I'm actually not here to bash it. I'm here to defend it.

Has anyone here ever read "Stange Victory" by Ernest May? It provides an excellent diagnostic of Hitler's victory over France, suggesting that France's moves were actually completely logical and that while the French command did make some devastating errors no branch of it or the military was performing absolutely horribly as so many of us like to think. This has also been connected with my knowledge from William Lawrence Shirer's "The Collapse of the Third Republic : An Inquiry into the Fall of France in 1940" and Piers Brendon's "The Dark Valley : A Panorama of the 1930s". With these three major sources, plus what I have picked up, the French military in WWII would have done very well had it been correct in its expectations of the German attack.

The French spill of blood in WWI had maintained a large psychological effect on the political figures of France in the 1930s. The administrations of Leon Blum, which chose for it's non-involvement in the Spanish Civil War, and Edouard Daladier for it's acceptance of the "appeasement" blueprint as provided by Neville Chamberlain. However, a great deal of the French population came to resent more and more the policy of appeasement, starting with the Rhineland remilitarization in 1936. ""It is your last chance. If you do not stop Germany now, all is over," words spoken by the Foreign Minister Pierre-Etienne Flandin represented for a larger part the feelings of France.

Despite this, the praised celebration of Munich, Daladier was reported to step off his plane to a crowd of largely mid-40s gentlemen while muttering under his breath "the dicks."

Ernest May takes a great deal of notice to the valiantry, despite the overwhelming circumstances, of the French fighting forces. Beginning in mid-May the soldiers were forced to fight by day while still retreating by night, but were still sooner to give there lives than surrender; a nearly equal number of French soldiers were killed May-June 1940 than to the whole of U.S. casualties in the Korean War.

General Gamelin, whom had worked with General Joffre and had mentored in his ways, had estimated that French conscription and training would not be fully complete until as late as 1942. Whether this is a correct assessment or not we can't say today, but as the chief of staff of national defense he controlled the French armies along the German-Belgian frontier. He also assessed that the Germans would not attack out of fear of the French armed forces. The German operation, codenamed Plan Yellow to May's sources, was actually drawn out by him on a napkin at a state dinner--Gamelin, however, scrapped the idea for his block in Belgium after the Polish invasion.

As the "phony war" ended and the real war broke out on May 10, 1940, Gamelin appeared to be correct as German forces sped across the borders of Belgium and France under the pretense of protecting them from allied agression. Gamelin then, accordingly, ordered the advance of the mass, and best of, French and British forces into Belgium.

The Maginot Line was here used not, in fact, to keep the Germans out but to shorten the border in which the fighting could take place. The French knew that the Maginot line would not alone keep back the Germans and simply planned to fight in Belgium; a total of 72 divisions stood on the Franco-Belgian border in 1940 while 15 remained in the Maginot line.

The strategy, which has often been termed as a "gate," required that there be a hinge for the gate, that being the Ardennes forest. The Ardennes, overgrown with plant life and with few, thin bridges was thought to be impassable by modern tanks and infantry-carrying armoured vehicles. The French, however, never actually tested it.

On the 17th, German forces sped through the Ardennes. Caught completely offguard, with Panzer columns heading to the rear, the bulk of the French and British armies are trapped in Flandres and are evacuated at Dunkirk--a loss of 300,000 troops, minus the two-fifths of the French army that has been destroyed. French military capacity has been estimated to be at 40% at the end of may; 10% after the fall of Paris.

Now you know a little more about why the French did what they did and how the war went about. Were they really that useless, or did they make a logical decision to an illogical answer?

Regardless, they still lost, despite having superior and more tanks and a large (although quality-wise lesser) air force. The French were simply out-strategized and unprepared for the new form of warfare.

Hello, Toasty. :) Long time no see.

You refer to the need for a "gate", ie the Ardenne, and that this area's capacity to act in this way was not tested properly. This must demonstrate a severe lack of adequate planning and initiative by the high-command.

