Well i suppose we could carry on with this forever with points and counterpoints til the thread is 100 pages long.

So i defer the last word to you. The sun is out, i'm gonna go chase some skirts.

charlie boy,

go back to pulling your pud.

One should always play to their strengths.

Leave the history to the literate.

poodleboy esq. your KUNG FU IS MORE POWERFUL THAN ANYONES KUNG FU!

your KUNG FU LITERACY IS MORE POWERFUL THAN ANYONES KUNG FU!

YOU have proven your franco-phile poodle boy love traits for all to see here.

YOU have PROVEN YOUR CLOSET LOVE AFFAIR WITH MONTE and THE TRAITORS VICHY!

you have proven the fact, that you probably should be on meds and not allowed to play with sharp objects and permanently confined to your quarters, until meds either improve behavior, or added doses of meds, until behavior is improved.


note to STAFF: this patient poodleboyESQ. should not be allowed ANY HISTORY BOOKS until blood pressure comes down, tendencies to stab objects is reduced, rapid eye movement ceases, clinching fists, pounding keyboards, mighty KUNG FU tendencies, are over for at least 6months to a year.

pepe le pew cartoons are entirely out of the question anymore!

hogans heros reruns portraying LE-BEAU are entirely out of the question also.

after a year is up and no improvement of condition: a frontal lobotomy is highly recommended.

"a frontal lobotomy is highly recommended", I see you have followed your own advice. My congraduations for a job well done.

Ha. ha. Good one. It was probably the Apaches.

Ian

actually upon further examination/diagnosis of this "anal-cranial intrusive kung fu" behavior..................





IT WOULD PROBABLY BE BETTER IF A FRONTAL LOBOTOMY WAS SELF-INFLICTED BY DRIVING A CROISSANT THRU URINE SKULL!


"R"- VOIR poodleboyESQ!

It doesn't matter how you did the lobotomy, charlie boy. It is obvious to everyone that you were 100% successful.

well poodleboyESQ, it has been more than fun lowering myself to urine standards here. i dont really mind nor care what anyone thinks. something you should really ponder as you continue to rewrite history. its the ones who dont care that ya really need to watch! and the ones who dont care.............WIN!

i do know that history is the past and ya cant rewrite the past. even YOU POODLEBOYESQ., CANNOT REWRITE THE PAST! no matter how hard ya try, no matter how many pins ya stick in a voodoo doll likeness of me, no matter how hard ya bang urine keyboard, no matter how STRONG URINE KUNG FU IS, IT JUST AINT HAPPENING!

i dont care if yer god buddah yaweh mohommad christ einstein..................


ZE FRENCHIES HAVE A PISSPOOR HISTORICAL(hysterical) RECORD OF WARFARE!

AND MONTE DID CAUSE THE WAR TO LAST LONGER!(op market garden didnt happen?)


YOU have a PISSPOOR RECORD OF PLAYING WELL WITH OTHERS(historical as well as hysterical) here. whenever anyone disagrees with YOUR TWISTED take on history, you throw internet poo poo on them, thinking that they will be swayed by some french loving internet troll.

this is kind of like kinder-garten and yer in the sandbox and you throw sand at others because they dont listen to your diatribe of b.s. and then all of a sudden one of the kids or all of them gang up and beat the living tar snot out of you and you go crying to yer poodle. then when others correct you on your train of thought, you throw more sand at them(havent learned yer lesson), and finally the next thing ya know, sand is coming out of every orfice of yer body as yer buried in the sandbox and yer poodle takes a giant poo on yer head cuz yer such an ignoramus.


i love internet gunfights. while pulling my pud!

you on the other hand should probably give up your u.s. citizenship and move there permanently. your self inflicted frontal lobotomy will go well with the french miltary. its a perfect fit.

you never answered my question as to why the french fleet lies at the bottom of guaymas harbor, san carlos mexico??????????

how did a bunch of taco vendors/fisherman/kawboys sink an entire french fleet??????? can you say "CINCO DE MAYO?" in your case "cinco de drink-o?"

so we have (2) entire wartime french fleets at the bottom of the ocean because the french are such brilliant warriors. hmmmmmm?



you my lil escargot only have "poodle kung-fu"!


it must REALLY SUCK TO BE YOU, BURIED IN HISTORIES SANDBOX !


if i were you i would readjust my MEDS and read those history books slower.

better yet you should become the head chair history professor at annapolis or west point!

as sir winstonian churchill historically stated................"WE WILL NEVER SURRENDER!"

charlie boy, still proving to all your ignorance and expert pud pulling. Don't worry about facts, you have your impressive posts to boost your image.

