I Think I Now Understand the Defeat of France in 1940

[Dissonance]

@Jackmannii

Numerous sources cite major factors in the French defeat as being things of which we’re well aware: over-reliance on the Maginot Line, poor intelligence and anticipation of German strategy, ineffective coordination with the British etc.

Wow this makes me feel old, I couldn’t remember what book exactly I read this in, so I searched under my username and Maginot Line. I posted this almost 20 years ago about how France actually under-relied on the Maginot Line.

I’ve heard this as well, Trevor Dupuy wrote something about it in Understanding War:

Perhaps the most significant reason why the Germans won was the fact that the French high command, after a tremendous and expensive national effort to build a nearly impregnable line of fortifications – the Maginot Line – along the frontier with Germany, actually deployed its forces as though the Maginot Line were not there. A German thrust across the frontier, such as had occurred in 1870 and 1914, could be stopped by a relatively small number of men in the fortifications. Thanks to the Maginot Line the French high command could have greatly reduced the number of reserves behind the fortifications, which was a substantial proportion of their military manpower. These troops could have been used elsewhere, or in an enlarged strategic reserve.

The French defeat in May 1940 has been blamed – by people who don’t know any better – on the fact that the French military put too much faith in the defensive strength of the Maginot Line.  In fact, it is just the opposite. The French were defeated mainly because they did not put enough faith in the strength of that line.

…
[T]hey deployed their forces equally along the frontier, leaving four armies behind the fortifications, when one –at most – would have been required. In other words, French deployment ignored the existence of the Maginot Line.

@Jackmannii

It sound way over-simplistic to me to argue that top French military leaders were content to surrender in order to let the Germans hold down “the real enemies of France”.

Yeah, I’m not understanding the logic - if there is any, even faulty logic - alleged to be at work here. The French high command didn’t throw the fight, but actually they did because when it came right down to it, they were more concerned with getting rid of “Jews, Freemasons, Communists, intellectuals, politicians, free-thinkers and others who did not hold loyalty to France first” who were the “real enemies of France”, not the Germans? Huh? Sorry, I need some sort of concrete example of this as allegedly explained in the book.