Is there too much contempt for the French from A&A players?

[Red Harvest]

@Clyde85:

IL, Building a "wall, as you put it, dose seem like a silly idea, now, but at the time it made perfect sense given the experiances of WW1. Large trench warfare was the rule on the western front, and the dead lock had lasted for 4 long, gruling years(all of which im sure you’re quite well versed in, atleast being well read on WW1 is the vibe I get off of you anyway). So, if in the first major conflict by the industrial world was dominated by defensive warfare and large earthen fortifications, logically (atleast with their limited view at that time) Trenches were going to play a prominate part in any other conflict.

I disagree on this.  Fixed fortifications are generally undependable; that has been a facet of warfare from ancient times.  They tend to buy time…but that “purchasing power” can be quite limited:  as when brick coastal forts were repeatedly breached in a day or two during the ACW, when they were designed to hold out for over a month.

And a wall does no good if you leave a large gap!  That is what happened in WWII.  The French military leadership demonstrated limited imagination.  If you build a strong defensive position, you should anticipate being attacked elsewhere where you are not so strong.  Areas deemed impassable by defenders often are not.  And when you start getting reports of enemy movement through those impassable areas, you had better respond accordingly, immediately!

One would think that French leadership would have appreciated combined arms and manoeuver more after the fall of Poland.  Yet, their use of airpower was ineffectual despite fighting over their own turf.  The bomber force did little.  And France doesn’t appear to have been properly prepared for anti-tank warfare or tank-to-tank warfare.  While on paper France had better tanks, their crew system/resulting workload was greatly inferior, and few had radios.  In general, the German military employed a flexible combined arms form of fighting adapting as they went, while France was still fighting WWI.

The more I look at it, the more dismal French WWII military leadership appears.  I was cutting them more slack before this thread than I would now.

[Clyde85]

@Imperious:

If 4 years of knowing that Trench warfare proved nothing in terms of a military result, a more positive direction like what most nations did other than France was to develop offensive lethality in terms of fighting the next war. France just decided “build that wall” and we can ignore real drawbacks of a proper dynamic method of warfare. This stems from another example of taking the easy route when faced with potential conflict.

France just takes the easy way out and never once addresses her real problems. This is because she has no idea how to fight wars and an unwillingness to do so. Either way it is a sign of a weak nation in terms of resolve.

On the contrary, France did address her real problems, as she saw them at the time. You are speaking in terms of hindsight, which France did not have. Also your analysis is rather incomplete and bordering on the juvenile in the terms of your understanding of the real situation. It is important to note, that Britian had formed its military along the same lines as the French, with Armoured formations designed around supporting the infantry. In some cases Britians tanks were even worse with then the French in terms of tank design and during the German blitzkrieg a number of British tanks proved to be next to useless(mounting only light MG’s), while most if not all French tanks could preform in combat against the Germans(though with far inferior 3CI and tatics to the Germans). The British were only saved by the Channle, which as kurt has pointed out, if it werent for that the Germans would have been in London a week after Pairs had fallen. The British continued to use these tatics even well in to the desert war, and while they were good enough to smash the Italinas (which is by no means an accomplishment) they were proved as deadly folly when used against Rommel.

Also, you claim that they didnt address any of their “real problems” but I havent seen you list what any of those specific problems were? Perhapse if you could clarify what you mean by that we could better address them. Something that you must consider is this, France did not have the money or the resources to spend on alot of their problems in terms of updating and improving their military, they simply did not have the budget. It is a well known fact that many French soliders marched to war in 1939 carrying the old Lebel rifles from WW1, even though the far better and more modern MAS 36 was in production. The problem was the French didnt have the budget to pay of these and other newer and much better weapons. As I stated the French had to rebuild naerly its entire heavy industries base through the 1920-30’s and when the global depression hit they couldnt really afford to do this and modernize their military.