Think of how little would have been need to make it ACTUALLY impassible. A few observer units and some engineers/demolition squads posted on those bridges and some lightweight fortifications, obstacles etc on the roadways with a couple of decent units to hold them (a fraction of the total forces available).

Anyone failing to make sure that the element of their startegy on which it all hangs was truly going to work in that way is a fool. I know this doesn't reflect on the fighting capacity of the typical French soldier, but it puts your assessment of the High Command as a fairly sound body back a bit.

I think the key lesson that should be learned from Military history is that "impassable" terrain, isn't. History is filled with examples like this.

Rodgers --
Aye, that is true. However, I think we can fairly say that most nations so underdogged as the French were (despite their expectations, the high command did realize that there was a deficiency, or at least Gamelin) would not want to spend time worrying about something that was practically assured as "impassable." Given the situation, most other armies in Europe at that time wouldn't have inspected or reinforced it, either.
The Ardennes was too thickly forested for French tanks, they were sure--why wouldn't it be for Germans? It's easy to make hindsight, but just as Hitler did in Germany, it made sense.

Yeah, it is a bit too easy I suppose. I like the rest of your thread though - the French DO get a bit of a rough ride for their performance (as if us Brits managed any better - and we only had a short front to hold:confused: ). I guess fighting hard is just not enough to get by.

I read that the whole French strategy was flawed due to the fact that the ideal defensive line, on the North Sea to Ardenne stretch, that it was propsed the BEF and French forces would hold, was located largely in Belgium itself and therefore could not be occupied until Germany had invaded and Belgian neutrality revoked or they called for help. Until then, both forces were to sit and wait for something to happen.

If true, that doesn't seem so bright from purely strategic point of view, but I'm sure they all fought like lions when they got there.

I have a sincere question here. Why didn't the French just extend the Maginot line all the way across the Belgian border with France as well? From what I understand the French DID want to build it up between the Belgian and German borders, but were refused permission by the Belgians....they could have just as easily totally encompassed their own border. Btw, my signature is just a fluke, I really did already have it before this thread was started.

It's okay Johnny--I had a laugh at that joke myself.

France didn't complete the Maginot line to the Channel for several reasons, mostly diplomatic and economic. Since you know the Belgian refusal to extend the line into Belgium, I'll just say this about it: if the French were to extend it into Belgium, most of (if not all) of the fighting would take place there. Ironically, it did anyways, but the Belgians didn't have Maginot there to help them out.

France was hit later in the Great Depression than most nations, and got licked by it real good. France, which had a largely internally-based economy, was not hit so hard by import price rise. Often called the "happy little isle" before the mid-30s, France did sustain rather well, despite inflation of the Franc. Of course, this meant that France had a much shorter recovery time than most nations after the depression, especially when compared to Hitler's Germany. For the extension of the Maginot line to the channel, nearly twice as long as the forts in Alsasce-Lorraine, the French coffers were empty.

Also, there was a great deal of what to do about Belgium. With the Maginot line set up firmly across Alsasce-Lorraine, the Germans would almost undoubtedly have to violate Belgian neutrality in order to seriously attack French soil. If the line was completed across Belgium, it would put Belgium on the sacrificial altar of Nazism, along with Austria and Czechoslovakia. If the Belgians were isolated, they might not even put up a fight and let the Germans come right on through, let alone make any coordinate planning in case the Germans did try and make a move.

Rodgers,

Yes, that was a major flaw. Despite several attempts by both Daladier and Chamberlain, King Leopold refused to make any coordinated planning (still hoping to cling to neutrality and have the storm pass right by). However, had the Germans invaded as it was supposed, it would have made a bigger impact than it did in the war. The Germans came through Luxembourg and South-Western Belgium, and the brunt of the allied forces never even faced them head-on.

Another couple of things that May seemed to hit on in his book was the large lack of British support, and the failure of both armies to react quickly. In 1939, the most the BEF could offer the French was FIVE unmotorized divisions and one-hundred planes. Also, when the Germans broke through the Ardennes on the 17th, Gamelin didn't move and continued to fight in Belgium for two more days. This cost the French a huge amount of reactionary time, and on the 19th, Gamerlin was sacked.