Talk about re-writing history, just re-read this thread. You have had your ass handed to you so many times by others (not just me), that you had to put a return label on it.

Here is another striling example of your continual ignorance of history.

There is not a French fleet on the bottom of this harbor, or in any other Mexican harbor.

What, did you get this "information" in a bar when you were drunk? Or is your brain so full of "facts" that you get them confused? Or is it just your lack of intellect that confuses you so.

Go find your ass again, charlie boy.

hey professor poodle wanker...............

let me get this straight again..............


1) the french are warriors par excellance

2) a french fleet of over 30 ships did not sink in the med. by their own hands.

3) the french dont have any ships laying on the bottom of guaymas harbor, mexico and CINCO DE MAYO isnt celebrated by the country of mexico and the mexicans while outnumbered by the french never kicked france's ass at the battle of puebla.



4) monte was an ICON and the only reason the war lasted longer was because the rest of the allies wanted more of their men killed. because war is fun!

5) the french never left vietnam battered torn and tattered/shattered sha noo-bee sha noo-bee.



6) the french didnt turn on their OWN countrymen and never consorted with the nazis.


congrats please up yer meds as yer getting a lil testy again and yer blood pressure is going up. bosses dont like worker bees pounding on keypads and sticking pins in dolls at their desks.

maybe its time you seek more help and give yerself a prozac enema while giving yerself a frontal lobotomy to sooth the demons in yer head.

resorting to name calling as you have here numerous times since i dont concur with your views, only cements the facts of my "sandbox" analogy.

gawd it must HURT inside there.

are people like moving away from yer desk today? what about last week? has HR called you in yet and asked "is there something wrong?"


maybe you should relax with a 'OUI" magazine and pull yer pud. it may help those evil thoughts of aggression in that pinhead of yours.

better yet i hear theres a new "FEE FEE DOES PARIS" flick starring all 12 months of the FABULOUS POODLE PARADE POODLE-ETTES. this should calm you down some so you may think in a positive nurturing understanding manner and not pick fights with those that have wayyy more kung fu than you, let alone brain cells.


i really think you should give yourself a rest as your mental health is declining rapidly. and i for one being the caring soul i am(YEAH RIGHT!), really dont want to see you pop a blood vessel in yer brain thinking I or ANYONE are going to accept your view of history....................EVER!

charlie boy,

Everyone can see your historical errors. When called on the facts, all you can do is run, hide and ignore. What a wanker you really are.

Do you have any accurate history knowledge whatsoever?

Maybe you should have paid attention in school instead of pulling your pud. But as they say, "water finds it's own level".

Your level is just so darn low!

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6-IIXAF5HO...0614parisB.jpg
Nazis on Parade in Paris.

As this topic has sidetracked widely into the topic of French military prowess, I will re-subscribe for 2 seconds, before the moderator pulls the plug on the juvenile name calling.

While the French did lose at Puebla, they ended up taking Mexico City the next year. I don't really call that a good example.

Also, I note there is a vast avoidance of Napoleon, arguably the greatest strategist ever, with the finest troops ever. (He was also the most over reaching general since Alcibaedes, hence his downfall.)

Finally, few can question the courage French Arms during WW1. Verdun is all the evidence one needs on that account.

In short, France has had great military moments and bad ones. Much like any other nation that has been around for a while.

Back to lurking.

Bad things happen to good people....

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1253699233.jpg

All i see there is a rallying cry for some boys from Kentucky. :)

If Americans were French we would have surrendered after the British burnt the capital down. Fortunately for Americans, we are not French.

Again, one sad chapter from part of a nation, applies to the entire nation?

Apply that to America and see where you end up in conclusion.

BTW, Nazis marched in at least 10 European contries capitals which surrendered during the first half of WWII. France held out longer than any of the others (except Britian), why don't you brand the others cowards? The double standard is clear.

If the French were Americans (and had the Atlantic, or at least the Channel between them and a vastly superior force) .....
If in 1812 the British were not more concerned about the French we might have been English once again.
If the French didn't finance and supply (and to an extent) fight our Revolution for us we would [still be] British.

I wonder who the bigger Dummy is..the Dummy or the guy arguing with the Dummy?

I gave up on theis Thread long ago.

Apparently not, since you just posted.:D

By not confronting ignorance, you condone it. And then you are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

I am disappointed that adults can not play nice, but I never let stupidity or ignorance go unanswered.

At the risk of getting in between Richard, who speaks French as a second language and Charles who speaks English as a second language, I will answer the question that was posted long ago.

The question of why V-E Day wasn't in 1944 instead of 1945 can be answered in about five parts. I'm just going off the top of my head, so if I'm wrong on some detail, I am sure someone will correct me.

