France never Fell?

There was no "anti-militarism" in France before WW2, and I doubt there was any in other countries either. What there was, was a deep sense of war being something to be avoided if at all possible.

I agree. On one hand, you might have a less "anti-militaristic" France and Britain if jingoistic, right-wing parties like the BUF and Action Francaise were elected, but then you'd have a much different 30s and 40s.
 
I agree. On one hand, you might have a less "anti-militaristic" France and Britain if jingoistic, right-wing parties like the BUF and Action Francaise were elected, but then you'd have a much different 30s and 40s.
Considering that France's militarization began under Blum's Front Populaire, I think that would also be true if his government had lasted longer.
 
I read somewhere that it took till May 1940 for the Germans to replace the supplies, and repair the equipment used in the Polish invasion.

?Any Idea how long the German stockpiles would have lasted if France hadn't collapsed so quickly?
 
There was no "anti-militarism" in France before WW2, and I doubt there was any in other countries either. What there was, was a deep sense of war being something to be avoided if at all possible. Which is a position you might understand more easily if half of your male relatives had died in the trenches of the previous war, and every time you went out you walked past war veterans with horribly disfigured faces and missing limbs.

Fleury9.gif


How gung-ho do you expect this guy to be about having another round of it?

People have always been hurt in war, but sometimes it is an evil we have to take!
 
Considering that France's militarization began under Blum's Front Populaire, I think that would also be true if his government had lasted longer.

Interesting. What sort of militarization did France partake in? I'm familiar with the party, but not much more than the very basics. If the Front Populaire was actually like that, you might be able to get something like what OP described.
 

Typo

Banned
France like every other country was in pre-ww2 infected by the virus known as anti-national defence etc.
So what if anti-millitarism hadn't taken hold i Western Europe and maybe different leaders in the French Army. What then?
France, with a population of 40 million, which means around 20 million males, lost 6 million of it's men dead and maimed in the Great War. Pretty much all of those are battlefield death, which meant the military aged ones died the most. Given this, some type of anti-war mood among the general public was inevitable from the Great War on.

People have always been hurt in war, but sometimes it is an evil we have to take!
And more often, it's not
 
What if the German advance which split the BEF and French army was blunted enough to allow the BEF to fall back to the south of France, giving the French defence a boost.

With the better part of 330,000 men on side the French would probably manage to hold Paris even with their lower quality units. With the extra industrial power and population of the unnoccupied France the Allies could probably make the German advances painful, and force them to move troops from occupied areas until they were fighting partisans and possibly soviet infiltrators bogging the Germans down much earlier in the war. If Southern France was held North Africa wouldn't be at nearly so much risk, the battle of the atlantic would have a large French fleet hunting the U-boats as well, and the Germans wouldn't have the advantage of French industry in producing their ships.
 

Hendryk

Banned
People have always been hurt in war, but sometimes it is an evil we have to take!
That's incredibly easy for you to say from the comfort of your armchair.

Though at least you're no longer claiming that Europe was "infected" with "anti-militarism". Soldiers, and the military as a whole, were highly respected by the general public, and with a draft in place everyone knew someone in uniform.
 
The Germans were just as surprised by their success as the Allies were. The bulk of their armour was Panzer I & IIs no match for any tanks they came up against. The British and French tanks in '40 could defeat the best the Germans fielded at the time. Then again the German tanks in '44 could defeat the best the Allies had, it was down to air power and how it was used. The combined air forces of France and Britain in '40 used properly could have fought the Luftwaffe to a standstill, eventually the RAF did so alone.
 
Something I don't get about the decades after WW1 is that then Hitler had broken all treaties people still thought. Hey we don't arm ourselfs so we don't provoke him.

Why were people so ignorant?
 
I don't get the Maginot line bashinfg in such threads. It did its job perfectly well.
It could probally have been done with less resources but it was done.
 
Something I don't get about the decades after WW1 is that then Hitler had broken all treaties people still thought. Hey we don't arm ourselfs so we don't provoke him.

Why were people so ignorant?

It wasn't ignorance - it was initially the laudable attempt to prevent another Great War, (the impact of which upon the generation that was making decisions in the 30s I don't think you recognise) and then the attempt to put the war off ras long as possible to allow re-armament to allow the Allied forces to match the Germans.

Additionally there was a general belief that Versailles was too harsh, and that some of the German action was justified (e.g. occupation of the Rhineland)
 
Something I don't get about the decades after WW1 is that then Hitler had broken all treaties people still thought. Hey we don't arm ourselfs so we don't provoke him.

Why were people so ignorant?

They weren't; or at least, not all of them were.
Many were attempting to re-arm, but it was a slow process.
Part of the issue is that even at the time of Munich, Chamberlain's official advice was that (eg) the fire service in London was utterly inadequate, and one decent-sized air raid with incendiaries could burn down most of the city. He looked at the Air Force, the Army, even to some extent the Navy, and found years of neglect and shortfalls in every aspect imaginable.

