I read a book many years ago that argued that the French lost their esprit de corps during WWI, and never recovered it during the intervening years. Unfortunately, I’ve long since forgotten both the title and the author. But that author felt that that was the decisive factor.
I vaguely recall WWI had the French army wanting to maneuver for military reasons, yet the civilian government wanted them to protect Paris and the folks in government there.
It’s hard to follow the logic of the OP. Is the claim that the French people had a uniquely intrinsic propensity for fascism + antisemitism and that’s why they were defeated?
He seems to be arguing that French generals embraced a philosophy that lead them to be overtly hostile to a large segment of their own population, ultimately leading to them not being able to effectively defend their nation. And he is asking if America is heading down the same path.
But you know, with way too many words.
Strange Defeat, the classic on this topic, blames the French leadership for failing to recognize “the whole rhythm of modern warfare has changed its tempo.” Whatever deep-seated causes occurred Bloch places the blame squarely on the “utter incompetence of the High Command.”
No doubt there were several extreme right wingers in the French military who had were willing to collaborate after the fall of France. But you could say the same about many countries, including Denmark, Norway, and even Poland.
What choice did they have? Be proud and refuse while the Nazis shoot your mother in front of you?
Yes, this. The Germans moved so fast they got inside the French decision cycle, which was running at WWI speeds. By the time a report got to High Command, they conferred, made a decision, and sent orders back to the front the situation had changed so dramatically the orders were obsolete, so the local commanders reported back to high command and waited for the next set of obsolete orders … etc etc.
Meanwhile the Germans have crossed the Meuse at Sedan, but the French Generals’ response is to sit back and “wait for the situation to develop”; which it does as the panzers take off for the coast.
The Allies’ only hope at this point is a coordinated counter-attack to cut off that salient from both north and south; the Arras offensive was solely from the north (British) flank. It did cause Hitler to stop the panzers until the infantry caught up, allowing the Allies to reinforce the Channel ports and so probably enabled the Dunkirk evacuation, but in no way was it going to turn the tide of the overall campaign.
None of this has anything to do with the political beliefs of the French command.
Fascinating.
I’ll give you the benefit of doubt that there’s a reason you claim that you’ve heard neither about that Revolution in 1789, nor that guy Napoleon. Did you chose L’affair Dreyfus as a cut off line because it bolsters your theories about anti-semitism?
Not knowing anything about Denmark - at all - is not that surprising (I’m not being facetious or snarky). It’s a tiny country and its role in WWII is marginal at best but mostly non-existent. I live a couple of kilometers from the Danish border, so naturally I know more, but I’ll leave Denmark outside this and focus on another neighbor: Norway.
WWII played out very similar in Norway as it did in France. It birthed a noun in English: Quisling - after the the Nazi collaborator Vidkun Quisling. Google ngram says that the use of the word has been small but steady in all the decades since the 1940’s. It might not be widely used or understood, except for people interested in WWII history and politics.
The reason I bring up Norway and Quisling is that the book you are lauding• fails to explain what happened there.
Fascism (and it’s cousin Nazism) entered the scene in the 1920’s in all Western European countries and in some cases gained power. Fascists were legion in the 1930’s and neither Quisling, nor the military leaders of France can be understood and explained without a an understanding of fascism. Did fascism arise from a fear of “Jews, Freemasons, Communists, intellectuals, politicians, free-thinkers and others” in all these countries? In France, I’d even venture that all these groups were fiercely loyal to France, each of them with their own take on what that loyalty entailed. After all, the French have always been at war with their favorite enemy - the French. Napoleon is claimed to have said that the best solution for Marseille would be to turn its defensive canons inwards. And in the 20th century, workers in Marseille went on strike to keep the first class on the Metro in Paris. Taking to the streets, setting up barricades and torching stuff is their national sport.
Not so in Norway.
So unless the book explains similar paths taken in the history is other countries, I’ll chose to summarize it in one word: hogwash
• Caveat: since I haven’t read it, I can only work with your description.
Actually no.
In France the legal government became a Nazi ally. Some guy went overseas and proclaimed himself to be the leader of Free France. Then the French selected Petain themselves. (Because many parliamentarians fled to French North Africa, Vichy was established through a legal enabling act passed by those who decided to stay.)
In Norway almost the exact opposite happened. Quisling was selected by Hitler’s government by name. The parliament an Royal Family fled.
That is to say in France the key members of the national leadership decided to establish Vichy. Resistance was led by a not-so-legal cabal of junior people in London. In Norway the Nazi regime was imposed (generally) from the outside and the senior leadership fled to continue the fight.
That is mostly the model of all of Europe. Poland had an internal Secret State and two exile governments. The Dutch leadership kept resisting. The Belgian King surrendered without consulting the government. He stayed. Pierlot and the government fled to France and then London and kept up the fight.