Another thing I dont think you give enough credit is the genius of the few German officers who reformed the German army in between the war and created the Blitzkrieg style of warfare. These men were true visionaries and revolutionized warfare, no one could have really anticipated that. Moreover, alot of the tatics the Germans used were not really new to the German amry, but modernizing them with turcks and armoured veichles was. That is why they are lauded as great men of vision, not everbody though this way and that’s what makes them stand out, and rightfully so. Even in Germany men like Guiderian were ridiculed by their peers when they first brought forth their ideas on armoured, just like in many other European countires. Britians Liddell Hart wrote extensively on armoured warfare but was largely ignored, so was Frances Charles de Gaulle, and the Soviet Union’s Mikhail Tukhachevsky was shot as a traitor over his ideas of modern, armoured, warfare. So its not really fair to claim France didnt see Blitzkreig comming, because not many did, and those that had were only vindicated after the fact, remember hindsight is 20/20 �

If you want a more comprhensive understanding of the real formations and tatics used by all sides in the early
stages of WW2, I would strongly suggest checking out the table top game Flames of War, it gives a very comprehensive break down of the units that were around at the time, what they were made up of, how the functioned, and they usually give a good amount of historical information as to how they were used and why. Even if you dont play the game but just buy the source books to read you will find them extreamly informative.

[Imperious Leader]

Also, you claim that they didnt address any of their “real problems” but I havent seen you list what any of those specific problems were?

Well like Liddell Hart advocated for the British like development of mobile warfare and understanding that breaking Logistics was important to removing the potency of the enemy forces.
Stalin also developed large mechanized forces. In the case of France they developed nothing, sake a new Hadrian Wall as its sole contribution to warfare

Perhapse if you could clarify what you mean by that we could better address them. Something that you must consider is this,

France did not have the money or the resources

alot of their problems in terms of updating and improving their military, they simply did not have the budget.

Right because it wasted all her money on that wall, which Germans just went around. The “budget” could have been spent on a proper mechanized aspect of her military rather than rehashed old ww1 tanks with new paint jobs.

[crusaderiv]

The “budget” could have been spent on a proper mechanized aspect of her military rather than rehashed old ww1 tanks with new paint jobs.
France had a lot of project has AMR,AMX and Renault series. Those were not old WWI tank. Again you’re dishonest…
Before the war, German tank were not better than French tank but France didn’t have tank division.
And hosnestly German commanders staff were better than anyone else in 1939 and 1940.

[KurtGodel7]

During 1939, combined French and British military spending exceeded German military spending. Not only that, but Britain and France spent a considerably smaller percentage of their GDPs on the military than did Germany. Even in '38, combined Anglo-French military spending was nothing to sneeze at! By the time the German invasion appeared in France in late spring/early summer of 1940, the French had had plenty of time to correct flaws created by a lack of spending.

That being said, I’m in agreement with Clyde that French military thinking was fairly standard-issue for the time. Blitzkrieg was a case of the Germans being more creative and innovative than the norm, not of the French falling below the norm.

The purpose of the Maginot Line was to allow France to defend its border with Germany using a reduced number of forces. This would free up French forces for use further north, to defend against a repeat of the Schlieffen Plan. France’s strategy may not have been the most creative in the world, but I don’t see it as cowardly.

It is true that France sometimes betrays its allies almost as a matter of course. Daladier’s decision to make false promises to Poland about a general offensive against Germany is the most insipid example of this which comes to mind. Off the top of my head, I cannot think of a single other example in which a nation of any political persuasion deliberately set up an “ally” to get conquered by hostile foreign powers. No one’s mind should ever work the way Daladier’s did back in '39.

But as an American, I must admit that my own nation’s leaders have not always been 100% honorable. Take Woodrow Wilson for example. It’s possible that he really was as naive as he seemed to be, and that he entered WWI with the purest of intentions. It later became obvious that WWI was not really a war “to make the world safe for democracy” so much as it was a war to make the world safe for France to brutally exploit Germany. German children and adults often went to bed hungry during the ‘20s, largely as a result of the massive reparations payments required by Britain and France, and because of those nations’ decision to close their markets–and their empires’ markets–to German imports. (Germany needed money from manufactured goods exports to pay for food imports.)

As WWI drew to a close, it quickly became clear that Britain and France would treat Germany with a mean-spirited and unjustified vindictiveness. Woodrow Wilson had sacrificed American blood . . . for nothing. But when the Soviet Union and Poland went to war in 1919, Wilson had a chance to redeem himself. Here was a war against a truly evil regime. Given that Britain and France insisted on allowing Germany no more than a token military, it was the responsibility of the Western democracies to resist Soviet expansionism. That included the United States–especially because it was Woodrow Wilson’s decision to enter WWI which gave France and Britain the ability to strip Germany of its military. Instead of helping the Polish resist the Soviet invasion, Wilson did nothing. Poland retained its independence not because the Western democracies came to its aid–they didn’t–but because the Polish military, alone and unaided, resisted the Soviet threat. (Successful Polish resistance would not have been possible, had the Soviet Union not been in a state of civil war.)

