When Germany attacked Russia, over 3 million Russians were captured and numerous cities abandoned by the Russians. That was true up until about December 1942. Only then did the Russians begin to fight back as "dogged and fearless defenders of their homeland". Until then, they ran like rats and surrendered in huge masses.

You know why don't you?

Yes, I do.

Very Good Carry On

That they didn't form reserves with the obvious cloud of major war hanging over their heads for months is inexcusable. They had the entire period of the "Phony War" to make these preparations.

That they didn't form them after WWI, or really given their entire long history of war and fighting off attacks on their own soil shows a generational leadership stupidity that seems incomprehensible to my mind.

Perhaps if France hadn't poured vast sums of cash into the Maginot line, "a testament to the stupidity of man," they'd have been able to defend their capital.

And honestly, huge quantities of rifles and grenades (augmented with molotov's) could be handed out to the population by the government in under a week....if only someone thought of it.

With the population of a whole city as laborers extensive prepared urban defenses could be effected in a matter of days. With the background you say you have you certainly don't need me to tell you that.

Had the Parisians fought for their fortified city after having been haphazardly armed by the Gov't they could have inflicted very heavy casualties on the Nazis. If the French people had dug in and fought at all their major cities with hastily trained and equipped fedayeen type forces WWII would have developed completely differently.

It is not fair to say that there were no examples of these types of forces...the US made great use of these sorts of "minute men" forces since the dawn of their country, as did the Swiss.

France had months to take precautions and prepare itself for the huge war that they knew was about to come. By your own admission, they were woefully deficient in preparing any kind of an armed reserve/home security force. They didn't even arm their police...

For the most part, yes, it was. And look what happened to them.

England had a Home Guard though. And while poorly equipped they would have fought with whatever they had, as would the British people. Come now, you know the Churchill speech.

If you mean it was just attacked at the Germans leisure after they drove around it, sure, it worked exactly as planned.

Too bad the French didn't build the maginot line ringing their major cities and ports instead, eh?

Everyone stopped the Italians cold in WWII.

Huge parts of the Soviet Union were virtually devoid of troops at all times....you don't have to defend open space in a manuever battle, you can also defend in fortified areas. Forests, mountain ranges......cities.

And also, the fact that France had no reserve force in case of exactly the sort of failures that occured is another example of extreme idiocy.

Yeah, me and countless tens of millions of informed people have it all wrong. The French really fought brilliantly. Giving the Nazis all they could handle.

The truth is, the Poles put up a far more impressive defense of their homeland than France did.

Well it's nice to know that the French will at least fight hard when completely surrounded by Nazis with their back to sea....

And who's trying to say the Russians fought well in the beginning of the war? It's widely accepted fact that they were totally disorganized and fought extremely poorly in the opening phases of the war. I don't see anyone denying that.

What france didn't have was the will to fight to the bitter end, like the British and the Russians had. Many feel they were broken and tired from the horrors inflicted on them by the Germans in WWI. Whatever the cause, they fought very poorly, and executed outmoded tactics combined with very poor strategic vision. Not forming a reserve to defend key ports and cities when MAJOR war is imminent? Some of the troops may have fought well, but the leadership was horrendous, as was their war plan.

Idiocy.

I don't see anyone trying to defend any of the other countries that fought poorly and showed a lack of fighting spirit and national courage. Only France.

And i really don't know why you think i'm being emotional. It doesn't really affect me at all that the French fought so poorly. You're the one that lives there, i suggest it's you that's affected by your loyalties to your adopted country.

If you want to study how not to fight a war, France's part in WWII is a damn good place to start.

Hard to fault the French for declaring Paris open, even though they are judged harshly for it.

The defense of France had largely collapsed, the impenetrable defenses had done almost nothing, and the Germans had reached the English Channel in what, 10 days? This essentially cut off the best of the French forces.

Even if weapons and men had been available to throw together a proper defense of the city, I would imagine the hopelessness of defending Paris was clear, and the advantages for delaying the fall weren't really there. Sitting on the Seine it does have strategic value, but it is not exactly Thermopylae.

Given the options of dying a symbolic death defending a clearly doomed Paris or bugging out and becoming a partisan, I'll take the latter.

Live to fight another day.

To the contrary, it's not hard to fault them at all.

Right off the top, not fighting for your capital is disgraceful.

Had the french made a final desparation effort even post invasion to arm the people and launched city wide efforts accross france to fortify the capitals and ports they could have tied up the nazis for a long time, possibly even a year or more, and inflicted huge quantities of casualties on Wermacht forces.

