Who was the most useless nation during WWII?

Who was the most useless nation during WWII

  • France

    Votes: 46 23.7%
  • Italy

    Votes: 47 24.2%
  • China

    Votes: 11 5.7%
  • Czechs

    Votes: 10 5.2%
  • Poland

    Votes: 9 4.6%
  • Netherlands

    Votes: 5 2.6%
  • Beligum

    Votes: 12 6.2%
  • Switzerland

    Votes: 20 10.3%
  • One of the countries from the British Empire

    Votes: 6 3.1%
  • Other

    Votes: 28 14.4%

  • Total voters
    194
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Originally posted by Case

I agree. IMO this thread should be closed.
After reading this thread, I'd have to agree with andycapp and Case here.
Originally posted by andycapp

This thread has consistently been used as a vehicle to troll and flame and denigrate various nations and their peoples - and now we have the proposition that the US was "the most useless nation of WWII".
A poll about a war that resulted in horrific casualties, on every side, in which the pejorative 'useless' is the defining term, could hardly be expected to elicit any other responses.
Ineffectual, perhaps...useless, never.
 
In a war, especially a war of such magnitude such as World War 2, all nations involved directly or indirectly cannot be considered "Useless".

The French may have surrendered and not put up much of a fight, but the French Resistance conducted espionage missions and intellegence gathering missions that greatly aided the Allied Effort. The French Resistance also helped in assassinating Nazi generals and other high ranking officers in order to lower morale and shake things up.
 
Originally posted by willemvanoranje
France. They had an army as big as the Germans, but were crushed.

Agreed. Not only that, France had the 4th most powerful navy in the world.

Further, France could easily have stopped Hitler's crossing into the Rhine... as we now know, his Prussian generals were ready to oust him when he sent a small unit of Nazis across in defiance of the Treaty of Ver. The French were obliged to act, and they did not. Hitler consolidated his power within the Army, and there was little military opposition after that.


The Italians make a good candidate, but are behind the French because the French were expected to act as its role as a major Power.

Speaking of the French as a military and political power and not casting aspersions on all French people in general, the French were and are losers going back to the post-Charlemange era 10 centuries ago. The one redeeming beacon in French history since then was Joan of Arc, but even she was betrayed by the king she put on the Throne: King Charles VII... who seemingly sealing the destiny of the French throughout the ages. Even Napolean managed to bungle it for the French, though at least the French had a brief resurgence before their political and military backslide on to the ash heap of history.

WWII simply summed up the 1,000 years of French destiny into a compressed timeframe, and DeGalle was the epitome of a backstabbing, ungrateful, vain French leader with an active imagination of his own singular importance.

So I vote French.

:)
 
"Ineffectual, perhaps...useless, never."

What is the difference. If you are ineffectual than you are useless. Sure the term useless when used in the context of judging a war is an emotive term to use but I think it is valid. I cannot see what is wrong with looking back at one of the most important events in history and judging those involved. Also this thread does not attack nations it attacks the actions of nations 50 years ago. There is a difference. If I criticise something about France's war effort I am not criticising France. History is there to be exaimed, discussed, evalulated and debated. For this to be done properly there must be criticism.
 
Chzechs haven't even made any serious resistance.
 
Originally posted by starlifter


Agreed. Not only that, France had the 4th most powerful navy in the world.

Further, France could easily have stopped Hitler's crossing into the Rhine... as we now know, his Prussian generals were ready to oust him when he sent a small unit of Nazis across in defiance of the Treaty of Ver. The French were obliged to act, and they did not. Hitler consolidated his power within the Army, and there was little military opposition after that.


The Italians make a good candidate, but are behind the French because the French were expected to act as its role as a major Power.

Speaking of the French as a military and political power and not casting aspersions on all French people in general, the French were and are losers going back to the post-Charlemange era 10 centuries ago. The one redeeming beacon in French history since then was Joan of Arc, but even she was betrayed by the king she put on the Throne: King Charles VII... who seemingly sealing the destiny of the French throughout the ages. Even Napolean managed to bungle it for the French, though at least the French had a brief resurgence before their political and military backslide on to the ash heap of history.

WWII simply summed up the 1,000 years of French destiny into a compressed timeframe, and DeGalle was the epitome of a backstabbing, ungrateful, vain French leader with an active imagination of his own singular importance.

So I vote French.

:)

i agree 118%
 
This thread was bad enough first time round from the look of it, waste of time bringing it back up :sad:

I vote for none of them.
 
privatehudson said:
This thread was bad enough first time round from the look of it, waste of time bringing it back up :sad:

I vote for none of them.

Seriously, after reading it the first time, I think this being one of the more intelligent discussions on such a topic...very little nation-bashing, interesting points on Hungary; pretty silly poll, though.

Nevertheless, my take:
Any nation that fought in the war, or didn't want to be overrrun by any side like the few European Neutrals or Siam doesn't deserve to be dissed.
But those 20+ nations declaring on Germany few weeks before the war ended, when everyone but the Nazi Gov had no doubts about the outcome, only to seize German properties (and there was quite some of that in S America e.g.) were greedy bastards.
 
this thread is dumb. though I woudl suppose Romania gets my vote.
 
Vrylakas said:
1. The Czechs weren't in the war. Chamberlain and Deladier gave the strategic western parts of Czechoslovakia to Hitler at Munich, without giving any guarantee for what was left. Hitler overran the remnants without resistance in Spring 1939. The Czech resistance was active during the war (more than the French) and they managed to assassinate Heydrich Reinhardt (getting the village of Lidice destroyed for it) but Czechoslovakia didn't exist during the war. Some Czechs did serve with the Allied armies, especially the British, but the Czech Army never saw service.