To take another example: in the years after WWII, the Chinese nationalists were on the verge of finishing off the Chinese communists. At that point, the Truman administration exerted enormous diplomatic pressure on the nationalists to give the communists a respite. The nationalists gave into that pressure–a fact which allowed the communists to regroup. The communists would go on to push the nationalists out of mainland China. Chiang Kai-shek later said that giving into the Truman administration’s diplomatic pressure was the biggest mistake of his life.

Another example of a shameful action committed by the U.S. government was Operation Keelhaul.

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On March 31, 1945, Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt concluded the final form of their plans in a secret codicil to the agreement. Outlining the plan to forcibly return the refugees to the Soviet Union, this codicil was kept secret from the US and British people for over fifty years.[2]

The name of the operation comes from the naval practice of corporal punishment, keelhauling. In his book Operation Keelhaul, Epstein states: “That our Armed Forces should have adopted this term as its code name for deporting by brutal force to concentration camp, firing squad, or hangman’s noose millions who were already in the lands of freedom, shows how little the high brass thought of their longing to be free.”

The refugee columns fleeing the Soviet-occupied eastern Europe numbered millions of people. They included many anti-communists of several categories, assorted civilians, both from the Soviet Union and from Yugoslavia, and fascist collaborationists from eastern Slavic and other countries.

At the end of World War II there were more than five million refugees from the Soviet Union in Western Europe . . .

Often prisoners were summarily executed by receiving Communist authorities, sometimes within earshot of the British.

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FDR had agreed to forcible repatriation of refugees, and Truman carried it out. (As did Winston Churchill.) Had some other power later attained military victory over the Allies, it would have been that power’s responsibility to hang Truman, Churchill, and (if he was still alive) FDR as war criminals.

Yes, French political leaders have done despicable and contemptible things over the years. They have typically been at their worst when they were feeling most pro-communist. Unfortunately, France wasn’t the only Western democracy capable of acting dishonorably in the face of overwhelming Soviet evil; or of delivering up its supposed “allies” to Soviet expansionism.

Maybe we (including me) are spending too much time dwelling on the negative–on all the times Western politicians felt entirely too comfortable with the Soviet Union and its ways. We should also remember there have been times when people–in France, the U.S., and elsewhere–have resisted the evil of communism. Perhaps we should talk a little about the positive (French, British, and American acts of anti-communism, honor, and fidelity).

[Imperious Leader]

France had a lot of project has AMR,AMX and Renault series. Those were not old WWI tank. Again you’re honest…
Before the war, German tank were not better than French tank but France didn’t have tank division.
And hosnestly German commanders staff were better than anyone else in 1939 and 1940.

France had a large number of antiquated tanks left over from WW1. Most nations got rid of these sake France. This was due to the fact that the Maginot Line wasted the majority of the French military budget. Of course France had a few modern designs, but integrating the old slow models was really like sweeping problems under the rug. They didn’t want to cope with real issues of military development in the interwar period. France just hoped all they needed to do was build a short wall and look the other way.

[Red Harvest]

@Clyde85:

On the contrary, France did address her real problems, as she saw them at the time. You are speaking in terms of hindsight, which France did not have.

No, it really didn’t address the real problems or the result would have been very different.  French military leadership was looking at them in WWI terms and did not come up with a WWII solution even after the fall of Poland.  They didn’t figure out how to use combined arms.  To me it’s really not a matter of “national character” or the honor of the soldier or citizens, but rather one of inept leadership.  The organization was inflexible and unable to use its forces wisely or effectively.

There was also an element of defeatism as expressed by PM Reynaud only six days into the fight.  And then there was the incredible dallying of Weygand (who should have been shot on the spot for supreme incompetence.)

The British were only saved by the Channle, which as kurt has pointed out, if it werent for that the Germans would have been in London a week after Pairs had fallen.

But there was that channel and the UK knew that and had a navy and air force in place that could defend it.  That illustrates the massive difference in the quality of strategic planning.  When it became obvious early on that France was collapsing (see Reynaud above), the Brits wisely started withholding squadrons for the defense of the UK.  Meanwhile, newly appointed Weygand took a nap.