So why did France decide to become Nazi state? I have presented my present thoughts on the subject, a deep-seated hostility to the Republic and the French people held by an influential portion of the French elites.
What do you propose as an explanation for France’s strange behavior?
How does this relate to the French being completely defeated militarily? It seems like you’re putting the cart before the horse.
Well I don’t. Simply because I don’t see it as very strange. I see it as similar to other countries that were occupied by Germany. It played out differently depending on local circumstances. In every country the Nazis basically set up puppet leaders. This was possible because there were strong fascist movements in (almost?) all of Europe. In Spain they seized power and it was settled beforehand. Formally Spain was neutral during WWII, though of course Franco was very much in favor of what Mussolini and Hitler were doing, to the point of one of the worst war crimes ever: Guernica.
Regarding Guernica, your assertion that the new leadership hated their own citizens hold more water, since the Basque has been thorn in the side of Madrid and Paris governments since at least 1789. It suited Franco to massacre Basques.
But without the many fascists in all countries - including Sweden, Switzerland, Finland and Portugal along with Spain - the Germans would’ve had to put their own people in charge. Better to let local sympathizers take the brunt of the opposition that in fact existed in most of the occupied countries.
Remember the fascist curious in the U.S. and U.K.
The description you provide of France is lacking when viewed side by side with other countries. Yes, the Royal family in Norway fled across the Atlantic and there was an exile government in the U.K. What they actually governed is another matter. Quisling and his henchmen did the actual - illegitimate - governing.
I wonder if this is another example of the American attitude about the ‘cheese eating surrender monkeys?’ For some reason, which I don’t understand, Americans keep debating this while being baffled. Maybe it says more about how Americans view history, than about what actually happened on the ground in France.
/tl:dr
In brief - there were anti-semites, anti-communist, bigoted shitstains in France that came to power. That happened because there were many fascists ready to take on the role. Other fascists were standing by in other countries. I read your posts as if you want there to be some secret cabal or great conspiracy in France.
I am reminded of how some business leaders start out as friendly to labor ans as time progresses become jerks. Perhaps Vichy intended to protect citizens from the Nazis, and being jerks, eventually put their own well being and control before protecting French citizens.
That’s a rather important caveat; personally, I don’t trust that the book says anything of the sort as the OP has yet to produce a shred of evidence from said book to support his claims.
So, we can add the word ‘ally’ to the list of things you don’t understand. And that ‘some guy’ was overseas because
Prime Minister Paul Reynaud appointed de Gaulle a government minister, as Under-Secretary of State for National Defence and War,[77] with particular responsibility for coordination with the British.
Hey, here’s one for you using your own brand of ‘logic’: why were the Danes such antisemitic Nazis during WWII? I mean the legitimate government took less than two hours to order its military to cease resisting the German invasion and occupation. Then during the war 6,000 Danes joined the SS as Free Corps Denmark. Included in those numbers were 77 officers of the Royal Danish Army, and
It was established following an initiative by the National Socialist Workers’ Party of Denmark (DNSAP) in the immediate aftermath of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 and subsequently endorsed by Denmark’s government which authorised officers of the Royal Danish Army to enlist in the unit.
Holy Nazi collaborators batman! Denmark had only a fraction of the population of France, yet the SS was only able to recruit about 7,000 French into their ranks.
Did Denmark have issues with Russia? The Finns joined the Axis because they were at war with Russia.
The SS recruited far and wide throughout occupied Europe portraying Operation Barbarossa as a crusade against communism.
Even “neutral” Spain sent nearly 50,000 troops.
Certainly the fear of Stalin’s USSR was a major factor in WWII coming out the way it did. Ideally, France would have formed a strong alliance with the Soviets in 1935 or so. This was the plan before WWI. But the right-wing senior leadership was incapable of that.
The Soviets still had a nonaggression pact with the Nazis when France surrendered in 1940. Are you saying an alliance with the other country that invaded Poland would have saved France?
The Soviet Union that ended up forming a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany openly and secretly divvied up Poland, with which France had a defense treaty? I’m sure it was the right-wing politics of French leaders that stood in their way of relying on the Stalin-led Soviet Union for defense. 
And yes, 1935 would’ve been before the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, but there wasn’t an intervening change in Soviet leadership from 1935 to 1938. Unless you count the purges that killed thousands and imprisoned thousands more. Possibly another reason someone wouldn’t have to be a right-winger to not trust the Soviets?
Bolding mine, obviously. Now you’re blaming ‘right-wing senior leadership’ in France for being incapable of both time travel and dimension jumping? Because not only would they have to travel back to 1914 or earlier, but they’d also have to land in a dimension where the Soviet Union existed prior to 1917.
Well, at least it’s on par with everything else you’ve accused the French leadership of so far: lacking any evidence whatsoever.