Given that the British Government's official guideline to budget as though there would be no war in the next ten years was abandoned in (IIRC) 1936, the UK was three years behind Germany in starting the process.
 

Markus

Banned
Something I don't get about the decades after WW1 is that then Hitler had broken all treaties people still thought. Hey we don't arm ourselfs so we don't provoke him.

Why were people so ignorant?



  • Until early 1939 he did not do much but level the playingfield by catching up to the Allies who had things like battleships, submarines, tanks, warplanes, heavy artillery and reservists.
  • In some cases his actions were approved like the Naval Agreement with the UK, or the Austrians approving unification with Germany or the Sudetengermans who never wanted to be a part of the CSR that heavily discriminated against them for 20 years. The Re-Occupation of the Rhineland was a violation of the Locarno Treaty, but still Germany was sending German troops into German territory.
  • Re-arming was not really necessary for the Allies for quite some time as they were actually ahead of the Germans. Nevertheless they started it roughly at the same time as Germany though not at the same insane speed. In 1939 they still had an edge in some regards, parity in others.



About the Fall of France:

Central Belgium and forts like Eben Emael are meaningless as the Schlieffen-style offensive was a strategic distraction. The real thrust came through the Ardennes and due to the nature of the terrain you neither need fixed fortifications not much troops to delay an offensive. If the Belgians and the French had coordinated their plans for the defence of the region, Panzergruppe Kleist would have faced five allied divisions and three brigades which would have easily delayed it for much longer than French reinforcements needed to reach Sedan.

At Sedan the French had one opportunity to crush the german bridgehead while it was weak and they could have launched a counteroffensive from the south with some of the divisions that backed up the garrisons of the Maginot Line. Likewise the allies could have broken out of the Dunkirk-pocket because the german infantry was unable to keep the pace of the armoured units.

Had any of these things happened the German offnsive would have failed and the Nazi regime collapsed soon afterwards as public support for a war with the UK and France was virtually non existent and influential groups inside the military plotted the overthrow of Hitler for years.

And last but not least a few words about alleged “anti-military/defeatist” attitudes in pre-war France. To say they are exaggerated is putting it mildly. Most of us know the phrase “Dying for Danzig?” but probably not that this was not the opinion of the French people in late 1939. Marcel Deat´s article was expressing the view of a small minority, the majority did not like the idea of another war but were determined to win it anyway.
 

burmafrd

Banned
The problem was that the French High Command and most of the government were totally incompetent. French army doctrine was defense first and not prepared for any kind of maneuver warfare. French Air Force not much better. Its hard to see how without wholesale changes France holds.
 

HJ Tulp

Donor
What if that plane didn't crash in Belgium and instead of Mansteins plan Halders plan was adopted? It was exactly what the Allies were expecting.
 
there were a lot problems under the Allies, that help the Nazi

the Belgiums Forts were a extention of the Maginot Line to North
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Maginot_Linie_Karte.jpg
but the belgium Goverment made Budgets cuts in artillery !!!

in Orginal plan the Forts Fort Eben-Emael, Battice, d'Aubin-Neufchâteau and Tancrémont
destroy near key bridges and give each support in case of assault (they artillery fire on next fort !)
but Battice, d'Aubin-Neufchâteau, Tancrémont got low range artillery
also was the Fort Telephon line bury low under ground, easy to find by Wehrmacht and cut
so the Fort had no communications to HQ or another forts.

the main fort Eben-Emael was used by Belgium army as a Boot camp for convicted soldiers !
mainly netherland speaking soldiers under only french speaking Officer (and no Elite soldiers)
wat ended in total chaos as the Wermacht invade Belgium
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fort_Eben-Emael
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Belgium

the Netherlands relied on their neutrality
also was poor Coordination of the British Expeditionary Force and French and Belgium force
also French had no trained crews for Tanks !
and they Generals gave order that French Tanks single attack German tank

if they had gave to order the French Tanks groups attack a singel German tank
things had look very different

Belgium Army had only TEN (10) light Tanks
i think it was better they had never build those Forts
and put the Money in Tank massproduktion at FN Herstal
 
Given that the British Government's official guideline to budget as though there would be no war in the next ten years was abandoned in (IIRC) 1936, the UK was three years behind Germany in starting the process.

Really, according to 'Alanbrooke' by A Bryant p.112
"Germany had left the Disarmament Conference in 1933, and a Defence Reqirement Committee reported to the British Cabinet early in 1934. Quoted in the report wa an assessment by the Chiefs of Staff that Germany might be ready for war by 1938 or 1939. Few people in public life thought this far-fetched. Few had previously thought the Ten Year Rule unreasonable, and it was now abandoned."
 
Then my mother was child their neighbour's kid always got beat up by this neighbourhood bully and one day my mother (who was older than the kid said to him). Why don't You tell Your parents so he will stop hurting You? The little kid said to my mom "I don't want to provoke more violence".

Is that the same as pre-ww2 anti-millitarism?
 
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