Compare with France.  The French faced a more immediate threat than the UK: a fight on their own ground.  Yet the French failed to adapt, proved incapable of fighting a war of manoeuver and weren’t even prepared for a defensive stand that their own strategy entailed.  They were essentially defeated in the first week.

The invasion of Poland already illustrated how Germany would use the combined elements to wage war, so Blitzkrieg should not have been a suprise to astute professionals.  And honestly these concepts were not really new, the weapons were new/improved allowing for more speed in conducting operations.  Elements of the same can be seen in the mounted infantry operations of the American Civil War (which also featured trench warfare.)  For infantry ops look at Stonewall Jackson’s Valley campaign.  Grant even managed to use foot infantry similarly in the Vicksburg campaign, defeating what would have been a numerically superior enemy in detail, dispersing some and bottling up the rest.  Or one could look at Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps.  As for WWII, the same advances in weaponry were not the sole ownership of Germany and also allowed more speed in concentrating defenses or launching counterattacks.  French defense was largely static…in a war of manoeuver.  It wasn’t the speed of the warfare itself that was so much a problem, but the lethargy of the French command structure.

p.s.  Thinking about Weygand and the ACW Vicksburg campaign, his comment about being brought in 2 weeks too late mirrors that of the completely ineffective CSA Gen. Joe Johnston who said the same while he dallied in concentrating forces to oppose Grant’s drive on Vicksburg.

[barney]

you guys really go at it!
sweet!

putting my personal feelings about the french aside(don’t particularly care for them in general) have to agree with red harvest
their leaders let them down when they needed them most
but as bugs bunny says paybacks are a bitch!

[Red Harvest]

@Imperious:

France had a large number of antiquated tanks left over from WW1. Most nations got rid of these sake France.

I don’t think that is correct.  They had a number of interwar designs that resembled some of the WWI designs–such as the overhull tracks of the Char B1’s.

France had a fairly high number of modern tanks with thick enough armor that they were very difficult for the Germans to defeat.  But they were poorly employed because French leadership failed to correctly identify the aims of the German offensive.  These had WWI style turret arrangements, mostly lacked radios, and many had severe mechanical problems from inferior suspension/transmission/engines.  Many of them lacked high enough kinetic energy main guns to knock out the German Panzer III and IV’s of 1940…of course the Germans had this same problem.

Quite a few armies still had the really small tanks, and Germany still had mostly Panzer I and II’s that were too light to engage the French tanks…although they still raised havoc against infantry and light forces.

Germany established air superiority inside France and soon turned that into air supremacy.

[barney]

another problem some of the french tanks had was the commander was gunner also
the germans divided the labor making them more efficient

[CWO Marc]

@Imperious:

Well like Liddell Hart advocated for the British like development of mobile warfare

So did de Gaulle.  Like Liddell-Hart and J.F.C. Fuller in Britain, and Guderian in Germany, de Gaulle (a colonel at the time he was writing about the subject before the war) was a strong advocate of mobile armoured warfare.  He was largely ignored in his own country, as Liddell-Hart and Fuller were largely ignored in theirs. Guderian was to some extent also ignored in Germany, but unfortunately for France and Britain he did get and hold the attention of the man who really counted: Hitler.

[MrMalachiCrunch]

The French tanks were generally better than the German tanks, except for one thing.  German tanks had radios so command and control was immensely better on the German side.

[UN Spacy]

@Imperious:

No you missed the point again. It means that the “French” for the most part are collaborators with the Germans, and acts of defiance were in the minority. The larger point was that the French just support the easy choice of helping the Germans, unlike occupied Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.

Because Yugoslavia and the occupied USSR was treated far, far worse by the Nazis than occupied France was. Naturally you’d expect there to be more resistance against crueler treatment.
And again, your wording is poor. “The French”, again implying that all or most of the French collaborated with the Germans, which they did not. Many were simply trying to get through an increasingly harsher occupation.
Yes, the Resistance was small, even at its peak in 1944. But as I’ve clearly pointed out (and which you’ve conveniently decided to ignore), they were of great use to the Allies, especially leading up to and during D-Day. If you’re going to pretend that the Resistance was just a minor, auxiliary plaything, then I honestly can’t help you there.

