Why did French surrender so quickly in 1940?

>waaaaah,german move bad,not fair, im telling mom
All's fair in love and war.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_France

Reminder that the French were trying to be civilized while only informing Germany that there is a danger of two fronts
>The French advanced until they met the then thin and undermanned Siegfried Line. On 17 September, the French supreme commander, Maurice Gamelin gave the order to withdraw French troops to their starting positions; the last of them left Germany on 17 October. Following the Saar Offensive, a period of inaction called the Phoney War (the French Drôle de guerre, joke war or the German Sitzkrieg, sitting war) set in between the belligerents. Adolf Hitler had hoped that France and Britain would acquiesce in the conquest of Poland and quickly make peace. On 6 October, he made a peace offer to both Western powers.[20]

Reminder that the Germans went all psychokiller and invaded several countries to successfully take over France
>German tanks outflanked the Maginot Line and pushed deep into France.

There are really a lot of reasons that could be considered, read the strange defeat by Marc Bloch

>They sent in Stuka dive bombers,bombed the shit out of the bunkers and then immediately sent troops to clear them out

Wrong, retard
The line was taken by Germans from the French side after they had entered France through Belgium

Like I said, another German superiority shill. If I take a bat to Mike Tyson's face I may proclaim to be the victor of a fair fight.Note that the German shills usually tout that the Germans were physically and strategically supperior while IRL they just went full out-war on countries who weren't looking for a fight.

Why does everyone insult the decision for surrender when it was pretty much decided?

>fair fight
It's not about proclaiming winning a FAIR fight.
It's simply about winning.
I was describing the tactic they used,where did i say "Germans attacked from the front"

>

also,
>german superiority
As you probably know by now,i support the germans, but if they truly would have been superior in every way,they wouldnt have lost the war,so im not implying that only their equipment superiority won them the fight for France

Frenchfag here, we have quite the literature on the topic. Marc Bloch, an intellectual exectuted in 1944 by the gestapo (in Lyon, where was stationed Klaus Barbie), wrote an essay on the topic, where he discuss the fact that while France had a regulat sized and equipped army, mistakes were made in doctrine and more importantly, the political sphere at the time and the prominent military figures were not opposed to an alignement with the axis powers against communism.

Exemples are french bombers sitting on the ground while columns of tanks were spotted and crossing the Ardennes, mobilized troop not seeing any combats for months (the "drole de guerre", strange war", and a disastrous route with very little attempt to counter attack. (Storytime, my grandfather living in Alsatz, 5 miles from the border had to leave the farm he was living in in 1940 while the germans were advancing. They came back to find the houses had been looted, not by the orderly Wehrmacht, but by the french)

On equipment and the few battles that took places, the numbers aren't necessarily in favor of the Germans, with reports of french victories in numerous skirmishes and tactical engagement (during the battle of Menton, a french outpost and its garnison of 5 killed 200 Italians while holding a bridge for several days). Logistics and command are to blame in the most part for the fall of France.

Some books and novels on the subject, De Gaulle memories are interesting if you like to read on tank doctrine and the future of warfare according to a 1930´s officer.

They lost a million men in WW1 and had a drop in births during the interwar period. They therefore planned to let the Germans break themselves upon the Maginot Line or be stopped in Belgium again where the French and Brits could assume defensive positions
They were not ready nor expecting the speed the Germans managed to outmanoeuvre them with

All they had to do was listen.

This guy predicted the entire WW2 dozen of years before it happened and even published a book about it to warn the Europeans

...

>Their military was the strongest in Europe throughout the 30's.
Fucking lmao
Having large numbers on paper does not make your military strong. A German soldier in 1939 would have more training and experience than any Frenchman, and one Wehrmacht soldier could've taken ten French ones.

Reminds me of the guy who predicted the Titanic sinking. He wrote a book like 2 years before called "The Titan"
The similarities were astounding

Oh my god look at all the G*rman supremacy shilling going on in this thread. Fucking krauts, I swear.

>psychokillers
after proposing peace repeatedly?

Dude,im literally the only one on this thread supporting the germans,but see my previous statement- Twisting my words isnt going to make you correct.
Imagine it like this, I'm against the Allies,but im not really 100% for the germans either,as i said,if they really would be that superior they wouldnt have lost the entire war.
But still France got fucked and stop being such a sissy about it.

the only pro-german posts that arent mine are

I think the argument is that the Germans did not overrun France in 1940 because of superior equipment, training, or raw strength, but through their effective understanding of modern military doctrine and superior leadership.

While French tanks were superior. They suffered from lack of numbers. France experience what Germany did against Russia. They just had more tanks, even if they are shit in comparison

Germany definitely had the superior military doctrines to France, they understood how to use the modern appliances of war, tanks and airplanes, far better than France. Their communications system was vastly more modern as well. All German tanks had radios which allowed them not only to communicate to one another, but also to communicate with dive bombers. Very few French tanks had the same, so when a single French tank found itself in an advantageous position it was impossible to communicate it to others.