Ah well, that answers that then. Thanks :). Basically it looks like then, a great deal of blame (not really the right word, but oh well) would lie at the feet of the Belgians. But then again, who really anticipated the rapid rise of Hitler?

Why blame the Belgians? We're only a small country. We didn't mean anything in the international theatre.
Our king just tried to guarantee neutrality in the hope that Hitler wouldn't invade our country.
Also, I think we hold the German army up for 18 days, so that some allied troops could escape via Dunkirk.

Blame is indeed a very poorly chosen word and I apologize for using it.

I guess it would be better to say that, in 20-20 hindsight, I really wish the Belgians had allowed the Maginot Line to have extended across their border :)

Maybe ;) . We'll never know.

I think that a lot of excuses hsave been made here.

The Brits and French defeated the Germans in WW 1.
The Brits and French became complacent and stopped
thinking while the Germans thought hard and re-organised.

When WW2 started the Germans were better trained
(at all levels from private to chief of staff); they had qualitatively better equipment (reliable fast panzers were better than
slow heavily armoured british and french tanks).

When the Germans invaded Poland, the British and French
did nothing on the Western front. They should have attacked Germany but were pyschologically locked in defensive mode.

The demonstration of German skills with combined arms:
mobile divisions incorporating armour, mobile infantry
and mobile armour supported by air support; i.e. the
blitzkrieg in Poland was completely ignored.

Numerous mistakes were made.

(1) The Ardennes could have been defended with
chain saws; simply cutting down large trees
would have slowed the Germans by a day or two.

(2) Attempts to maintain an obsolete WW1 style line
were made.

(3) There was no proper mobile allied strategic reserve.

There is much discussion about the Maginot Line.

If it had been extended along the Belgium/French
or the Belgium/German border, would in my opinion
have made no long term difference at all.

The Germans were qualatively far superior and would
have broken through anone way or another.

Edward, your statements tell me that you only skimmed over my post. Please, read it before you comment.

Originally posted by Toasty
In 1939, the most the BEF could offer the French was FIVE unmotorized divisions and one-hundred planes.

The British divisions were actually much more heavily motorised the equivelent German formations (the Germans were reliant of horse transport throughout the war!).

I actually posted this in another thread some time ago, but it fits here:

"The German plan drawn up by Manstein called for Army group B to attack Holland and Belgium, with the hope the allies would commit their mobile forces in this area to assist Belgium, and for Army group A to move through the Ardennes forrest to a point roughly from Sedan to Dinant, which were to be reached on D+5 (may 15th, which ended up being the same day Holland surrendered), and to cross the Meuse River at that point, splitting the allied forces and rupturing the allied front.

To accomplish this goal, Runstedt, CIC of Army group A had as his strike element the bulk of the Nazi mobile forces, Namely Panzergruppe Kleist (which consisted of XIX Panzer Corps under Guderian, 1st,2nd,10 Panzer+ XLI Panzer Corps under Reinhardt, 6th and 7th Panzer {which was comanded by Erwin Rommel, later to gain fame in the western desert}) and the right shoulder of the crossing was XV Panzer Corps under Hoth,(which consisted of 3rd, 4th, and 5th Panzer divisions).

The enemy before the Germans in this area was made up of reservists, (which come in to grades, a&b, a being superior), of the "b" grade (55TH division near Sedan, reinforced by 71 Div, and 9th army under Corap near Dinant which included the 18th division.
None of the French formations were fully equiped, and they lacked AT guns, AA guns, and aircover, and the French commander in chief, Gamelin, was in a headquarters without radio or phones!
This fool didn't even keep a strategic reserve, he committed his reserves to Belgium under the "Dyle Manuver" on May 10th, dooming his best forces to being cut off.

As a result, the BEF (which WAS a match for the Heer, dispite what Curt thinks, as it was totally mobilized and well led on a divisional level) and the best mobile French forces were cut off from the rest of France, and esentially doomed.