2. The Polish cavalry-attacking Nazi tanks thing is a myth invented by Nazi propaganda. It stemmed from an incident when in the confusion of retreat, some Polish cavalry got caught in the open by a Wehrmacht armored division. They fought their way out, with the sole intent of getting the hell out of there. The Nazis later spread the story that the armored division was attacked by the cavalry, as a sort of condescending comparison of Polish fighting forces to the modern Wehrmacht. Due to road conditions and harsher weather conditions in Eastern Europe, horse-mounted cavalry were far more effective much of the year than armored vehicles so right til the end of the war both the Nazis and the Soviets maintained large horse cavalry.

3. Before you knock the Polish war effort, let's compare notes a bit: Poland was attacked in September 1939 by two major military powers (Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union), was vastly outnumbered, had far fewer and less modern planes and tanks than its enemies, and was using outdated WW I-era strategies and tactics. Oh, also - Poland is essentially a flat plain, with only one river system (Vistula), with no natural barriers to hide behind. Within two weeks the unified front collapsed, and the Polish army formed army group defense zones. Warsaw finally fell on 27. September, 27 days after the Nazi attack and 10 days after the Soviet attack. The last major defense zone collapsed on 05. October, 35 days after the invasion began. 35 days.

Now let's compare this to, oh, say France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Holland. France alone had as many planes as the Germans, and a small advantage in infantry. France had a comparable number of tanks as well, though they used them very differently (i.e., less effectively). The invasion route for the Germans lead through the old WW I battlefields, which had multiple river systems and forested areas. On 10. May Hitler launched his invasion of the West; by 15. May the Dutch Army was eliminated as an effective fighting force (5 days), by the 17th the French line had been penetrated (7 days) leaving the Channel exposed and giving the BEF the impetus to head for home leaving all their equipment on the beaches of Dunkirk, on the 24th the French made their last attempt to break the German assault (but failed) and their rear areas dissolved into chaos (14 days), on the 28th the Belgians surrendered (18 days), on 10. June Paris fell, effectively ending French resistance (though some mopping-up operations still went on against the Maginot Line from behind). Total: 30 days.

Hmmm; Poland = 35 days, France + Belgium + Holland + Luxembourg + BEF = 30 days. Hmmm. Poland = Smaller army with no natural barriers, against two invaders and still lasted 35 days; France + Belgium + Holland + Luxembourg + BEF = more soldiers, more equipment, with more natural barriers, lasted 5 days less than the Poles. Hmmm.

Poles also gave the Allied cause soldiers throughout the war, making the 4th largest contribution of men after the Soviets, Americans and British. Poles fought at Narvik in Norway (The first Allied submarine victory was by a Polish submarine that sank a German transport near Bergen.), in France, in Britain (one-fifth of the pilots on the Allied side in the Battle of Britain were Poles), in North Africa, in Italy (taking Monte Cassino when American and British assaults failed) and of course in Poland itself. The Polish resistance (Armia Krajowa - AK) was the 2nd largest in Europe during the war, after the Yugoslavs. (Almost everything the Allies learned about the Holocaust during the war came from the AK.) Contrary to what a popular recent American film claims, it was Polish intelligence officers working for the British who cracked the Nazi Enigma code system. Poland lost 6 million people in the war, one-quarter (1/4) of its pre-war population. Only the Soviet Union proportionately lost as much (20 million Soviets dead = 1/4 of their pre-war population).

Although you wouldn't know it from the way it was abandoned at war's end to the Soviets, Poland's wartime contribution wasn't quite "useless".

:clap:
Congratulations, Vrylakas. You said what I was going to say, and also supported it with a comparison of other countries (the Benelux and France, for example).

I would also like to add a little bit of info about the Warsaw Uprising of 1944(not the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising which occurred a year earlier, which also deserves credit for heroism in the face of overwhelming odds). The AK launched the uprising on August 1st, 1944, as the Soviet Army was approaching. In fact, the Soviet Red Army, and Berling's First Polish Army, were already occupying the eastern half of Warsaw and were on the eastern bank of Wisla (Vistula). In the first few days of the uprising, the AK, and the smaller AL, managed to capture much of western Warsaw. A civil administration was being set up to give the London Government-in-Exile the reins of power after the war. However, the victories soon were reversed and the Germans began overwhelming the resistance in many of the liberated districts. On top of that, in Wola and Ochota, the Germans slaughtered 40,000 civilians. The Western Allies attempted to send supplies by airlift, but the Soviets did not permit and even shot some of the Western planes down. Berling's First Polish Army was also decimated after trying to help their fellow Poles because the Soviets just sat there. All the while, in the political backdrop, the London Government was frantically pleading with the Western Allies and Stalin for assistance to the uprising with no effect on Stalin and several botched, although to their credit attempted, attempts by the Western Allies. The pro-Soviet Communist Lublin Committee was already declaring the AK to be an illegal, fascistic bunch of hooligans and decreed a disbandment. After 63 days of fighting, the Warsaw Uprising ended with a capitulation by the AK in exchange for German promise not to launch retaliatory massacres on Polish civilians and for treatment of the captured resistance fighters as normal POWs. Warsaw was reduced to rubble, and the remnants of its population were "evacuated" (euphemism used for what really was an expulsion), and some were shipped off to forced labor in Germany. What did the Soviets do? They watched. Then, a few months later, they just walked into western Warsaw.
Meanwhile, the Western Allies sought to placate Stalin and effectively threw Poland, along with the rest of Eastern Europe, into the Soviet sphere of influence, and thus turned their backs on the London Government-in-Exile despite the fact that it and its loyal pilots and soldiers, as Vrylakas already said, contributed so much to Allied victories against Nazi Germany.

Who was the most useless? I personally have no answer for that.
But was Poland it? Far from it.
 
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