First: the fog of war. All battles in all wars are completely F-ed up fiascos. SNAFU and FUBAR are GI slang for a reason. All battles are FUBAR. One side makes fewer mistakes, or their mistakes balance each other out and that side comes up the decisive winner. In retrospect it's easy to see how a move here or there would have made a decisive difference and saved or cost millions of lives. But battles can't be judged that way. They have to be evaluated in context. That includes having the bombs burst around your ears and having incomplete or faulty information.

Second, the Allies had material superiority and knew it would win a set piece war that ground down the enemy as long as the Axis didn't pull off the one-in-a-million long shot to cut off the western front (much like the Inchon landing or Yorktown). To avoid that one-in-a-million defeat, calls for such a war to be fought conservatively. That is, you plan your action based on the worst your enemy can do to you, not what you actually think he will do. This makes you much more conservative but ensures victory.

Third, as a subset of two, the Allies knew they had more men than the Axis had bullets. Perhaps not literally, but you get the point. The Allies could afford to lose a tank more than the Axis could afford to lose the anti-tank shell that it cost to kill the Allied tank. The Allies could take their time, lose men and battles, but once they were established on the mainland, they would prevail as long as they weren't overrun, simply because the German would run out of gas, bullets, spare parts and food before the Allies would run out of ground, men and material.

Fourth, concentration of force was the watchword of the Allies. This is one of the prime rules of warfare. The Allies always made sure they concentrated their forces before attacking. Again, this made the Allies extremely conservative and by failing to rush into battle immediately, time and time again they forfeited the initiative and gave the Axis time to get over their shock, regroup and dig in. A prime example in Anzio. For all who are Pink Floyd fans, the way The High Command took Daddy from me is pretty accurate. If the Allies had attacked immediately, they would have hit panicked and demoralized troops. Instead, they massed their forces over three or four days, iirc, and drove straight into regrouped and reinforced troops that were now well dug in and supplied. Sure, the Allies won and the cost to the Axis was far worse than the casualties to the Allies, but a less conservative immediate attack would probably have saved lives and scored great territorial gains at minimal cost.

Likewise, if Market-Garden had been pushed harder, faster and jumped off a week earlier, Ike probably would have been drinking Hitler's beer in the Eagle's nest by Christmas 1944. But that wasn't the Allied way; conservative tactics with zero long term risk, trading men for the certainty of eventual victory was the way the war was won.

Even at the Battle of the Bulge, if the Allies had been on the offensive a day before the Axis attack, the breakout probably would have been averted and the war would have been shortened considerably.

And finally, the failure to defeat the Axis decisively in 1944 is attributable to Field marshal Model's efforts and decision to fight the best, most professional defensive war possible, and make the Allies pay for every step with blood, even though he knew the Axis could not win as soon as it was clear that the Normandy landing was successful. In the weeks and first month or so after Normandy, the Germans were completely demoralized, confused and running. Hitler sacked three (iirc) field marshals in quick order, before returning to Model. Model reorganized the entire defense, put iron in the spine of the Army, and turned what was at that time a rout into a bloody set-piece battle.

I'm sure there are a few things I'm overlooking, but that's pretty much the overview. Of course, all of this assumes a Normandy invasion of 1944 instead of 1943, but the decision to go into North Africa instead of opening the second front on the continent is a subject best left to another post. The short answer was that the Allies didn't have the landing craft available to ensure the landing would be successful. The long story involves Stalin, the Eastern front, so forth and so on and back to the Treaty of Versailles. And that goes back to . . . well Adam and Eve. But that's a different topic all together :)

HUH? Half truths and revisonist history....

That was a very good post MRM.

History is always easy to judge with 20/20 hindsight. Not too easy to do in the heat of battle.

History rule #1

You cannot accurately judge the past with today's knowledge or values.

Other than No. 1 and the "fog of war" the consclusions drawn are capital B and Capital S.....

Ohh yeah....Hitler didn't drink Bier, he was a VEGGIE.....

According to eyewitnesses, he did drink the occasional beer. You might want to research that. Not drinking beer has nothing to do with being a vegetarian.

Also agree that was a thoughtful post MRM - even if some points are arguable.

As for some of the others:

And the award for troll of the year goes to....
- No Imma let you finish....but Fast Paste was the best troll of the past few years....

Your conclusions about being a "set piece" war fought "conservatively" by the Western Allies is revisionist. The daylight bombing campaign, Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal throws your whole argument out the window.