A new commander, Weygand took over, but a third of France's strength was gone, and even though he came up with a good battle plan (fortified hedgehogs), he lacked the troops to porperly protect Paris, and in phase two of the attack (after Dunkirk) in June, the Germans overran the rest of France.

The Germans took as many losses in the 6 week campaign as they would take in the first 6 weeks in Russia, roughly 500,000 Killed, wounded and prisoner.

If this campaign is studied heavily, one realizes that the French never really had a chance, their infantry weapons were inferior, their artillery antiquated, their AT and AA guns to few in number, their leadership at all levels was poor, 2 thirds of their forces were poorly motivated (and France did have Communist agitators spreading defeatism, believe it or not!), their airforce was inferior in both numbers and equipment, all in all, even with the fine Somua and Char-B tanks, they had far to many deficits to survive that spring in 1940."

I think that it's a great dishonor to forget the Frenchmen who died fighting the Germans in 1940...

I hope this serves as a deterrent to those who would post some silliness here.

The French airforce was in fact superior to the Luftwaffe in numbers, but their training was very poor. And their tanks (Although better on paper) were truly not very effective for the type of battle they were about to be faced with.

I read all the posts before posting.

The original question:

"Were they really that useless, or did they
make a logical decision to an illogical answer?"

makes no sense.


For the Germans to attack through the Ardennes
was not 'an illogical answer'.

It was a very logical answer for the Germans
because the French did not expect it and therefore
had very weak defenses there.

Edward, it was illogical because NO ONE expected it.

If you want a good example on why attacking through the Ardennes wasn't considered a good idea, read an account of the Battle of the Bulge.
In 1944 the German advance through the Ardennes was greatly hindered by the areas rough terrain and lousy roads. The difference between 1940 and 1944 was that in '44 the (weak) defenders were there to use the terrain to their advantange, while in '40 the Ardennes were all but undefended.

Here's a good question--if the French had such inferior equipment in all areas, how come so many trash them for having such good planes, guns, tanks, etc. but still losing?

Generaly speaking, the french had outdated planes and such. They had a few of the new Dewoitine D.520 (I think that's the one), but overall, their air force was not up to the task in equipment.

As for your question...

For the same reason so many worship MacArthur, believe in the horror story about crusaders going to war leaving their wife trapped for years in the ominous chastity belt, believe that mankind matured a lot between Y1K and Y2K (not everyone thought it was the end of the world in Y2K, whereas popular belief is that such was the case at Y1K), and so on.

It's entirely too easy to get history wrong, especially since it's a depreciated subject in the modern western world. It doesn'T leaed to much in the way of job, so people aren't all that encouraged to study it.

Except, of course, to strengthen national identity...and then, of course, they feel free to change little things here adn there.

Not everyone does it as much - most countries only "play down" certain aspects of history - but Revolution France and Modern Japan have been known to teach heavily revisionist history. And what's worst, the revolution france history pretty much entered the commonly accepted world view.

Resulting in such legends as the Chastity Belts (those put on display in museum are of post-medieval eras), Fear of Y1K (none of the church council debated the incoming Y1K, many long-term (IE, years - projects like "build a cathedral" and the like) project were launched even with Y1K less than a year or two away, and the average peasant didn'T even KNOW the current year was 999 AD), etc.

The standard French Fighters on may 10 were:

MS-406
Curtiss model 75
Bloch 152

All of these are greatly inferior to the Bf-109E, as was D-520 that was just coming into service.
In fact, it was the Mohawk (the Curtiss) that gave the Germans the hardest time, and only by campaign's end did the D-520 arrive in any numbers to matter.
Here are the stats of the 406:
http://www.wwiitechpubs.com/hangar/ac-francaise/ac-fr-ftr-morane-saulnier-ms406-br/ac-fr-ftr-morane-saulnier-ms406-br.html
Numbers for the model 75:
http://www.kotfsc.com/aircraft/p36.htm
Numbers for the Bloch:
http://www.kotfsc.com/aircraft/mb152.htm
Numbers for the D-520:
http://www.kotfsc.com/aircraft/d520.htm

The BF-109E had better numbers then any of these aircraft, as can be seen by looking at the numbers for this machine:
http://www.museumofflying.com/bf-109.htm

With a maximum speed of 354 MPH it was faster then any of the French aircraft, and had a heavier armament.

