From that article:
Revel is my hero! I’ve always suspected that a significant degree of Anti-Americanism worldwide was unreasoned and – dare I say – bigoted. RIght or wrong, I’m glad that Revel has made a case for my suspicion.
I’ve always been fascinated by the French and Indian War (i.e. the "7 year’s war). Montcalm was a very able general, and it should be remembered that France controlled an area larger than canada itself! they had forts in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and upstate NY! Montcalm had an excellent plan to evict the British…and had the French had an effective navy, the british position in n. America would have been untenable! In addition, the British colonies were already getting irritated by excessive taxation…it wouldn’t have taken much to have gotten them to revolt . King louis XVI missed a great opportunity to have pushed England out of N. America. Instead, Louis prevaricated, and refused to send adequate supplies and troops to Canada. Montcalm, denied the support he needed, had to stay close to his base, and was unable to intercept the British invasion force (under gen. Wolfe). In the end, the battel that decide the fate of France in N. America (on the Plains of Abraham) was decided in just under 15 minutes!
My knowledge of history is incomplete, but didn’t French troops shoot at US (and other Allied) forces in North Africa? I know there was a Walloon SS division in Belgium, but wasn’t there in France a greater degree of collaboration with Nazi occupiers in rounding up Jews than there was in other Western European countries? . Like I say, I am likely to have learned the pop-culture version of historical events, and could use some edification.
But if I’m right, it could explain the French disdain for the US as covering up their shame with hostility.
Yes. They did. Actually, there has even been instances of french troops shooting at french troops. I don’t know much about the whole thing, but the situation on the french side was very confused, with some generals and civil authorities rallying the allies and others fighting back, resistants seizing public buildings in a town which was a the same time defended against the allies by the regular troops, french officers arresting other french officers, etc…On the overall, and very roughly the french troops fought the allied troops at the very beginning of the operation Torch, while the allies were engaged in negociations with some french political figures, in particular the admiral Darlan, very compromised with the Vichy government, but who apparently thought the timing was appropriate to switch sides. These negociations resulted in a cease-fire, and then in the rallying of the french north-african colonies to the allies.
There was also a french SS division called “division Charlemagne” which fought in Russia. The vichy government also established a para-military organization, the “milice” which helped the german in their police operations (against the resistance, the communists, the Jews, etc…) inside France.
Excluding german allies (that would be a very different situation) other countries (except Denmark) were occupied, hence were ruled by the german authorities. So, though certainly the local authorities (civil servants, police) could have participated in operations ordered by the germans, there couldn’t have been “collaboration” per se. France, on the other hand, had an “independant” government of its own. And this government has been quite eager in enacting and enforcing antisemitic laws of its own very quickly, and eventually in rounding up Jews. Sometimes showing reluctance to do so (french Jews at the beginning of the occupation, for instance) , sometimes at the contrary doing more than requested by the germans (sending children to deportation when only the adults were supposed to be deported, for instance).
On the overall, though, a much lesser part of the Jewish population has been deported in France than in countries which were under military ocupation : roughly 10% of the french Jews, and 30% of the non-french Jews living in France (the latter being mostly refugees, and roughly half of the Jewish population in France in 1940 ). That would be around 80 000-90 000 Jews deported, for the most part with the active involvment of the french authorities (and active involvment often meant that the whole operation was organized by said french authorities…not that they just helped a bit).
I honnestly don’t think it has anything to do with that. There are certainly many reasons explaining the hostility of french people toward the US, but a repressed feeling of guilt towards this country isn’t one of them. People might feel some sort of shame about the actions of the Vichy government, but the US (contrarily to, say, the Jews) aren’t associated with this in any way in people’s mind.
Montcalm is certainly remembered as the poor heroic guy who was denied any support he requested, this resulting in the loss of Canada. But I stand by my statement that France had an extremely low interest in North-America at these times (beside, the fact that they did essentially nothing to defend Canada is a proof in itself…also the fact that they were more interested in keeping a couple islands in the west indies than Canada or even Louisiana).
And though I’ve not much knowledge on this war, I would tend to assume they probably had very good reason to do so. The war in Germany was most probably much more important than the war in Quebec, and I suppose that Louis XV and his advisors had some sensible reasons not to divert troops.