Right and it was very easy for them in that case to remain on whichever side was in control, if that changed they just conveniently switch to the other side and do as the new controllers tell them. MY point is nations like UK and USA would never behave in that manner. They would fight against Germany no matter what.

You’re exactly right there, because the US and UK are not the same as France, geographically and politically. The US has an entire ocean to protect them, and the British Isles have a channel. And neither the US or UK were plagued by incompetent and confusing leadership, both in government and military, although that’s not to say the British were less guilty of appeasement or betraying the Poles.

It is also funny that Vichy forces fought against those allies too. But as it looked like the allies are winning …they just turncoated.

You accuse the French of collaborating with the Germans and fighting the Allies, but when the Vichy forces in the colonies joined the Free French you accuse them of being mere turncoats. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t it seems.

But it is true that they did. It just shows that once you get past french pride, either defending the fleet against UK or fighting the allies, or switching against the Germans, these people could be on any side at any time…whatever was easy for them.

“These people”, “those French”.  Yet again, these absolute terms are poor wording on your part, as is the “us vs. them” mentality.  Again ignoring that French politics during that time was extremely complex, which was in no small part due to their own mistakes.

A week:  Berlin fell April 30/May 1st And looking at the map of controlled Germany in May 45 shows that 90% of the country was occupied. IN the case of France only the capital a a much less area of the country are occupied before they fall.

Yes, congratulations, you’ve proved that the German government decided to uselessly resist for a week more and throw more young men to die in a war they lost more than a year ago. Considering that the cause was lost in France in more ways than one, and that France and its populace was simply not prepared to fight another war, of course they’re going to fall more easily.

Their was talk about fighting in Brittany too, but the official French leadership knocked that down. We can only look at the leadership which is representing “every single Frenchman”

No, we can’t only look at the leadership, because as I’ve proven quite clearly, there was Frenchman that continued to fight with the Allies. A number that was small at first in 1940 but grew considerably during the war.

Their is not proof that “every Frenchman”  would love to fight with de Gaulle or serve coffee.

No, but as I’ve said there’s proof that many French people were trying to as peaceful a life you could get in an increasingly brutal occupation.

Right but you have not once accepted the fact that the much greater weight of actions ARE collaborations with Germany

Do you have any numbers, per chance, of the number of people that were actively supporting the Nazis and the Vichy regime?

and a very minor aspect was actually fighting the Germans.

Odd, because that “very minor aspect” became a useful tool for the Allies inside France, and the Free French had continued to grow over the years.

You can’t keep brushing that under the rug of national shame.

No, nor do I intend to. I just completely disagree with your juvenile notion that a great majority of the French populace engaged in active collaboration with the Nazis. You might accuse me of trying to ignore the dark stains of French history at that time, but I can just as easily accuse you of trying to ignore the many instances where French people either continued to fight with the Allies, or simply did not actively collaborate or resist.

That means if they didn’t get financing, likely it would have been much smaller, so the ‘effort’ was conditional. In the case of Lend Lease this represented a vastly smaller portion of finances. For UK financing the Free French, is was a huge and totally funded action. Not mentioning the disparity is pretty hilarious.

That probably has something to do with the fact that the Free French government was a government in exile, whereas the Soviet Union was not. Nothing particularly hilarious about that.

[Gargantua]

I think you need to understand, that NOT FIGHTING is COLLABORATING.

Any frenchman who just “went about his business” during World War II, was a collaborator, and a coward.

So the contempt people have for the french, especially at AA.org is earned. Bottom Line.

[Red Harvest]

@MrMalachiCrunch:

The French tanks were generally better than the German tanks, except for one thing.  German tanks had radios so command and control was immensely better on the German side.

I take the opposite view of the equipment: French tanks were generally worse, except for one thing–they were better armoured.  They were typically slower, had poor suspensions and inherent mechanical difficulties.  They had single man turrets (WWI style) that overworked the TC and resulted in lower firing rates.  (The radio problem has already been mentioned several times as well.)  Their main armament had similar penetrating power to the German guns in most cases, but the Germans had better sighting/gunnery.  Some of the designs were gargantuan…with high profiles and low speed, not desirable traits in tank battles.

The thick armour could have been decisive, if they could get to the point of action.  But with their mechanical problems, strategic blunders/dallying, and Germany having air superiority in France, the French tanks faired more poorly than they should have.  The armour wasn’t saving them from air attack.

