Dbwi: What the forum think of Petain?

Oocc: on this timeline, the main way of knowing someone vision of Petain is based if they call him a president, general and leader for positive or dictator, proto fascist and tyrant for negative.

Look, I'm not a European and imI trying to build my vision on this fascinating character. Since he calmed the situation after the Neville desastre in '17 he became very active on the French political scene and couped the government with the help of the French non fascist far right after Hitler broke the munich agreement. In one hand his adoption of De Gaulle mobile doctrine and masterfully prediction that the Germans would come from the Ardennes on the invasion of BeNeLux into France allowed him to stall them and later crush the third Reich with of course the help of the British massive bombing campaign, and later took steps to contain the Soviet union on the early cold war; on the other hand he madd a coup claiming that Dalardier would led France into desaster by being to weak and led a brutal persecution of left wing elements. Based on that I want to know: What do you think of Phillipe Petain?
 
Oocc: on this timeline, the main way of knowing someone vision of Petain is based if they call him a president, general and leader for positive or dictator, proto fascist and tyrant for negative.

Look, I'm not a European and imI trying to build my vision on this fascinating character. Since he calmed the situation after the Neville desastre in '17 he became very active on the French political scene and couped the government with the help of the French non fascist far right after Hitler broke the munich agreement. In one hand his adoption of De Gaulle mobile doctrine and masterfully prediction that the Germans would come from the Ardennes on the invasion of BeNeLux into France allowed him to stall them and later crush the third Reich with of course the help of the British massive bombing campaign, and later took steps to contain the Soviet union on the early cold war; on the other hand he madd a coup claiming that Dalardier would led France into desaster by being to weak and led a brutal persecution of left wing elements. Based on that I want to know: What do you think of Phillipe Petain?
The Coup resulted in France becoming a dictatorship, which lasted for 30 years. despite its economic development during these era, culturally and politically, it set the nation back.
 
Must remember that France became quiet reactionary and isolated nation after Anglo/French/Soviet-German War. Things in colonies went quiet messy in 1940's and De Gaulle managed pull French out in 1950's and even that almost resulted new coup. De Gaulle anyway allowed return to democracy in 1960's. Decolonisation might had been smoothier without Pétain's coup and regime. And even Pétain had difficulties defeat Germany in 1940. But even without him French probably would had defeated Germans anyway altough it might had last longer. And perhaps Soviets remain out of war instead conquering big parts of Germany and puppetise that like in OTL.
 
The Coup resulted in France becoming a dictatorship, which lasted for 30 years. despite its economic development during these era, culturally and politically, it set the nation back.

Did really set back? I mean, while him and his minions did suppressed "new" arts, songs and tried to crack down hard on the counter culture until the dictatorship ended, he also promotes a cultural revival of old arts, conservatoriums, expanded a lot of the French educational system including into Algeria and dakar...
 
Did really set back? I mean, while him and his minions did suppressed "new" arts, songs and tried to crack down hard on the counter culture until the dictatorship ended, he also promotes a cultural revival of old arts, conservatoriums, expanded a lot of the French educational system including into Algeria and dakar...
Tell that to the families of those who 'dissapeared' during the Dirty war there.
 
... In one hand his adoption of De Gaulle mobile doctrine and masterfully prediction that the Germans would come from the Ardennes on the invasion of BeNeLux into France allowed him to stall them and later crush the third Reich ...

A lot of post war myth there. Petain was in fact one of the interwar architects of the 'Methodical Battle' doctrine that distributed armor vs concentration, and backed the construction of the CORF fortification project (the Maginot Line). The mobile forces that contributed to the defeat of the German offensive in May/June 1940 had been developed during Gamelins tenure as chief of the army and final months as generalissimo. Those operated under a doctrine different from that proposed by DeGualle, and were accordingly used in the battle differently than his vision. DeGaulles elevation for command the Corps de Char came after the battle & campaign were won & in any decent analysis it took near a year for the French army to retrain to fit is methods to DeGaulles prewar vision, or what remained valid of it. Petains contribution was the replacement of a few key army commanders before and during the battle, a rigorous training program during the winter of 1939-40 that brought the B & C Series formations to combat readiness, and similar direction keeping the Armee de Air to maintain a active forward and aggressive battle contingent. Critical analysis suggests that had Gamelins policy of improving entrenchments/fortification vs training thru the winter, of not replacing select 'heroes of the great war' in the generals ranks, and scheduling a wide stand down by the Armee de Air, in April-July to transition to new machines; then the German attack would have been more difficult to defeat & a large portion of the ground forces- the B & C series- unable to cope.