Imagine how much easier things are for the British in the Atlantic if the French dig in and fight to the last man for their ports and cities. It would delay the Battle of Britian and allow the British time to build up their airforces and defenses before the critical battle even started.

Even if the French ultimately lost, they could have made the Germans earn the victory, and paved the way for a much quicker eventual invasion into the European continent by the Brits and ANZAC/Canadian forces against a heavily bled Wermacht.

Barbarossa might not have even been possible at that point. The repercussions on the overall war effort would be endless and immense.

But the French simply gave up instead.

Didn't the Brits burn down DC in 1814 without much (if any) of a fight?

Did the US surrender after DC was burned, or did US forces decimate the British force shortly thereafter at the Battle of New Orleans with a reserve force of Kentucky Volunteers?

Or did the US just "declare New Orleans an open city" to "save" it?

Greater Paris had a population of around 7million at the time, with about 1/3 of the men serving in the military IIRC. That is a lot of women and children.

So what you are saying is abandoning the capitol to fight another day is OK. Thanks for clearing that up ;)

New Orleans is a dump. Defending and trying to get the British to destroy and burn as much as possible could have just been wishful thinking for urban renewal.;)

Women and Children are good fighters too. It's an ugly truth- but it is a truth.

And that is a hell of a lot of trigger pullers and trench diggers, even if they had no more than shovels, sporting arms, grenades, obsolete military rifles, and molotov cocktails.

Except they didn't fight another day. They surrendered.

I cannot disagree there. :D

But seriously....why do people remember Bastogne? Or Thermopalye? Or the Alamo? Or Stalingrad? Why are these battles used as historical examples of extreme bravery and courage?

Becuase the defending forces -massively outnumbered, cut off and surrounded- fought, to the death if neccesary, against all odds.

They carved their names into history and into the hides of their enemy. The 101st Airborne. The Spartans. The Texans. The Russians.

All are now legendary forces or peoples because of what they did when given the choice between fighting, no matter the odds, or surrendering to save themselves.

Had the French fought like that after their army collapsed, their reputation would be completely different today, wouldn't it?

But they didn't.

Its interesting to see how people's own perspective and experience, to say little of their 'aggressive' spirit places different values on the same event.

However they are trumped by the context in which those events took place.

The fall of France had as much to do with WW1 as with the actual actions in the opening months of WW2.

One thing that we, or for the most part we, cannot begin to comprehend is the devastation that WW1 caused to the entire populations of Europe, but in particular to the UK and France (as well as the Germans)...

Once the Armistice had been signed there was a period of total shock at the human cost of this 'War to end all Wars'. This resulted in a number of years of military 'denial' if you will that a war on this scale could/should/ would ever be fought again.

Imagine, if you will, the male population of entire neighbourhoods being wiped out, of villages in both the UK and France begin reduced by 75% by 1918. This has major effects which are beyond our emotional comprehension in terms of being mentally and emotionally prepared for another war. Then there is the resulting manpower reduction as fewer men meant fewer children etc etc.

So when Sniper talks about forming militias, the Home Guard and so forth in the abstract he is correct, but in the then current reality there was no will, no materiel and no manpower to create these.. the Army was the one key instrument that was there to do this and the thought process was to devote the entire effort to this rather than dilute the limited and finite resources over a wider scope.
Snipe please read up about the Home guard.. it is a frightening read and its creation was a desperate measure, of a terrified leadership more concerned with giving hope to the locals than the creation of an effective force....

And the mention of the Swiss is both irrelevant and very pertient. The Swiss at the time had a minuscule standing Army, fractions of the size (in % terms) than the French and the UK. That was its choice...and it bolstered this by the creation of a conscript Army, a reserve Army that when called up was far larger than the standing Armies. So a viable model for the type of war that the Swiss were preparing to fight is there.. and its the war the French ended up fighting, but in the 1930s there was NO perception that this was the type of war that was going to be fought (by either the French or the British) and so neither were prepared for it.

Is this incompetence? If yes then all of the European nations are in the same category.. including the Germans...and to a great degree the US.

If this is arrogance then all are guilty.

Preparing to fight the war just won rather than the one we will fight is a very current issue...if we look at the UK in the Falklands.. how prepared were we for that? Or the US in Vietnam.. or even the UK/US in Afganistan currently....

So whilst we all have our views framed by our own perspectives and feelings it behoves us all to acknowledge, even if only in passing, that our view of reality, especially of events such as WW1 is not necessarily that which was current at the time.. or even one that is shared....so Snipe.. your tens of millions who think XYZ are balanced out by the tens of millions who feel that what happened was a rational and reasonable approach 'at the time'...

