I thought they just had a “mutual non aggression pact” wherein they just wouldn’t mess with each other.
Did they actually co-operate on anything militarily?
Remember Poland ?
Only that the charging of Panzers with cavalry didn’t happen. Was that a co-operative military action, or another agreement?
I thought I would found your answer in the text of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact . Apparently I was mistaken (even taking the secret protocol into account). The closest I could come to was the following from the secret protocol :
However, I’m not the only one who made that mistake. The Allies also made it. It was their basis for trying to intervene in the Winter War and to plan for the bombing of the Soviet oilfields.
According to the Simon Wisenthal Center, there were tens of thousands of French women who worked in the Resistance. Those who “gave the French a bad name for awhile” because of the collaborators" dishonored these women by lumping everyone together. Even prostitues who may have appeared to be accomodating the Nazis were part of the Resistance.
Interesting thread. Thanks, all…
I don’t know what was the extent of the military cooperation, but Germany invaded Poland in the beginning of September 1939 and Soviet Union invaded it a couple weeks later. Then, they shared the country between themselves. I would consider that as a significant level of cooperative military action and political agreement…
Eolbo, This site supports the figures I gave. The French, even without counting the additional British, Belgian, and Dutch forces, had a substantial numerical superiority in artillery, aircraft, and tanks. The only advantage the Germans had was in the number of divisions, which is usually a meaningless quantity. The amount of men in a WWII division varied so widely that at times one single division could have more troops than the three divisions it was fighting. Unless you can cite specific information otherwise, I’ll assume that the equipment totals reflect the obvious; that the French had more soldiers than the Germans.
As for unavailable divisions, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t claim that every German division was available to fight in France while also saying that the French were for some reason unable to use all of the divisions they had available. There’s little reason to think the French wouldn’t have considered the defense of Paris a higher priority than North Africa of the Italian border.
On the issue of dates, I’ve explained twice while I used May 16 as the “starting date” for the battle of France. Admittedly the Belgian and French campaigns overlapped, so any date is going to have some arbitrariness, but June 5 seems to be a date you chose at random.
Finally, don’t assume you can know my views on a subject from reading a single post. I know that war is not a chessboard. But I see no reason that it was theoretically impossible for the French to duplicate what the Germans actually did. To summarize the posts I’ve made here, the French had the men and equipment available in 1940 to beat the Germans. The Germans won, despite a numerical disadvantage, because the used their forces more effectively. If the French had used their forces with an equal level of effectiveness, they would have won.
This assumes that the French forces were trained and organized in such a way that they could have been used with equal effectiveness - something which is not obviously true, and indeed, almost certainly false. Face it - the Wehrmacht had a couple generals (Guderian, etc) who understood how to use armor in ways the world had never seen, and France, like every other nation in Europe, simply had not the tactical doctrine to stop them. Even the Americans, with the benefit of 3 years of watching from the sidelines, got creamed when they first faced the panzers at Kasserine Pass. One cannot alter the fundamental tactical and stragetic doctines around which one’s army is organized in the space of two weeks, yet this is precisely what your plan requires of the French.
You can assume that however the fundamental reality is that Germany in the 1930s and 1940s had a population about double that of France and had a much higher population of males of military age then France. And the reality of the campaign is that the French did fight hopelessly outnumbered after the allied forces were removed from the equation. That they had more often obsolescent equipment available doesnt change the basic demographics. And if you examine the strength of 1940 French and German divisions you will see that they are in fact comparable. That numerical inferiority in divisions isnt sleight of hand, its a reflection of the fundamental disparities in strength. This is after all why France was incapable of standing up to Germany alone and needed allies, she was the smaller power.
I’m not having anything both ways. You have simply mistaken the number of German divisions available for the western offensive with the total number and then assumed a subtraction would be necessary to garrison Poland, Norway etc. But that subtraction had already occurred because the total number of German divisions wasnt 136 its 157. 136 is the number available for the western offensive. An additional 21 divisions were performing occupation duties or training. Your assumptions that the Germans would be outnumbered or did not have large reserves are simply wrong.
And while you may not consider the defence of the Italian border or North Africa important, the historical French were not at liberty to ignore it. Italy was after all, a hostile power that was the military ally of Germany, and Italy did in fact subsequently declare war, so it was a very real danger that the French did need to cover. For that matter they couldnt ignore the possibility that fascist Spain could also join the war. These are real world possibilities they needed to consider.
I havent questioned your May 16th date and I know why its significant, but June 5th isnt random. Its the historical date on which the Germans had consolidated, amassed their forces, brought up all needed supplies and were in a position to launch their final offensive into France. Thats the date on which they were ready and historically launched the offensive that broke the renewed French line and overran France. I have usedthat date to indicate that you cant regard all the time until the French surrender as an opportunity as the Germans were on the rampage from the 5th June.
You’re still assuming the Germans were outnumbered. It just wasnt so. Germany had numerical parity with the combined forces of France, Britain, Belgium and Holland. Strip away those allied forces, and they were quickly stripped away, and the numerical advantage swings decidedly in Germany’s favour.
Note I’m not saying the French performed well, they didnt. What I am saying is that given the respective quality and disposition of the forces that the French position was much weaker then you are regarding it, and that their strategic position from the moment of the breakthrough at Sedan was bleak.
Let us suppose that insteadof the 75 year old, doddering Gen. Gamelin, the French had a younger,optimistic general like Blanchard in command. Also, suppose that instead of waiting on their hands, the french used their two armored divisions to invade the Rhineland, while the Germans were still fighting in Poland.