The problem for the Allies is that at Normandy they were pouring men into a funnel, and at the outset would be their weakest point. As they would have fewer men and resources then the Germans. This it was a gamble. Given a beachhead and time they could build up their forces to out muscle the Germans. Rommel knew it. The Germans stripped everything in the hinterland to reinforce their lines at Normandy. It took the Allies apx 2 months of heavy fighting to slog their way through the Germans. Once the dam gave way they collapsed back to Germany and it was only the lack of supply that kept the Allies from keeping up with the running Germans.

The Germans were a tough determined foe, who kept on fighting long after the outcome was determined.

heres the bottom line:

if donuts(doenitz) had more u-boats england would be in german hands period.

had the allies(dont want to ferget the canadians) not been able to supply england all was lost for europa. including any and all invasions.

now please look at how material was sent. by airplane? NO. by submarines? NO. sleds pulled by poodles across the frozen tundra? NO.

merchant ships.

and had doenitz had more subs as i had mentioned, before i was rudely poo'ed on by a certain poodle-phile, there would be no discussion on france or any other hysterical follies of certain generals or countries.

up until 1943 u-boats operated with impunity within sight of u.s. shores. in case some of you dont realize, sinkings,infiltrations by spys was kept hush hush by war dept.

example: woman and her kids killed by balloon pacific northwest with bomb floating over jet stream from japan was kept MEGA HUSH HUSH!

i doubt some of you realize the islands of the carib-bean,let alone eastern seaboard, were absolute meccas for sinking cargo ships by the u-boats. crews would lounge on deck, and not waste torpedoes and sink merchant ships with deck guns for target practice and general nazi"feel good" principle. this was called by the crews "the good times". u-boats would pull up to islands for freeking r&r, the pickings were so good. no allies to bother them. NONE!

if you take a good look after 1943 how many u-boats were sunk along u.s. coast and in carib-bean, you should thank u.s. technological anti-sub advances for europe not being given up as a goner.

the island of barbados was smack dab in the vortex of this action. one emboldened kapitan spied a merchant ship doing the classic ziggy-zaggy and pursued it. merchant ship was heading for bridgetown harbor. harbor had torpedo nets. nets opened for merchant ship, then closed, while on surface kaptian, yells "vier torpedo los" 2 torpedos blow nets, one hits merchant ship and blows bow off to hell, and 4th torpedo runs up onto beach and is now in bridgetown barbados museum. i scubee dove on that world war II merchant ships bow, in bridgetown harbor. ship was righted, new bow installed and then sailed on murmansk run and was sunk by a u-boat!

how much bolder can you get? u-boats in plain sight of a armed enemy harbor, blowing hell out of anything that moved.

the figures i have read are if donuts(doenitz) had double the number of submarines, we quite possibly if not fer sure, be singing a different tune here.

and the french, well they had spies all thru the islands held in the carib-bean, obviously helping the allied war effort. and thats from some real live people that lived thru WWII on barbados. and they were not english, and they were not americans, they were real live bajans, with really big white teeth....and very very dark skinned. ie. natives.

now if that doesnt freeze yer huevos, the turks and caicos islands were heavy duty shell oil, as well as south america which isnt that far away. nazi u boats fired on refineries with deck guns, and made a real point of sending a hell of alot of tankers to davy jones locker. any questions please check any u-boat.com map and you will grab yer ass and thank buddah you were not on a tanker pre-1943!


so...........with that aside once again we have the question?????


how was the war won?

it sure as hell wasnt french destroyers dropping depth charges, off the carib-bean/eastern u.s. seaboard

it sure as hell wasnt french aircraft dropping depth charges, off the carib-bean/eastern u.s. seaboard.

it was allied(not french) industrial might. theres no room here to bicker about that.

the technology was not as far off as you think, whereby u-boats could go undetected and pack a hell of a big whup ass stick. and put the permanent hurt on the u.s.


please go to u-boat.com and count how many u-boats sunk and how many merchant ships were sunk off the u.s. and carib-bean alone!

without u.s. merchant ships the war in europe/afrika/italia was over. gawd i hate to rewrite history. there goes 25 more pins into my voodoo doll likeness, and probably a coupla more keyboards smashed to poo.

yes thru enigma/and a comedy of errors in the allies favor , we managed to pull it off. we were very very very lucky. dont fool yourselves.

One of Daddy's best friends was a Dirigible pilot stationed in the Caribbean...on anti-sub patrol during the Great Patriotic War.

That may be the greatest concentration of if's i've ever seen.

When have i lauded the great fighting spirit or performance of the low countries? Or Norway? Any country that surrenders outright without a serious defensive attempt to hold at least it's capitol is obviously in the same boat as the French.