The fall of Paris may not be the Alamo...but a truth of the Alamo is that it is regarded as much for its 'senseless waste' as for its 'ccourage'.

the relevant quote is

""we never won a battle nor did we need to
all that was needed was to fight ONE DAY LONGER"" Gen Gap

so the USA could have sent troops for 20-30 years
and the end results would have been the same
just cost more blood and treasure over a longer time
knowing a no win situation is a skill
one that many seam to lack esp on the rightwing

This is an interesting debate, so i'll keep it going...

I specifically mentioned the theory that many hold, that the French will to fight had been broken by WWI, and that they just didn't have the stomach to dig in and do it all over again.

It doesn't make it right or any less cowardly to just surrender your whole country largely intact and en masse though.

And again, as was mentioned, Paris in 1940 had a population of 7 million people. Paris had no shortage in able human bodies.

The Soviets bled just as badly in WWI....and when Barbarossa rolled around, even despite horrendous losses in men, materiel, and territory....they did not surrender their nation.

Mass surrender is simply not in the Russian national character. If the Russians had surrendered as France did, WWII would have been unwinnable without the eventual use of massed nuclear weapons against Germany in 1946 by the USAAF.

When the British stood alone, surrounded, hopelessly outmatched on the ground by the Wermacht, thier air force on the brink, did they surrender? Or did they fight on, no matter the odds?

We know the answer to that question, and the famous quote uttered by Sir Winston Churchill in reference to the RAF....

"Never in the history of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."

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The will to continue the fight is a matter of leadership and national character. If you have it no army can defeat you.

The manpower was there, you just have to include women and teenagers in the equation. The materiel was there, you just have to include sporting arms, improvised arms, and obsolete military arms in the equation.

What was lacking was will and leadership. Without the will to fight, no army- no matter how large, can protect you. With the will to fight to the end, no matter the odds or circumstances, no army can defeat you.

If you fall fighting to the last man against insurmountable odds your name will grow to legendary status, you will become a rallying cry for all your countrymen and allies, and your name will reverberate throughout posterity as what is best in men.

The Afghan (and Vietnamese) people are a testament to the latter half of this equation, just as the French are a testament to the former part of this equation.

Hope is exactly what the home guard was about. And it was also about creating will. And a spirit of defiance. Much like Churchill's famous speech. It was a message to the Nazis.

What that message said is that no matter the odds, we will fight you to the last man if needs be. We will fight you from Canada, from our colonial territories. We will never surrender.

Audio of Churchill's speech here:

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To me, this is the greatest and most inspirational speech since the invent of audio recording. It set the tone for the British effort of WWII, and it told the Soviets that if they too continued to fight, they would not be alone. It told the Americans that any investment made in the British would not be wasted, but would be money well spent.

This speech should have been delivered from Paris under siege, by a Frenchman. Had it been, the man who delivered it would now be an iconic historical figure, and people would point to him and say his name whenever free men needed inspiration.

Instead people mention the name of France with a snicker, and hold them as an example of cowardice and how not to defend your nation.

Yes, this is a total failure in planning. And it was a need that the US recognized in 1936, with the advent of the National Guard.

And again, given France's specific national history, the usefulness of such a force should have been plainly evident, and i'm sure to many that it was. But as usual, France's leadership failed them.

Had they hastily formed such a force even as Nazi forces descended on Norway, my how things could have been so much different. A Nation's greatest responsibility is to defend it's own people and it's own lands.

This is something that France and the low countries failed at utterly.

Some of us more than others.

You are quite correct. The issue, then, becomes how fast a nation realizes it's deficiencies and corrects them. How fast their leadership takes charge and rights the militaristic wrong. How much the leadership fights and claws to keep irreplaceable capabilities from being lost to begin with.

Anyone that thinks that complete national capitulation without so much as a half-hearted defense of their own capital is "reasonable and rational" had better not ever get into a fox hole with me.

Because i will kill you myself.

One could consider many inspirational rallying cry battles senseless wastes if viewed simply from a body count perspective, but the truth is that inspiring an entire nation or alliance to fight is worth any one tactical defeat.

"It is the indomitable spirit of man that ensures victory, not the arms he uses."
~Gen. George S. Patton

Unfortunately for the French, they had a severe deficiency of the former.

Numbers and mathematical equations do not win battles, the hearts of the men and women that fight them do.

Many on this BBS are appalled when I mention the cowardice that Americans have shown repeatedly in their history. History is often ugly.