Bingo,you put it together better than i did

So much BS in one post

>watches forgottenweapons once

Thesr are the two main reasons (if you include political leadership in leadership). I've read somewhere, and I think it was in Bloch book, that the poor leadership could be explained by the fact that France lost a generation in the great war. As a consequence, the military (and political) leaders were the heroes of the WW1 which were old men in WW2 and thus less prone to change, unlike the wehrmacht who was very young in comparison. French love with complex and ineffective administration also didn't help

Socialist governments that weren't willing to pay for increases in the military budget.

Though I might have read that in John Keegan's the mask of command

>They just had more tanks, even if they are shit in comparison
>Implying the T-34 wasn't vastly superior to the Memezer IV and the rest of the overengineered autism machines the Germans produced
Even Guderian admitted that the T-34 was leagues ahead of anything the Germans fielded. Soviet equipment was in most areas better than Krauttech.

They were scared of dying and Germans damaging the Eiffel tower

Popular Front increased military budgets.

>what are tigers

>expensive, overengineered piece of shit that routinely broke down and got stuck in rasputitsa mud
>good

Because the most heavily defended fort on the Belgian frontier fell in a single night to a parachute assault nobody thought possible.
Because Gamelin took the wrong lessons from the fall of Poland and forward-deployed his entire army in a futile attempt to achieve maximum concentration against the schwerpunkt, stripping his army's strategic reserves.
Because the panzer groups penetrated deep into the French Army's rear areas, outrunning their own LOCs against OKH's own orders.
Because French C2 was inadequate to contain the unfolding disaster.
Because German doctrine was superior.
Because refugees from the Low Countries and Northern France were streaming south, disrupting what little capacity the French had for strategic redeployment.
Because France had hoped against hope that the next war could be contained beyond their frontiers, and could not bear a repeat of the apocalyptic destruction inflicted on their country between 1914 and 1918.

...

Either I am an idiot or there the simple tactic of "break through and surround them" is surprisingly effective

Cutting off enemy supply is always effective.

they didn't want to blow up half of their country again for years like in ww1.

because their generals sucked donkey balls, they could have easily repelled the german invaders at numerous points

t. armchair retrospective franco-boo historian

It's actually true. Weygand wanted an armistice to be able to achieve his reactionary political project. He only continued the fight in the name of military honour, and because he wanted to be sure that the Germans would leave him enough soldiers to fight possible communist insurrections. Petain approved.

He was not only a man of WW I, but also of 1870-71.

If you actually care about the subject and this isn't a french-bashing thread, which I doubt because of the specific image you chose to post, read A Strange Defeat by Marc Bloch.

You are probably memeing but this is true
The damage the great war had done on french cities were not forgotten, in some place french troops were ordered to stop defending cities once german troops came too close. They didn't want another Reims Cathedral burning

*drives over hill* immediately fucked by a king tiger

>b-b-but muh sloped technology!

The french also didn t want to fight a war for the jews

Where the fuck do you get this shit from?
>Pretty much nothing to fight the german tanks
Oh, so you mean their 3254 tanks weren't enough to fight the 2439 german ones?
Even though most of the french tanks had 40mm armor and 37mm guns (take the 900 Renault 35 for example) while the german had 30mm armour at best (and in low quantity)?

Worked out fine for them
>land doesn't get devastated
>manpower doesn't get devastated
>get liberated by allies later anyway

>Because Gamelin was retarded and didn't believe that the main effort was on Sedan because "muh plan, I predicted everything I can't be wrong" despite visible evidence
>Because they won WW1, they learned the wrong lessons and tried to win WW2 like they won WW1, with quantity over quality over a long period of time
>Because the Belgians and the French didn't talk to eachother everyone retreated from the Ardennes when they very well could have defended it
>Because they stored 75% of their planes in the countryside while Germany only had 25% in reserve
>Because the troops were badly trained and instead were used to build their blockhaus
>Because the troops weren't cohesive unlike the german during the offensive
>Because everyone in high command was in denial
>Because they were too rigid in how they opperated on an opperational level to adapt to the situation after Sedan was taken

Everyone here needs to see henri guillemin's take on this matter. He explains how petain was an jew hater and how he organized the defeat since before the war even began. The government was friends with franco and hitler and hated the socialist/communist.

Because they were overrun.

>He explains how petain was an jew hater and how he organized the defeat since before the war even began

Now that's retardation
Petain wasn't even in charge of anything when the war stated
It's only when everything was lost that former big guys (politicians and generals) threw their responsabilities away and told Petain: "Here, you're in charge of this country. Your problem now!"

He was in the war government in the 30's and was a french hero used by hitler to occupate france free of charge