WI the French Army forced Generals over 66 to retire

WI in 1920 the French Government makes a law that All Generals and Marshals of the Army must Retire at 66 years of age .
Also the French Army studies how the World War I was fought nad how both sides nearly won the War in 1918 .
 
WI in 1920 the French Government makes a law that All Generals and Marshals of the Army must Retire at 66 years of age .
Also the French Army studies how the World War I was fought nad how both sides nearly won the War in 1918 .

ASB. If the Germans "nearly won" the war, then they would have fared better in its aftermath, or so the circular logic of the time would have suggested.
 
ASB. If the Germans "nearly won" the war, then they would have fared better in its aftermath, or so the circular logic of the time would have suggested.
Go look at the German offensive of Spring 1918 and how close it came to wining the War .
 
Again, I don't disagree. I'm saying that you could not have convinced the French of that in 1919 or in the 1920's.

I think they did more then you think the Marginal line was build to help stop the tactics of 1918 .
 
I think they did more then you think the Marginal line was build to help stop the tactics of 1918 .

The Maginot line was built to prepare for a defensive war, which, if I recall correctly, was how the French fought World War I.
 
The Maginot line was built to prepare for a defensive war, which, if I recall correctly, was how the French fought World War I.
Not in the Begining of the War the French went on the attacked .
But lets get back to the retiring of French Generals and Marshals at 66 .
 
The Maginot line was built to prepare for a defensive war, which, if I recall correctly, was how the French fought World War I.
Your recollection is abit flawed then. The original French plan in WW1 called for assaults deep into Alsace-Lorraine (which were carried out and failed rather bloodily). From Marne and the Race to the Sea onwards, it was the French and British who were on the offensive the majority of the time, in an attempt to relieve pressure on the Russians.

The plan adopted by the French General Staff in WWII is decidedly different. The Maginot Line was not designed for the French to wage a defensive war. Its intent was to allow the French to garrison and defend their border with Germany with significantly less troops then would otherwise be needed, thus allowing them to develop and maintain the strategic reserve necessary to counter the expected German offensive through the Low Countries. The purpose of the Maginot Line was dual: to allow France to compensate for the population disparity between the two countries (especially considering the demographic crisis WWI created for France), and to, rather cynically, divert any German offensive onto the Low Countries, and to preserve the major industrial areas of Alsace-Lorraine and the Nord, the former out of French hands in WWI and the latter overrun in aforementioned war.
 
Last edited:
I think one should first consider what went wrong with French leadership.

Age may well have been a factor. Elderly gentlemen have less energy and less desire to "rough it out" than younger men. But this is not the only difference.

French leadership was also based on their doctrine and command & control facilities.

The French system was based on the Petain principles that "fire kills" and "artillery kills and infantry occupies". The French wanted to fight the conventional 1918 battles which had allowed them to win. Instead of unrealistic offensives which just got a lot of men killed, they planned on a daily advance of a few hundred yards with their artillery doing the fighting and the infantry moving up to occupy the terrain. This doesn't sound very daring but over a month, it would lead to substantial advances (certainly in WWI terms). And the French army was ideally suited to fight such a war, with excellent equipment and even more tanks than the Germans. It is a fallacy to think the French invested all their money in fixed defenses while the more modern Germans built tanks. The French had more tanks and as many aircraft as the Germans! This doctrine also did not require responsive communications or up front leadership. While the Germans pioneered the "general in the lead in his radio APC", the French still used the chateau general as that was adequate to their perceived needs.

This doctrine actually worked on the few occasions it was used properly. But the French were not trained to be flexible and after the Germans smashed through reserve divisions at Sedan, they were unable to regroup because the pace of the German advance was beyond anything previously encountered. And that's not just a French failing. The British lost every engagement until late 1941 against the Germans, as did the Russians and every other nation that fought against the Germans until 1942.

So just retiring a few old generals isn't really going to change that much IMO. You need a more responsive French army (with much better communication systems) or at least a decent strategic reserve which could have retrieved the situation after Sedan or in the later battles.
 

abc123

Banned
WI in 1920 the French Government makes a law that All Generals and Marshals of the Army must Retire at 66 years of age .
Also the French Army studies how the World War I was fought nad how both sides nearly won the War in 1918 .

Why not 65?
 
Top