Haven't time now, I will do a tank comparison in my next post. ;)

If you read the article you proviced though AoA, the D520 made up for being slower than the BF109e with superior maneveurability.

To any extent, we agree on the core point, which is that the french didn't have the superior hand equipment-wise - not for the new kind of war they were about to fight.

I didn't do a full comparison, I ended up being quite busy while posting the raw stats data, or I would have added that the D-520 had a 2-1 kill ratio edge over German aircraft at the time of the French armistice, but it's irrelivent, since this type was only just coming into service.
Turn rate doesn't really figure heavily at this point, as dogfighting was coming to an end, flat speed, dive and climb rate would be the factors that influence air combat from this point on.

The Germans employed the type (D-520) for thier JagdFligerschul (Fighter training units) until 1944, and it saw some service in the Vichy airforce, seeing combat (with the anciet Mohawks) against the allied "Torch" landings.

The last factor missing is combat training and tactics, both of which the French and British were inferior with on May 10, 1940.
The Germans used a tactic known as the schwarm (A diamond 4, held loosly), while the British and French flew rigid tight "Vics" (Three planes in V formation).
A large number of the German pilots had seen service in Spain and Poland, while the French and British pilots were new to their buisness.
France also lacked effective fighter vectoring (direction of planes to fly to intercept), and almost a total lack of of Army co-operation, rendering ground support problamatic at best.

France's most numerous type, the 406, was heavily outclassed technically, yet was actually more expensive to produce then a Spitfire or a BF-109! :eek:

France's air industry had been nationalized, but inefficentcy was everywhere, from design to procurement to production.

French pilots may not have lacked for courage, but they had far to many factors agianst them at that time.

Tomorrow for the armor. ;)

"France's air industry had been nationalized, but inefficentcy was everywhere, from design to procurement to production."

Um, that should be "therefore inefficiency" instead of "but".

Not at all, they nationalized it under the premise of streamlining it, but only made it worse.

French armor doctrone was quite similar to Britain as the war began, they had two tactical ideas, the cavalery tank, and the infantry support type.

As was typical for France, no consensis on design for a single type could be found, so several firms produced a number of types, but all sharred a fatal flaw, a single man turret.
This meant that the tank commander had to load, aim, fire, get signals from other tanks (no radios, another flaw) with flags, and squadron leaders were even worse off, having to send signals many times, plus they had to expose themselves to do this, and this flaw was in EVERY design.
In general, all had decent armor protection, the Renault and Hotchkiss ahd excellent protection.

They settled on several types, for infantry support the Renault R-35, and Hotchkiss H-35, and Char B1 Bis, all of which were slow, and for cavalery several types, the main being the Somua S-35 and AMC and later the H-39.
Mobility wise, they can be classified on a scale of I, II, III, I being fastest:
Class I
H-39 22.5 MPH
S-35 25 MPH
AMC 25 MPH
Class II
H-35 17.5 MPH
B1 Bis 18 MPH
Class III
R-35 11.8 MPH
FT-17 5 MPH (WWI light tanks left over and still used in reserve formations)

The main battery was either the excellent French 47MM AT or 25MM AT, altough almost half of all tanks in French service had only MGs as main armament.
The B1 had a low velocity 75MM in between it's foward tacks, with limited field of fire, with a 47MM in it's turrent.
(The best German type, the Pzkw IIID had a 37MM main batery, but a three man gun crew, so had a MUCH higher rate of fire).

NO french tank had a hull mounted MG, only a Co-Axial one in the turret (another job for the commander).

The B1 had another flaw, no French firm could cast it's hull in one piece, so it was made in three and welded together, meaning a lucky hit on the weld seem could knock it literally apart.