Gamelin was past due for replacement. Its not impossible a government under Daladier, Reynaud, or some other would have replaced Gamelin & changed key policies as Petain did. The changes were infact recognized as needed by many including Gamelin. It was the latters obsession with detail, extensive instruction or orders, and slowness of action that had been working agains the French army.

Neither was the massive surge of spending on the military that occurred under Petain unique. The Chamber of Deputies had several remedial spending bills in preparation, Some larger than what Petain actually spent. Then there was the problem of reorganizing large swaths of French industry to support military mobilization. In this Petains ministers followed fairly closely the schedules laid on in 1938 by Gamelin & Daladier.
 
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Agreed. Also his decision to not deploy the best French armies forward to the Dyle when the Belgians did not want to allow the allies into their territory unless they were attacked by the Germans was important. "If the Belgians do not want to save the whole of their country we will be excused if we decide just to save a small portion of it", he is quoted to have said (possibly is a misquotation but is good enough).

He has been called a tragic figure. But I think it was far more tragic for those who suffered the repression under his regime. Well, there is that saying (historically unfair but considering a few very famous precedents understandable): "The French should think about giving their best generals a grand military parade in thanks for their service to the Republic before sending them to prison just in case".
 
Agreed. Also his decision to not deploy the best French armies forward to the Dyle when the Belgians did not want to allow the allies into their territory unless they were attacked by the Germans was important. "If the Belgians do not want to save the whole of their country we will be excused if we decide just to save a small portion of it", he is quoted to have said (possibly is a misquotation but is good enough).

He has been called a tragic figure. But I think it was far more tragic for those who suffered the repression under his regime. Well, there is that saying (historically unfair but considering a few very famous precedents understandable): "The French should think about giving their best generals a grand military parade in thanks for their service to the Republic before sending them to prison just in case".


Well, so he is a hero or he is not? His hymn was very classy, this we know:


Tell that to the families of those who 'dissapeared' during the Dirty war there.

While I agree that those war crimes were horrid and that Petain had a lot of guilty of that, he was not in power when the war exploded in the 60s. And we must not forget how the Pied Noir were expulsed or massacrated after De Gaulle gave independence to Algeria.
 
While I agree that those war crimes were horrid and that Petain had a lot of guilty of that, he was not in power when the war exploded in the 60s. And we must not forget how the Pied Noir were expulsed or massacrated after De Gaulle gave independence to Algeria.
He tried to make Algeria French by his programs in a time, late 40's and the 50's, when it was clear how and where the wind was blowing the arab world. These schooling measures were not only attacked by conservative forces, who saw it as a prelude to a ban on local languages, but also by progressive forces. They noted that even if an arab passed the baccalaureate with felicitations du jury (highest honor) they still wouldn't be admitted to the Sorbonne or the Ecole normale superieure.
No wonder the first FLN bomb in Algiers blew up a statue of Petain.
 
He tried to make Algeria French by his programs in a time, late 40's and the 50's, when it was clear how and where the wind was blowing the arab world. These schooling measures were not only attacked by conservative forces, who saw it as a prelude to a ban on local languages, but also by progressive forces. They noted that even if an arab passed the baccalaureate with felicitations du jury (highest honor) they still wouldn't be admitted to the Sorbonne or the Ecole normale superieure.
No wonder the first FLN bomb in Algiers blew up a statue of Petain.

There is no moral justification for what they did, it was not only with Petain, the islamist wing of FLN made something comparable to what the nazis did with Poland¹, even Notre D'ame de Afrique, they destroyed entire neighbourhoods and replaced french families that were living there for generations with colonists from southern Algeria, the historical damage cannot be recovered.

¹OOCC: Overexageration, but on this timeline the FLN still caused a lot of destruction on TTL.
 
There is no moral justification for what they did, it was not only with Petain, the islamist wing of FLN made something comparable to what the nazis did with Poland¹, even Notre D'ame de Afrique, they destroyed entire neighbourhoods and replaced french families that were living there for generations with colonists from southern Algeria, the historical damage cannot be recovered.

¹OOCC: Overexageration, but on this timeline the FLN still caused a lot of destruction on TTL.
OOCC: I'm trying to built a comparison with Salazar here. In OTL there's still a certain nostalgia among certain Portuguese. My emphasis on the colonies is a genuine critique given against Salazar in OTL. /OOCC
That sounds like a whataboutism. By strictly holding on to the colonies, Petain gave his direct succesors a major almost unsolvable problem. He set the policy in Algeria for many years to come, and can be held accountable at least partly for the outcome.
 
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