Conversely, the Poles fought damn hard and inflicted severe casualties on the vastly more technologically advanced Nazi air and mechanized invasion forces that attacked them. The Brit and Russian and for that matter the German defensive efforts and the fighting spirit of thier people and leadership when confronted with the Nazi menace, their backs against the wall...are the stuff of legend.

France does not get to sit at that table of legendary WWII nations, nor do the low countries.

Charles,
Much of what you write is coloured by your obvious narrow minded bias...but here you are spot on....regardless of what we think happened and why, luck, whether 'we' made it or not, played a huge part in the outcome.

Churchill knew it in 1940....and knew that in order to win Lady Luck had to encourage to stay on the Allied side.....

Question re: The French fleet:

Why, instead of scuttling, didn't they steam the ships to England, or to the US/Canada (dicey, with the u-boats, I guess)?

Churchill wondered the same thing many times. If they'd have joined the RN fleet that came to assail them in Algiers they would have even had an escort back to the UK.

But that did not happen.

i was pulling my narrow minded pud thru that one............

hey does this mean i get a entire french fleet as a " consolation" prize?

"why did the french sink 30+ ships?"

"i'd go with door numba #1 monte." (monte hall)


here we go....................................


well as any fine french admiral knows you ALWAYS keep your ships all bunched up in a harbor that the opposing side just may invade and capture.

it makes NO SENSE AT ALL to move your ships thruout the med or atlantic, and keep them safe from opposing airpower/subs/surface fleet/suicidal kamikaze poodles.

it does make sense to refuel your fleet in a harbor that may be invaded and captured by an opposing enemy.


my best educated pud pulling guess was they just liked that port of call and dropped in for some vino, some coiffures for their poodles, a lil lipstick on the ol dipstick, and just wanted to chat at a nice corner cafe and discuss politics. the foremost topic being "WHO THE HELLS SIDE ARE WE ON????"

obviously the vino ran out/the frapp-a-chinos ran out, the poodles ran away with french history professors, AND TIME RAN OUT for an INTELLIGENT DECISION BY THE FRENCH ADMIRALS!

i cant think of anything more embarassing than being an admiral of a fleet and scuttling all of them. now that is UBER PUD PULLING!

at least capn hans langsdorff(graf spee-commited suicide-imagine what that german pistole is worth?) had an excuse with battle damage and a host of british ships breathing down his neck outside the river plate!

man i had to run to wiki-pudia to confirm...................


a total of 77 ships destroyed by the french!



if i was a french poodle or even a skunk like pepe le pew.........i would be ashamed!



and the KICKER! they had enough fuel to get to algiers.


ya just got to love those vichy, always looking out for their countrymen.


the coolest thing about this debacle..............was the french ships started shooting the panzers. NOW THAT I WOULD PAY TO WATCH!

Ifs ands and buts - isn't that what this thread is all about ? ;)

LOL, i suppose it is. :D

There were a variety of reasons, some reasonable, some not.

No air cover, these ships were extremely venerable to air attack. Germany had plenty of airpower to sink them if they tried to run. Britain could not supply air cover for them for most of the trip. Resulting dilemma: should we lose the ships in a suicide run or keep the ships safe for France in harbor.

After all, plans were already in place to prevent the Germans from acquiring use of these ships. Remember Vichy France was a non-occupied country for some time and did not follow much of what the Nazis were commanding in Northern France.

This strange truce with Germany that allowed Vichy to attempt to remain independent from Occupied France was in reality a pipedream, but a pipedream that at least initially seem to work and protect large numbers of the French population from Germany, and this included Vichy's Naval assets. No other occupied country had succeeded in obtaining such a truce, at the time the French government thought it was the best solution. They were wrong, but which government has never been wrong?

Many in Vichy France sought to resist the Germans at every opportunity and that increased after the Germans occupied Vichy France. When your government leaders fail you, there is little outright overt combat that a civilian population can do. A study of warfare in history will show you that.

In the North the French navy fought heroically to help with the Dunkirk evacuation and to support Allied actions.

Remember, judging history from the outside is not very accurate. What would you do when you saw countries repeatedly fall to the Nazis with great loss of life (and many civilian deaths) and their capitals laid waste, in such a short period of time? The British did not make any better decisions in France then the French did. They repeatedly lost to the Germans and could not stand fast (and that was the "professional British Army, all their best units). Anyone who swears they would fight to the end in the exact conditions that France had in May 1940 is untruthful or deluded at best and downright lying at worst.

To say that Britain survived because of courage is blatantly wrong in the sense that courage was all it took.

They survived because of two things (one would not help, they required both to survive):

21 miles of rough sea and the foresight (and courage) of Fighter Command.

With at least one of those benefits, no other country had the luxury of enjoying.