The background I have usually seen quoted for the Verdun incient was that earlier the German super-heavy guns (420mm Howitzers) had turned the Liege forts into slaughterhouses. Therefore the garrisons had been withdrawn from the Verdun forts into field fortifications lest they suffer the same fate. This meant that when the German assault was launched anyone penetrating the trench lines would find the forts empty.
Regarding the surrender monkey thing, in World War II the French had just soaked up 5.6 million casualties, and one generation later were having to face doing it all again against a larger and more industrialised nation. They drafted one-eight of their adult population and prepared for what was expected to be another attritional bloodbath. Sit and think about that for a moment - imagine the US having taken a hundred times the casualties it did in Vietnam and then piling back in there in 1995.
Unlike some, I can’t blame the french for being unenthusiastic about helping the Poles by piling headlong into the ‘West Wall’ of Germany, given what their fathers’ generation had suffered as a result of trying exactly that.
Having a geriatric and incompetent leadership didn’t exactly help, but historically whenever you get your ass handed to you in a war and your country overrun, you fold, pay off the invader and try to rebuild, which is what they did. The fact that the Nazis weren’t willing to settle for the usual few provinces and a mountain of bullion wasn’t exactly their fault.
I think the OP would be better off addressing ‘Militarily, what happened to the Germans?’ because DAMN they were kicking ass for a century or so - fortunately they have now given it up in favour of bemoaning the state of their social model
What an excellent thread, thank you all for making me see the errors of my prejudice. In particular, the following quote from a link damn near brought a tear to my eye:
You have to respect that sentiment.
I don’t have any official cites to back up anything, but I’m a big fan of the Military Channel, which runs quite a few “best ever” shows. In particular the “Best Ever Tanks” and “Best Ever Fighters”, the French military is not just impressive, but damn near at parity with everyone in the world. Regarding the aircraft, the French are about half-a-decade ahead of the US in rolling out the next generation fighters, so one could argue they currently enjoy air superiority. (UAVs may take over, so this could be the last generation of manned fighters.)
The next-gen US fighter appeared (IMO) to be about even with the French, and even though 90% of success in dogfights is dependent on training as opposed to hardware, in training drills one of the US fighters is capable of easily neutralizing a half-dozen of the current models. A similar claim regarding the French fighters is not unreasonable. IIRC, their tanks are equally impressive, and equally ahead in the production phase.
The show, being a US show, ended on thoughts about the new US fighter, and how it will likely never be truly tested, as the only planes that can challenge are from allied countries like France, Germany, and Great Britain.
Basically, a random rogue state would be well advised to give France a wide berth in any aggressive policies, as the French are quite capable of kicking some serious ass.
It seems that Reynaud originally approved Churchill’s proposal of the constitution of a franco-british political and military union (to keep french colonies, fleet, etc… on the side of Britain instead of france surrendering) during an exchange with de Gaulle, who represented him in London. But he resigned the following day to be replaced by Petain, since the majority of both the government and the parliament was in favor of an armistice.
I believe also that he was the one supporting the concept of creating a “Breton redoubt” to keep an hold on french soil (idea that was dismissed by the french chief of staff as unfeasible, and he was in all likehood right).
He also had publically declared during the last days of his tenure that he was determined to keep on fighting in north-Africa, since France was lost.
So, Reynaud was indeed rather a “hardliner” who wouldn’t have sued for peace if he had it his way. But he didn’t, being in the minority. He was jailed under the Vichy regime. Unfortunately for him, he’s essentially only remembered as the prime minister who presided over the french defeat (when he is remembered at all, that is. I guess you’d get a blank stare asking most french people who he was).
Ironically, it’s also Reynaud who made both Petain and de Gaulle join the government.
On the ‘best ever tanks’ show I saw on the History Channel they rated the Leclerc at least 4th of the big 4 in current tank design behind the Leopard 2, Abrams M1A2 and Challenger II…and it was a distant 4th to boot (mostly due to its autoloader, smaller size…and I don’t believe it is using the same Chabon Armor as the others either IIRC).