Another aspect that is strange is that French artillery was considered to be very good (by the Germans) yet it doesn’t seem to have been used to slow the advance.  One would expect artillery to make a real mess of river crossings and the like.  I’m not sure how much of this was general confusion by the French command, air superiority by the Luftwaffe, or radio comm problems.

[Clyde85]

Red,
I would strongly reccomend you read “Panzer Commander” the memoir of German Col. Hans von Luck. He commanded a recon battalion under Rommel during the French campagin and give alot of insight into issues with the French command and how the French fought, espically the use of the artillery.

[Imperious Leader]

Quote from: Imperious Leader on March 07, 2012, 11:00:14 am
No you missed the point again. It means that the “French” for the most part are collaborators with the Germans, and acts of defiance were in the minority. The larger point was that the French just support the easy choice of helping the Germans, unlike occupied Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.

Because Yugoslavia and the occupied USSR was treated far, far worse by the Nazis than occupied France was. Naturally you’d expect there to be more resistance against crueler treatment.

Again this is because the population had no reservations against fighting against her occupiers. If France did what Yugoslavia did, they would have got the same treatment.

And again, your wording is poor. “The French”, again implying that all or most of the French collaborated with the Germans, which they did not. Many were simply trying to get through an increasingly harsher occupation.

The French had many greater acts of collaboration with the NAZI’s than fighting them. Again you missed the point.

Yes, the Resistance was small, even at its peak in 1944. But as I’ve clearly pointed out (and which you’ve conveniently decided to ignore),

Ignore? How convenient to ignore days before the allies invade or after they invade. Acts of courage hours before the Allies reestablish power? Hilarious!

they were of great use to the Allies, especially leading up to and during D-Day. If you’re going to pretend that the Resistance was just a minor, auxiliary plaything, then I honestly can’t help you there.

Compared to the systematic acts of collaboration, these acts pale in comparison.

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Right and it was very easy for them in that case to remain on whichever side was in control, if that changed they just conveniently switch to the other side and do as the new controllers tell them. MY point is nations like UK and USA would never behave in that manner. They would fight against Germany no matter what.

You�re exactly right there, because the US and UK are not the same as France, geographically and politically. The US has an entire ocean to protect them, and the British Isles have a channel. And neither the US or UK were plagued by incompetent and confusing leadership, both in government and military, although that�s not to say the British were less guilty of appeasement or betraying the Poles.

And how did Yugoslavia use such excuses of physical separation? They didn’t. They fought all the way. Other nations occupied did not just form collaboration government and pretend they are ‘neutral’. You can’t sit there and make excuses for the French because they don’t have people fighting for them behind their backs.

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It is also funny that Vichy forces fought against those allies too. But as it looked like the allies are winning …they just turncoated.

You accuse the French of collaborating with the Germans and fighting the Allies, but when the Vichy forces in the colonies joined the Free French you accuse them of being mere turncoats. Damned if you do, damned if you don�t it seems.

Just shows how flip floppy they are when faced with pressure. They just blow the direction of the wind like a paper bag and unlike other occupied nations prefer to sweep banality of collaboration under a rug of shame.

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But it is true that they did. It just shows that once you get past french pride, either defending the fleet against UK or fighting the allies, or switching against the Germans, these people could be on any side at any time…whatever was easy for them.

�These people�, �those French�.  Yet again, these absolute terms are poor wording on your part, as is the �us vs. them� mentality.  Again ignoring that French politics during that time was extremely complex, which was in no small part due to their own mistakes.

“complex” must be another term to wash away the guilt of shame for collaboration. Again don’t make excuses for them.

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A week:  Berlin fell April 30/May 1st And looking at the map of controlled Germany in May 45 shows that 90% of the country was occupied. IN the case of France only the capital a a much less area of the country are occupied before they fall.

Yes, congratulations, you�ve proved that the German government decided to uselessly resist for a week more and throw more young men to die in a war they lost more than a year ago. Considering that the cause was lost in France in more ways than one, and that France and its populace was simply not prepared to fight another war, of course they�re going to fall more easily.

And again ignoring the fact that Germany was almost completely occupied before they surrendered, unlike France which falls with about 20% of their country is occupied.