Probaly the germans would have gone into a panic, and the german generals would have overthrown Hitler.
Then the horro that was WWII wouldnever have phappened.
Am I being wooshed?
Hmmm…Sure, I think that certainly the german army would have fled in terror while the two french divisions would have happily crossed Germany from the Rhine to Berlin…
I don’t know much about military history, but I’m pretty certain that the Germans somehow had planned to defend their country against a possible french attack (even ignoring the Siegfried line), and most certainly not all of their army was commited to the invasion of Poland.
In fact, some french units entered German territory (without fighting) during the invasion of Poland, stayed there until the collapse of Poland, then were withdrew (still without fighting). But this is anecdotal. More generally, the allies thought they weren’t ready to fight a war against Germany in 1939 (hence the “funny war”, if I remember correctly the english name of it, between september 1939 and may 1940), and AFAIK intended to actually begin the fight at the automn of 1940 (excepted for the franco-british operation in Norway).
In any case, your young optimisitic and bright general would have had to cope with the military doctrine and with the current organization of the french army which couldn’t have been changed in a matter of days. Then , you could state : “what if France had chosen to organize its army in a different way ten years before?” but we’re going into a more and more imaginary world. What if Hitler had not risen to power, while we’re at it? No WWII either…
Perhaps the allies should have launched an offensive into Germany in 1939, despite feeling they weren’t ready to do so. Perhaps you’re right. But I’m not convinced it’s extremely interesting to argue about that, since we have no mean to know what would have happened in this alternative world.
“phoney” war
ralph124c isn’t whooshing you; the Germans did leave some divisions to defend their western border, but not enough to stop a determined attack.
And in ralph’s scenario, the French might have used their two armoured divisions as the spearhead of a much larger force. After all, the Germans only had 5 such divisions at the time, all busy in Poland.
The point he’s making (a good one, I think) is that it was lack of will that stopped the west from attacking, not lack of resources.
I guess it’s time to stop bashing poor old General Gamelin. However, my question has always been-why did the Allies just sit around doing nothing…from the invasion of Poland to the attach on Holland? Surely, the correct policy would have been to take the offensive as soon as possible…and let the Germans know that they would be attacked. For example-why didn’t the RAF (Bomber Command) immediately start bombing the Ruhr cities. Also, the French (covered by their Maginot line) could have launched annassault into Germany, near the Alsace region. Probably, Hitler was on shakey ground at that time-a major defeat would have sent him packing.
Because France and Britain were still mentally fighting WW1
Raids were launched (unsucessfully) at Wilhelmshaven, and German naval patrols were bombed. One of the reasons that the allies didn’t do more bombing at first, though, was because President Roosevelt sent a diplomatic note to Britain, France, and Germany requesting that they not bomb civilian targets. The British and French agreed. (partly because they were afraid that bombing German civilian targets would cause retaliation)
As to why there wasn’t an invasion of Germany at that time, it was a combination of things. First, French strategic doctrine at that time called for a defensive war. Victory in a war with Germany would come, the French thought, after the Germans attacked France and were repulsed. Then the French would counterattack the weakened German army and force a settlement. France was seen as impregnable to enemy attack, and the Maginot line was considered unbreakable.
Since both Britain and France saw France as safe from German attack, there was no reason to attack Germany and risk the high casualties that would ensue. There was the belief that the Royal Navy’s blockade of German ports would do the job for the army…that Germany would soon run out of raw materials.
Also, Chamberlain was still committed to a diplomatic settlement. As long as the war was restricted to nasty letters, threats, and sporatic naval battles, there was still the possibility that a peace settlement could be agreed to.
There was a plan. Based on the lessons of WWI, Britain and France expected a solid defense would beat any offense. So they prepared a very strong defense. The plan essentially was that Poland, fighting a defensive war, would hold out against the Germans’ superior numbers for several months. This would give the British and French time to mobilize to full strength and be ready when the Germans attacked. The Maginot line would keep the Germans from attacking France directly, so the Germans would have to attack through Belgium. The French and British armies would advance into Belgium and join up with the Belgian army. Once the opposing forces met, everyone would stop and dig in and there’d be a replay of WWI with the advantage that this time the trenchs would be in Belgium not France. The combined British and French fleets would blockade Germany, so Germany would be under greater pressure than the west. The Germans would therefore be forced to launch unsuccessful offensive operations while the British and French stayed on the defensive. After several years of blockade and failed offenses, the German army would collapse as it did in 1918 and the British and French would win the war.
Now some parts of this plan were right and some were wrong. Significantly, Poland fell in less than a month rather than holding out for six months to a year as expected. This demonstrated that a well planned attack could overwhelm a solid defense. The British and French should have taken a serious look at the Polish campaign and re-evaluated their own plans based on what happened. At the risk of prompting another debate, things could have gone differently at that point. During the winter of 1939-1940, there was time to make changes. Poland demonstrated that battles were won by tanks, artillery, and aircraft - all of which the French and British had in greater numbers than the Germans. It was not a matter of building an army, but of re-organizing an existing army. Instead they simply dismissed the evidence and continued to believe things would work out according to their pre-war plans. On May 10, they learned how wrong those beliefs were.
With regard to this specific point, Bomber Command didn’t have much in the way of heavy bombers useful in such raids. The first vaguely effective “heavy”, the Stirling, didn’t arrive until 1940. During the early years of the war, the RAF relied upon lighter, twin-engined bombers with very poor bomb aiming and navigational aids. Heavy casualties in early raids were not unusual.
if you want to learn some part of the true, please visit this:
and then this :
anyway; if you start a sentence with “THE”, you will probably saying something wrong !