Mass surrenders, abandonment of allies, running like rats. Americans have done this more than once. But who tars the entire group with a charge of cowardice?

England ran in France, She ran in Rangoon, she ran in North Africa. Six other Western European countries lasted shorter than France did. Russia gave up land and POWs for time (a luxury no one else had), England hide behind the Channel (another luxury no one else had). But because of a few hard fought later battles, all their early cowardice is apparently forgiven.

And no matter the reasons for the Fall of France and no matter the number of French who died, or French who risked all for the Allies, fought bravely, and in the end won; you and other Americans want to paint the French as cowards collectively. And you don't think this is based on emotion?

If the US had ever run or surrendered on a national scale i'd call my country cowardly myself.

But comparing a tactical retreat to a mass capitulation of the entire body of your people and the whole of your soil is not a valid comparison.

"the poodle bites............the poodle chews". francois zappa

"feelings(emotions)?" "we dont have NO STINKING FEELINGS-EMOTIONS"!

as i stated ...........had it NOT been for the industrial/manpower backing of the united states during wwI/wwII, france and england would be spechen sie deutschen. and poodles would be called "das curly/girly hunds".

So, because of a few leaders in the highest offices, the entire nation is judged?:eek:

No matter how many fought on in any way they could, and no matter what they accomplished?

France was cursed with some very poor leaders, the French as a whole have always been willing to fight. Yeah, I see the double standard applied here.

Charlie boy, go back to masturbating about German weapons and leave the adults to talk.

Did the people overthrow that cowadly and capitulating gov't? Or at the least simply ignore their order to surrender and fight on? Did the French military? Did a military leader step up with his own plan to arm the citizenry in his sector and fight on even after the nation had surrendered? Did the people refuse to surrender and turn the streets of every french city into killing zones of their own accord?

Did the French fleet immediately put to sea and broadcast their intentions to fight on regardless of the cowardice of their national leadership?

The answer for the overwhelming majority of them, is no.

Where was the great French fleet when it was needed at Dunkirk? Why weren't their battlecruisers and battleships blasting the advancing Germans with their big guns? Perhaps with the whole of the French fleet and the RN Dunkirk could have been held, and that foothold not lost. But the French fleet never put to sea. It's leadership sat idle and paralyzed, just as the national civilian leadership did.

I have great respect for the Free French resistance and Free French Forces, but the rest were cowardly collaborators and surrender monkeys, and deserve nothing but mockery and scorn- for they have stained their entire national honor, perhaps for centuries. They saved themselves so that others might perish in their place.

And it is because of their lack of a willingness to refuse to surrender and fight on, regardless of the odds, that the Nazis were able to subjugate as many peoples as they did, as quickly as they did. Had the French citizenry in the big cities and ports fought with the sheer will and determination of the defenders of Stalingrad, there would have very possibly been no Barbarossa at all.

I expect nothing more of the French than i would expect of my own neighbors were we in their shoes ourselves. There is no double standard.

Several tried.

Yes, many units did from the UK, Vichy and North Africa, both resistance and military.

Yes, we call them the Resisitance and the Free French military supported them.

No, nor did they in Poland, Denmark, England, Holland, Belgium, Norway, Austria, Chekoslovakia, Malta, the Channal Islands, Hawaii, or in America during the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812 or the Civil War. This did not happen in Russia or China. In fact, I cannot think of a country where this has happened.

They did anounce they would not let their ships fall into German hands and would not engage in combat with the Allies. Without air superiority, fleets were totally vunerable to aircraft, so no fighting on was possible except to commit suicide.

No, as you can see, the answers were mostly yes.

In the Mediterraian, where they were supposed to be in accord with the defense arrangements with Britian.

Because they were not in range. The elements of the Northern French Naval Forces did do this and helped save the British army with greater cost to themselves than the British Navy at Dunkirk.

They were five thousand miles away for the most part as per argreement with Britian. How were they supposed to help again? And after the fall of Northern France the Vichy government controlled them.

The defenders of Stalingrade were the military. the civilians were kept as slave labor at gunpoint in most cases as they could not retreat if they wanted to. After the initial German bombing attacks, the vast majority of civilians were evacuated across the river. Only a few civilians stayed on.

I taught, fought and studied unconventual warefare for 30 years. I respect your personal beliefs and courage. But I do not see any evidence then or now that your neighbors would stand up to a professional military for more than a few minutes. It is always a tiny minority that allow a guerilla war to exists, with the required majority to do nothing more than live in the same area. You know that and that is why we will never win in Afghanistan.

Expecting the majority of your neighbors to fight to the death is not supported by history or human nature.