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Their was talk about fighting in Brittany too, but the official French leadership knocked that down. We can only look at the leadership which is representing “every single Frenchman”
No, we can�t only look at the leadership, because as I�ve proven quite clearly, there was Frenchman that continued to fight with the Allies. A number that was small at first in 1940 but grew considerably during the war.

Yes some french did decide, while the vast majority went “Vichy”. They became policemen who helped Germans find innocent people and helped lead them to slaughter. So by “fight” you have found a new term which is fight for the Germans.

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Their is not proof that “every Frenchman”  would love to fight with de Gaulle or serve coffee.

No, but as I�ve said there�s proof that many French people were trying to as peaceful a life you could get in an increasingly brutal occupation.

Right. Not worry their pretty heads about such things about how the French nation is collaborating with the enemy, only to worry if the coffee is the right flavor for the German officers…

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Right but you have not once accepted the fact that the much greater weight of actions ARE collaborations with Germany

Do you have any numbers, per chance, of the number of people that were actively supporting the Nazis and the Vichy regime?

Looking that up

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and a very minor aspect was actually fighting the Germans.

Odd, because that �very minor aspect� became a useful tool for the Allies inside France, and the Free French had continued to grow over the years.

That is odd, considering for the 4 years of occupation, most of the french acts of defiance are very few. Funny how “just before the invasion” turns out a few supporters knowing freedom is a few weeks away. How convenient.

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You can’t keep brushing that under the rug of national shame.

No, nor do I intend to. I just completely disagree with your juvenile notion that a great majority of the French populace engaged in active collaboration with the Nazis. You might accuse me of trying to ignore the dark stains of French history at that time, but I can just as easily accuse you of trying to ignore the many instances where French people either continued to fight with the Allies, or simply did not actively collaborate or resist.

Still the point is the acts of collaboration vastly outweighed the acts of resistance. Please come to terms with this fact. It does not matter which french did it or who ordered it. The French did it and ordered it. And by French we mean the “official french government known as Vichy”

And that real strawman argument about " hey following orders means the ‘acts’ that make the French people look like collaborators are really to be blamed on political leadership" and attempt to make some strange separation is the same thing heard at Nuremberg when everybody said “i was following orders”. The German people created Hitler, and the French people created Vichy the acts of each are not in dispute and they are not good acts.

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That means if they didn’t get financing, likely it would have been much smaller, so the ‘effort’ was conditional. In the case of Lend Lease this represented a vastly smaller portion of finances.
For UK financing the Free French, is was a huge and totally funded action. Not mentioning the disparity is pretty hilarious.

That probably has something to do with the fact that the Free French government was a government in exile, whereas the Soviet Union was not. Nothing particularly hilarious about that.

The Free French was not a “government” it was nothing but a loose collection of French soldiers that escaped Dunkirk. The “French Government” was in fact Vichy collaborating with the Germans for 4 years. The Free French was also a number of military units fighting with the allies and totally financed by UK.

Yugoslavia had military units fighting the Germans under Tito, but these took what they needed by killing Germans and sabotaging everything possible that the Germans could benefit from. They did not serve coffee either.

[crusaderiv]

The French tanks were generally better than the German tanks, except for one thing.  German tanks had radios so command and control was immensely better on the German side.

You’re right. In fact, Bad communication in the French army it’s one of the reason of the French defeat in 1940.
The first reason was the incompetence of their high commands.

another problem some of the french tanks had was the commander was gunner also
the germans divided the labor making them more efficient
I agree.

putting my personal feelings about the french aside(don’t particularly care for them in general) have to agree with red harvest their leaders let them down when they needed them most
Bingo now you talk!!! Second reason why French lost the war. The french soldiers were abandoned by their superior and some opted for surrendering while the others fought till the end.

I think you need to understand, that NOT FIGHTING is COLLABORATING.
Any frenchman who just “went about his business” during World War II, was a collaborator, and a coward.
What about Norway, Danemark, Netherlands? Are they brave or coward?

[Clyde85]

I think everyone should stop trying to convince IL of anything other then what he wants to hear.

