution at home and mutiny in the trenches. France and Germany suffered the most from each other in the war. It was only the Germans being slowly economically strangled to the point of starvation, revolution, melting down church relics for scrap, and an eventual palace coup, when the Kaiser, having already witnessed (and aided) the worker's revolution against the Tsar, ordered rioting workers in Germany be shot, to which his generals refused, that an armistice was finally called.

Britain had it easy in the war. Russia suffered tremendously and fell apart from within, France and Germany were grinding eachother into nubs, and betting that each one's bloody, crippled remains would be the last ones breathing, and America stayed well out, until jumping in at the last moment, well-fed and well-supplied, barely counting involvement, and losing so many men from sheer stupidity and hubris (they were fighting like it was 1914, in 1918).

If not for the British North Sea blockade kneecapping the German economy and war effort from the beginning, no one knows how long and terrible the war could have gone on. They were literally running out of men and every manner of war necessity, from bullets to food, yet continued fighting.

>&humanities strikes again

Austrohungary did pretty good on the italian front

>dont execute shlieffen plan
>instead fight defensively in Alsace-Lorraine and focus on Russia.
>no british fleet to blockade Germany
>Germany fleet may even mange to defeat and blockade Allied shipping
>slowly grind down Russia
>treaty of Brest-Litovsk
>Now use Schlieffen plan and cut the French army by surprise and surround it/destroy it
>German mainland superiority for 20th century
>mfw Schlieffen saved the world from this fate

Even my dog could btfo Cardona

> Average brit fag
We're not talking about the navy or economy here, but about the skill and experience of the armies

>ordered rioting workers in Germany be shot,
Source?

>mfw Schlieffen saved the world from this fate
that's only a bad thing if you're french, pierre

>From what i've gathered
i.e. from Fox News

It is the most powerful but it is led by shitty leaders

That was the British perception. In hindsight we see that they were dead wrong. That France's sole ambition was staving off a resurgent Germany, that the power vaccuum the disappearance of Russia and Austria Hungary created in fact left Germany stronger, relative to the other great powers of Europe, than it had been before the war. The idea that France ought to demilitarize down to parity with Germany, due to France's smaller and relatively shrinking population, did not in effect promote peace but rather guaranteed that should Germany mobilize generally the most France could do in response is mobilize a smaller pool of manpower. In hindsight it is clear, looking at French diplomacy throughout the interwar period, that they were terrified of Germany and sought at every move to coax a guarantee of the Versailles borders out of the British who, mistaking France for the more ambitious power and seeing in its coalition with the small nations of central Europe a bid for continental mastery, evaded any commitment to intervention that did not also commit the United States (an impossibility before at least 1938/9).