All in all, these tanks were decent, but flawed designs, the one man turrent and no radio were fatal mistakes in the design stage.

The category three and two tanks were pascelled out to infantry formations, the fast ones were formed into heavy and light armor divisions (DCM and DCR).

Let's see if I can find some pictures for everyone...

The H-39:

http://members.lycos.co.uk/Indochine/photos/a-h39.jpg

The S-35

http://mailer.fsu.edu/~akirk/tanks/bulgaria/S-35.jpg

Couldn't find an AMC on the net

The H-35 (in German usage, couldn't find a french pic)

http://www.achtungpanzer.com/images/h35.jpg

The Char B1 Bis

http://users2.ev1.net/~grod69/graphics/3D_Hi_poly/images/Char_b1_bis.jpg

The Renault R-35

http://mailer.fsu.edu/~akirk/tanks/yugoslavia/R-35.jpg

The FT-17

http://www.tin-soldier.com/ft-17c.jpg

Originally posted by Alcibiaties of Athenae
Not at all, they nationalized it under the premise of streamlining it, but only made it worse.

Exactly my point. They doomed themselves when they did that. Nationalizing any industry makes it terribly inefficient.

AofA,

Great write up on the French armor. A few additions: The initial French strategies & tactics (right up until 1940) treated tanks as little more than mechanized cavalry, completely ignoring the lessons of Cambrai and even the Stuermgewehr in World War I. Tanks were scattered throughout infantry divisions as support, with little concept of massed armor. (Those of us who foolishly followed French military doctrine paid dearly for similar idiocies; the French light and medium Renault tanks Poland had in 1939 were similarly scattered throughout the army, with disastrous results. The one real armored division was never able to get near the front, instead escaping across the Romanian border.)

The tank commander having to site, aim and load the main gun was also a major liability (which you have in your post), especially since some of this process (signalling, etc.) forced the commander to expose himself to enemy fire. Extremely inefficient, but typical of the interbellum French military mentality that centralized authority in senior officers whenever possible, a lesson drawn from the 1917 mutinies. The Germans' 3-man turrets vastly out-classed the French in timing and accuracy.

Finally, some of the medium Char-series tanks only had partially-rotational turrets, meaning that to aim the main gun often the whole tank had to be repositioned, wasting time and surrendering the element of surprise.

Nobody in Europe was prepared for the Blitzkrieg in 1939-40, nobody. All of Europe faced Germany with obsolete weapons, tactics, and battlefield organization. It's a shame because most of the concepts of Blitzkrieg derived from the common experiences of the First World War, and not any particularly German genius. We should have known better. The swift defeat of Poland was chalked up to Polish military ineptitude (and there was plenty of that), but the inherant danger in that view was that Western Europe assumed it could do competently what Poland had failed to do. We are now picking a part what went wrong in 1940 because France was the first major power to succumb, and it did so so easily - even quicker than Poland did. Still though, while French soldiers fought bravely and honorably, as I've mentioned in another thread they were betrayed by a corrupt political and military leadership culture. France is the country, with the possible exception of Russia, that had the most military potential for stopping Hitler's armies, moreso than any other European state. The French failure in 1940 was a failure for Europe. This is perhaps why 1940 France is picked apart, sometimes unjustly (and sometimes justly), for that failure by the rest of Europe.

Qw ashouldn't blame the French in their defeat. Let's blame the superiority of German soldier, speed of german tank and most importantnly the genius of German commandrs when they invaded France, so as French went to help Belgians, theywere effectively cut off, and Germans had a free space to advance it until the enemy regroupped, and by that time, French already lost their possibility to retake initiative...

Right Das it was both of their fault!

The French weren't ready at all to face the Germans. They were crushed and sent to Vichey.

I can sum up the French performance in WWII in one word:

Poor

Originally posted by Fallen Angel Lord
I can sum up the French performance in WWII in one word:

Poor
I think that the French resitance after the fall of the nation and the Free French should be given credit for their help. Not that the original French don't deserve it, but people forget about the French overthrowing the NAZI's in mAfrica and of course France.