To get back to the point, I dont think France is held in too much contempt (with few notable exceptions) in terms of A&A, its just that where this game picks up France is about to fall. I dont view this as contempt, its just where France was at the historical date, and once metropolitian France falls there isnt much else for France to do so they do tend to get marganlized and largely ridiculed as a result. Looking at it objectively one can understand players looking down on France as statisticly speaking there isnt much chance (save for a wrathful dice god looking down on you) of France resisting the German invasion and after that France’s military forces can usually be counted on one hand. In a game that is the size and scope of A&A1940 the remaining French forces will never be more then a speed bump to the other players and the “contempt” with which they are held only make good sense. The remaining French force barely register as a threat to an Italian player never mind the Germans and if the allies (the UK in particular) were to place any sort of strategy on these forces it would be a blunder the likes Singapore! So I think the “contempt”, which isnt really a fair way to describe it, in terms of A&A1940 is more or less justified given the circumstance in which France finds itself. Most of the stuff we have been discussing is all pre-war and dosnt apply to the time setting of 1940. An idea to address all this would be to have an A&A game focused soley on Europe and have it start in 1939 with the Germans invading Poland, then all these things could be played out. As A&A1940 stands this sort of thing is all academic.

One could call this “unfair treatment” of the French from a historical standpoint, but from a game desing aspect it is a necessity. France needs to fall in order to drive the rest of the game forward and get to the bigger and some would say more important part of the game, the show down between the Germans and the Soviets. Given the depth of this game and the attention lavished on the eastern front portion of the map(and the huge number of changes made to the set-up and rules to make sealion more and more unfeasible) it is clear to me that this is where the game designer intended the biggest and more important part of the battles to take place. As another indication that the east front is “where its at” (ducks to dodge thrown rotten fruit) is the great length gone to in sebsequent rivisions to reduce the appeal of a Japanese strike on the Soviet union (adding in IPC penalties, changing the status of neutrals, ect) to make it a pure Soviet v German (and maybe a few Italians) fight.

To me A&A1940 kinda works like a well written story with a solid begining, middle, and exciting ending. The fall of France is like the introduction, it shows us who the main charaters are and set’s up the following chapters. The fall of France is actually quite dramatic, as the sudden influx of IPC’s gives the German war machine some serious clout and rightly put the fear of god (or more rightly fear of the Germans) in the allied, espically the UK, player(s). Now with the scene set the story beings with the Axis warmachine ratcheting itself up and positioning itself so it can best skull F the allies and the few active allied players scrambling to check them. This goes on for the first few turns but then ratchets up further when the USA and the Soviet Union get into the fray. Once this happens we have come to the middle, the meat of this story/game if you will. Now the Axis war machine has a real threat to contend with as two new players whos strenght can not only check them but have the ability to counter attack and drive them back have entered the fray. Then as the game moves forward we come to what will be a thrilling ending where either A) the Allies have worked together and wrecked the Axis forces, with Japan blockaded on its home island fotress like a classic Bond villain and the Anglo-Americans joining hands with the Soviets somewhere over a defeated Germany or B) The Germans storm into Moscow and cruch the Soviet Union once and for all after having used mechanized forces based out of central France and western Germany to crush the 7th Anglo-American attepmt to land in Normandy and Japan is poised to have a long drawn out struggle with the Americans(and a few Anzacs) in the Pacific having crushed all resistance on the Asian mainland. That fact that the games overall layout work out like this just speaks to the good design. Another show of good design is the fact that you could replace all the historical countries and weapons with fantasy elements (elves, humans, dwarfs, orcs, gobblins, dragons, ect) and still have just and exciting and thrilling game.

In the end France dose catch a somewhat bad rap but in terms of the A&A game itself this justified as they are rendered next to useless by the first turn of the game. If anything the country I think is treated with too much contempt is the Soviet Union. I can understand where this comes from a historical standpoint but in terms of a game is just seems kinda of silly. This is a game, its ment to be fun and the horrible things that actually happened during the war shouldnt really factor into the playing of the game itself.

[Clyde85]

@crusaderiv:

I think everyone should stop trying to convince IL of anything other then what he wants to hear.
yeah you’re right but he loves to play this game……

Yeah I guess, but I feel hashing over and over again why certian players dont like countries is taking away of disucssing the general vibe of the community as a whole. There are some very loud members of the comunity with very strong opinions but spending 5 pages discussing why they inparticualr have the views they do is a waste of time as it is their opinions and they are more then welcomed to them just as I am welcomed to disagree with them. What we should be discussing is Why this feeling exists, or why certian members precieve these feelings to exist, in the first place.