THis is the first I’m hearing that the next generation of US fighters (like the Raptor I assume) is only going to be as good as what the French (or Europeans) currently have. My understanding is it will be superior in every way to the current generation of aircraft. Perhaps you are comparing it to the next generation of European Aircraft? Do you have a cite by chance?
Had it been a European show would it have ended on thoughts on how the Europeans would kick America’s ass or something?
I don’t know about German military superiority. Prussia had a number of military successes during the 19th Century, but Germany as a country has only fought in two wars. They initiated both and lost both.
Sure, but it took the combined efforts of the UK, France, Russia and the US to do it. They spent more time bailing the Italians out of the messes they made during WWII. And it’s not like they got much out of their allies in WWI, either.
Well, they lost both wars eventually…but not before inflicting huge losses on the various allies (and as Neurotik said, not like they got a lot of help from THEIR allies). It WWII especially they pretty much conquered all of Western Europe (except GB) and nearly knocked off the Russians and were only defeated in the end by the combined might of Russia, the US and the UK. While they had the likes of the Italians (yeah, I know they had other allies, some of which were actually more helpful than the Italians, but all of who were minor players compared to Russia, the UK and the US).
I suppose if we were going to take this tact I could have said ‘Militarily, what happened to the Europeans’, since pretty much across the board they have been in general decline militarily for the better part of the century…and especially since the fall of the old Soviet Union.
I think a lot of that was the staggering losses the blood thirsty Europeans inflicted on themselves both in terms of lives lost as well as property destroyed (and the cost in treasure of their militaries) in the last two centuries…that and the heavy reliance on the US to do the heavy lifting militarily post-WWII, both from a defense of Europe standpoint and from a force projection outside their borders standpoint. Certainly this has been the case since the fall of the Soviets.
Yes, I think he was meaning NewGen vs. NewGen.
This is further confused by how the Raptor and JSF designs actually tried to do a generational “leapfrog” over other’s NewGen. Sort of like NewGen-and-a-half.
The cost of running an Empire abroad on top of a war at home was fairly heavy for all the European nations wasn’t it? The most important property to be destroyed would have been industry and transport maybe, the US was able to stay on top of things after WWII by producing itself out of the cost of the war wasn’t it?
At least one German armored group was delayed two weeks by direct Resistance action. There was a group of Tiger tanks ready to head out and fight the allies. The tanks were under heavy guard at all times so the resistance could do nothing to sabatoge them.
The heavy duty flatbed railcars the Germans planned to use to move them to the front, however, were left unguarded.
Some resistance members snuck into the railcar facility and put some special material into the wheel bearings. When the D-Day took place, the Germans loaded up the Tigers tanks onto the train and started towards the front.
The wheels siezed up after a hundred yards or so. The tanks had to be unloaded and brought to the front by their own power. Tiger tanks were not fast, and fuel wasn’t exactly in strong supply. They should have been at the front in a few days, instead they arrived two weeks later.
This incident was detailed in Cornelius Ryans’ “The Longest Day” IIRC.
A large part of it is probably having to rebuild the continent twice, do without a large part of two generations of productive workers, and having reasonably mature stable populations.
The US had many fewer people killed, much less damage to infrastructure, could invest in new things rather than replacing old ones, and got to sell all the replacement parts for European reconstruction twice over. Plus having a growing population.
And that’s not even factoring in the “ANOTHER war? Are you kidding??” factor. Having your country used as a battlefield tends to give you a better appreciation of just how nasty war has become in the last 150 years or so.
It’s not really related to the current thread, but something surprised me in this document. I expected it to feel very dated, and somehow quaint (at best) , but actually, the arguments used (for instance about cultural differences) aren’t any different from what I would currently expect. I could see identical or similar statements being used in say, a document handed to US soldiers in Irak.
